Is it better to be a Christian or a Catholic?

[TradyDaddy]

This question was actually posed by a Priest to a group of kids. I was interested in hearing the CAF posters response to this question. More importantly, I’d like to hear your impression of the Priest who asked it to a group of kids.

 

[ssejllenrad]

I don’t get fully the question… Aren’t Catholics Christians as well? This question only reinforces the erred notion that Catholics aren’t Christians… Unless I’m mistaken… Hehe! Hope somebody would expound on the question if I really am mistaken so I could understand…

 

[LilyM]

Overlooking the obvious - that the question is aimed at Catholic CHRISTIANITY v non-Catholic CHRISTIANITY, I can only repeat a quote that I’ve seen on these forums …

It went (or very nearly) ‘Catholicism is the most difficult faith of all to live by, but it’s the safest faith of all to die in’…

and isn’t that the most important consideration! :yup:

 

[MJ_1964]

I have ask the question myself. I teach 6th grade religous ed, and I use this question to do a few things. First it lets me find out who has a understanding of the faith, and it shows me how far we need to get into the subject. Asking questions can be great apologetics. After I ask the question, I then explain the history of the word Catholic and the word Christian, and from there we usually end up with todays 33,000 different protestant denominations

MJ

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

This question was actually posed by a Priest to a group of kids. I was interested in hearing the CAF posters response to this question. More importantly, I’d like to hear your impression of the Priest who asked it to a group of kids.

You can be Catholic and are also by default a Christian, all Catholics are Christians.

You can be a Christian and not be Catholic, because all who profess Christianity are not fully Christian.

The priest asked this because this is something that the kids hear all the time. Your not Christian because your Catholic. Or simply Catholics are not Christians, from their peers.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

I have ask the question myself. I teach 6th grade religous ed, and I use this question to do a few things. First it lets me find out who has a understanding of the faith, and it shows me how far we need to get into the subject. Asking questions can be great apologetics. After I ask the question, I then explain the history of the word Catholic and the word Christian, and from there we usually end up with todays 33,000 different protestant denominations

MJ

I avoid using the “30,000” denominations. What are you going to say if someone asks list them? You would be hard pressed to do so. I say that there are hundreds if not thousands of Protestant demoninations and variations of Protestant denominations. Lets list a few, Lutheran, Methodist, …Independent Baptist, Southern Bapitist, and I list about 10 or 12. IT gets the point across without using this huge number that is too hard to grasp.

 

[Fidelis]

This question was actually posed by a Priest to a group of kids. I was interested in hearing the CAF posters response to this question. More importantly, I’d like to hear your impression of the Priest who asked it to a group of kids.

First, there is no reason to let the question stand as it is. It is sometimes helpful to rephrase a question to be able to give a better answer. As we all know, sometimes people even ask “leading questions” to force you to give a bad or confused answer (“So, when did you stop beating your wife?”)

I would rephrase it the following the way:

Is it better to be a Catholic Christian, or a non-Catholic Christian?

Or,

What is the advantage of being a Catholic over some other kind of Christian?

Then I would answer the question!

As far as the priest goes, perhaps he was trying to get the kids to think in the above terms (which kids are often not taught). If so, I certainly hope he clarified things for them afterward.

 

[BeeSweet]

This question was actually posed by a Priest to a group of kids. I was interested in hearing the CAF posters response to this question. More importantly, I’d like to hear your impression of the Priest who asked it to a group of kids.

My personal response to the question is that it is better to be a Catholic. It is better to be a Catholic because only then are you fully a Christian, only as a Catholic can you receive Christ’s Body and Blood. As for those who call themselves Christians but are not Catholic, the Gospel tells us:

Mark Chapter 9

"38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” 39 Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. 40 For whoever is not against us is for us. 41 Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.”

Regarding the priest who asked this of a group of children, I believe it’s important that he address the issue with them. They should be armed with knowledge when as Catholics they may be accused of not being Christian. They should be ready to evangelise to anyone who is so ill-informed as to believe that a Catholic is not a Christian! May God bless our priests!

 

[plaguebot]

Jesus Christ is the center of Catholic worship.

If you want to throw so-called christians into a tizzy, just keep repeating this while sipping your coffee.

Good times.

 

[CatholicMC]

Catholics are Christians.

 

[CRW]

This question was actually posed by a Priest to a group of kids. I was interested in hearing the CAF posters response to this question. More importantly, I’d like to hear your impression of the Priest who asked it to a group of kids.

Catholic’s are Christian who believe that we have the fullness of the teachings of Christianity - the Sacraments.

 

[elvisman]

The truth of the matter is that the question should be posed as:

Is it better to be a Catholic or a Protestant?

 

[TradyDaddy]

This is a good cross section of responses to the question posed by this pastor. And the responses themselves as you read through them show the spectrum of understanding of what the Church of Chris IS. Prior to Vat II, we believed that the Church of Christ IS the Catholic Church. But along came Fr. Ratzinger, a student of Hans Kung and the phrase was changed to " the Church of Christ SUBSITS in the Catholic Church. For the first time in our history the two were no longer synonymous. Confusion is all I can say, that’s all it has resulted in.

 

[Atreyu]

This is a good cross section of responses to the question posed by this pastor. And the responses themselves as you read through them show the spectrum of understanding of what the Church of Chris IS. Prior to Vat II, we believed that the Church of Christ IS the Catholic Church. But along came Fr. Ratzinger, a student of Hans Kung and the phrase was changed to " the Church of Christ SUBSITS in the Catholic Church. For the first time in our history the two were no longer synonymous. Confusion is all I can say, that’s all it has resulted in.

I suppose you know better than the holy father…?

 

[estesbob]

This question was actually posed by a Priest to a group of kids. I was interested in hearing the CAF posters response to this question. More importantly, I’d like to hear your impression of the Priest who asked it to a group of kids.

A Chrisitan who is not a Catholic has settled for a pale shadow of the truth. why settle for less?

 

[TradyDaddy]

I suppose you know better than the holy father…?

At the time, he was not the holy father, he was a Priest/theologian. I’m not saying that I know more than anyone, but the fact is that up until that time, the Church of Christ was defined as the Catholic Church alone.

 

[FCEGM]

This is a good cross section of responses to the question posed by this pastor. And the responses themselves as you read through them show the spectrum of understanding of what the Church of Chris IS. Prior to Vat II, we believed that the Church of Christ IS the Catholic Church. But along came Fr. Ratzinger, a student of Hans Kung and the phrase was changed to " the Church of Christ SUBSITS in the Catholic Church. For the first time in our history the two were no longer synonymous. Confusion is all I can say, that’s all it has resulted in.

If you would take the time to read what the Holy Father (as Cardinal Ratzinger) has actually written on this very topic you would see how your reading is quite incorrect:

With the subsistit formula, Vatican II intended - in line with the Catholic tradition - to say something the exact opposite of “ecclesiological relativism”: there is a Church of Jesus Christ. He himself willed her existence, and ever since Pentecost the Holy Spirit is constantly creating her, despite all human failures, and preserves her in her substantial identity. The institution is not an unavoidable - although theologically irrelevant or even damaging - external phenomenon; it is, in its essential core, a part of the concrete character of the Incarnation. The Lord is keeping his word: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith, “The Ecclesiology of the Constitution Lumen Gentium”, Ignatius Press.

The Holy Father goes into further detail as to the appropriateness of the term subsistit.

 

[mtk76]

I like the way he posed the question because it is a little bit of a trick question and causes people to think. And I also think it is very timely because it is very likely that these children will be asked similiar questions but with bad intentions by fundamentalist protestant classmates etc… (who knows starting as young as they come is my guess) and it helps to put on the full armor of God and know that Catholics not only are Christians but are Christians in fullness of the faith.

 

[Fidelis]

I like the way he posed the question because it is a little bit of a trick question and causes people to think. And I also think it is very timely because it is very likely that these children will be asked similiar questions but with bad intentions by fundamentalist protestant classmates etc… (who knows starting as young as they come is my guess) and it helps to put on the full armor of God and know that Catholics not only are Christians but are Christians in fullness of the faith.

Presuming, of course, that he followed up with the correct response and didn’t leave them with doubts about their Faith.

 

[TradyDaddy]

Presuming, of course, that he followed up with the correct response and didn’t leave them with doubts about their Faith.

Here’s the rub… and I guess I left this point out earlier. He stated that one young boy answered “Christian”. He asked him why and the boy said that by being a good Cristian, it would make you a better Catholic. The priest then wrote about how this was such a “profound” thought coming from the mouths of babes. :banghead: So he apparently did leave this boy and the rest of the group with the impression that “Catholic” is a type of Christian.

Therefore I can draw no other conclusion but that we have a problem understanding that Catholic and Christian are synonyms. But unfortunately you see the phrase Catholic Christian used by modernists who cite the very document of Vat II that I cited. Now, damage control comes in and we have to “prove” that this new definition is in line with tradition according to Cardinal Ratzinger. The problem here is that there was never any need in the past to change the definition. The statement, “The Church of Christ IS the Catholic Church” is a concrete, non negotiable statement where as the same statement with phrase “subsists in” substituted for the word “IS” makes the meaning of the statement ambiguous and can be interpreted in different ways.