Are we Catholics too hard on the Protestants here?

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Kitty Chan:
Then I notice this thread and my heart breaks, is everyone telling me that truly if someone is not of a particular church then they dont “get in” ??
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I have to tell you, this is one of the very few sites that I have ever been on, where there is no one telling me anything of the sort…And I speak as the 🙂 “friendly neighborhood Methodist”, as I 😉 call myself.
I arrived at CAF, through a series of events that don’t need repeating here, & I was immediately impressed by the sense of Christian charity shown here.
One person–one, in nearly a year–attacked & that person has been banned…Not suspended, banned. (I don’t flatter myself that this was just over me; it was an unpleasant person) And I had PMs from a flock of other people, apologizing for what someone else had done, & assuring me of a welcome.
And here I am, all this time later, happily posting away, enjoying the fellowship that I find all but unique to CAF.

This site is for apologetics; in the natural course of things, debate can be lively. Well, I happen to enjoy that! But I see no unfairness. I really don’t!! That just isn’t what CAF is about,
God bless.
 
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Ortho:
How does one figure out what Catholics believe? I hear all kinds of different things from Catholics.

For example, it looks like most Catholics think artificial birth control is OK. Then others say Catholics don’t believe it it.

Catholics vote for candidates that support abortion. Then other Catholics say that is unacceptable.

Lots of Catholics are divorced. Then other Catholics say Catholics don’t believe in divorce.

Many Catholics supported disconnecting Terry Shiavo. Then other Catholics said that was murder.

I suppose someone will say one should consult the catechism to find out what Catholics believe. But by consulting the catechism, we just see that many Catholics don’t believe the catechism.

This looks very much like a free-thinking group.
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There is plainly a difference between those who are CINO (Catholic in name only) and those of us who aspire to something more. The CCC is indeed a great place to find out specifically what the Catholic Church teaches and there is also The Catholic Home Study Service with their GREAT FREE courses.

Free thinking is a good description. Catholics actually are just the opposite of the assertion that a-Cs make against us that we accept without question whatever the church says. We are some of the most questioning people I know and we argue among ourselves a lot, but the fact that some Catholics fall into sin or choose to dissent in no way diminishes the fullness of truth, and that is what we strive for.

Essentially the answer is this: If it doesn’t agree with Rome, then it’s not Catholic teaching…no matter who propounds it.
Pax tecum Ortho!
 
Kitty Chan:
Hello was just surfing checking out stuff and was attracted to the info on chick tracts, I do not like them but was sad to see even more detail on them written in the library. So decided to around your site, so next I see there is info on how to convert fundys, and states that they are in fact the opposition. well … I think it is in a section about hostile fundys so I guess I can let it slide in context it seems fine.
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I believe you have misconstrued the intent of “converting fundies,” as you put it. 🙂 We have no interest in making anyone an enemy, but we do see heresies as the enemy because heresies are the enemy of truth. We want to see everyone embrace the truth because Jesus said “the truth will set you free.”
Then I notice this thread and my heart breaks, is everyone telling me that truly if someone is not of a particular church then they dont “get in” ?? I post at a atheistic site and one of their complaints is believers dont get along and it helps them toss Christ out the window, gives them fuel for their fire.
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I haven’t seen people here telling anyone that they won’t “get in” if they aren’t a Catholic, maybe I missed something. Any Catholic who claims that only card carrying Catholics go to heaven is wrong. All who will be saved will be saved in Christ and through his Church even those who have never heard of Christ and his Church by reason of the grace God gave them that they recognized as God working in their lives and to which they responded in faith and works of holiness and charity. That is Catholic teaching. 😉
Why would any non believer even consider what Christ said if His people cannot agree on a meeting place.?? We are only providing another excuse for them. Im not catholic but my friend is and I occasionaly attend with her, Gods there and Hes in other churches as well, not to mention work, message boards, camping, everywhere. I submit to the thread how is it we can tie God to anywhere or anything???
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Just who is going to be in Heaven if everyone else is wrong, if every side is wrong, this discourages me I cant imagine what it does to a non believer. :confused:
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I hope this does not come across angry, its terribly discouraging.
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A church building is more than a mere meeting place, it is a sacred space consecrated to God’s service, at least in the Catholic Church it is. However, the people of God are vastly more important than any building–and all who are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are considered Christians by the Catholic Church. We see Protestants as merely separated and lacking the fullness of the faith they could have. Some are stuck in heresies that are misleading them, which is something we here are addressing in apologetics, but we certainly aren’t here to judge anyone’s salvation. That is for God alone to judge.

As for atheists, it is quite possible to use anything as an excuse to not explore the Christian faith. No one who judges by mere externals can’t be said to have really looked into anything. Atheists are purveyors of doubt, not faith. I think it sad so many choose to live as if all that can be known and experienced is what they can understand and prove, as if searching for “proof” ever really brought anyone to faith when no proof will really safisfy anyone prone to doubt.
 
Church Militant:
There is plainly a difference between those who are CINO (Catholic in name only) and those of us who aspire to something more. The CCC is indeed a great place to find out specifically what the Catholic Church teaches and there is also The Catholic Home Study Service with their GREAT FREE courses.

Free thinking is a good description. Catholics actually are just the opposite of the assertion that a-Cs make against us that we accept without question whatever the church says. We are some of the most questioning people I know and we argue among ourselves a lot, but the fact that some Catholics fall into sin or choose to dissent in no way diminishes the fullness of truth, and that is what we strive for.

Essentially the answer is this: If it doesn’t agree with Rome, then it’s not Catholic teaching…no matter who propounds it.
Pax tecum Ortho!
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Church teachings are easy to find. Just look them up in a book. It’s far more difficult to say what Catholics believe. From an organizational perepective, I wonder if church leadership has shifted in the last forty years from the Vatican to the people.

The people have decided that Birth control is OK, and there is little response from the Vatican and bishops.

The people have decided that divorce is OK, and the Church increases the number of annulments from 300 in 1960 to 60,000 in 2000.

The people are in the process of moving to an ambivalent position on homosexuality. I will be watching to see what the official response is.

Times have changed. The Church used to have much more power because it had a large portion of the educated people on its staff. Today the situation has reversed. Large organizations move slowly, but this apparent shift in power is worth watching.
 
Ortho, continue to watch, but rest assured that official Catholic teaching will not change on the matter.

I don’t care if 1 billion Catholics believed/did things differently and only a handful were faithful…that would only mean that 1 billion Catholics were in error and the handful were right.
 
Finally, someone who shares my opinion. You said that very well. 🙂
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MusicMan:
I was taught in Catholic grade school that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” I see a great deal of, “on these other ‘Christian’ posting boards they do a lot of Catholic bashing, so it’s OK for us to do the same here.” Those of you who have that attitude are WRONG. Absolutely wrong. We Catholics… we Christians, really… are called to be above that sort of thing. Didn’t Jesus teach us to love and forgive our enemies and those who hate us? Turn the other cheek?

Further, I am deeply offended with all of the, “Such-and-such faith doesn’t have valid orders so we KNOW that their communion is invalid and they don’t actually have [priests]” talk that I see in the various threads here. We don’t actually know this. Our Church has evaluated the history of these denominations, and we believe this. When we say these things in the company of Protestants, especially with the aim of belittling their faith so they convert to ours, it makes us no better than a school yard bully. A Catholic school yard bully.

If you want our separated Protestant brothers and sisters to “come home to the One True Faith,” try a little charity. Take Jesus at his word and love your neighbor. Be respectful of their faith. Maybe through your charity and respect, they will come to believe that the Catholic Church is a good religion and the one to belong to. NOBODY likes a bully. Don’t be one.

After observing 9 months of the Pontificate of His Holiness, Benedict XVI and reading his writings, I am convinced that the route of charity, love, and witness are the methods he wishes us to employ to bring unity throughout Christianity. I suspect that if he read this thread, he would agree with me about evangelization through respect and charity, not bullying about how their faith, beliefs, orders, and communion are flawed.
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Birthcontrol IS a hot topic for the Catholic Church. I’ve talked with several priests about it and they each have different opinions on it. Some say it’s morally wrong and others go so far to say that the church needs to catch up with the “times”. Those are two extremes but that’s how broad it is and that’s what makes it so controversial.
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Ortho:
Church teachings are easy to find. Just look them up in a book. It’s far more difficult to say what Catholics believe. From an organizational perepective, I wonder if church leadership has shifted in the last forty years from the Vatican to the people.

The people have decided that Birth control is OK, and there is little response from the Vatican and bishops.

The people have decided that divorce is OK, and the Church increases the number of annulments from 300 in 1960 to 60,000 in 2000.

The people are in the process of moving to an ambivalent position on homosexuality. I will be watching to see what the official response is.

Times have changed. The Church used to have much more power because it had a large portion of the educated people on its staff. Today the situation has reversed. Large organizations move slowly, but this apparent shift in power is worth watching.
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mrs_abbott:
Birthcontrol IS a hot topic for the Catholic Church. I’ve talked with several priests about it and they each have different opinions on it. Some say it’s morally wrong and others go so far to say that the church needs to catch up with the “times”. Those are two extremes but that’s how broad it is and that’s what makes it so controversial.
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With regards to the two ends of your spectrum:

Priests who say it’s morally wrong (and therefore hold to the teaching of the Church) = good/orthodox teaching

Priests who say “the Church needs to catch up on the times” (and therefore dissent from the Church’s teaching) = wolves in sheeps clothing.
 
E.E.N.S.:
Ortho, continue to watch, but rest assured that official Catholic teaching will not change on the matter.

I don’t care if 1 billion Catholics believed/did things differently and only a handful were faithful…that would only mean that 1 billion Catholics were in error and the handful were right.
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Organizations are complex things. They rarely admit error, but rethink, update, gain fuller understanding, reconsider, elaborate, apply to the times, etc. Fundamentally, that’s how they change their rules without admitting it.

We can also make a case that official teachings are found in more than documents. Actions often show the teaching in the documents is not what governs, and does not reflect the attitudes of the organization.

For example, the Soviet Union had a fine constitution. However, its actions revealed that it followed a very different path.
 
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Ortho:
Organizations are complex things. They rarely admit error, but rethink, update, gain fuller understanding, reconsider, elaborate, apply to the times, etc. Fundamentally, that’s how they change their rules without admitting it…
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Fortunately, the Holy Roman Catholic Church is not* just * an organization, it is the Church started by Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of the Living God. Don’t expect it to be predictable by your standards.
 
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seabird3579:
Fortunately, the Holy Roman Catholic Church is not* just * an organization, it is the Church started by Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of the Living God. Don’t expect it to be predictable by your standards.
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However, we can observe that it behaves just like any other organization.
 
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Ortho:
Church teachings are easy to find. Just look them up in a book. It’s far more difficult to say what Catholics believe. From an organizational perepective, I wonder if church leadership has shifted in the last forty years from the Vatican to the people.
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Nope. If you think that then you mistake the Catholic Church for a democracy, which it is not.
The people have decided that Birth control is OK, and there is little response from the Vatican and bishops.
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There is little reason to clarify again something that is plainly stated in church teaching as infallible while CAF and virtually every orthodox Catholic on planet is in agreement with that. You can best believe that God is not impressed with what you assert “the people have decided”. Is this up to “the people”? No.
The people have decided that divorce is OK, and the Church increases the number of annulments from 300 in 1960 to 60,000 in 2000.
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See my answer to the point just above this one…
The people are in the process of moving to an ambivalent position on homosexuality. I will be watching to see what the official response is.
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Are they? You make a lot of statements about what you seem to assert “the people” are doing, and by that I have to presume that you mean Catholic people. Yet you offer that without any proof. Moreover, it matters not if every sinner in the Catholic Church abandons the faith and the truth because the truth and the church still remain.
Times have changed. The Church used to have much more power because it had a large portion of the educated people on its staff. Today the situation has reversed. Large organizations move slowly, but this apparent shift in power is worth watching.
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This statement is clearly your personal bias and meant to poison the well of discussion here. "Power’ (whatever you mean by that) is not an issue. Truth is there. The church has defined these things and the rest is up to the Holy Spirit to convict and convert while faithful Catholics live it out.

You wish there was a shift in power as well as all this other, but you will see as time goes on. The converts and reverts are coming home in droves and Catholics are waking up to their faith. I believe that a great many people like you are attempting to count the Catholic Church down and out, when it has only staggered before coming back all the stronger.

So… keep dreamin’.
 
Church Militant:
Nope. If you think that then you mistake the Catholic Church for a democracy, which it is not.There is little reason to clarify again something that is plainly stated in church teaching as infallible while CAF and virtually every orthodox Catholic on planet is in agreement with that. You can best believe that God is not impressed with what you assert “the people have decided”. Is this up to “the people”? No.See my answer to the point just above this one…Are they? You make a lot of statements about what you seem to assert “the people” are doing, and by that I have to presume that you mean Catholic people. Yet you offer that without any proof. Moreover, it matters not if every sinner in the Catholic Church abandons the faith and the truth because the truth and the church still remain.This statement is clearly your personal bias and meant to poison the well of discussion here. "Power’ (whatever you mean by that) is not an issue. Truth is there. The church has defined these things and the rest is up to the Holy Spirit to convict and convert while faithful Catholics live it out.

You wish there was a shift in power as well as all this other, but you will see as time goes on. The converts and reverts are coming home in droves and Catholics are waking up to their faith. I believe that a great many people like you are attempting to count the Catholic Church down and out, when it has only staggered before coming back all the stronger.

So… keep dreamin’.
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An organization does not need to be a democracy to see a power shift.

If there is little need to restate teachings, then those teachings fall further back in the dusty shelves of the archives and lose all relevance. When an organization abandons its teachigs, it’s fair to ask if those teachings remain in effect.

In terms of the increase in annulments, we see the Church leadership following the decision of the people.

The gay movement doesn’t care about proof. It has had amazing success without proving anything.

I don’t count the Church leadership down and out. They are just AWOL. The Church is no longer a relevant player in society. The laity are beginning to fill tha vacuum left by the bishops and priests. Are the laity part of the Church?
 
Ortho’s thinking is just different from what everyone else’s is here. He doesn’t see himself as wrong. Offer guidance, not chastisement. Church Militant was quite harsh, even if it’s the truth. Tact is key here.
We’re all different people, even though we believe in the same God.
Pushing Catholic beliefs or any beliefs, for that matter, on another individual only drives them further away from you, and in this case, the church. Offer advice through experience, not lectures and emotionless talk. People relate to people, not books.
Unless anyone here is priests, bishops or even the Pope, the advice or lecture given should not be taken seriously by the recipient. Talk to the clergy before forming opinions from those posting here.
 
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