C
convert999
Guest
I’m used to my protestant relatives disliking my Catholicism, but I wasn’t prepared for Catholics to dislike it too. The story: a woman from my parish who is in charge of the Christian Mothers group recently asked me to speak at their meeting. They were interested in hearing my conversion story and in my reasons for becoming Catholic. I agreed to this, but a few days later she called me and asked for a “thumbnail sketch” of what I planned to say. The reason she wanted to know, she said, was because she wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to “dwell on” the “authority of the higher-ups” as one of my motivations to convert. I was mystified by this and asked who she meant by “higher-ups.” After a lot of hemming and hawing, she told me that most of the women in this group feel that “Rome is the biggest problem the American Church has.” Being a little slow on the uptake, I asked her why they felt that way. This unleashed a rant about contraception (no surprise there) but also the odd (to me, anyway) idea that Rome is preventing Catholic parishes from “fulfilling their potential.” Apparently she feels that the Catholic church should be more entertaining, like the Evangelical mega-church I came from. It seems they were hoping that I would give them ideas about how to “reach out” to Evangelicals by imitating what they are used to at church.
I have never been good at the quick comeback, so I simply said that I felt we should be making Evangelicals aware that we are different, not trying to hide this fact behind a Protestant veneer. Then I made the mistake of telling her that I had become convinced that the Church (yes, Rome) did indeed have authority and that was a major reason I converted. Well, she rescinded her invitation in the nicest possible way, adding that “you and Father will probably get along well.” (The implication was that this was an unfortunate development.)
Naturally, I haven’t been attending Christian Mothers meetings, but apparently I have become a “topic” among some of the women. Now I have total strangers coming up to me either expressing their support of my views or trying to persuade me of theirs. I just want to go to Mass, and this ugliness really appalls me. I spoke to Father about the incident, and he laughed and said, “It’s about time someone stirred the old girls up. I’m just glad it was you and not me.”
My husband and son love this parish, and I’m not willing to split up the family by going somewhere else. I like the priest. I suppose this will all die down in time – right? Thanks for letting me rant!
I have never been good at the quick comeback, so I simply said that I felt we should be making Evangelicals aware that we are different, not trying to hide this fact behind a Protestant veneer. Then I made the mistake of telling her that I had become convinced that the Church (yes, Rome) did indeed have authority and that was a major reason I converted. Well, she rescinded her invitation in the nicest possible way, adding that “you and Father will probably get along well.” (The implication was that this was an unfortunate development.)
Naturally, I haven’t been attending Christian Mothers meetings, but apparently I have become a “topic” among some of the women. Now I have total strangers coming up to me either expressing their support of my views or trying to persuade me of theirs. I just want to go to Mass, and this ugliness really appalls me. I spoke to Father about the incident, and he laughed and said, “It’s about time someone stirred the old girls up. I’m just glad it was you and not me.”
My husband and son love this parish, and I’m not willing to split up the family by going somewhere else. I like the priest. I suppose this will all die down in time – right? Thanks for letting me rant!
