Do you hear this? I'm tired

[Elzee]

I’ve heard the following comments several times from Catholics, some who are in charge of various ministries. I’ve responded to each of these when I’ve heard them (my paraphrased short answers are in parentheses), but honestly, sometimes I feel like a fish out of water and wonder if I should just not say anything. Does anyone see anything wrong with the comments below? Should I just let them go? Do my responses make sense? Any suggestions? Sometimes I just get tired.
*
Not everyone is called to Catholicism or Christianity, some of us are called to Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. The Catholic Church isn’t necessarily the only way to go*. (my response: I believe the Church is the way to go. Jesus commissioned his apostles to preach to the ends of the earth making disciples of all nations - their gospel was a Catholic gospel).

*The Catholic Church isn’t the snobbery church it was a long time ago when it said it was the only Church with the full truth. It now realizes that the most important thing is being a Christian and it doesn’t matter what Christian Church you go to necessarily. * (my response: The Church has always recognized it alone has the fullness of truth, maybe at times it has conveyed that message more politely than at other times. Sure non-Catholics can be Christians, but they’re not being made aware of or partaking of the fullness of Christianity. It matters what Church you go to because it matters what the truth is).

 

[Thal59]

It seems those comments are coming from Catholics who are liberals.

It is something that just has to be put up with.

Thal59

 

[Liberian]

Elzee,

I would encourage you to keep on telling the truth, unless it is obvious that the person saying this is just trying to clank your chain. The comments you have cited are pretty much all wrong. The Catholic Church is for everybody–that’s why it’s called “Catholic.” Some Hindus or Buddhists may get into Heaven through an extraordinary grace of God, but God has been very clear in laying down how He expects people to get into Heaven under normal circumstances, and that is through the Catholic Church.

In mathematics there is the concept of a “local maximum” as distinct from a “global maximum”. It’s like in a landscape having a local highest point–say a spur of a mountain–as distinct from the actual summit of the mountain. For some people, Protestantism is their “local maximum”–the best they are going to get to given their circumstances. It’s a lot better than not worshipping God at all, but it’s nowhere near as good as their being Catholic.

And snobbery has nothing to do with it; snobbery is saying “I’m a better person than you are” while we are saying “Our Church is the Church that Jesus founded while the Protestant churches are not.” We are not claiming to be better people and we are saying nothing but the truth.

Hang in there and keep fighting the good fight.

• Liberian

 

[Kay_Cee]

Elzee:

Not everyone is called to Catholicism or Christianity, some of us are called to Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. The Catholic Church isn’t necessarily the only way to go.

Next time someone tells you this, you might point out that there is a person in the Bible who also said Christianity was only **a **way of salvation instead of **the **way of salvation:

“As we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl with an oracular spirit, who used to bring a large profit to her owners through her fortune-telling. She began to follow Paul and us, shouting, ‘These people are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’ She did this for many days. Paul became annoyed, turned, and said to the spirit, ‘I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ Then it came out at that moment.” (Acts 16:16-18)

In other words, such a statement is from the devil himself.

 

[cathologos]

Thal59:

It seems those comments are coming from Catholics who are liberals.

These folks are poorly catechized. They don’t know what they’re talking about. (Or else they choose to be heretics – but I’m not willing to assume that!)

Their behavior doesn’t tell us anything at all about their politics, or their religious philosophy, really. It just means that they’re ignorant. Assuming anything more specific, to my mind, smacks of bias, of prejudice.

Further, using “liberal” as a derogatory term is offensive, in my view. It would do all of us good to remember that the original “bleeding heart liberal” was Jesus of Nazareth.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Elzee:

I’ve heard the following comments several times from Catholics, some who are in charge of various ministries. I’ve responded to each of these when I’ve heard them (my paraphrased short answers are in parentheses), but honestly, sometimes I feel like a fish out of water and wonder if I should just not say anything. Does anyone see anything wrong with the comments below? Should I just let them go? Do my responses make sense? Any suggestions? Sometimes I just get tired.

Not everyone is called to Catholicism or Christianity, some of us are called to Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. The Catholic Church isn’t necessarily the only way to go. (my response: I believe the Church is the way to go. Jesus commissioned his apostles to preach to the ends of the earth making disciples of all nations - their gospel was a Catholic gospel).

My response: all men are called to be remade in Christ - the necessity of visible communion with the CC for this is not absolute, as though God were crippled and unable to give grace to anyone not in communion with the Church; yet the CC’s own self-understanding is that the CC has a uniquely intimate relationship with God.​

Yet, without Christ, it is of no importance whether one is Catholic, Hindu, atheist or Baptist, say: the Church is important, not because the Church is importanr, but because Christ is. This is not a new idea, either - the late Frank Sheed - echoing the Liturgy in this, BTW - recommended the CC by insisting that what is good in the CC is from Christ and not from the CC. Without Christ, the Church is degraded into another of many competing pressure groups. Catholicism is a waste of time if the Church can give us nothing but the Church ##

The Catholic Church isn’t the snobbery church it was a long time ago when it said it was the only Church with the full truth. It now realizes that the most important thing is being a Christian

This is pretty much true in my experience at least - the CC does seem to be much less full of self-adoration and of contempt for others than it was 50 years ago; in this respect, it is more Christian it was. It has still a long way to go in sloughing off its egotism - that is because we all do. It’s been saved from itself by being so full of well-publicised frailties that it is not really able to deny its weaknesses.​

What good is Catholicism, if not to make us Christlike ?

What needs to be kept in mind, is that its position before God does not change as a result of its good or bad behaviour - it is still what it was, not because it is full of canonised saints, not despite the scandalous behaviour of priests, not because of its goodness or despite its badness, bt because of God’s grace and faithfulness. His faithfulness, not our goodness, is what keeps the Church alive, fruitful, and persevering. God is all the Church has - so seeking any other help is insanity; for what can we lack, if we have God ? ##

and it doesn’t matter what Christian Church you go to necessarily. (my response: The Church has always recognized it alone has the fullness of truth, maybe at times it has conveyed that message more politely than at other times. Sure non-Catholics can be Christians, but they’re not being made aware of or partaking of the fullness of Christianity. It matters what Church you go to because it matters what the truth is).

 

[Anna_Elizabeth]

cathologos:

These folks are poorly catechized. They don’t know what they’re talking about. (Or else they choose to be heretics – but I’m not willing to assume that!)

Their behavior doesn’t tell us anything at all about their politics, or their religious philosophy, really. It just means that they’re ignorant. Assuming anything more specific, to my mind, smacks of bias, of prejudice.

Further, using “liberal” as a derogatory term is offensive, in my view. It would do all of us good to remember that the original “bleeding heart liberal” was Jesus of Nazareth.

 

[trogiah]

Jesus told his disciples to preach where they were listened to and where they were not to “shake the dust of the town off your feet in testimony against it.”

He also said “Do not put your pearls before swine, they will simply trample them underfoot and possibly attack you.”

I doubt that this is what the people you have quoted meant but it does seem like we must always consider the possibility that some will not listen to the Word of Life. In such a case we should move on to those who will listen.

Offer the gospel to anyone. Buddhist, Muslim, unchurched, … anyone. If they don’t accept it, accept that this is one of the times Jesus was talking about when you should shake your feet off and move on.

Jim

 

[volzcpa]

Elzee–

You may try pulling out the Catechism of the Catholic Church and show them the following paragraphs.

*833 The phrase “particular church,” which is first of all the diocese (or eparchy), refers to a community of the Christian faithful in communion of faith and sacraments with their bishop ordained in apostolic succession. These particular Churches “are constituted after the model of the universal Church; it is in these and formed out of them that the one and unique Catholic Church exists.”

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it. *

 

[Crumpy]

As is hinted at in the preceding posts, such a person does not seem well-versed in scripture.

Scripture tells us the things already quoted, as well as what Jesus said toward the end of the gospel of Mt, to teach all nations and to make them disciples.

The situation is not the smorgasboard of church-shopping that many protestants advocate.

I have taken a direct, confrontational attitude towards my pastor on a number of matters. Yikes, after five years and after getting a new bishop, some of the things around here are changing for the better, at the moment, it seems.

My pastor is a self-described introvert, and he runs the parish out of that introversion. I’m an introvert, too, but I just feel he has to get out there and do more. Part of his problem is an apparent inability to delegate.

I suggest that you discharge your energy at your P.C. Jot down the things that were said, like you did, and study and then write up rebuttals to what you heard.

I’ve been in so many similar situations, where I just had to use what sense I have and keep my mouth shut. I think sometimes that these things simply identify people who we need to have in our prayers.

Sometimes these things occur at a time and place where it is not convenient to give any response.

I was thinking about just the same type of thing. I overheard two college students discussing religion, that they were all basically the same. To this day, I wish I could have spent an hour with those two young ladies, but it just wasn’t possible.

I sat behind two young men who came to church with a young lady companion. The young lady was following along with the Sunday morning program, but the young men were waving satanic symbols at the altar, talking to each other (quietly, to be sure), and reading the sunday paper. I was right behind them, in church. I didn’t feel it was the time or place for me to intervene. I didn’t know what I might have been getting into.

You know, even if it’s too late, it’s still good to think of a comeback to those types of remarks, to train your thinking. Perhaps you will have the right words sometime to gently give such people something to think about.** Perhaps an “are you serious?” or “you can’t be serious” would break the ice ** and see if you had an opportunity for some evangelization or catechesis. You might be ready with that, if you are prepared to step up to the plate for Catholicism.