Anti Catholics

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kvina

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I was on another forum in their religious section and I was shocked at how anti catholic everyone was.

I tried to explain a little but no one listened. I started to get frustrated at how anti-catholic folks have so much anger toward the church.

I don’t think I can go back to that website. But my heart is torn. They are so bitter, yet they claim to love Jesus so much but they HATE the Church!

What should I do?

I do know that I’m glad to be here.

Kevin
 
Remember what SOG Fulton Sheen said.

Very few people hate the Catholic Church.

Millions of people hate what the THINK the Catholic Church teaches.

And if and if what they hated were true, Catholics would hate it, too.
 
MetalMark said:
Often it’s all we can do for these people.
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Yeah, I’ve seen some of those anti-catholic forums. They can be pretty harsh. Prayer is always useful; both for these people and for the apologists who do take their time to try to reach these people. Not everyone can evangelize to these people, but everyone can pray.🙂
 
On your journey to and also while you are in the Catholic Church, you’re going to get many many violently anti-Catholic sentiments. Unfortunately it’s a part of the Truth. Jesus said “many will hate you because they hate me”… althought they don’t realize that when they say vitriolic things. Just know that they think they are right and want you to be on the right path. They have no idea that they are wrong, so that’s when we pray for them. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

But it does surprise me and always has, that converts to Catholicism in general don’t have that bitter hatred toward other denominations. They may have bad memories of their past, or they may have great memories of their past, but they are very charitible to those that don’t understand the Catholic faith. To me the fact that Catholic converts to other denominations (or other faiths) can be so very bitter towards us and that other denomination converts to the Catholic faith can be so tolerant and charitable towards non-Catholics helps confirm that we are in the right place.

Snert
 
Pray for them in the name of our Holy Father and His Eternal Son, The Word.
 
MaryBernard said:
Yeah, I’ve seen some of those anti-catholic forums. They can be pretty harsh. Prayer is always useful; both for these people and for the apologists who do take their time to try to reach these people. Not everyone can evangelize to these people, but everyone can pray.🙂
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Prayer is most powerful thing on Earth…
 
I always take heart in the Protestant conversions that occur of people who were anti-Catholic’ but later wind up coming home to the Catholic Church, like Scott Hahn. His story of conversion to the Catholic Church (in his book, ‘Rome Sweet Home’) is encouraging and gives me hope. If a Presbyterian minister and theologian who was anti-Catholic can convert, anyone can. The EWTN show 'Journey Home", highlights the stories of Protestant ministers and theologians, Atheists and others (many who are anti Catholic) who come home to the Catholic Church. Most of these people converted after reading Church history and the writings of the Early Church Fathers. Let us pray for more of these conversions, Amen!
 
kvina said:
I was on another forum in their religious section and I was shocked at how anti catholic everyone was.

I tried to explain a little but no one listened. I started to get frustrated at how anti-catholic folks have so much anger toward the church.

I don’t think I can go back to that website. But my heart is torn. They are so bitter, yet they claim to love Jesus so much but they HATE the Church!

What should I do?

I do know that I’m glad to be here.

Kevin
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Yes, there are many people that don’t like the Catholic Church, or at least what they perceive as the Catholic Church. You don’t have to go back to that site! That’s the great thing about the internet. I post on one of those sites (CARM), and I agree with your assessment. It’s VERY hate-filled. Many times, the hatred is based on some warped understanding of Catholic history or teaching. The problem with going to such sites and trying to “teach” them is that such mindsets have been going on for along time, and they all feed off of each other. So, you can’t just go there, copy and paste from one of the CAF tracts, and hope that they listen (not saying that that’s what you did 🙂 ). You have to be persistent, and show what you believe and why you do, and on such forums, you MUST base everything in Scripture, and of course Catholicism is THE Biblical Faith, so that’s not a problem. The issue is showing them how your understanding makes more sense, at least to you. I had one recent breakthrough where they were mocking a catechism excerpt for a word choice (based around baptism and Noah’s ark) and I showed how what they were mocking was direct quote from the Bible, and that when they zoned in on a specific word (“through”) I showed how the KJV said exactly the same thing as the NAB, and that mocking the word “through” because the KJV said “by” didn’t make sense, since according to the dictionary, “by” can mean “through” which was the whole meaning behind the Bible passage. That thread died pretty quick :cool:

So, I’d advise you to stay away from such website unless you’re prepared for them. I actually wrote about this a few hours ago in my blog. Feel free to click the link below in my signature to see it (shameless plug 😉 ).

onecatholic.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/so-you-wanna-be-a-catholic-apologist/
 
It hurts alot when I see Anti-Catholic statements and the immediate thought is to retaliate in some way. However, that defeats everything and just proves their point. For the most part Anti-Catholic sentiments are gained from a lack of education and much of it comes years of hearing Anti-Catholic rhetoric.

Recently, someone that I thought was a good friend made a negative comment about the Pope. When he made the comment it was seriously misinformed(ie. the Pope believes he is a messenger from GOD). I attempted to explain to him that was not the case and about Apostolic Succession and where the current Pope fits in. I was just getting ready to to speak on infallibility when suddenly this set off a tirade from others. One of these others claims to be Catholic. All I could do was walk away and I think that is best. I still mull it over in my head and try to determine where I went wrong but eventually I realized there was nothing that I could do and its not for us to be able to bring everyone to the light only to give that old college try.

You only have to look back to the parable: Luke 8:4-15

“The farmer went out to sow his seed. As he sowed,
some fell along the road, and it was trampled under foot,
and the birds of the sky devoured it.
other seed fell on the rock, and as soon as it grew, it withered away,
because it had no moisture.
Other fell amid the thorns, and the thorns grew with it, and choked it.
Other fell into the good ground, and grew, and brought forth fruit one hundred times”
 
LARSCOUT0311 said:
It hurts alot when I see Anti-Catholic statements and the immediate thought is to retaliate in some way. However, that defeats everything and just proves their point. For the most part Anti-Catholic sentiments are gained from a lack of education and much of it comes years of hearing Anti-Catholic rhetoric.

Recently, someone that I thought was a good friend made a negative comment about the Pope. When he made the comment it was seriously misinformed(ie. the Pope believes he is a messenger from GOD). I attempted to explain to him that was not the case and about Apostolic Succession and where the current Pope fits in. I was just getting ready to to speak on infallibility when suddenly this set off a tirade from others. One of these others claims to be Catholic. All I could do was walk away and I think that is best. I still mull it over in my head and try to determine where I went wrong but eventually I realized there was nothing that I could do and its not for us to be able to bring everyone to the light only to give that old college try.

You only have to look back to the parable: Luke 8:4-15

“The farmer went out to sow his seed. As he sowed,
some fell along the road, and it was trampled under foot,
and the birds of the sky devoured it.
other seed fell on the rock, and as soon as it grew, it withered away,
because it had no moisture.
Other fell amid the thorns, and the thorns grew with it, and choked it.
Other fell into the good ground, and grew, and brought forth fruit one hundred times”
Click to expand...
Yes, it does hurt, and it does make us angry at times, especially when we explain as clearly as we can, and they still don’t get it. It’s at that point that we have to walk away. We explain our point, and they can either accept it or not. If they don’t, that’s fine. At least you explained yourself. I say it all the time over on the CARM forums to the anti-Catholics (and yes, I do think that many of them are anti-Catholics, not just Catholic critics); that it doesn’t matter to me if you don’t accept my position (of course, I’d rather they do, but free will and all), but as long as you get what I’m saying and don’t continuously misrepresent it, I’m okay. Sadly this doesn’t always work.

BUT, Catholics do need to be prepared to deal with such types.
 
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