Nuttiest Things Non-Catholics Have Said or Done Around You Because You're Catholic

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A number of years ago I took a trip to Italy – our leader was a priest – and I was in St. Peter’s Square when Pope John Paul celebrated his 25th anniversary as Pope --when I came home I was telling my staunch Lutheran friend about the celebration of the Pope’s 25th anniversry, and that there were about 100,000 people in the Square – I couldn’t believe her comment – she said “weren’t you scared” – why would I be scared to be with 100,000 Catholics in the Square???
 
I was taking a sociology class at a local junior college and the first day of classes the “professor” asked the class if anyone knew why Catholics have to eat fish on Fridays. I raised my hand and told her that they do not have to eat fish, but are to abstain from meat. That this discipline is because Christ was crucified on Friday and in we are to try to a line ourselves with his surfing with fasting abstinence and prayer. I was told I was wrong that the reason is that " one of the Popes a long time ago had a brother that was a fish monger and to assist his business the Pope declared that Catholics have to eat fish on Fridays. I of course told her that she was wrong, with which she stated that she could provide documented proof.

That was two years ago and I am still waiting for her to do so. I would call her out on it during class asking if she had that proof just so the rest of the class did not get blind by this false statement.
nice!
 
I was talking with my brother-in-law (raised Baptist and is now non-denominational) who is a big time fundamentalist. He converted by sister and dad to be fundamentalists before I even really knew him. 😦

Anyway, we were skiing and I was talking about how my childhood pastor asked me one day when I returned from college “how’s life among all those pagans?” (Father was referring to the Godless and un-churched college professors, half serious and half joking.) My brother-in-law slipped with a reply of something like “looks who’s calling the kettle black.” I looked at him and said, “you really think we Catholics are pagans, don’t you?!?” No reply from him.

We obviously spent the drive home talking about religion and theology.

(pray for me as I still have a ton of work to do with him, my sister and dad - plus my own wife and kids).
 
I have a Jewish coworker who told me "The Jews didn’t crucify Jesus, it was the Roman Catholics ! "
 
Once many years ago, an old boyfriend took me to meet his parents, and they started making all kinds of comments about Catholics. The one that really shocked me was they asked me ( more like interrogated me) why I pay money to a priest to listen to my confession. This was really the first time I realized that some people hated Catholics, and they were those kind of people. I actually ran into this several times with boyfriends since I was a Catholic living in a Bible Belt. Luckily, for me, I finally met a Catholic and married him!!
 
My LDS friend once told me that she believed us passing around an offering basket during Mass was “a trap for people to fall into their own pride.” Like, really? An act of charity is a trap? Okaaay…

I tried to explain to her why we did it, how no one really pays attention to who donates what anyways, and where the proceeds went, but she kept going back to the “trap” thing :confused:
 
Background: My dad was Catholic for sixty years (though not a practicing one for at least 55 years). He has recently returned to Christ, though now as a Baptist, thanks to my Baptist brother-in-law.

Funny story: my brother-in-law and I were talking about the Catholic Bible Study I attend, and I said “the Monsignor is great, we talk about history, etc.” So he asks, what’s a Monsignor? And my father chimes in and says, “he’s like a youth minister.”

I stared at my dad for a few seconds and replied with, “Really?!?! You were Cattholic for 60 years and you don’t know what a Monsignor is?!?! Pope John Paul II made Father Angiolini a Monsignor, would you call him a ‘youth minister’???”

My dad (bless his soul) was totally clueless.
 
Background: My dad was Catholic for sixty years (though not a practicing one for at least 55 years). He has recently returned to Christ, though now as a Baptist, thanks to my Baptist brother-in-law.

Funny story: my brother-in-law and I were talking about the Catholic Bible Study I attend, and I said “the Monsignor is great, we talk about history, etc.” So he asks, what’s a Monsignor? And my father chimes in and says, “he’s like a youth minister.”

I stared at my dad for a few seconds and replied with, “Really?!?! You were Cattholic for 60 years and you don’t know what a Monsignor is?!?! Pope John Paul II made Father Angiolini a Monsignor, would you call him a ‘youth minister’???”

My dad (bless his soul) was totally clueless.
Well, to leave the Catholic Church to become a Baptist you need to be completely clueless.

Paul
 
Someone at school today asked me if I could help explain the Mass to students. I said sure, and then he proceeded to say “If you could just pretend to be a priest and play-act through the whole Mass like it was the real thing, that’d be great.”

My jaw dropped. He was being serious…
 
I mentioned the word “Jesuits” once and someone asked “Aren’t they the ones with all those colleges with really good basketball teams?”
 
A few years, a lady acquaintance invited me to her church’s non-Catholic Easter service in the park . She knew beforehand that I attended my Easter Vigil Mass. She introduced me to her gentleman friend of hers. She had to excuse herself to assist in serving the food. We had an awkward conversation going. I told him that I’m not involved in her church and that I’m Catholic. He asked me how’s the Pope doing? I don’t remember what my response was.
You could have told him that you hadn’t seen him since the last time you had a barbecue in the back yard, a couple of months ago, but you thought he was probably still OK.
 
Years ago, when I told a Protestant family member that I was thinking to Catholicism,she said…“Well, you just need to find a good Protestant church in your neighborhood and go to that.”

After I converted, I was talking with this same family member about the Mass, and she said…“That’s just a lot of meaningless ritual!” To which I just said…“No, it isn’t.” She wasn’t the least bit interested in finding out why the Mass isn’t meaningless ritual." Recently, when I was discussing problems at a parish I was attending, she said…“Well, that’s because they don’t know their bible!” I didn’t reply to that, because it would have been a long and involved conversation, which she’s not into at all.

What bothers me most about non-Catholics is the extreme arrogance that they show towards the Catholics faith. They don’t even realize, I think, how arrogant they are. I suppose it’s understandable, in that they don’t understand (and don’t want to understand) what Christ taught and intended, regarding His Catholic Church. It’s pointless to debate with them, really. IMO.
 
What bothers me most about non-Catholics is the extreme arrogance that they show towards the Catholics faith. They don’t even realize, I think, how arrogant they are. I suppose it’s understandable, in that they don’t understand (and don’t want to understand) what Christ taught and intended, regarding His Catholic Church. It’s pointless to debate with them, really. IMO.
I remember my old Protestant pastor saying to me “Protestants tell a lot of lies about Catholics and the Catholic church” and “Protestants can be quite arrogant at times about Catholicism”.

And he was Protestant. But then he got on pretty well with Catholics by his own admission.

There was one sermon (I’ve got a tape) where he was criticising the Catholic Church a bit (“you know, the seven sacraments, and the Pope and all the rest”), but he went on to qualify it by saying, “… there are many, many, many sincere Christians in her (Catholic church’s) ranks, and we should never, never, never forget it. In fact some of the godliest people I’ve met have been Catholics!” That was how he put it.

I don’t cop a lot of it myself. What can be irritating about some of them is their conviction that their own beliefs are infallible, and they can’t possibly be wrong. Some of them are more infallible that the Pope.

Most Protestants I know don’t think about the differences much, but are satisfied with their own faith communities.

But then we don’t have the equivalent of a Bible belt in Australia. And we’re less demonstrative about our faith than Americans, whether Catholic or Protestant.
 
I had a coworker ask me if Catholics celebrate Christmas. I was so dumbfounded, all I could say was, “Yes”.
 
One time I got into it with a Baptist co-worker.

After she told me all these misinformed “facts” about the CC I asked her where she heard such things?

From her pastor, of course.

I asked, well if you wanted to know about the Catholic Church, wouldn’t it make more sense to ask a Catholic priest? Or least a Catholic?

Her answer was basically that she trusted the information from her pastor more than a real Catholic.
 
One time I got into it with a Baptist co-worker.

After she told me all these misinformed “facts” about the CC I asked her where she heard such things?

From her pastor, of course.

I asked, well if you wanted to know about the Catholic Church, wouldn’t it make more sense to ask a Catholic priest? Or least a Catholic?

Her answer was basically that she trusted the information from her pastor more than a real Catholic.
That makes NO sense to a rational person. Ask your co-worker “if I wanted information about you should I go to one of your friends or your arch enemy?”
 
One time I got into it with a Baptist co-worker.

After she told me all these misinformed “facts” about the CC I asked her where she heard such things?

From her pastor, of course.

I asked, well if you wanted to know about the Catholic Church, wouldn’t it make more sense to ask a Catholic priest? Or least a Catholic?

Her answer was basically that she trusted the information from her pastor more than a real Catholic.
And this is why the erroneous information is perpetuated. People really do put a lot of stock in their pastors and preachers and if they said it it must be true. You hand them the Bible, Catechism of the Catholic Church and Code of Canon Law and they would probably hand you a Jack -]Trick/-] Chick tract and think it held the same weight. It’s human nature to want to be right.
 
When my son was in high school, he overheard a classmate telling someone that the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was when Catholics killed a bunch of protestants.

This same classmate also stated that when 2 Catholics got married, the priest got to spend the wedding night with the bride! :eek:
 
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