There is much to be commended in your post. Even if we have theological differences, which we must take seriously, that is no reason for either a Catholic or a protestant to engage in violence or legal coersion. The majority of protestants that I have personally met in my life have been of the type that preached that all Catholics are going to hell and called for the assassination of the Pope. The physical acts committed against me that are still visible on my skin have been very hard for me to forgive and it certainly is something that I struggle with. Sometimes the emotion within me just becomes so angry at them who did these things to me that I can hardly contain myself. It is difficult to forgive when someone has done such a deep wrong thing to you. What makes it even harder is when they denounce my forgiveness when I do offer it and tell me that I am the one going to hell and who will be judged. It is really difficult for forgive them when they tell me that it is my fault they did these things to me because I became a Catholic. I really hope you can understand my serious questioning of such a group of people within the title of Christian. They represent the word protestant to me.
Perhaps these things have left me very bitter to the protestants. I don’t have many possitive examples to counter weigh the bad ones. I take religion very seriously and I just can’t let a lot of what some protestants pass. Perhaps people will say that I have become overly combative but just once I would like to have a conversation with protestant where they did not bash the Catholic Church, our faith or our Pope. Yes, Catholics do believe that the Pope is the guy that hold the unity of the Church because he holds the keys given to him by Jesus. Yet, if protestants were able to simply say that they did not agree with the need to be under the Pope without bashing the every existance of the Pope then perhaps we could get along much better.
At the same time, I am very worried about many of these protestant splinter groups who claim to be Christians but clearly, theologically are not. It seems like new ones are coming into existance everyday. We even have Scientology using the Christian Cross as their symbol now. I do not mean for our faith to be stagnant but a fair bit of conservatism is just automatically called for. All Christians, Catholics together with the protestants who are still Christians, should stand up to such groups and let them know that they just can’t usurp the word Christian and demand the others accept them as such. You can just decide that it means whatever you want it to mean. There is an objective reality and words have a finite meaning. I make no statement on if Tom Cruise or Thomas Monson are good people or bad people, or on if they will go to heaven or not but one fact is clear as day, they are not Christians no matter how much they want to be called as such. Christian is not a word to be wishy washy about. And again, this is not about just wanting to kick people out, but stating what the clear standards are for inclusion in the title of Christian so that people who really do want to be Christians can feel certain that they are Christains an not just being called Christians when they really aren’t.
From the way I see it, there is a lot of room for protestants to be more conservative and start to reduce the number of denominations and that is going to have to come about by preechers not just going along with any old crazy theology that someone comes up with. Protestants need to provide a Check on one another to keep one another from going too far, and this is to be done to increase holiness (which we are all called to) and for the sake of souls who wish to follow the Christian way to the one true God.
One thing I will say, and this is even coming from someone who went to maybe 20 or 30 different protestant churches before becoming Catholic and knowing just how different each one was from the others, as a Catholic I do see protestants as group. I do lump almost all protestants together in my mind. I would also suspect that most Catholics also do this. This is something that Catholics certainly have room to improve on but the facts are still there, the bad behavior of one group of protestant tarnishes the reputation of other protestants as well. Maybe this isn’t entirely fair but I bet it happens a lot.
One final note off topic a little, let us all pray for the success of the Pope’s visit to the United States. There have been threats of violence and assassination by militant muslims as well as some fundamentalist evangelicals. (The evengelicals I saw on youtube were praying for God to strike the Pople dead, but if you believe in the power of prayer then this has to scare you). Seriously though, if something happens to the Pope while he is visiting America it means big trouble for everyone. Catholics will of course be sorrowful for the Pope but then it will likely turn to anger towards America. Anti-American nuts will use it as amunition and the world will likely see it as the complete opposite of 9/11. If there was ever a time to have some gun control measures in place, a papal visit to the U.S. at this point in time is it. May God bless and protect all the people of the world, especially our Christain leaders.
