Pentacostal friend says Catholics are not saved

[7_Sorrows]

I have recently had a conversation with a woman who I keep running into. I kept wondering why I kept seeing her around town. The first time I saw her she was praying for the woman sharing my hospital room. We both had broken ankles. This woman praying made an impression on me. She seemed to be strong and have faith.
I would see her at the retail store where I worked or the mall or grocery store and wonder why God was making our paths cross.
So the other night she was at the restaurant where I was and I said hi and she sat down and we began chatting. She had told me before she attends a couple of churches and does various ministries. She calls herself a Pentecostal and also said she was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic women’s college and her husband went to a Jesuit college and they were married many years then he asked for a divorce and became New Age and she became a Protestant and was saved. Throughout the conversation she repeated that Catholics aren’t saved. I wanted to ask her if someone had made her feel guilty for being Catholic.
Are Pentecostals anti-Catholic and why do they think Catholics are not saved?

 

[dshix]

I have recently had a conversation with a woman who I keep running into. I kept wondering why I kept seeing her around town. The first time I saw her she was praying for the woman sharing my hospital room. We both had broken ankles. This woman praying made an impression on me. She seemed to be strong and have faith.
I would see her at the retail store where I worked or the mall or grocery store and wonder why God was making our paths cross.
So the other night she was at the restaurant where I was and I said hi and she sat down and we began chatting. She had told me before she attends a couple of churches and does various ministries. She calls herself a Pentecostal and also said she was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic women’s college and her husband went to a Jesuit college and they were married many years then he asked for a divorce and became New Age and she became a Protestant and was saved. Throughout the conversation she repeated that Catholics aren’t saved. I wanted to ask her if someone had made her feel guilty for being Catholic.
Are Pentecostals anti-Catholic and why do they think Catholics are not saved?

To put it bluntly, they don’t believe Catholics are saved because they believe in heretical doctrines. I can easily see why they think all Catholics are damned from their point of view, if you understand all of their false theology.

 

[Tomdstone]

Are Pentecostals anti-Catholic and why do they think Catholics are not saved?

I don’t know. I read somewhere that there was an Oriental Orthodox bishop who said that all Catholics are going to hell, but that opinion was not shared by the great majority of other people in his church. Father Feeney took a narrow view of the doctrine that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, but he was censured at least for a time. There are some people who say you have to be baptized by water in order to be saved and that baptism of desire does not count. In the end it will be up to God as to whether or not a person is saved, so I trust in His Wisdom to decide this.

 

[Tablefor9]

Many, many Pentecostals are at least somewhat anti-Catholic. In my experience, they may believe that individual Catholics can be saved, but this would be the exception rather than the rule. Also, many will ask, “how long were you ‘in Catholicism’” or the like, as though it were a New Age Cult, etc–for them, sadly, it’s no different, such ignorance is there.

ETA: perhaps God has given her the grace of your presence to call her back to the Church. One can always pray.

 

[Franciscan_Way]

I cannot say for sure how ALL Protestants feel about Catholics. I have talked with some who are: passionate about their faith, involved in mission work, focus on the oneness in Christ and encourage others to have a relationship with Him, while others say Catholics: Pray to statues, worship Mary, have rituals and traditions, and try to earn our way into heaven instead of believing that by Christ’s death and resurrection alone we are saved. (The saved by faith alone vs saved by faith and good works )
As we know, many of these objections are due to a misunderstanding of the Catholic faith. The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ Himself. The Catholic bible contains 73 books. The Protestant bible contains 66 books. Of course there will be differences!
I must admit, there were times I was reluctant to say “I am Catholic”, or “While I was at Adoration…” or “When I was praying the rosary…” But now, I don’t hesitate to say these things! I was speaking with a Protestant woman who asked, “Does your church still have confession each week?” And “Really? You can have Eucharist at EVERY mass, everyday?” She said, “That’s wonderful!”
Stand firmly in your faith! If someone says something hurtful and untrue, offer it up to God!
This would fall under persecution for your faith. We are all better off when we keep our oneness in Christ at the center! God bless you!

 

[Todd977]

Even the pope has admitted that sometimes people slip through the cracks; they were raised in the Catholic Church, catechized in the Catholic faith and received the sacraments of the Catholic Church but they were not evangelized or never developed that initial faith that those other things are meant to mature or do not have “any explicit personal attachment to Jesus Christ” or are “hesitant …about committing their whole lives to Jesus Christ.” (Pope John Paul II’s 1979 Apostolic Exhortation, (On Catechesis in Our Time)Catechesi Tradendae, 19)

Elsewhere he said, “Conversion means accepting, by a personal decision, the saving sovereignty of Christ and becoming his disciple. The Church calls all people to this conversion…” (Pope John Paul II’s 1990 Encyclical, (On the permanent validity of the Church’s missionary mandate)Redemptoris Missio, 46)

Certainly many Catholics have accepted the saving sovereignty of Jesus Christ and have become his disciples but I’m sure there are some Catholics who have not. Perhaps the person you spoke to was one of those Catholics who slipped through the cracks.

 

[7_Sorrows]

Many, many Pentecostals are at least somewhat anti-Catholic. In my experience, they may believe that individual Catholics can be saved, but this would be the exception rather than the rule. Also, many will ask, “how long were you ‘in Catholicism’” or the like, as though it were a New Age Cult, etc–for them, sadly, it’s no different, such ignorance is there.

ETA: perhaps God has given her the grace of your presence to call her back to the Church. One can always pray.

that is what I was wondering, and I would love to be able to bring her back to the Catholic Church. I am a convert myself of 8 years. We were supposed to go to a late lunch on Friday and I invited her to the Stations of the Cross on Friday evening, but she declined to attend the Stations and then cancelled the lunch too saying she was too tired. We set another time to get together Saturday afternoon and she cancelled again. Maybe just talking to me it is stirring up something inside of her that she is fighting. I wasn’t going to spend my time with her 100% trying to revert her back to Catholicism but I truly think she is nice and has a beautiful spirit because she gives so much of herself. She is divorced and her ex has passed and she has 2 adult children with disabilities of some kind- one lives in a place where he is looked after and her adult daughter has an apartment. A third son lives 2 1/2 hours away and she hasn’t seen him in 25 years. She is 74 and seems so strong and such a strong faith in Jesus. So since she has cancelled twice, I am going to wait and see if she calls again and set some boundaries. I don’t want her to think I only want to be friends in order to bring her back to Church. I am divorced too and 10 years younger, but I am lonely too and I live with my son and daughter-in-law and take care of my grandkids. I moved to the town I live in 8 years ago and don’t have many friends so I was hoping she might be someone I might be able to get together with once a month to have breakfast or lunch with and have a friendship, but maybe Pentecostals and Catholics can’t be friends. I remember now a co-worker I once knew who was Pentecostal and I thought she was nice too, but I always felt she judged me as a Catholic. Since I am a Catholic of only 8 years I don’t know If this is something I will encounter often. I would welcome any advice.

 

[Micosil]

I don’t know. I read somewhere that there was an Oriental Orthodox bishop who said that all Catholics are going to hell, but that opinion was not shared by the great majority of other people in his church.

Yeah, I once saw a homily delivered by an Eastern Orthodox bishop that said that “Protestants drink the blood of children”, to paraphrase. I assume most EO’s don’t believe that either. I guess there’s bigots and extremists everywhere.

Father Feeney took a narrow view of the doctrine that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, but he was censured at least for a time. There are some people who say you have to be baptized by water in order to be saved and that baptism of desire does not count. In the end it will be up to God as to whether or not a person is saved, so I trust in His Wisdom to decide this.

That there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church isn’t a ‘narrow’ view; this is indeed the doctrine that the Church teaches. Now, I don’t know what possible narrow interpretation Fr. Feeney was giving this doctrine, what it basically means is that it is God, Jesus Christ, as the Church understands Him that does the saving, whether the person being saved is Catholic or not.

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”

 

[adf417]

I have recently had a conversation with a woman who I keep running into. I kept wondering why I kept seeing her around town. The first time I saw her she was praying for the woman sharing my hospital room. We both had broken ankles. This woman praying made an impression on me. She seemed to be strong and have faith.
I would see her at the retail store where I worked or the mall or grocery store and wonder why God was making our paths cross.
So the other night she was at the restaurant where I was and I said hi and she sat down and we began chatting. She had told me before she attends a couple of churches and does various ministries. She calls herself a Pentecostal and also said she was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic women’s college and her husband went to a Jesuit college and they were married many years then he asked for a divorce and became New Age and she became a Protestant and was saved. Throughout the conversation she repeated that Catholics aren’t saved. I wanted to ask her if someone had made her feel guilty for being Catholic.
Are Pentecostals anti-Catholic and why do they think Catholics are not saved?

My opinion is to put all misunderstanding in it place…

If not all Pentacostals believe Catholics are not saved, and they don’t, then their own denomination is in disunity. Ask her why that is, point out their disunity, and let them figure it out as they have no Magestorium telling them where they are diviating from a unified belief of their own denomination.

If a Catholic were to believe, “Methodits are not Christian”, it is easy for the Methodist to correct the Catholic by goin to the CCC and other offical documents to correct this Catholic. “Pentacostals” and other denominations in general do not have the unity they think they have and this is a prime example.

Peace!!!

 

[Memaw]

that is what I was wondering, and I would love to be able to bring her back to the Catholic Church. I am a convert myself of 8 years. We were supposed to go to a late lunch on Friday and I invited her to the Stations of the Cross on Friday evening, but she declined to attend the Stations and then cancelled the lunch too saying she was too tired. We set another time to get together Saturday afternoon and she cancelled again. Maybe just talking to me it is stirring up something inside of her that she is fighting. I wasn’t going to spend my time with her 100% trying to revert her back to Catholicism but I truly think she is nice and has a beautiful spirit because she gives so much of herself. She is divorced and her ex has passed and she has 2 adult children with disabilities of some kind- one lives in a place where he is looked after and her adult daughter has an apartment. A third son lives 2 1/2 hours away and she hasn’t seen him in 25 years. She is 74 and seems so strong and such a strong faith in Jesus. So since she has cancelled twice, I am going to wait and see if she calls again and set some boundaries. I don’t want her to think I only want to be friends in order to bring her back to Church. I am divorced too and 10 years younger, but I am lonely too and I live with my son and daughter-in-law and take care of my grandkids. I moved to the town I live in 8 years ago and don’t have many friends so I was hoping she might be someone I might be able to get together with once a month to have breakfast or lunch with and have a friendship, but maybe Pentecostals and Catholics can’t be friends. I remember now a co-worker I once knew who was Pentecostal and I thought she was nice too, but I always felt she judged me as a Catholic. Since I am a Catholic of only 8 years I don’t know If this is something I will encounter often. I would welcome any advice.

I would say be VERY cautious! She seems to want you to listen to her but she is not willing to hear your side of Catholicism. Don’t let her cast doubts on your Faith. Go to catholic.com and you can find answers to all those questions. Ask her questions. like, “What do you believe about John, 6. and the Holy Eucharist. And how old is your denomination? How do you feel about the Mother of Jesus”. etc. And Pray for her. God Bless, Memaw

 

[Kliska]

Are Pentecostals anti-Catholic and why do they think Catholics are not saved?

Some are, some aren’t. Usually the ones who think Catholics “aren’t saved” believe that the RCC teaches works based salvation, hence cancelling out the grace of God. It is also dependent on what branch of Pentecostalism it is.

I think there are several converts to Catholicism that can explain the totality of the RCC view of grace and faith working through love in a way that helps certain Protestants see that it isn’t actually a “works based” salvation. One such person is Jimmy Akin.

 

[ffg]

I would confirm their accuracy and thank them for the reminder to keep working on my relationship with God.

Then I would acknowledge their stance is consistent with people who don’t believe Jesus meant what he said with certain subjects He instructed plainly. Where the Catholic Church practices those instructions in the light that Jesus simply meant what he instructed straight up.

That might lead to some good conversation.

I would suspect you could walk back to fallen Catholics as the original source of their foundation.

That can be an eye opener.

Take care,

Mike

 

[Adonia]

I have recently had a conversation with a woman who I keep running into. I kept wondering why I kept seeing her around town. The first time I saw her she was praying for the woman sharing my hospital room. We both had broken ankles. This woman praying made an impression on me. She seemed to be strong and have faith.
I would see her at the retail store where I worked or the mall or grocery store and wonder why God was making our paths cross.
So the other night she was at the restaurant where I was and I said hi and she sat down and we began chatting. She had told me before she attends a couple of churches and does various ministries. She calls herself a Pentecostal and also said she was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic women’s college and her husband went to a Jesuit college and they were married many years then he asked for a divorce and became New Age and she became a Protestant and was saved. Throughout the conversation she repeated that Catholics aren’t saved. I wanted to ask her if someone had made her feel guilty for being Catholic.
Are Pentecostals anti-Catholic and why do they think Catholics are not saved?

I have had many conversations with people like her and the bottom line is this: If you are not having the same Christian experience as her then you have it all wrong and thus are not saved. Tell her that in the end, all she has is a different interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, one that came about by men in modern times and not the Church and all it’s accumulated knowledge throughout the many centuries. Why should her newfound interpretation be believed over that reality? I’ll stick with what is tried and true, thank you very much!

 

[Adonia]

that is what I was wondering, and I would love to be able to bring her back to the Catholic Church. I am a convert myself of 8 years. We were supposed to go to a late lunch on Friday and I invited her to the Stations of the Cross on Friday evening, but she declined to attend the Stations and then cancelled the lunch too saying she was too tired. We set another time to get together Saturday afternoon and she cancelled again. Maybe just talking to me it is stirring up something inside of her that she is fighting. I wasn’t going to spend my time with her 100% trying to revert her back to Catholicism but I truly think she is nice and has a beautiful spirit because she gives so much of herself. She is divorced and her ex has passed and she has 2 adult children with disabilities of some kind- one lives in a place where he is looked after and her adult daughter has an apartment. A third son lives 2 1/2 hours away and she hasn’t seen him in 25 years. She is 74 and seems so strong and such a strong faith in Jesus. So since she has cancelled twice, I am going to wait and see if she calls again and set some boundaries. I don’t want her to think I only want to be friends in order to bring her back to Church. I am divorced too and 10 years younger, but I am lonely too and I live with my son and daughter-in-law and take care of my grandkids. I moved to the town I live in 8 years ago and don’t have many friends so I was hoping she might be someone I might be able to get together with once a month to have breakfast or lunch with and have a friendship, but maybe Pentecostals and Catholics can’t be friends. I remember now a co-worker I once knew who was Pentecostal and I thought she was nice too, but I always felt she judged me as a Catholic. Since I am a Catholic of only 8 years I don’t know If this is something I will encounter often. I would welcome any advice.

All you can do is live your Catholic faith as you are doing and have a mutual respect for each other’s viewpoint. We live in an over 55 RV park in Florida and one of my wife’s best friends is an AOG person. They take what is common (Jesus) and leave everything else alone.

 

[johnnyc176]

I would see her at the retail store where I worked or the mall or grocery store and wonder why God was making our paths cross.

I would think He was making your paths cross in order for you to talk to her about Jesus and His Church, the Catholic Church and clear up her misconceptions.

Are Pentecostals anti-Catholic and why do they think Catholics are not saved?

I think those that are raised Pentecostals are not anti Catholic per se…it is what they were taught. But for those that left the Catholic Faith I think many are anti Catholic to the degree that they may have left because of a teaching of Jesus they did not agree with so blamed the Church and maybe couched in language such as…‘I wasn’t being fed’.

 

[mountee]

I would say be VERY cautious! She seems to want you to listen to her but she is not willing to hear your side of Catholicism. Don’t let her cast doubts on your Faith. Go to catholic.com and you can find answers to all those questions. Ask her questions. like, “What do you believe about John, 6. and the Holy Eucharist. And how old is your denomination? How do you feel about the Mother of Jesus”. etc. And Pray for her. God Bless, Memaw

As usual, I completely agree and second your advice. For fourteen years I lived in a community that was predominately non-Catholic. I was regularly exposed to people like your friend and I found them to be kind, generous people but they truly believed that Catholics were not saved and felt it was they duty to save us from ourselves. Pray hard for her return to the Church and ask God to protect your faith. God bless you.

 

[guanophore]

that is what I was wondering, and I would love to be able to bring her back to the Catholic Church. I am a convert myself of 8 years. We were supposed to go to a late lunch on Friday and I invited her to the Stations of the Cross on Friday evening, but she declined to attend the Stations and then cancelled the lunch too saying she was too tired. We set another time to get together Saturday afternoon and she cancelled again. Maybe just talking to me it is stirring up something inside of her that she is fighting. I wasn’t going to spend my time with her 100% trying to revert her back to Catholicism but I truly think she is nice and has a beautiful spirit because she gives so much of herself. She is divorced and her ex has passed and she has 2 adult children with disabilities of some kind- one lives in a place where he is looked after and her adult daughter has an apartment. A third son lives 2 1/2 hours away and she hasn’t seen him in 25 years. She is 74 and seems so strong and such a strong faith in Jesus. So since she has cancelled twice, I am going to wait and see if she calls again and set some boundaries. I don’t want her to think I only want to be friends in order to bring her back to Church. I am divorced too and 10 years younger, but I am lonely too and I live with my son and daughter-in-law and take care of my grandkids. I moved to the town I live in 8 years ago and don’t have many friends so I was hoping she might be someone I might be able to get together with once a month to have breakfast or lunch with and have a friendship, but maybe Pentecostals and Catholics can’t be friends. I remember now a co-worker I once knew who was Pentecostal and I thought she was nice too, but I always felt she judged me as a Catholic. Since I am a Catholic of only 8 years I don’t know If this is something I will encounter often. I would welcome any advice.

If at some point you do get together with her, you would do better to be prepared to discuss that you and she have a different concept of salvation.. I recommend Keating’s book to anyone in dialogue with Pentacostals and other fundatmentalists.

 

[ltwin]

She calls herself a Pentecostal and also said she was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic women’s college and her husband went to a Jesuit college and they were married many years then he asked for a divorce and became New Age and she became a Protestant and was saved. Throughout the conversation she repeated that Catholics aren’t saved. I wanted to ask her if someone had made her feel guilty for being Catholic.
Are Pentecostals anti-Catholic and why do they think Catholics are not saved?

Some Pentecostals are anti-Catholic, but others are actually very ecumenically minded. Converts from the Catholic faith tend to be very anti-Catholic, in my experience. I don’t know the reason for this.

As far as Pentecostalism is concerned, like other evangelicals, we have a view of the Catholic Church that is pretty consistent across the board. In its teachings concerning the authority of Sacred Tradition, the nature and administration of the sacraments, the role of good works in Christian life, its claims of Apostolic Succession, and its (in our view) unhelpful practice of praying to saints, the Catholic Church is seen as encouraging a type of mechanical religion in which you go through the motions but there is no inner conversion of the heart and one that corrupts the role of Jesus Christ as sole mediator.

Many Pentecostals will not go as far as saying that Catholics can’t be saved. What we would say though is that those Catholics who are saved are saved because they have put their faith in Christ–not because they were baptized as Catholics.

This is what we would say of any Christian, by the way. (We don’t ascribe salvation according to church membership or the partaking of a sacrament but according to whether the person has been experientially born again by the Holy Spirit).

Furthermore, we would only consider one a Christian who has had this experiential conversion experience. Therefore, even someone who attended a Pentecostal church and even been baptized but had never had a born again experience would not be considered a Christian by us. However, this often gets lost in translation when in dialogue with Catholics who seem to think we are singling Catholics out when in fact we are being consistent even with our own nominal Pentecostals.

 

[ltwin]

My opinion is to put all misunderstanding in it place…

If not all Pentacostals believe Catholics are not saved, and they don’t, then their own denomination is in disunity. Ask her why that is, point out their disunity, and let them figure it out as they have no Magestorium telling them where they are diviating from a unified belief of their own denomination.

Pentecostalism is a movement not a single denomination. There are several Pentecostal denominations, such as the Assemblies of God, the Church of God, the Church of God in Christ, the Pentecostal Holiness Church, etc. In North America, Pentecostals cooperate in the Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches of North America.

Furthermore, our denominational bodies do not generally seek to legislate every aspect of our faith. We leave many decisions to the Scripture-informed conscience of the believer.

 

[guanophore]

Some Pentecostals are anti-Catholic, but others are actually very ecumenically minded. Converts from the Catholic faith tend to be very anti-Catholic, in my experience. I don’t know the reason for this.

I sojourned among a Pentecostal congregation for about a year when I left the faith into which I was baptized. They were quite anticatholic, for the reasons you give in your post. Catholicism was viewed as a Pagan Cult that worked to blind members from the Truth.

Although there was much about the anticatholic rhetoric and doctrine I could not accept, I was angry for quite some time against the CC for "hiding’ the gospel from me. I imagined that I had somehow been prevented from seeing it, or being told it.

 .... the Catholic Church is seen as encouraging a type of mechanical religion in which you go through the motions but there is no inner conversion of the heart....

This was certainly my state when I left the faith, and discovered an inner conversion among my Protetstant siblings. It took a long time for me to realize it is possible to have this in the CC.

  What we would say though is that those Catholics who are saved are saved because they have put their faith in Christ--not because they were baptized as Catholics.

For us, both things are true. Baptism cannot be given without a profession of faith. And we do receive the Apostolic Teaching that baptism saves.

“…the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. 21Corresponding to that,** baptism now saves you-**- not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience-- through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” I Pet. 3:21.

The Apostles taught that baptism washed away all sins, original and personal.

This is what we would say of any Christian, by the way. (We don't ascribe salvation according to church membership or the partaking of a sacrament but according to whether the person has been experientially born again by the Holy Spirit).

This is very Catholic! We just believe that baptism is an event in which one is experientially born again by the HS (and with water). Becoming a member of the local parish is not saving, but being made a member of the Body of Christ in baptism is saving. Going thru the motions of a sacrament is not saving, unless the disoposition of the heart is in Christ.

Furthermore, we would only consider one a Christian who has had this experiential conversion experience.

I find it difficult to base a spiritual event on human experience, tho it cannot be denied that a powerful conversion experience is helpful. Paul never turned back after he had his.