Does Catholic rudeness keep you away from the Church?

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LilyM said:
True, but they wouldn’t even have made most of the converts they did if they’d been really curmudgeonly, don’t you think?
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curmudgeonly - ill tempered*** old man

Good word for the day

so ill tempered is rude. well how are Catholics ill tempered
 
c659smith said:
curmudgeonly - ill tempered*** old man

Good word for the day

so ill tempered is rude. well how are Catholics ill tempered
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Well, telling someone in precisely so many words that they are going to hell (which I’ve heard Catholics do) would qualify. After all, not being able to read hearts and minds we can’t presume to judge that someone is in a state of mortal sin, and the uppermost intent in many cases would be to wound.
 
theistgal said:
Not naming any names, but I notice quite a few posts and threads in this section which seem to be unnecessarily belligerent and argumentative towards Protestants.

I’m a Catholic, but I’ve been outside the Church more than once in my life. And during those times, when I would venture to Catholic or Christian discussion boards, I’d really be offended and put off by that kind of message.

For me, it was the kind Christians - the ones who had a sense of humor and tried to engage me where I was, rather than argue with me - who “softened me up” and got me in the state of mind where I could seriously reconsider coming home.

What do you think, non-Catholics (and non-Christians)? What kind of Catholic would you prefer to deal with - one who constantly tells you you’re on the road to Hell, or one who walks by your side, chatting and laughing and using “gentle persuasion”?
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I saw one of Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s old tv show one time and he stated one the biggest reasons people do not convert to Catholicism is mostly because of the behavior of us Catholics ourselves. Quite frankly, to me if someone has all the knowledge about God and that person is an arrogant jerk-that knowledge means absolutely nothing.
 
SpiritMeadow said:
Thank you mary. Again, I can only say that I see nothing in Paul that points to the need to separate one particular Christian church as THE church. I see all Christians as THE church. We are all of one body. I see no reason why body cannot be all Christians. I think you are artificially narrowing it to reflect your belief. But then I am enlarging it to reflect mine. I doubt Paul thought of it much at all. He certainly recognized that there were many different issues.

The Christmas Story has some discrepancies, but I would agree, the basic message is similar in all three at least of the synoptics. But when you lay them side by side, you do note differences, such as the Nazareth/Bethlehem thing. Also Luke writes a lot about Paul that Paul rather disagrees with in his various letters. These are on narrow issues. Perhaps they are of interest only to the scholar. Certainly I would agree, they are in no way a challenge to faith in any way.

YOu must remember of course, that for many many years after the resurrection, there was no centralized “Church” of any kind, and when there finally was, it had suppressed a number of other Christian groups who saw things a bit differently. I’m not sure there was a recognizable Roman Catholic Church per se until Constantine ordered the bishops to Nicea to develop and agree on a canon. Perhaps, the creed was more to the point. It is hard to know.

I know that Roman Catholics don’t much care for that kind of analysis, however, most scholars, even Catholic ones take that position I believe. It was certainly the teaching I received from both clergy and religious. I always got the wink wink of course, as they admitted that this was not “official” teaching, rather it was based on actual historical analysis of the documents of the time.
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I don’t believe it’s hard to know. The New Testament was not a user’s manual for a church still in shrink wrap. The church preceeded the Scriptures. All of the new testament books, except the Gospels, are primarily occupied with describing a community already well established, with distinctive policies,practices and patterns of devotion-with it’s own structures of authority and methods of decision making. The Acts of the Apostles recounts the establishment of the church in the towns and cities visited by the Apostles. The letters of Paul, Peter, James and Jude address the general concerns and questions of those scattered assemblies, once established by the Apostles. I would recognize those early churches as Catholic, being led by the Apostles and their disciples. Correcting them when necessary, and after those corrections, worshipping as “one”.
Since the protestant reformation, many people have tried to build the church anew based on the evidence they find in the NT. But they cannot agree on what exactly the NT means when it describes a Church, and how such a church would look two thousand years down the line.The wiser choice is to look to the Church that came before the Scriptures, the Church that produced the Scriptures with divine assistance. Let’s look to unity and again the only candidate for unity is the Catholic church. It professed one faith, undivided,unchanged, throughout the world and throughout the ages. Those seperated Christians who profess scripture alone, on the one hand have multiplied denominations. and those Christian bodies differ from one another on such key matters as the menaing of Charismatic gifts, the appropriate age for Baptism, the frequency of communion, the morality of abortion and uthenasia, the nature and function of the clergy, even the day of the week which Christians should worship. You believe we are all one “church” of believers…Denominations as large as the Lutherans and Baptists disagree profoundly on the nature of the sacraments. Could such confusion be what Jesus and St. Paul meant by the church’s unity?
 
SpiritMeadow said:
I was Roman Catholic for many years. I have absolutely no need nor desire to “pick you apart” for any reason. You are simply be extremely rude and unseemly to others. You have absolutely no basis for determining that I am afraid of anything. I have studied Catholicism at the Master’s degree level. Your continued attempts to be uncivil are noted. You just seem so upset because what you consider truth is not shared by everyone.
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Well then, if you studied Catholicism at a Masters Degree level, you would be Catholic for sure. There is just NO WAY you could study the church and the hitory of it at this level and not belong. Look at Scott Hahn, so didn’t he study to an even further degree, a PH.D in Bibliology and Theology, yet he converted from being a Protestant minister to a Roman Catholic after 17 years of studies. I am sorry, but I do not believe you.
 
Hesychios said:
That is just sheer fantasy.
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:tsktsk:
Ontological changes are not reversible. SpiritMeadow only need make a confession and profession of faith to be back in full communion with the Church.

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
:whistle:
 
c659smith said:
Do you think Peter and Paul were well received
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They weren’t well received because of the message they spread, not because of the manner in which they preached it.

In Acts, it is written that:
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”
 
LilyM said:
Well, telling someone in precisely so many words that they are going to hell (which I’ve heard Catholics do) would qualify. After all, not being able to read hearts and minds we can’t presume to judge that someone is in a state of mortal sin, and the uppermost intent in many cases would be to wound.
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We can’t judge who chooses hell. Merely stating this Church teaching:
1874 To choose deliberately - that is, both knowing it and willing it - something gravely contrary to the divine law and to the ultimate end of man is to commit a mortal sin. This destroys in us the charity without which eternal beatitude is impossible. Unrepented, it brings eternal death.
offends some who have difficulty with free will and its consequences. 😦
 
Hesychios said:
You use a link to the Vatican as some sort of evidence? :confused: That only works with faithful Catholics like yourself and does not in itself constitute proof of anything.
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I also wrote:
Ontological changes are not reversible. SpiritMeadow only need make a confession and profession of faith to be back in full communion with the Church.
 
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