How do (most) of your Protestant friends see the Catholic Church?

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This question not just for Catholics.

Protestants, how do most of your Protestant (non-Catholic) Christian friends perceive Catholicism?

Please mark up to three — the 3 most common views among your Protestant friends.
  • Catholicism is probably original Christianity, but it’s not the ONE true Church
  • Catholicism is mostly true but gets a few things wrong
  • Catholicism is ancient, apostolic, and valid, but it’s not essential to be Catholic
  • Catholicism is generally Christian but gets MAJOR things wrongs
  • Catholicism puts significant barriers between the Christian and Jesus/the Gospel
  • Catholicism is satanic, or at least idolatrous
  • Catholicism will probably spawn the Anti-Christ
  • Catholicism has really good elements, but also really bad elements as well
  • Catholicism is a beautiful flavor of Christianity, but it’s not for everyone
0 voters
 
The way I answered (my own poll) was probably skewed, because I thought mostly of the friends that I usually talk about Faith with. I have other friends, non-Catholic, but we just don’t get in touch much.

Anyway, the situation with my two close non-Catholic friends is interesting. They are very faithful, practicing Christians. They respect my Catholic faith, and they even probably agree with much of it. I think their basic outlook is that no one has it 100% right, and so while they see the ancient aspects of Catholicism, they don’t think it’s essential to be Catholic.

But I also find it hard to jab them closer to the implications of some of their thinking. Like, I don’t think they are 100% sola scriptura, and they have come to appreciate Tradition and the ancient church. But it’s still hard to make that Catholic emphasis.
 
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I have VERY few non-Catholic friends. And thank the Lord judging from the awful choices in your poll! 😬
 
This is really sporadic and may be totally off, but a quick theory I just thought of:

Many Protestants are raised with their own tradition in mind, and they are simultaneously taught about Catholicism — why Catholicism is bad, how it is different, etc. Even subtly getting bits of info about the Reformation from school. So they are raised with this impression of Catholicism, often emotional, that is hard to separate and look at objectively.

I think that may be one reason why it is easier for some Protestants to skip Catholicism in favor of Orthodoxy, because there is hardly any awareness of it when they are growing up. It’s much easier to approach without all the baggage of implicit anti-Catholicism and so on.
 
Yeah, I have friend becoming Orthodox. She was raised Protestant. I’m glad for her, but at the same time, I’m kinda frustrated. Oh well, haha.
 
I don’t think (Roman) Catholicism is satanic or will spawn the Antichrist.
Agree with a lot of catholic theology, disagree with some things. Dont think they get the ‘major’ things wrong.
I think of the Church in Jerusalem as the ‘original’ church (destroyed in AD 70), followed by Orthodox and Ethiopic churches. Rome came very slightly later. I don’t think of this as that important.
It gets some things right and some things wrong- particularly the child abuse scandals. Some of the previous popes were… not great.

Feel free to disagree.
 
The Protestants I know, if they practice their faith, are all quite liberal and/or not very engaged. None are holy-roller or evangelical types. Either they look upon Catholicism as weird and repressive because of things like its teachings on sex and women not being able to be be priests, or they think “well, she’s a Catholic and I’m a Protestant. So what? Isn’t diversity great?”
 
I think it depends. Some of the worst Protestants are brainwashed former Catholics. They trash the Catholic Church as being legalistic only to be legalistic in their self-righteousness. Had a roommate like that who attends the same church as my wife and me. Most people that attend there are not that resentful and in my small group of former Catholics, they aren’t bitter towards the Church. If they learned what the Catholic Church really was, they probably could convert but as the saying goes: those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.

They are definitely the most resentful of the Catholic Church and lacked good catechical / catechism instruction. Mainstream Protestants in the Methodist faith and even at Dallas Theological Seminary just believe we’re wrong or like to bash us for being faith with works as if works means by our own merit rather than thru the Holy Spirit. Yes, I don’t like their version of Catholicism but I love the Catholic Church - aka how it is truly practiced. That said, it would be very nice if people in the Catholic church had enough goodwill to go out of their way to say hi to someone they didn’t know or even someone they found annoying. The biggest problem to the Catholic church is not Catholic doctrine but … gasp … other Catholics, including myself. It’s called sin.
 
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GodSpawned said:
It gets some things right and some things wrong- particularly the child abuse scandals. Some of the previous popes were… not great.
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Did the Church condone the child abuse scandals? I do not think She did or does. Yes there were bad popes, bishops and priests and there may be some in the future. But let us not forget that there was a Judas, an Apostle of Christ. Yet the Church stands and keeps going about Her mission. Let the scandal (horrible as they are) of some of Her members not keep you away from discovering the wholesomeness of the Catholic Church.
 
Part of my bias now is most of my protestant friends are from my time studying philosophy. Anticatholicism among the christians in that discipline is much rarer.
 
🤬
I tapped the circles above/below what I intended to. All my 3 votes came out wrong judging from the staples. 😔
No, I do definitely not consider the RCC Satanic in any way!
 
The prevailing view among the practicing Protestants I know―as it is among most Catholics I know as well―is that we’re living in a world where irreligion and atheism are now stronger than we are, and the best thing we can do is to push our differences into the background and focus, instead, on the common Christian faith that unites us.
 
I think of the Church in Jerusalem as the ‘original’ church (destroyed in AD 70), followed by Orthodox and Ethiopic churches. Rome came very slightly later.
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You misunderstand “church,” then. The Jerusalem church was “original” insofar as it was the literal, physical location of the Apostles and energizing center of their missionary activity — at first. The Original, One, Universal (Catholic) Church would have been wherever this church spread. Rome is not inherently the center of the Church, insofar as it is not dependent on Peter’s office — but it is connected to Peter’s office. That is why Rome was the center of the Original Church.

Among the earliest Christian writers of the second and third century, we have remarkable evidence of Rome’s primacy. Even those who left the church, like Tertullian, and those who disagreed with Popes, like Cyprian, still confessed Peter’s primacy in Rome. The former sarcastically called the Pope “the bishop of bishops,” and the latter identified Rome with the “chair of Peter,” the source of the church’s unity. We can even reach into the first century, when Clement of Rome led the response to a distant church’s internal problems. Rome clearly saw he responsibility in the universal church.
 
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So what does this mean, if anything, as to whether or not the Catholic Church is Christ’s church?
 
I could copy and post the whole facebook rant that I read from a friend of mine a few weeks back. But the summary goes something like this:

I love all of my Catholic friends, but sorry you are all going to hell. You must separate yourselves from the false teachings. Purgatory is not in the Bible. The reality is that the vast majority of RCs are not saved, don’t take my word for it, read it for yourself.
 
Brittany said:
Most Protestants I know believe that Catholicism is the whore of Babylon. They’re convinced that the Catholic Church teaches idolatry and man-made doctrine. I even used to believe it myself. When I was 15, I made it a personal goal to evangelize Catholics and draw them to “true Christianity” (which meant anything Christian except for Catholicism) and out of the Catholic Church, which would lead them to Hell otherwise. No joke.
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What’s their reason for believing that Catholic Church is whore of Babylon and teaching idolatry?
 
Most Protestants (and I’ve been Protestant my whole life- well until now that is) I know are suspicious of or dismissive of Catholicism, but not hostile to it. I wonder if this is a cultural thing. 🤔
 
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