B
Brian_C
Guest
Moderators, please forgive me if I post anything here inappropriate. I don’t even know if this is the right forum for this! But…
One of the things that has been in the back of my mind about CA’s forum since I decided (with great inspiration from CA) to convert to Catholicism has been the way some seem to go on about fundamentalists and evangelicals in what I viewed as almost a mean spirited fashion. Being rasied Baptist in the South, I felt if anyone, I should have been exposed to much Catholic bashing. It was never the case, though. Sure, there were comments about Catholics being alcoholics or other little snide statements about statue worship but on the whole, I didn’t see too much harsh criticism.
Well, after reading through the forum here over the past year, at some points I’ve ALMOST (notice I say ALMOST) wanted to stand up for my former protestant brethren. Basically, I saw some posts which I felt were a little to uncharitable and thought to myself “Gee, that’s not what Baptists believe!” or “We would have never said that about Catholics!” I thought maybe some of the folks on here were being a bit harsh.
Well, tonight, out of boredom, after I got home from RCIA, I was musing over the fact that basically I found this place just by googling “Catholic.” I got curious and googled “Baptist forum.” Well, I found one. Quite honestly, I was horrified by what I found. I never knew the MEANING of the word “uncharitable” until browsing through the threads on that site. It was divided into threads where ONLY Baptists could post and then into threads where any denom. could post.
There were threads that talked about the “magic show” that is mass, threads that discussed how dead Catholicism is, and all other sorts of mean siprited attacks. Well, after reading through several threads using the same tired arguments to wrongly criticize Catholicism, I wandered upon one which was titled something to the effect of “Catholics and Posting Rules.” In this thread, a member had asked why a Catholic member had been banned. Basically, after going back and forth w/ the mods and admins over several pages of posts, it came out that Roman Catholics are no longer allowed to post on the site and that perhaps, if they are allowed to, they cannot prostelitize and promote their “error.”
It WAS rightly put forward that this was a private site and that the owner had the right to make up any rules he wished, but…I cannot believe that a Christian website would so intolerant of hearing the views of Catholics! You know, the original Christians? It was as if it was a-ok to bash Catholics at will but heaven forbid a Catholic try to explain our side.
I don’t seek to offend or call out any protestant posters here. I have seen many wonderful discussions conducted in a civil fashion.
I must apologize for ever questioning the motives or motivations of any Catholic on the CA forum here. I never realized how outright mean and anti-Catholic some people are today. I now KNOW mean-sprited attacks and they aren’t here!
One of the things that has been in the back of my mind about CA’s forum since I decided (with great inspiration from CA) to convert to Catholicism has been the way some seem to go on about fundamentalists and evangelicals in what I viewed as almost a mean spirited fashion. Being rasied Baptist in the South, I felt if anyone, I should have been exposed to much Catholic bashing. It was never the case, though. Sure, there were comments about Catholics being alcoholics or other little snide statements about statue worship but on the whole, I didn’t see too much harsh criticism.
Well, after reading through the forum here over the past year, at some points I’ve ALMOST (notice I say ALMOST) wanted to stand up for my former protestant brethren. Basically, I saw some posts which I felt were a little to uncharitable and thought to myself “Gee, that’s not what Baptists believe!” or “We would have never said that about Catholics!” I thought maybe some of the folks on here were being a bit harsh.
Well, tonight, out of boredom, after I got home from RCIA, I was musing over the fact that basically I found this place just by googling “Catholic.” I got curious and googled “Baptist forum.” Well, I found one. Quite honestly, I was horrified by what I found. I never knew the MEANING of the word “uncharitable” until browsing through the threads on that site. It was divided into threads where ONLY Baptists could post and then into threads where any denom. could post.
There were threads that talked about the “magic show” that is mass, threads that discussed how dead Catholicism is, and all other sorts of mean siprited attacks. Well, after reading through several threads using the same tired arguments to wrongly criticize Catholicism, I wandered upon one which was titled something to the effect of “Catholics and Posting Rules.” In this thread, a member had asked why a Catholic member had been banned. Basically, after going back and forth w/ the mods and admins over several pages of posts, it came out that Roman Catholics are no longer allowed to post on the site and that perhaps, if they are allowed to, they cannot prostelitize and promote their “error.”
It WAS rightly put forward that this was a private site and that the owner had the right to make up any rules he wished, but…I cannot believe that a Christian website would so intolerant of hearing the views of Catholics! You know, the original Christians? It was as if it was a-ok to bash Catholics at will but heaven forbid a Catholic try to explain our side.
I don’t seek to offend or call out any protestant posters here. I have seen many wonderful discussions conducted in a civil fashion.
I must apologize for ever questioning the motives or motivations of any Catholic on the CA forum here. I never realized how outright mean and anti-Catholic some people are today. I now KNOW mean-sprited attacks and they aren’t here!
Hitler is not the only one who was/is good at using hatred of others to unite and mativate his followers.
Well, after reading practically everything on Carl’s main page and several Catholic works, I can’t see how I could ever be anything OTHER than Catholic!
