Do Protestants really hate Catholics?

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Petergee said:
Protestants HAVE to believe that the Catholic Church somehow became evil some time before the 16th century in order to justify why their forefathers took the radical step of creating a new church, contrary to our Saviour’s express commands and prayers.
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It would be difficult (at best) to refer to my Catholic friends as brothers and sisters in Christ if I thought the church they belonged to was “evil”. So - since I do refer to - and believe that - my Catholic friends ARE my brothers and sisters in Christ, I most certainly do not believe the Catholic Church is evil.
 
Petergee said:
But surely you see that your position is illogical, if admirable.
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Uh…sorry no. I have disagreements - sometimes serious - with good friends. But I don’t think they’re evil. For example - I tend to fall on the more politically conservative side of the ledger. I have a great many friends - and family - who are far more liberal in their politics than me. I don’t believe they’re evil - on the contrary - I believe that they’re patriots.

Similarly, I believe that my Catholic brothers and sisters love Jesus as much - and many times more - than I do. They show their love for Him in their selfless actions, their worship, their kindness and their humility. We might disagree upon theological and liturgical matters, but where it counts - where the rubber meets the road - we are in violent agreement. Jesus Christ is Lord. He and he alone is worthy and due worship and praise.

So no, I don’t see my position is illogical. (But I don’t think you’re evil either 🙂 )
 
It has been my experience that Protestants hate us unless they will be able to profit from us.
A friend of mine who was a Muslim said that he went to various Protestant churches to promote good will between them and the Protestants. When he was done he said, “These guys really hate you.”
 
poche said:
It has been my experience that Protestants hate us unless they will be able to profit from us.
A friend of mine who was a Muslim said that he went to various Protestant churches to promote good will between them and the Protestants. When he was done he said, “These guys really hate you.”
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I’m sorry for your experience. I would not say it is anywhere near a majority though. What region are you in?
 
While I don’t know about the profit part of what @poche said, I can attest at the outright hatred a number of protestant ministers have against the Catholic Church. For most of my life, I lived in Spartanburg, South Carolina. For about the first seven years that I lived here, Catholics were outright hated by many of the protestants in town.

The protestant preachers in the area would say anything about Catholics: that we sacrifice infants at the Easter Vigil, we sacrifice chickens to the various Saints, we add marijuana to the incense bowl to make everyone believe what we teach, molesting boys were part of priests official duties… etc.

I have had friends’ cars broken into and defaced because they had rosary beads hanging from the rear view mirror. Our Parish had been broken into and someone tried to pry open the tabernacle in an attempt to desecrate the Eucharist. Cars have been keyed in our parking lot during Mass. Another time feces was thrown at our large nativity scene by the side of the road. Thankfully, it has gotten a lot better in the past decade and a half and now the police actually investigate crimes against the two Catholic Churches in the area.

The main problem was the head pastor of the main Southern Baptist church in town. He preached his hatred against Catholics from the pulpit and many of the other protestant ministers (even in other denominations like Presbyterianism and Episcopalianism) followed his lead. Eventually, the Baptist minister was replaced and the new minister worked hard to change the tone of Protestantism here in Spartanburg.

I once met an African American auxiliary bishop who told me that he understood the attitude toward Catholics in South Carolina. When he had been a boy, their parish in Missouri (I think, it has been a while) was going to send a group to South Carolina to attend a Civil Rights rally. When the diocese heard about it, they stepped in to stop the trip. It wasn’t that they were African Americans attending a Civil Rights rally that had the diocese scared for those attending. It was the fact that they were in more danger being Catholic in South Carolina at the time than they were, being black. They wouldn’t just be in danger from the white segregationists but also from the other black civil rights marchers simply because they were Catholic.
 
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I often wonder if people like that realize just how ugly their hatred looks. I grew up for part of my youth in Florida and became best friends with a black Catholic. We used to joke about our friendship being based on everyone else hating Jews (me), blacks and Catholics. Looking back on it now, I think that’s exactly how and why we became best friends…a common enemy!
 
CRM_Brother said:
For most of my life, I lived in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
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poche said:
The southeast part of the United States
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Interesting, you’re both in the same area. @CRM_Brother, was this a pretty recent phenomenon?

Here, I didn’t even know that there was a “thing” between Catholics and non-Catholic Christians until I started preparation to get married with my wife in the Catholic Church.

Here, the Catholic Church was another church down the road full of Christians doing their best to get to heaven. 🤷‍♂️
 
I live in the Southern part of the United States where the Catholic Church is actually growing. It still has the reputation of being segregationist and Anti-Catholic.
Having lived in other parts of the country, I find more acceptance here than in other places where I have lived. Communities are more diverse and nobody wants to return to the riots that tore apart this city in 1967. I didn’t live here then, but people still talk about that time.

The only person who tried to get me to “give up my beads,” was a former Catholics who had not properly learned her Faith. Since then, I have carried an extra copy of “How to pray the Rosary” with scriptural passages, much as many people carry tracts to hand out in case I come into the same type of situation again.

Living in the Bible Belt, it is not unusual to find myself in many non-denominational faith discussions. Speaking about Faith, or applying my faith to a situation somebody is facing leads to the question, “Where do you go to Church?” That in turn leads to an openness to learning about Catholicism, to dispelling false notions about what the Catholic Church teaches.

Have I ever encountered accusations that all priests are molesters, etc? That individual was finding ways to harass me on the job in as many different ways as possible. Out of ear shot is hard to prove; and I’ve dealt with those types of individuals throughout my life.
 
Unfortunately, it isn’t recent. It is a remnant of the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) mentality carried over from the 19th century. In the Southeast, Catholicism was primarily linked to immigrants or the runaway-slave population (the traditional Gullah communities first evangelized by Bishop John England in the 1820s). Most of the hatred fermented within Southern Baptist preaching and slowly spread to other denominations after the Civil War. After the Civil war, many Southern Baptist churches offered protection to freed slaves in return for their conversion. Slowly, as the black community was absorbed largely into the Baptist church, the focus of their hatred was turned to away from the immigrant aspect of WASP and solely focused on the religious component.

Toleration of Catholicism is actually the recent phenomenon. It has only been in the past few decades as more and more northerners move south that the communities have become more diverse and the Protestants in the area have began to realize that the hatred towards Catholics which had been spewed for so many years had been lies.
 
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CRM_Brother said:
Toleration of Catholicism is actually the recent phenomenon. It has only been in the past few decades as more and more northerners move south that the communities have become more diverse and the Protestants in the area have began to realize that the hatred towards Catholics which had been spewed for so many years had been lies.
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Interesting. So I guess it sounds like the hate is more from a vocal minority vs. the majority of non-Catholics overall. I think that Catholics have become more tolerant over non-Catholics over the past few decades as well. Kids who grew up after VII.

I digress, I’ve read and heard some pretty negative things about non-Catholics at my wife’s parish. I’ve just had to chalk it up to the vocal minority…or the ones that have the voice.
 
Q: Do Protestants really hate Catholics?
A: No.
Q: Do Republican Catholics really hate Democratic Catholics?
A: Yes.
Q: Do Democratic Catholics really hate Republican Catholics?
A: Yes.
 
In general many Catholics in The US do not like fellow Catholics, hence they prefer to vote Trump rather than Biden. Some ordinary blue collar Catholics go to the extreme of voting Republican rather than Democrat. Are the turkeys voting for Christmas?

We should love one another.

Do Irish-American Catholics have to become Protestant to get Catholic support, like, Pence, rather than Biden, who is rejected and vilified.

Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up. So then, while we have the opportunity, let us do good to all, but especially to those who belong to the family of the faith. Ga 6:9–10.
 
Please do not make this about politics.

I may be a conservative leaning independent, not even an outright Republican, but even I have have been lambasted by Catholic Democrats for holding certain Conservative values.

This vilification comes from both sides and needs to stop. The only way we can stop it is to abstain from it ourselves.
 
CRM_Brother said:
Toleration of Catholicism is actually the recent phenomenon. It has only been in the past few decades as more and more northerners move south that the communities have become more diverse and the Protestants in the area have began to realize that the hatred towards Catholics which had been spewed for so many years had been lies.
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Now this is an interesting thing to ponder. Really makes one think.

How far south did these northerners move would you say? I’m curious if any made it to my neck of the woods. They must have, because I’m born and raised down here and have loved Catholics my whole life. As have my family and life long friends (especially my good buddy in whose (very Catholic) wedding I was the best man - now that was a barn burner if I ever saw one!)

OR - now I’m just spit-balling here, so give me some rope - I love Catholics because they love and serve Jesus Christ like I do. I love them because they’re made in the image of God like me and they sacrifice daily for Him and - well because they, like me are commanded by Him to love others as themselves.

Ok, yeah, sorry. I had to think about it for a spell (you see, we Southerners are a bit slow and dull - not the sharpest tools in the old tool box after all!) The fact that I love Catholics and serve side by side with them has nothing whatsoever to do with immigration patterns. (I love a fair number of northerners too though…)
 
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Please don’t get me wrong, I love southerners. I consider myself one since I grew up here from the age of 10. I definitely don’t think that everyone hates Catholics down here. When I say ‘in the past few decades’ I am only speaking of my area. I didn’t mean that it was everywhere in the south at once.

My area is was one of the last hold-outs of this type of anti-Catholic hatred. The next county over contains Bob Jones University, widely accepted as one of the most anti-Catholic institute of higher learning in the Country. The University held a lot if sway over the local Baptist churches. From the few Catholics that I have met that have lived in SC their whole life, the WASP explanation I gave above describes the growth in SC over the past 40-50 years. Spartanburg was just about 30 years late.

Also, I can guarantee that your area has much more Catholics than we do here to provide you with examples of good Christian brothers and sisters. When we moved to SC in 2000, SC was only 2% Catholic and those primarily lived along the coast and in the capital. Now we are up to 4-6% over a much larger distribution area. Out of these Catholics, about 40% are latino immigrants, 30% have migrated from northern states, 15% are converts, and only 15% were born Catholics in SC. The demographics has largely changed and thus our Protestant brother and sisters have had more opportunities to see who we really are.
 
Hahahahahah - fair enough my friend. I appreciate your kind words. I’m afraid this Covid thing has my patience short and my dander up for some reason. Stay safe and healthy brother.
 
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