How could you go ROMAN?

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Eliza10

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This is what a woman I worked with today asked me. I’m not sure I gave the best response.

We had a little break together, and shared a bit about each other, in the course of which I mentioned that my previous church taught some wrong things, and, since the “Truth sets you free,” false things enslave you. She perked up at the scripture verse, and it came out that she is Assembly Of God. She probably already saw my Mary medal, so when I mentioned that I used to belong to ____Baptist Church, she repeated its name in great shock, saying “*That *place doesn’t have rigid doctrine! That’s a great Church!” And, “*How *could you go ROMAN from there?!” This was asked in great shock.

First I said I didn’t leave for rigid doctrine. I loved that church and the people, and it was hard to leave. I left it not to run from it, but *to *the Catholic Church, the fullness of truth.

In the ensuing dialogue, she called us “Roman” again, so I corrected her. "It’s Roman Catholic", I said, “not Roman.” She said that Catholic means universal, so she is not going to call it Catholic. I said, “But thats what it is. Is not right to call it something its not.”

But we didn’t have a lot of time for discussion, and I was wishing I had a good comment for that one. Sounds like she has been reading Bart Brewer! What do you think?

I will probably run into her again at some point, so I will continue thinking about where she is coming from.

I’d love some suggestions as to how to answer being called “Roman” when you don’t have a lot of time for discussion.
 
Easy. It’s a simple matter of manners.

People have a right to be called what they want, not by some name slapped on them by outsiders. If some Protestant church calls itself the “Full Bible Church,” who am I to refuse to call them that, even though I don’t agree that they’re really using the full Bible? It’s their church, they can call it whatever they want. And we can call our Church whatever we want.

Does she refuse to call the Universalist Church “universalist” because they aren’t really “universal?” That’s just rude.

Also, “Romanism,” is such a common slur in some circles that your friend may not even realize it IS a slur. I tell people it’s like using a racial slur, and then they back off.
 
Call her a schismatic and a heretic and see how she likes it 😉

But if she wants to go down that road and refuse to call you Catholic tell her you agree that Christ established one universal Church and then tell her who established her Church after you look it up.
 
You could also tell her that the Roman rite of the Catholic Church may be the largest in the Western world, but there are others in the Eastern world, as well. All of these rites are of the same Church, the Catholic Church.

If nothing else, it might help her see that she doesn’t know as much as she thinks she knows, which might open her eyes to other misconceptions she has, too.
 
You also could point out that “catholic” was first used to describe the church around 100 A.D.
 
I’d also point out that the “Catholic” Church encompasses a whole variety of Eastern Catholic Churches, so that to call the Church simply “Roman” is entirely incorrect as that term doesn’t encompass those parts of the Church.
 
Rolltide said:
I’d also point out that the “Catholic” Church encompasses a whole variety of Eastern Catholic Churches, so that to call the Church simply “Roman” is entirely incorrect as that term doesn’t encompass those parts of the Church.
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Agreed. This article discusses the issue at great length:

ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ250.HTM
 
Eliza10 said:
This is what a woman I worked with today asked me. I’m not sure I gave the best response.

We had a little break together, and shared a bit about each other, in the course of which I mentioned that my previous church taught some wrong things, and, since the “Truth sets you free,” false things enslave you. She perked up at the scripture verse, and it came out that she is Assembly Of God. She probably already saw my Mary medal, so when I mentioned that I used to belong to ____Baptist Church, she repeated its name in great shock, saying “*That *place doesn’t have rigid doctrine! That’s a great Church!” And, “*How *could you go ROMAN from there?!” This was asked in great shock.

First I said I didn’t leave for rigid doctrine. I loved that church and the people, and it was hard to leave. I left it not to run from it, but *to *the Catholic Church, the fullness of truth.

In the ensuing dialogue, she called us “Roman” again, so I corrected her. "It’s Roman Catholic", I said, “not Roman.” She said that Catholic means universal, so she is not going to call it Catholic. I said, “But thats what it is. Is not right to call it something its not.”

But we didn’t have a lot of time for discussion, and I was wishing I had a good comment for that one. Sounds like she has been reading Bart Brewer! What do you think?

I will probably run into her again at some point, so I will continue thinking about where she is coming from.

I’d love some suggestions as to how to answer being called “Roman” when you don’t have a lot of time for discussion.
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Inform her that there are two Rites of the Catholic Church. Latin (Western Rite) and Bzyantine Rite (Eastern Catholic).

In the E. Rite Catholic Church, their liturgy is similiar to the Orthodox Church.

They don’t recite the rosary, they do say the Jesus Prayer, etc.
 
Tell her that in order to correctly name your church, without shortening it to Catholic then she’ll have to use the following: Roman-Chaldean-Syro-Malabarese-Maronite-Syriac-Malankarese-Coptic-Abyssinian-Armenian-Albanian-Byelorussian-Bulgarian-Czech-Krizevci-Greek-Hungarian-Italo-Albanian-Melkite-Romanian-Russian-Ruthenian-Slovak-Ukrainian Church.

If you want, you could memorize this and rattle it off at her whenever she says “Roman” with a smile, “I just like to be accurate”. 😃
 
Just tell her you like burning people at the stake, then pull out some BBQ sauce. 😛

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
Tell her the universe consists of two classes of people: Romans…and barbarians who’ve never seen an arch.

I also like the suggestion about listing all the different uniate churches whenever she says it.

If you want to be nice about it for some strange reason.
 
Tell her to show you one church document that refers to itself as Roman it does not not even Roman Catholic as the rite is not Roman but Latin Rite. The slander Roman was invented by the Reformers to detract from the proper historical claim in all the creeds that the church was indeed Catholic. But hey just call her church by some wrong name and she will object and say its not called that its called so and so. Tell her she’s doing the same calling your church by a name it has never called itself.
Tell her to be Christian about this as the truth will set you free and call the church by the proper name Catholic and call you by your proper description Catholic Christian as you are not a Roman unlees you come from Rome.
 
Well I wasn’t expecting to see her again soon but I worked with her today again!

She looked surprised to see me and then when we had free time together, she busied herself and prattled (this is the only word I can think to use, yet, her personna is quite businesslike and non-nonsense) - to avoid talking. This was after I told her I was thinking a lot about her last night.

She clearly didn’t want to know what I was thinking!

But, I broached the subject. But I should have waited till i was invited. Next time I will.

But when she finally paused, I continued, as if we were having that conversation, "Of all the things I thought about last night, I realized if we don’t get time for a conversation, there is one thing I want to tell you.

She said, “What.” (reluctantly).

I said, “I have to tell you, its wrong to call our Church just “Roman”, because thats not our name. I would like you to please stop doing that.”

She was wearing her offense at Catholicism when she said, “Okay. I won’t call it that to *you.” *

I wish I had said firmly, *“Thats not good enough.” *and pressed the point. I should have, because i knew immediately her response was unsatisfactory to me. Next time I will go with my gut response!

Instead there was a brief exchange, after I mentioned the “Universalist” suggestion told here, where she said the Universalists are different because they don’t claim to be the whole world*. *

When I asserted (and gave example) why it was disrespectful, she said she didn’t want to talk about it.

I was yet dissaisfied, and, after a pause, I said, “Don’t you care about displeasing Jesus, showing disrespect?”

She answered *quite *sharply, “I SAID I do not want to talk about it! Don’t you understand? I have ‘seen things’. The subject is done!”

I accepted her demand calmly. But after a pause, when she seemed calmed down and seemed to think we were done, I had to the cheek to say, “Jesus said there would be wheats among the tares. We have tares. Don’t judge us by our Judas’. Jesus had a Judas too.”

So, I don’t know that that planted a seed, but I pray it does, even though I could have done a lot better. I can think of many ways to have improved the conversation, to have said more with fewer words, to have not riled her.

I am praying for her. She shouldn’t have run into me because now she is stuck on my prayer list, and I will be begging for her to meet Jesus in the Eucharist! She’s going to get hounded! And not by me!
Wisdom said:
Tell her to be Christian about this as the truth will set you free and call the church by the proper name Catholic and call you by your proper description, Catholic Christian, as you are not a Roman unlees you come from Rome.
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I like this. Good answer.

Thank you all for good answers. I read them last night and it gave me confidence. Thanks.
 
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