I posted some icons of Jesus and Mary at my desk at work, and my co-worker asked me if I’m Catholic. I said, “Not really [which is true, haven’t been confirmed in the Catholic Church] but I go to Catholic Mass. I used to be Protestant.”
Then he invited me to his evangelical church and gave me a card for his church.
He asked me why I decided to go to Catholic Church, and I couldn’t really say, “Because I believe it’s the true Church,” without causing offense, so I just said, “It felt more at home.”
How do I politely decline an invitation to another church without offending someone?
You decline it like you decline any other invitation. Already, you don’t feel comfortable saying the truth. See above that you believe the Catholic Church is the true Church but said you couldn’t say that without offending. If you go, you will have more of the same, that you will feel that if you speak your mind and heart that you will offend, so you will be silent. They will talk.
I once got invited to a dinner at a Pentecostal Church. I asked if it would be just dinner or also a service. I was told it’d only be dinner.
Anyway, got there. It was a service, and I was, like you, in a situation where somebody had driven me there. So, I didn’t have a car to go home in at that point, so I went to the service, but I didn’t want to go.
I came back after it was all over, talked to, who is now my ex-husband, and he said his sister had done this to him, twice. He was an agnostic. He was invited to “dinner”, and he asked if it’d be dinner or also a service. He was told just dinner. He said before he knew it, they were asking for a show of hands as to who was saved!
He said this actually happened yet another time, same deal.
When I have gone under these circumstances, first of all, I am outnumbered. They are trying to convert me to their religion, and I have absolutely no intention of converting.
In my particular case, it basically had exactly the opposite effect. I went in, saw their church. I had been experimenting with churches.
To me, there was no altar. There was no incense…no statues…no pictures…no kneelers…no holy water…no art of any kind. There were just pews, and there was no priest. People would get up and speak, but the people who spoke, some I knew had really little, if any formal training on their faith.
I missed everything about the Catholic Church. I missed the physical beauty of it, the structure, the mass. I missed that we had people who spoke who were highly trained in theology.
Sometimes, it felt like other churches would also give people clothes and food, seemingly to try to convert them, or that’s how it came across to me.
I missed that they didn’t have the Eucharist.
I went a number of years and had during it gone from one denomination to another. I ended up returning to the original. I see the Catholic Church as the true Church, and I don’t want to go to other churches, now. I’ve been invited, take the invitation, put it in my purse, say “Thank you”. Later, when I am out of view, I put it in the garbage so as not to hurt their feelings.
I try to tell them I’m Catholic, but some are persistant, like high-pressure sales. If they are that way, I will do the above routine.
I will not allow myself to be coerced into something I don’t believe in or don’t want to do. It’s like someone pushing anything else on me that I don’t want. I resist in some way or other. I try to be polite, not offend, but I will not go to something I don’t want to go to. If they are bent out of shape over that, so be it.
