Have you ever heard of this?

[BSHoop96]

That’s ridiculous - the Church services is one thing, the behaviour on the visits are totally not church teaching and not something that ‘had’ to be done.

Since the earliest days of Protestantism Catholics have not just been free to visit Protestants but even to marry them - the arch-Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England had proposals of marriage from several Catholic princes, including her sister’s widower Phillip II of Spain.

Well this is really understating the situation.

 

[RHC]

There is nothing in Catholic law or doctrine about this, my guess the sacks were some ethnic custom, not tied to the faith, and supersitious to boot. Bear in mind we are getting this story about 10th hand from the memory of somebody far removed from OP.

Hmmm…not “10th hand”…more like 2nd. My mom saw the sacks; that’s first-hand witness. Then she told me (second-hand).

The bottom line - and the reason I asked - is that whatever-they-were made her feel like her cousins thought she was the Anti-Christ, and she is worried that I will now shun her (since I’m converting) as she felt they did. Whatever their practices, they were not well explained and caused rifts in families.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to start a debate about whether attending Protestant services was okay. For the record, I did NOT say that going to “any non-Catholic service during the week” is okay as long as you get Mass once. Obviously, that sounds like church-shopping or creating a weird religion all your own. No, my comment about attending Protestant services was a very occasional thing, like when visiting family once or twice per year in the spirit of friendship and maintaining family relationships.

 

[NeedImprovement]

I don’t think you started a debate RHC . It appears that debates have a way of starting themselves on some of these threads … one just has to leave an opening

---

…I mean, could one imagine St. Athanasius saying…ahh well, let’s not make a huge deal of this arian heresy thingy, I mean, they still believe in a lot of other things that are true , no biggie.

That might also include, in this instance, “no baggie”

 

[Tina_in_Ashburn]

My 88-year old mother remembers very clearly that Catholics were forbidden to participate in non-Catholic services. The rules were that you could not attend non-Catholic funerals or observances of any any kind. Attending non-Catholic weddings was equally forbidden.

Also, dispensations to marry were very very rare - so Catholics were forbidden to marry Jews, and marrying a non-Catholic was almost as difficult, if ever allowed at all.

Today’s practices are so far removed, so different from the common practices of the 30s and 40s, we can hardly believe these stories are true. But that is the way it was, and Catholics understood these everyday common rules.

And the ‘sacks’ description made me think of Scapulars too!

Your poor Mom… hope it all works out!

 

[Joe_Kelley]

. . .

Also, dispensations to marry were very very rare - so Catholics were forbidden to marry Jews, and marrying a non-Catholic was almost as difficult, if ever allowed at all. . . .!

I think that may have been a local thing. My grandmother married my unbaptized grandfather in 1910. My mother and her brother were his godparents when he was baptized some 20 years later.

When my other grandfather died, 60 years ago, his wife’s cousin, a Baptist minister, was invited, by the priest, to offer a prayer at the cemetery.

 

[peary]

I originally asked this in the Spirituality forum, and they referred me to this forum.

I’ve asked several Catholic friends about this (some cradle Catholics; some converts), but none of them seem to know what I am talking about. So I was wondering if any of you have heard of this:

My mom, who is Protestant, has cousins who are Catholic. When they were growing up, the cousins would come to visit their grandma and grandpa, and my mom would see them there. They were never allowed to attend a Protestant service (their grandma and grandpa were also Protestant), their priest had to bless them specially before each visit, and they wore little sacks around their necks for the duration of the visit. I don’t know what they were for, but my mom thought they were some sort of talisman against their non-Catholic family members.

I know the Church used to be more strict about Catholics attending Protestant services, but the special blessing and neck sacks confuse me. What are they? What are they supposed to do? The cousins are from a very traditional Italian Catholic family; is it perhaps a cultural thing?

Unless the cousins believed that protestants were vampires, I’ve never heard of such a thing! If anything, it was an “old world” cultural thing. I wouldn’t put any stock in it.