How can non-Catholics can ok with Catholics?

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inomcoke said:
I’ve often wondered how any protestant (or any other non-Catholic) can be “OK” with Catholics. There are many people who aren’t Catholic, but seem to think that the Catholic Church is an acceptable option for other people…This baffles me.
  • If we are wrong about the Real Presence, we are worshiping bread as if it were God!
  • If we are wrong about prayer to the saints, we are (again) idolaters.
  • If we are wrong about Sola Scriptura, we are invalidly adding to God’s word
  • We profess “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” (no salvation outside the Church), and even with the clarifications over the years, we are still directly claiming to be the ONLY true Church.
I could go on and on here. My point is, it seems like people should either be Catholic, or be VERY anti-Catholic and be attempting to convert us away from the Church.

**Please note, I’m not looking to start a debate on any of the ‘bullet points’ I made, those were just examples. I’m interested to hear how non-Catholics can ok with Catholics. Some specific examples of people who are like this (from what I’ve heard) are Rick Warren and William Lane Craig, but there are millions of others.
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As I’ve said before, it is not so important for Catholics to accept me as a brother in Christ, but it is VERY IMPORTANT to my faith that I accept that Catholics also carry within them the Light and have something to teach me…atheists too share a portion of the Light and they too have something to teach me.
 
Della said:
The reason this Catholic responded is to clarify some of the OP’s statements about Church teaching. I would hate to see our separated brethren come away thinking that Catholics believe there is no salvation outside the visible Church or that we think non-Catholics need our “correction.” If such statements had not been made by a fellow Catholic, I would not have posted. :tiphat:
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Good show! And I’ve often said that that which divides us is small compared to that which unites us. 🙂
 
This thread is confusing. The OP asks how Protestants or any other kind of non-Catholic can be okay with Catholics, then much of the rest of the post talks about Protestant objections to Catholicism. We in the Orthodox Church, however, believe in many of the same things that the OP mentioned as Catholic beliefs (though we look at them very differently, e.g., we believe that the bread and wine truly become Christ’s body and blood but do not have any theories about how that happens, like transubstantiation or consubstantiation), so obviously our objections to Catholicism would be about different aspects than those. But as far as Protestants are concerned…I don’t know…I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but the town I was raised in was roughly half and half (half Protestant, half Catholic), and I can honestly say I never heard a bad word about Catholics growing up (which is good, since half of my family is Catholic, or at least from traditionally Catholic ethnic/cultural groups). My mother raised my brother and I to be Presbyterians (it didn’t take in either case), but never said anything about Catholics, other than that she didn’t understand some of the things they do. I think maybe when talking about Catholics (or any other group) means talking about your own friends, family, and neighbors, it suddenly becomes very hard to indulge in stereotyping and generalizing. It’s easy to say “Catholics worship bread” or something, but if you know that your own mother in law is a Catholic, and she doesn’t worship bread, you know that what you’re saying isn’t true. So I think maybe this kind of stereotyping is easier to get away with and reinforce in other parts of the country where there aren’t so many Catholics, so people aren’t able to challenge these misconceptions with real-world experiences. (I grew up in a small town in Northern California, by the way…I’m sure for people in the South or the Scandinavian-majority parts of the Midwest, things would be different.)
 
Publisher said:
As I’ve said before, it is not so important for Catholics to accept me as a brother in Christ, but it is VERY IMPORTANT to my faith that I accept that Catholics also carry within them the Light and have something to teach me…atheists too share a portion of the Light and they too have something to teach me.
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And a beautiful faith you have too!

I went to a Friends School from elementary school through high school.
 
=inomcoke;11920005]I’ve often wondered how any protestant (or any other non-Catholic) can be “OK” with Catholics. There are many people who aren’t Catholic, but seem to think that the Catholic Church is an acceptable option for other people…This baffles me.
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Do you preach Christ crucified? Then we have a foundation of acceptance.
  • If we are wrong about the Real Presence, we are worshiping bread as if it were God!
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If you are, so are Lutherans.
  • If we are wrong about prayer to the saints, we are (again) idolaters.
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Are you worshipping the saints, in a worship meant only for God? That’s not what I understand invocation to be.
  • If we are wrong about Sola Scriptura, we are invalidly adding to God’s word
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No, because sola scriptura does not exclude creeds, councils, confessions, etc.
  • We profess “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” (no salvation outside the Church), and even with the clarifications over the years, we are still directly claiming to be the ONLY true Church.
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There have been Lutherans who have claimed the same.
I could go on and on here. My point is, it seems like people should either be Catholic, or be VERY anti-Catholic and be attempting to convert us away from the Church.
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As you can see by my responses to your examples, there’s much we agree on. So, for us to be VERY anti-Catholic means we’d have to be MOSTLY anti-Lutheran. :whacky:

Jon
 
Anti-Catholic as in “Catholicism is evil” or as in “Catholicism gets X,Y, and Z wrong”?
 
inomcoke said:
I’ve often wondered how any protestant (or any other non-Catholic) can be “OK” with Catholics. There are many people who aren’t Catholic, but seem to think that the Catholic Church is an acceptable option for other people…This baffles me.
  • If we are wrong about the Real Presence, we are worshiping bread as if it were God!
  • If we are wrong about prayer to the saints, we are (again) idolaters.
  • If we are wrong about Sola Scriptura, we are invalidly adding to God’s word
  • We profess “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” (no salvation outside the Church), and even with the clarifications over the years, we are still directly claiming to be the ONLY true Church.
I could go on and on here. My point is, it seems like people should either be Catholic, or be VERY anti-Catholic and be attempting to convert us away from the Church.

**Please note, I’m not looking to start a debate on any of the ‘bullet points’ I made, those were just examples. I’m interested to hear how non-Catholics can ok with Catholics. Some specific examples of people who are like this (from what I’ve heard) are Rick Warren and William Lane Craig, but there are millions of others.
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So you’re upset because someone isn’t ragging on you that you are “wrong” in their eyes? Why? Who cares? Go to your church and let others go to theirs.
 
As some others point out, not all Protestants have issues with the Catholic Church, especially the bullet points the OP suggests:

Real Presence: certainly Lutherans and most Anglicans believe this.

Prayer to the saints: the Lutheran Confessions acknowledge that the Blessed Virgin and saints pray for us though the practice of reciting the Hail Mary may not be that common among Lutherans and Anglicans.

Sola Scripture: Refer to Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue:
  1. Thus, Lutherans and Catholics are able jointly to conclude, »Therefore
    regarding Scripture and tradition, Lutherans and Catholics are in such
    an extensive agreement that their different emphases do not of them-
    selves require maintaining the present division of the churches. In this
    area, there is unity in reconciled diversity« (ApC 448).82
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I know Lutherans who criticize the Catholic Church based on old assumptions and pre-Vatican II positions. But it is hard for knowledgeable Lutherans to disagree with Roman Catholics pretty much on anything since the JCDD.
 
inomcoke said:
I’ve often wondered how any protestant (or any other non-Catholic) can be “OK” with Catholics. There are many people who aren’t Catholic, but seem to think that the Catholic Church is an acceptable option for other people…This baffles me.
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Not everybody shares the ‘believe like us or bad stuff will happen’ worldview that many Christians profess - in other words it’s quite possible to see Catholicism (or other Christian traditions) as ‘mainly harmless’ to its/their followers.
 
dzheremi said:
This thread is confusing. The OP asks how Protestants or any other kind of non-Catholic can be okay with Catholics, then much of the rest of the post talks about Protestant objections to Catholicism. We in the Orthodox Church, however, believe in many of the same things that the OP mentioned as Catholic beliefs (though we look at them very differently, e.g., we believe that the bread and wine truly become Christ’s body and blood but do not have any theories about how that happens, like transubstantiation or consubstantiation), so obviously our objections to Catholicism would be about different aspects than those. But as far as Protestants are concerned…I don’t know…I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but the town I was raised in was roughly half and half (half Protestant, half Catholic), and I can honestly say I never heard a bad word about Catholics growing up (which is good, since half of my family is Catholic, or at least from traditionally Catholic ethnic/cultural groups). My mother raised my brother and I to be Presbyterians (it didn’t take in either case), but never said anything about Catholics, other than that she didn’t understand some of the things they do. I think maybe when talking about Catholics (or any other group) means talking about your own friends, family, and neighbors, it suddenly becomes very hard to indulge in stereotyping and generalizing. It’s easy to say “Catholics worship bread” or something, but if you know that your own mother in law is a Catholic, and she doesn’t worship bread, you know that what you’re saying isn’t true. So I think maybe this kind of stereotyping is easier to get away with and reinforce in other parts of the country where there aren’t so many Catholics, so people aren’t able to challenge these misconceptions with real-world experiences. (I grew up in a small town in Northern California, by the way…I’m sure for people in the South or the Scandinavian-majority parts of the Midwest, things would be different.)
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I agree with you. I think Op started out with some cut and paste poor generalizations and assumptions which he changed when it was pointed out to him that his opening conclusions were bad generalizations. Then there was a statement that he wondered why non-Catholics are not more anti-Catholic and again the point of all of this is just poor assumptions again. I think your and my experience is more typical. Most Christians in everyday life try their best to get along and accept each other even if they don’t know or understand the doctrine and practice of each other. There certainly are books and radio TV shows that one would classify as “anti-Catholic” but that doesn’t mean what is out there is the public square is what the average joe believes or understands or that “Protestant” pastors and ministers spend their Sunday sermons against the Catholic Church or even Orthodox (which is a smaller community to begin with). Dealing with a segment that would twist and misrepresent Catholic teaching and practice is one thing. Taking that segment and juxtaposing it on everyone else is another and I think that is how this thread was started out as.
 
benhur said:
And never the twain meet, being evil and being wrong, for any church, even us ?
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For the sake of argument let’s assume that the claim that Catholics worship statues is true (it’s not true, but let’s pretend it is)-
-A Catholic who worships statues due to a lack of knowledge that it is incorrect to do so isn’t committing evil, he is simply wrong (incorrect in belief through no fault of his own)
-A Catholic who knows Catholicism teaches to worship statues and that this is incorrect is committing evil by doing what he knows (willful disobedience) or should know (willful ignorance) to be incorrect.

Doing evil stems from intent, being wrong stems from lack of or incorrect knowledge. Evil and wrong only meet when one knows one is wrong and does it anyway.
 
cheese_sdc said:
I can’t speak for everyone, I can only say that every religion is wrong. Even mine. So trying to point out the flaws in other’s religions is kinda pointless. 🙂
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I can say that I am wrong at times but not the Church.

The RCC is led by the power of the Holy Spirit. The RCC cannot be wrong when it speaks with this power given to it by Christ himself.

So to say that the RCC is wrong in its teaching when speaking in the power of the Holy Spirit means to say Christ lied to us, when he promised the Advocate the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth.

So speaking not for myself, but from the words of Christ the Church is the Pilar of all truth, and came to us on Pentecost, and is led by God by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit is not wrong!
 
dronald said:
Non-Catholic Christians often believe that they could be wrong about certain things; likewise Catholics.

Often we speak of certain beliefs that we’re not going to become martyrs for. For example; Sunday Worship, the foods we ought to eat, communication with the Saints, etc.

We admit that through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, the Son of God we are saved. We are saved by grace, through Faith which produces works and expands His Kingdom and Catholics are certainly a part of that.

We know that in your hearts you are not worshiping the bread, praying to statues, committing idolatry with the saints, etc. We believe that if you have a sincere heart set on Christ then you will be forgiven for your ignorance and we pray the same for us.

If we look at Catholics and condemn them for being wrong in this, that and the other thing then God may look at us and criticize us for our mistakes and ignorance. I try my best to be careful.
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Couldn’t have said it better, myself 👍
 
oldcatholicguy said:
For the sake of argument let’s assume that the claim that Catholics worship statues is true (it’s not true, but let’s pretend it is)-
-A Catholic who worships statues due to a lack of knowledge that it is incorrect to do so isn’t committing evil, he is simply wrong (incorrect in belief through no fault of his own)
-A Catholic who knows Catholicism teaches to worship statues and that this is incorrect is committing evil by doing what he knows (willful disobedience) or should know (willful ignorance) to be incorrect.

Doing evil stems from intent, being wrong stems from lack of or incorrect knowledge. Evil and wrong only meet when one knows one is wrong and does it anyway.
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Correct. If our intent isn’t pure our we shouldn’t be making doctrine on a matter. It would be like if I am in the statue making business and I “encourage” the use of religious statues in any fashion.
 
benhur said:
Correct. If our intent isn’t pure our we shouldn’t be making doctrine on a matter. It would be like if I am in the statue making business and I “encourage” the use of religious statues in any fashion.
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Catholics do not see this as wrong. 🙂 There are a good many statue making companies that very much “encourage” their use. It’s not wrong to make a profit selling religious objects from prayer cloths to statues. It would perhaps be wrong in your eyes if you believe using a statue is sinful–a violation of your conscience. But, it is not intrinsically wrong to make such objects, profit from making them, or to use them/encourage their use. They are merely helps to faith/sacramentals, not objects of worship.
 
Della said:
Catholics do not see this as wrong. 🙂 There are a good many statue making companies that very much “encourage” their use. It’s not wrong to make a profit selling religious objects from prayer cloths to statues. It would perhaps be wrong in your eyes if you believe using a statue is sinful–a violation of your conscience. But, it is not intrinsically wrong to make such objects, profit from making them, or to use them/encourage their use. They are merely helps to faith/sacramentals, not objects of worship.
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Della, it was a purely hypothetical scenario, from post #56- "it’s not true, but let’s pretend it is)- My point was we must be careful with intent, motive or conflict in interests with development of doctrine/practice. I was going to give Henry the 8th as an example, which might fit what I am trying to say but is much more complicated.
 
Actually I think the reason Protestants aren’t troubled is because for Protestants Unity happens in Christ, not their organization they belong to. Protestants also see The Church to be made up of those who have enters into New Life with Christ…and Christ can reach anyone that has an open heart. So we see Catholics just one of many flavors
 
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