My Protestant uncle

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Christine85

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I am very sad about this situation I have faced with my uncle, he would be supportive of my belief in God but any moment he had a chance he would say religion is bad you aren’t justified by works etc, he seemed to assume all of these things about me like I only follow the Church and not God and he was saying there is no assurance of salvation if you are Catholic, what on earth is he on about??? I feel I am in fact going to Heaven as long as I continue to trust in God and be a good Christian, I choose to live my Christian life in the Catholic Church. Whats the problem with that? I told him I did not want to talk to him if he kept this up and he responded better you talk to God than to me.

😦
 
Christine,

I am sorry you have to go through that. A lot of people simply do not understand the Catholic faith. Some of them, even if you were to dispel their misconceptions, will still hold onto their misconceptions.

I am very happy to read that you feel you will be in Heaven so as long as you continue to trust in God and try to be a good Christian. The only reason anyone will be in Heaven, the New Jerusalem, Hell, or the Lake of Fire is because they choose that destination. If you choose Heaven and the New Jerusalem by trusting in God who justifies sinners and by living your life in the life of the Son, you have your assurance in that way.

You’re not doing anything wrong. 👍
 
Sorry to hear about your problem. It’s not uncommon, but more difficult when it is a family member. There are many many people who have been taught (even from their youth) these misconceptions about the Catholic faith. And they honestly believe whole-heartedly the things they have been taught. So they believe that by pointing these “evil” things out to you, that they are helping you find Jesus. So for that, it’s not all bad, providing their doing it with love.

But that said, No matter how many times you correct them, they still won’t listen. Luckily for us, we have the early fathers and the Church which is something they don’t. So while we can demonstrate our “weird doctrines” as existing from the early centuries, the more modern and opposing doctrines can often not outside of various heresies.

So no worries, just keeping offering yourself to the Lord by extending those (“horrible”🤷) works of mercy and charity to your neighbors. Be a great Catholic by being a great Catholic instead of worrying about appeasing protestants. They are better at protest-antism than we are anyway!🙂
 
Your uncle is wrong we are justified by works. One day we are all going to die and everything that we have done on earth will be placed in front of us the good and the bad. The more good works we do we not only good for us but also for other for they will do good as well in return.

Somehow is need to show your uncle that but i’m not the one to tell you how. Many someone on here can give you some comments from the bible you could show him to prove that he is wrong.
 
I don’t think we are justified entirely by works. We believe in the saving grace of Jesus and because of that we do works. In James it says faith without works is dead. I believe the Catholic position is we are justified by both faith and works together!!
 
I wrote about this in early April. I think I did a good job at answering the basic objections to the necessity of works (I even discovered something interesting about the original Greek).
answeringprotestants.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/no-faith-alone-is-not-sufficient-for-salvation/

I would like to add to that, though, with a verse I discovered today: 1 John 2:3.
“By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.”

Also, 1 John 3:10.
“By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”

I hope that helps you. 🙂
 
Christine

Be charitable to your uncle, remind him that the New Testament says, and here even quote from the ‘Protestant’ King James Version - James 2:26 'For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.'
 
I feel bad as I replied in a text to all of this the Catholic Church is the true Church the sooner you come to realize that the better…oops… He really got to me. He said a Church is not a building or institution its the people and I said the Catholic people are the true people !!! Oops , I sent it without thinking and it must have sounded so bad…God forgive me… I did not mean for it to come out that way…ugh

Oh well what can I do now, nothing. I will just enroll him in the Seraphic Mass Association and pray for him. I am not one to do all that trying to convert someone stuff… He just pushed me and I came out with something I didn’t even mean to say… how awful
 
Christine,
Don’t sweat him. Like a great many n-Cs who have been influenced by anti-Catholic propaganda, he’s just knocking you to try to shake you loose from your faith. he’s one of those messed guys who believes that we Catholics are not Christians, which is hogwash. We are the original, New Testamet, full Gospel, Christian Church.

Tell him that you do talk to God all the time and that Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ lives within you every moment of every day.

He thinks of it as evangelization…we Catholics think of it as a pain in the neck.

If you’ll take a second and just type in each of his allegations in the search engine over in the Apologetics forum you’ll soon discover that we have answered his kind many times over.
Code: 
                                                            [Assurance of Salvation (Part II)](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=751308&highlight=assurance) is a very long recent thread where this was answered.
Starting with this link, the next 3 posts will take you though a new message from a Catholic named John Martignoni and it may also help you get him off your back.
  • Code: 
               [Does God want everyone to be Catholic?](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=10674850#post10674850)*
As you can see below, I have a Catholic blog that has several years worth of articles that answer all manner of anti-Catholic propaganda (because that’s what it really is)

Some of my articles that you might find helpful with him are linked below.
How Is A Catholic Saved?
Who REALLY Preaches “A Different Gospel”?
Does the Bible teach that everything that we believe and practice has to be found in its pages?
Do Catholics Read the Bible?
The Intercession & Communion of Saints
The Eucharist IS Scriptural

And there’s a whole lot more, including some that specifically tackle anti-Catholic preachers and teachers and their tracts and newsletters.

CAF also has a special Ask an Apologist forum and using the search engine up there will give you loads of very good responses on anything he can come up with mainly because there’s pretty much nothing new in all these kind of people’s stuff and it’s been refuted many many times over.
A couple of very good sources (That won’t break your piggy bank either) are linked below.
Bible Christian Society
Catholic Tracts

shop.catholic.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/135x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/b/e/beginning-apologetics-1.jpg
Beginning Apologetics Volume 1: How to Explain and Defend the Catholic Faith
Code: 
                                                                              $5.95
I also have a pretty good supply of good Catholic tracts and materials that I can put in the mail to you if you PM me your address.
 
Christine85 said:
I am very sad about this situation I have faced with my uncle, he would be supportive of my belief in God but any moment he had a chance he would say religion is bad you aren’t justified by works etc, he seemed to assume all of these things about me like I only follow the Church and not God and he was saying there is no assurance of salvation if you are Catholic, what on earth is he on about??? I feel I am in fact going to Heaven as long as I continue to trust in God and be a good Christian, I choose to live my Christian life in the Catholic Church. Whats the problem with that? I told him I did not want to talk to him if he kept this up and he responded better you talk to God than to me.

😦
Click to expand...
Sorry you’re going through this, but if that is really his position, then you can simply assure him that you talk to God about it regularly.

There are many arguments you could make, but it sounds like you really just don’t want to discuss this with him at all (some people love to debate, others not so much). It may be worth, next time it comes up, simply suggesting that you and he each pray for each other that God leads you both to His truth, and just politely change the subject (possibly several times in a row).

Do keep in mind though that he is motivated by a real caring for you, even if it is misguided. He’s wrong, but if he didn’t want what was best for you he wouldn’t be trying. Reminding yourself of this may help lessen how much this bothers you.
 
I cannot help but think that this is a test from God to try me in my Catholic faith. I know well that since my Confirmation in 2011 I have been nothing but blessed and I thrive off the Eucharist, I cannot help but feel my uncle can see my happiness and success and is trying to challenge me and that really annoys me. Its almost like he is trying to take away my happiness and I really do not need or appreciate that.
I cannot stand that whole thing of throwing all these Bible verses at me, I seriously cannot be bothered with proselytizing, also my spiritual director told me to stay away from proselytizing because I am still weak and not completely informed about everything Catholic. It is unfair that my uncle who has been a Presbyterian for a long time is coming at me trying to bring down my Catholic faith, I simply do not like it nor appreciate it whatsoever and find it very rude and unnecessary.I am not in a good place at the moment and his doing this to me has just added to my stress. Its not cool. So I think it is best if I just don’t talk to him because he obviously would rather not talk to me then talk to me and not try and bring down my Catholic faith, which is really quite sad. I will just pray for him and not associate with him. I am simply not strong enough in my faith to come up against him, I just cant. I want to but I cant, sorry
 
Y’know, many years ago when I was confirmed they used to lightly slap us to remind us that there is always the likelihood that we will have to suffer for our most holy faith. They don’t do that anymore and maybe they should so that confirmandi are made aware of that.

Certainly it’s unfair Christine, but so is much of life, and the odds are very high that you will encounter others like him. Nor is it likely that you will be able to avoid him within your family.

Have you spoken to your parents about this? If not, you should, because if they are also Catholics they might want to intervene and tell him to get off your case.

Meanwhile, the only way to get squared away is to study the faith and learn how to answer. After all St. Peter tells us about this in his 1st epistle (3rd chapter) when he says.“13 Now who is going to harm you if you are enthusiastic for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer because of righteousness, blessed are you. Do not be afraid or terrified with fear of them, 15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,16 but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil.”
 
Thank you for your advice. My family are not practicing Catholics my dad who is his brother is not into all that sort of thing and my dad actually doesn’t even go to Church. But I just started a prayer thread for my uncle and I have rang the Carmelite’s I know and asked them to pray for him.I believe the way this man will be converted to Catholicism is through my example and through prayer. I am going to now send out petitions for him and his wife that they come to the Catholic Church where they should be.One thing I noticed is that when I mentioned to him it says in the Bible about Holy Communion that it is Jesus flesh and blood literally and that is Biblical he did not have any reply to that!!! 😃
I also mentioned about the Church that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it as it says in the Bible because he had said that somewhere in the Bible it says institutions are infallible.
What annoys me in a way is how I believe a certain adversary is using this uncle of mine to bring me away from the CC especially at a time when I am very weak at the moment. argh!!!
I guess God is still using my most incapable weaknesses in some way I hope.
He knows that I want to be a nun too and he recently said to me you never know God might bring a man into your life, and I was like you know I want to be a nun why would you say that? Then he said God works in mysterious ways… far out, but I guess when you are trying to do the will of God you will always face opposition even from people you least expect…
 
Tell him that you are working to spread his ideas into the Catholic Church.
 
Christine,

May God, who is our Refuge, Fortress, and Strong Tower, give you strength and increase faith, hope, and love in your heart.

A lot of Protestants are of the opinion that marriage is for everyone. As a wonderful friend of mine told me recently, “Saint Paul said that if you are married, take care of your marriage; if you are single, don’t get married.” Hehe. 🙂

It is good that you pray for your uncle and his wife to eventually be received into the Catholic Church. It may seem hopeless or down right impossible that they ever will, but with God everything is possible.

Pax tecum.
 
:twocents: What I find most effective in dealing with anti-Catholic friends and relatives is: not discussing theology, just changing the subject. You can, as an alternative, talk about how wonderful being a Catholic is, as in how wonderful you can go to Mass daily, how wonderful all the church decorations are, how great it is that your parish serves the poor, and even how wonderful the Sacrament of Reconciliation is. 😛

I find that the people who talk to me about it are just trying to bait me or don’t really know as much as they think. I told several of my non-Catholic friends that the Early Church was Catholic and the Early Church Fathers sounded Catholic. Their response: I don’t agree. You’re wrong. 🤷 So what is the point in arguing?
 
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