Are Catholics more Spiritual that Protestants?

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anJayRN

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I’m wondering if there is a difference between Catholics and Protestants as far as holiness and devotion to God. Are their morals better? What do you guys think about that?
 
Depends on the person. From my Catholic perspective, I think spirituality should be easier for us, but I know that isn’t the case. It’s an individual thing.
 
Catholics have more resources for good spirituality because we have the Sacraments and 2000 years of spiritual writings of the Saints to read and learn from. Most Protestants have no liturgy and don’t read anything but contemporary writers guessing at what consistutes a solid spirituality, poor things.

As for morality, well anyone can faithfully follow the Ten Commandments who has the grace of God to help him. And, since most Protestants have a valid baptism, they do have that grace. Although, they would benefit all the more from the Sacraments Christ gave us, especially the Eucharist, to “fight the good fight”.
 
In my experience I find that Protestants are more on fire with God.
 
Protestants definitely have the adrenaline going for them.

Unfortunately, adrenaline disappears when you die.

The intellect and the will, which are cultivated by Catholicism, are immortal.
 
I think that it depends on the individual. I have known people on fire for God on both sides. Sadly, I have also known lukewarm Christians on both sides.

We have to be careful not to judge a person’s inner spiritual state by outward manifestations. At my darkest period, when I most doubted God, I was outwardly the most passionate, on fire, Christian that you could find. It becomes easy to put on a show of religious zeal. You say the right phrases, praise God at the right moments and act shocked at all the right times. I knew what to say and how to say it to convince others that I was a very strong Christian. I am not proud of this, especially considering how illogical my act was. I couldn’t fool God afterall.

We also have to be careful not to judge by emotion alone. I remember when I was in high school, I had a friend from Asia(can’t remember where in Asia) I saw her picking a bunch of flowers one day, so I stopped to help. She told me that she was picking the flowers to lay in front of her statue of Buddha. The light in her eyes and the level of emotional zeal, didn’t seem all that different from some Christians that I knew. If you ever watch news programs on cults, it is sometimes a bit shocking to witness cult members express the same type of feverent love and admiration for whatever they are worshipping as some Pentecostals(I have nothing against this denomination)
 
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Jon_Jay2:
In my experience I find that Protestants are more on fire with God.
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As a former Pentecostalist I can tell you that a lot of that “fire” is plain old fear. We were constantly told we had to “win souls for Jesus” and if we didn’t dire consequences would result for us on Judgment Day when we would have to answer to God for not “saving as many as we could”. Believing that would motivate anyone, wouldn’t you say?
 
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Jon_Jay2:
In my experience I find that Protestants are more on fire with God.
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I would submit that “spiritual” and “on fire” are not the same thing. The Wahabe Muslims are on fire for Allah, and they blow themselves up to kill people. :eek:

That being said, I said it depends on the person.

Regards,
Paul
 
I’ll go with the Catholic Church being more spiritual in what it offers. However, there’s an awful lot of spiritual dead wood among both Catholics and Protestants.
 
I voted it depends on the person. I agree that the Catholic Church has a lot more weapons at its disposal, so to speak. There’s a lot more potential for spiritual growth. You do have to take people on an individual basis, though.
 
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PaulDupre:
I would submit that “spiritual” and “on fire” are not the same thing. The Wahabe Muslims are on fire for Allah, and they blow themselves up to kill people. :eek:

That being said, I said it depends on the person.

Regards,
Paul
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I said, “in my experience” not that I believe that to be the case for Catholics in general, at least not with myself nor my family as they are devout Catholics.
It is with my Evangelical friends who have left the Catholic Church.
I came here to Catholic Answers to find out how to deal with them, not to get dumped on or attacked by you older members.
Actually, I’m sorry that I even came to this site now. :mad:
 
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Jon_Jay2:
Actually, I’m sorry that I even came to this site now. :mad:
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Don’t give up. This place would be so boring if it were just a bunch of old timers agreeing with eachother.

You made a totally valid point.

Maybe a better reply to your totally valid point would be to say we admire their enthusiasm, but let’s hope everyone knows we Catholics think what you believe intellectually is very important too.
 
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anJayRN:
I’m wondering if there is a difference between Catholics and Protestants as far as holiness and devotion to God. Are their morals better? What do you guys think about that?
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Speaking of evangelical Protestants only (which is unfair, granted), I think evangelicals are a lot better at getting the basics (i.e,. there are far more Catholics who seem clueless), but those Catholics who do have genuine piety have far more resources for going on to profound holiness. C. S. Lewis commented (I’m paraphrasing since his metaphor was drawn from the 1940s British educational system) that Calvin made it hard to pass but drew no distinctions among passing grades. In other words, it’s like having to get 80% to pass, but everyone who does that gets an A. That would mean that people would study hard in order to pass but wouldn’t have a lot of incentive to strive for excellence. On the whole, I think that’s a good comparison.

Mainline Protestants are a different story. They’re generally nicer than Catholics in my experience, but that doesn’t make them holier . . . . On the other hand, niceness is often undervalued!

Edwin
 
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Jon_Jay2:
I said, “in my experience” not that I believe that to be the case for Catholics in general, at least not with myself nor my family as they are devout Catholics.
It is with my Evangelical friends who have left the Catholic Church.
I came here to Catholic Answers to find out how to deal with them, not to get dumped on or attacked by you older members.
Actually, I’m sorry that I even came to this site now. :mad:
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I am scratching my head. Can you provide the quote from the post that dumped on you. People are responding to your question, but I don’t think that anyone is attacking you personally.

As far as older members…I am not certain how you can tell if a poster is older then you.
 
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deb1:
I am scratching my head. Can you provide the quote from the post that dumped on you. People are responding to your question, but I don’t think that anyone is attacking you personally.
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Yes, disagreeing with someone’s words/opinions is not the same thing as being disagreeable to him. 😉
As far as older members…I am not certain how you can tell if a poster is older then you.
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An “older member” in this context simply means a senior member as opposed to a junior member. 😃
 
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deb1:
I am scratching my head. Can you provide the quote from the post that dumped on you. People are responding to your question, but I don’t think that anyone is attacking you personally.

As far as older members…I am not certain how you can tell if a poster is older then you.
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Perhaps I should’ve said Senior Members. And I haven’t left yet and I probably won’t. I find it interesting that I got PMs from Protestants welcoming me. If I were not a stubborn Irishman, I probably would leave, but after searching through the forums, I have found some really interesting things to read and learn from. I think I’ll stick around.
Thank you for your concern.
 
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Della:
As a former Pentecostalist I can tell you that a lot of that “fire” is plain old fear. We were constantly told we had to “win souls for Jesus” and if we didn’t dire consequences would result for us on Judgment Day when we would have to answer to God for not “saving as many as we could”. Believing that would motivate anyone, wouldn’t you say?
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:hmmm: I think you should be so quick to about not “win souls for Jesus”. You are correct about that our concern (fear) for ourselves on Judgement Day. We should be trying help bring them to Jesus out of love. We love are families and we want them to share in the paradise God has prepared. When it comes right down to it, all of humanity is one big family.

Oh as for the the question there are many protestant that do so much more with so little knowledge of the truth.

Trust me, before becoming a revert I was just one of those pew warmmers and that was only when I was there. :whistle:

Beebs
 
It depends on the person. I have seen plenty of people that call themselves catholic and still drink alcohol to the point where they get drunk. These people are not spiritual. If they say they are, they are hypocrites. The same goes for protestants and any other christian religion. You can’t pick out parts of the bible you like and ignore other parts. It’s all or none.
 
I’m protestant and I have to say it depends on the person. A person can belong to a church and NOT be a true Christian. I have seen both true Christians in Catholicism and in Protestantism. I have also seen alot of ppl that were “christians” merely by membership instead of by a changed nature.
 
I would say that Catholics have more available at their disposal since the Church has been around longer. What many Protestants have is the zeal, which bears a lot of fruit and is really helping when Protestants come home to the Catholic Church. You can see them reviving parishes and pushing many wishy-washy Catholics to understand the beauty and gift of their faith.

This zeal can be seen in many places, many times Catholics are kinda introverted with their faith. It is something they live, but almost in a shy way. There have been many Catholics who have been beaten into submission almost scared to say they are Catholic. So you see Evangelicals on fire for the Lord and they don’t care if anyone sees their zeal. Catholics need more of that and slowly but surely it is building. As I said before sometimes we just need a push start from the converts or the Evangelicals around us.

I usually don’t PM people to welcome them here as I don’t want to bother anyone. I only PM if I really have a pressing question, but I am not to familiar with what is proper manners in this area. Maybe Protestants are more used to just coming out and saying HI WELCOME! while I just say hi! And that is just me coming being back in the Church for about 9 months, I have a shyness about me. But in Protestant boards I PM much more, without apology, it might just be a cultural thing.

God Bless
Scylla
 
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