Defending Our Faith

[maryellen3]

I’m in high school and am currently taking a European History class. Of course, we have spent a lot of time looking through the history of the Catholic faith and learning about all of the religions in Europe from the 13th Century to present day. Towards the beginning of the year, my teacher bashed Catholics. She went on about how as a child, she was a Protestant, and thought it was stupid that none of her friends were allowed to eat meat on Fridays.
She went on to ask anyone if we knew why Catholics aren’t supposed to meat on Fridays. I, knowing all about this from my many years of CCD, explained the reasoning. She said to me, “No, it is only because the Catholic Church used to own the fisheries and wanted to make money off of it by allowing Catholics to only eat meat on Fridays.” Some non-Catholic classmates began agreeing with her how “stupid” that was.
Of course, I was furious about this, but I didn’t want to get into a huge argument with my teacher. This teacher ended up being replaced just a month later for medical issues.
I eventually told my father about all of this and he told me I should have told him sooner. He said he would have called our church and told them about the issue or call school administrators. Thankfully, my current teacher actually studied religion and isn’t rude to anybody of different faiths.
My question to all of you is, have you ever been in a situation like this, where there were many non-Catholics against you and bashing your faith? How did you deal with it?

 

[geezerbob]

Living in a state where the Catholic population has just topped 3% of the total, it’s a constant thing. Most people can be disarmed by simply asking for the source of their misinformation.

 

[Newbie2]

The answer to the situation lies in this:

If the class were talking about Islam, would the same Anti-Islam misinformation be tolerated in the classroom? What would the administrators say about that?

If I were the dad, I would demand that the teacher either come up with a reliable “reference” or correct the mistake…via email or letter to the class, or that the new teacher correct it.

Would the adminstrators want misinformation taught in the classroom? This historical “fact” should be easily verifiable if it was indeed a “fact”, which we know it surely is not.

 

[catholic1seeks]

This year my World Civ (9th grade) teacher told us indulgences were “tickets to heaven”. Also, she said something to the effect that people weren’t able to “talk to Jesus” until the Bible became better avaible.

 

[maryellen3]

If I were the dad, I would demand that the teacher either come up with a reliable “reference” or correct the mistake…via email or letter to the class, or that the new teacher correct it.

That’s exactly what my dad wanted to do, but the teacher had already been let off by the time he and my mother went for a parent teacher confrence. They did talk about it with my new teacher, who is very respectful of every relgion. She actually is of the Islamic faith, so she knows how faith can be misconstrued by people who haven’t studied it.

 

[Zlatan]

hahah it was the protestant reformers who threw out those 7 books of the bible because they didn’t suit their doctrine. Like Maccabeees 2 which talks about purgatory and praying for the dead so the protestants ditched them. Martin Luther even biffed out the book of revelation for a while because he didn’t like it and even considered getting rip of the epistle of James because it stressed the role of faith and works not just faith alone. and while he was doing all this he was constantly shouting “sola scriptura” hahaha what garbage!

 

[Psalm45_9]

She said to me, “No, it is only because the Catholic Church used to own the fisheries and wanted to make money off of it by allowing Catholics to only eat meat on Fridays.” Some non-Catholic classmates began agreeing with her how “stupid” that was.

This lacks any basis, which makes it unscholarly. Doesn’t that sound ironic? Anyways, in the ancient canons, the Latin says that all are to abstain from “carne” on Fridays. “Carne” implies warm blooded land dwellers, which makes room for fish and seafood. This was not true for the Christians living in the eastern part of the empire, for they had to also abstain from fish. What we have here is a problem of translations. The western canon, by its choice of words, makes a dispensation for fish and seafood.

 

[Pax]

I’m in high school and am currently taking a European History class. Of course, we have spent a lot of time looking through the history of the Catholic faith and learning about all of the religions in Europe from the 13th Century to present day. Towards the beginning of the year, my teacher bashed Catholics. She went on about how as a child, she was a Protestant, and thought it was stupid that none of her friends were allowed to eat meat on Fridays.
She went on to ask anyone if we knew why Catholics aren’t supposed to meat on Fridays. I, knowing all about this from my many years of CCD, explained the reasoning. She said to me, “No, it is only because the Catholic Church used to own the fisheries and wanted to make money off of it by allowing Catholics to only eat meat on Fridays.” Some non-Catholic classmates began agreeing with her how “stupid” that was.
Of course, I was furious about this, but I didn’t want to get into a huge argument with my teacher. This teacher ended up being replaced just a month later for medical issues.
I eventually told my father about all of this and he told me I should have told him sooner. He said he would have called our church and told them about the issue or call school administrators. Thankfully, my current teacher actually studied religion and isn’t rude to anybody of different faiths.
My question to all of you is, have you ever been in a situation like this, where there were many non-Catholics against you and bashing your faith? How did you deal with it?

I think you did well in addressing the original issue. Next time something like this happens, say a short prayer to the Holy Spirit for assistance and strength. Gently insist tat the person/teacher cite a reliable source and make sure that they understand that you do not appreciate prejudicial statements based upon non-existent data. Moreover, quickly do your own research and refute the comments at your first opportunity.

God bless.

 

[GG_Bev]

Maryellen3 - A good answer to your teacher would have been…“Actually the Church doesn’t require that we eat fish on Friday, only that we abstain from meat.” (Or in the U.S. these days we can make some other sacrifice.) My family seldom eats fish; we eat macaroni and cheese or an old Canadian favorite, noodles and cottage cheese with sauteed onion and sour cream. It’s almost too tasty to be a sacrifice! But I can vouch for the fact it’s sometimes difficult to come up with a good answer when you need one. Just don’t give up on the idea of defending our magnificent faith. GGBev

 

[elvisman]

I’m in high school and am currently taking a European History class. Of course, we have spent a lot of time looking through the history of the Catholic faith and learning about all of the religions in Europe from the 13th Century to present day. Towards the beginning of the year, my teacher bashed Catholics. She went on about how as a child, she was a Protestant, and thought it was stupid that none of her friends were allowed to eat meat on Fridays.
She went on to ask anyone if we knew why Catholics aren’t supposed to meat on Fridays. I, knowing all about this from my many years of CCD, explained the reasoning. She said to me, “No, it is only because the Catholic Church used to own the fisheries and wanted to make money off of it by allowing Catholics to only eat meat on Fridays.” Some non-Catholic classmates began agreeing with her how “stupid” that was.
Of course, I was furious about this, but I didn’t want to get into a huge argument with my teacher. This teacher ended up being replaced just a month later for medical issues.
I eventually told my father about all of this and he told me I should have told him sooner. He said he would have called our church and told them about the issue or call school administrators. Thankfully, my current teacher actually studied religion and isn’t rude to anybody of different faiths.
My question to all of you is, have you ever been in a situation like this, where there were many non-Catholics against you and bashing your faith? How did you deal with it?

My advice is that you start to educate yourself about the Catholic Faith to the point that when somebody says something as stupid as your teacher did - you can refute it.

Download the articles that are available on catholic.com and devour them. there are hundreds of articles on just about every topic. There are many other websites and books out there that will strengthen your faith.

**Then - the next time somebody says that the Church made us eat fish because they owned the fisheries, you can boldly say, “Oh, yeah? Prove it!” **
I guarantee you they won’t - because they can’t.

 

[turtleoompa]

GGBEV what is your recipe for the Canadian dish?