Making nice, but working against us

[flameburns623]

WICatholic:

My children, when young, stayed at their home for nearly two weeks, in which time, they promised to take my children to a Catholic Mass, and not to their church, allowing me to decide to let them stay, while I drove the 1500 miles home without them. Before I had left, the yellow pages had been consulted to find a nearby Catholic Church… When my children returned home with them, I was told by them that they had NOT gone to Mass, but had gone to the LDS service.

Very bad show on the part of your relatives, given that you had expressed your desires for your kids. On the other hand I have to wonder if–in the absense of yourselves–your kids didn’t decide they’d ‘rather’ go to church with their cousins/relative’s kids than by themselves to the local RCC. And then ‘tattle’ on the adults when you picked them up. I’ve seen this within my own family and friends. It would be a stickety wicket for the LDS involved: on the one hand, YOU–the parents–had made your wishes clear. On the other hand, your kids are free agents in LDS theology with some discretion in the matter. In the back of all of this is the natural evangelical zeal of many Mormons and other Protestants. I would have gone with the parent’s wishes in such a case and am not commending the decision but I take a strong view of parental authority and a weak view of the ‘free agency’ of minor children.

The other issues you raise–that this was a situation involving you and some relatives who were former Catholics now converted to the LDS Church, etcetera–were not clear to me from your prior post(s). I frankly am appalled at how your relatives are using religion as a football in your situation. Telling your niece that you did not attend her baptism because you ‘did not love her’ is inexcusable, though I know it to have happened in other situations as well–where the convert became a Roman Catholic and left the Protestant denomination of their upbringing. Ideologues and sectarians often resort to dirty tactics to try to put the ‘brakes’ on behavior they disapprove of.

 

[flameburns623]

Lisa4Catholics:

I for one thankyou as I am sure others do, for bringing this to light. God Bless you,Lisa

Frankly, I think Cestusdei is making this up, as evidenced by his abandonment of this thread when I offered him an opportunity to take action to resolve this situation:

flameburns623:

Simple fix to this. Last I knew, you were in St. Louis, which leads me to suggest that the ‘national shrine’ you are speakng of is Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Illinois. As it so happens I live in the O’Fallon Stake, which I believe encompasses Belleville, and I therefore have access to the mailing address for the Stake President and other information. PM me and I will happily send you the info you would need to write a letter. The Stake President would need the date and approximate time and if possible the names of the missionaries involved. If you had photos of their activities, thse would be helpful. My guess is that if you send a letter of complaint as a Roman Catholic priest–you’ll get a response from the LDS Church posthaste.

Even the LDS Church would thank Cestus if he would bother to do something to let them know that some of their rules and guideliines for missionizing were being ignored. I am as much a critic of Mormonism as Cestus but I seem to be far more fair-minded. Since Cestusdei styles himself ‘God’s boxing glove’ I would remind him that boxing is a gentlemanly sport, and that ‘rabbit punches’ are off-limits in the ring.

TEXT DELETED

 

[WICatholic]

flameburns623:

Very bad show on the part of your relatives, given that you had expressed your desires for your kids. On the other hand I have to wonder if–in the absense of yourselves–your kids didn’t decide they’d ‘rather’ go to church with their cousins/relative’s kids than by themselves to the local RCC. And then ‘tattle’ on the adults when you picked them up. I’ve seen this within my own family and friends. It would be a stickety wicket for the LDS involved: on the one hand, YOU–the parents–had made your wishes clear. On the other hand, your kids are free agents in LDS theology with some discretion in the matter. In the back of all of this is the natural evangelical zeal of many Mormons and other Protestants. I would have gone with the parent’s wishes in such a case and am not commending the decision but I take a strong view of parental authority and a weak view of the ‘free agency’ of minor children.

The other issues you raise–that this was a situation involving you and some relatives who were former Catholics now converted to the LDS Church, etcetera–were not clear to me from your prior post(s). I frankly am appalled at how your relatives are using religion as a football in your situation. Telling your niece that you did not attend her baptism because you ‘did not love her’ is inexcusable, though I know it to have happened in other situations as well–where the convert became a Roman Catholic and left the Protestant denomination of their upbringing. Ideologues and sectarians often resort to dirty tactics to try to put the ‘brakes’ on behavior they disapprove of.

My relative had agreed to take them. The girls were in upper grade school. There is no excuse for telling a parent one thing, then doing another and ‘blaming the kid’ for wanting something else. Ever. As the parent who had invited the girls to stay until the start of their vacation when they planned on coming home to visit, she had the responsibility, not the girls, to fulfil the promises she had made.

The early Mass would have been sufficient to allow for them to have gone to Mass, and then be returned to the home, where they were old enough to be alone while the relatives went to their own service. They were old enough, in fact to even have begun to prepare a simple lunch for themselves and the family while waiting.

And it was actually both of the couple who had been Catholic, not just the one that it sounded like in my other post.

As I had said in my first answer. This happens all the time, and it does not just happen in Utah.

God bless.

 

[flameburns623]

WICatholic:

My relative had agreed to take them. The girls were in upper grade school. There is no excuse for telling a parent one thing, then doing another and ‘blaming the kid’ for wanting something else. Ever. As the parent who had invited the girls to stay until the start of their vacation when they planned on coming home to visit, she had the responsibility, not the girls, to fulfil the promises she had made.

I concur. As I said I take a strong view of parental authority and you made your wishes and intentions known.

I again stress however that it would be rather lonely for kids 12, 13, 14 years old to go to a strange church, alone, in a town where they know nobody. As opposed to going to a church with people they know, particularly relatives with minor kids whose company they presumably enjoy. AND whose minor kids were probably pointing out that LDS Sunday School was ‘fun’. (Both the Mormon Church and the Catholic Church expect kids to dress and act rather like miniature adults; both churches have services that are rather more formal in how people expect to deport themselves. LDS Sunday School however is a bit more interesting for kids than most activities I have seen on Sunday mornings in a RCC. No insult intended by this comparison, please understand).

It like did not help, as I again pointed out previously–that zeal to evangelise is a continuous undercurrent for a lot of Churches of any kind of evangelical tradition. It’s like static on the radio in back of every EWTN radio broadcast in my area. Or like tinnitus for me (I am deaf in one hear and scarcely hear from the other w/o hearing aids). The noise is always there. I think that few Catholics experience this and have a tough time grasping how much a part of one’s social make-up this is for many Protestants. Catholics, like many mainstream Protestants, simply don’t have drummed into them a sense of urgency to missionize others around them in quite the same way. Again, I am not excusing the behavior so much as trying to explain it from a different perspective.

I still agree with you that things should not have happened the way they happened. At a scant minimum, if I had minor houseguests in my home clamoring to attend my church against their parent’s wishes–I would have contacted the parents and let the kids and their parents work things out. If that were not possible . . . .well I had agreed to abide by the parent’s wishes, ergo the visitors DON’T attend my church this time. Next time we’ll try to negotiate something differently. As I say, I’m on your side here.

 

[WICatholic]

flameburns623:

As I say, I’m on your side here.

Thank you. I understand about the zeal to evangelize, as some of my closest friends are now Baptist (he is a Master of Divinity, on the way to Doctorate ) and others are now AoG, etc. And in the 35+ years of my friendships with them, they also have done their fair share.

I cannot describe the differences, however, other than to say that one has had a lot of deception involved, including terminology, and the others simply told me how to be saved, etc for quite awhile, until one day, shocked, they admitted that they actually had a Catholic Born Again friend… and that was it. There was no deception involved.

 

[Kathryn_0404]

majick275:

Unfortunately I’ve seen worse. I"ve seen evangelical protesters at the Dallas LDS Temple jumpimg around in Temple clothing and screaming about witchcraft.

I have also known LDS missionaries who would “volunteer” at public libraries as a “service to the community” so that they could add pro LDs books to the inventory and remove anti-LDS publications from it.

My husband and I have found anti-Catholic tracts in the Catholic books at the local library…ugh!!

 

[majick275]

You know I have too. Those ridiculous chick tracts are always laying around.