Protestant Missionaries to Catholic countries

[rr1213]

Just to put the shoe on the other foot here. If the Protestant missionaries (and I get the impression these missionaries aren’t mainline Protestants (Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians…) and may not even acknowledge that they are Protestants cause harm by breaking up families along faith lines, don’t the Catholic (and Protestant) missionaries do that in India? If the reason it’s bad is because of the harm it does families, then why is it only bad for Protestants to evangelize in “Catholic” nations but not for Catholics to evangelize in Buddhist or Hindu nations?

Because they’re ***Catholic ***missionaries. Remember, the One True Holy Apostoic and Catholic Church.

 

[DRIVING_BEAR]

Just to put the shoe on the other foot here. If the Protestant missionaries (and I get the impression these missionaries aren’t mainline Protestants (Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians…) and may not even acknowledge that they are Protestants cause harm by breaking up families along faith lines, don’t the Catholic (and Protestant) missionaries do that in India? If the reason it’s bad is because of the harm it does families, then why is it only bad for Protestants to evangelize in “Catholic” nations but not for Catholics to evangelize in Buddhist or Hindu nations?

The important thing to remember is it’s our duty to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to every one . in fact that was the last order given of Jesus . See Matthew 28:19-20

Family discord is not a valid reason for not sharing the gospel

 

[leonie]

The important thing to remember is it’s our duty to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to every one . in fact that was the last order given of Jesus . See Matthew 28:19-20

Family discord is not a valid reason for not sharing the gospel

Yes, but why aren’t they sharing the gospel with Muslims, Hindus, pagans–why target Catholics?

 

[a_cermak]

The important thing to remember is it’s our duty to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to every one . in fact that was the last order given of Jesus . See Matthew 28:19-20

Family discord is not a valid reason for not sharing the gospel

Yes, I guess that’s what disturbed me about the comment about how the Protestant missionaries caused family discord. Taken to its rational conclusion, any missionary activity by anyone including Catholics does that, so I don’t think you can use disrupting families against the Protestant (or non-denom or AoG) missionaries.

A better argument would be economy. Why waste missionary resources on areas that have already been evangelized, why not concentrate on the post-Christian nations or the non-Christian areas?

 

[leonie]

A better argument would be economy. Why waste missionary resources on areas that have already been evangelized, why not concentrate on the post-Christian nations or the non-Christian areas?

It’s obvious that these missionaries don’t regard Catholics as Christians.

 

[DRIVING_BEAR]

Yes, but why aren’t they sharing the gospel with Muslims, Hindus, pagans–why target Catholics?

Short answer we prods. try to reach everyone with the gospel
In “catholic countries” our efforts can be public , therefore the world knows about them . however in other parts of the world ,
China, India and the middle east for example because of state restriction our efforts must be more clandestine.
For example my church is supporting missionaries in of all places Iran. due to concerns for their physical safety these
native missionaries we try to limit the publicity about these efforts.
For example under Islamic law the punishment to convert to christianity is death.

As for protestant country in Europe I say to catholics if you can bring to gospel to these counties DO SO WITH MY BLESSING.

 

[ReginaNova]

Short answer we prods. try to reach everyone with the gospelIn “catholic countries” our efforts can be public , therefore the world knows about them . however in other parts of the world ,
China, India and the middle east for example because of state restriction our efforts must be more clandestine.
For example my church is supporting missionaries in of all places Iran. due to concerns for their physical safety these
native missionaries we try to limit the publicity about these efforts.
For example under Islamic law the punishment to convert to christianity is death.

As for protestant country in Europe I say to catholics if you can bring to gospel to these counties DO SO WITH MY BLESSING.

Is deception and breaking civil laws really an appropriate way to evangelize? Is this really what Jesus would do? I don’t think so.

 

[DRIVING_BEAR]

Is deception and breaking civil laws really an appropriate way to evangelize? Is this really what Jesus would do? I don’t think so.

As Christian’s our First duty is to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Are you implying that obeying civil law is a higher priority that evangelizing. doing thinks on the quite is not deception.

just a reminder for the first 300 years of it’s history the church was a underground movement

 

[leonie]

As for protestant country in Europe I say to catholics if you can bring to gospel to these counties DO SO WITH MY BLESSING.

Thanks.

 

[leonie]

Thanks.

sorry, Driving Bear, my eye roll wasn’t very nice.

To me, a Catholic, Protestants evangelizing Catholics out of the Church is taking them further away from Christ. But, I know Protestants wouldn’t feel that way.

I do think we need to do a better job catechizing our Catholics. I do think American Catholics have lost the missionary fervor that has been a driving force for centuries. I do think we need a counter-evangelization in our third world countries that are being targeted(well meaningly) to spread heresies.

Better yet, I wish all Christians were unified in The One True Church. I am sure that we would have converted the world by now if we had stayed united.

 

[Holly3278]

In my part of the world, we call this sheep stealing. I frankly detest the practice by Protestants and many Protestants don’t even believe that Catholics are Christians when Catholics are the original Christians! Catholics need to be doing a lot more to counteract Protestant evangelisation attempts.

 

[DRIVING_BEAR]

sorry, Driving Bear, my eye roll wasn’t very nice.

To me, a Catholic, Protestants evangelizing Catholics out of the Church is taking them further away from Christ. But, I know Protestants wouldn’t feel that way.

I do think we need to do a better job catechizing our Catholics. I do think American Catholics have lost the missionary fervor that has been a driving force for centuries. I do think we need a counter-evangelization in our third world countries that are being targeted(well meaningly) to spread heresies.

Better yet, I wish all Christians were unified in The One True Church. I am sure that we would have converted the world by now if we had stayed united.

I wish that the reformmation had not been needed my self
However now i think the best we can hope for is peaceful co-operation between branches of the church.

 

[DRIVING_BEAR]

Yes, I guess that’s what disturbed me about the comment about how the Protestant missionaries caused family discord. Taken to its rational conclusion, any missionary activity by anyone including Catholics does that, so I don’t think you can use disrupting families against the Protestant (or non-denom or AoG) missionaries.

A better argument would be economy. Why waste missionary resources on areas that have already been evangelized, why not concentrate on the post-Christian nations or the non-Christian areas?

I was disturbed by the last part of the above comment.
Is a_cermark implying that some people are more deserving of missionary resources than others. if so can he/she produce a priority list for Christians outreach so christians can determine who is more deserving of missioniary resources.

REMEMBER THE HUMAN SOUL IS PRICELESS.

it’s the duty of the church to commit whatever resources are required to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost no matter who or where they are.

If the church has to commit thousands of missionaries and millions of dollars to bring the gospel to a single person it is money and time well spent

 

[uther]

Maybe this is slightly off topic, but what do you think of people like Mother Teresa - her work was often not focussed on explicitly evangelising people - she was known to arrange Hindu burials for the poor Hindus she worked with because others couldn’t care less about giving them one. Is this not part of the mission of the Church - respecting anothers’ faith even if you don’t agree with it? In this way, maybe some Protestants could learn from this approach because this is the sort of stuff that opens the door to Christ, even if you don’t get around to speaking about him directly - and, in the right circumstances, it often makes a more profound impression.

This is similar to the much quoted sentiment of St. Francis of Assisi that we should always preach Jesus and sometimes even use words. Sometimes opportunities to state the faith are a long time coming. But we never stop praying because we know as JPII said in Redemptoris Missio, ***“The Holy Spirit is indeed the principal agent of the whole of the Church’s mission.” ***#21 We are responsible for planting seeds, but the Holy Spirit is the one who prepares the soil and causes the seed to grow.

For some people, a lifetime is not long enough for them to make their journey all the way into Christ’s Church, and I don’t believe that it is ‘right’ for some people to become Christians. I think that the direction one is travelling in is as important as the destination.

With all due respect El Paulo, John Paul II and Vatican II disagree with you here. The point that most people miss when they consider the teaching that it is possible that someone could be saved through God’s grace outside of the boundaries of the Catholic Church is this; Neither you nor I nor the Pope knows who those people are. We don’t know the hearts of men, so as a practical matter we have to operate on the assumption that they need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We have to ask, perhaps that person for whom we think it may not be right to become a Christian, may be ready, through the working of the Holy Spirit, to hear the message of the gospel, and perhaps on that final day when we stand before Jesus Christ the judge, he might just ask us why we didn’t tell them the truth?
The point is, we cannot presume anything. We can only operate on what we know and are able to do, and then leave the rest up to God. Otherwise we are practicing indifferentism.

 

[tamccrackine]

I’ve often asked about groups or organizations that do Catholic Missionary work. I’ve found many groups of nuns and priests that fit the bill.

I have been exposed to Greater European Mission and I find it destructive to the true Church. It pulls people away from the Church and if someone has fallen away, they make sure the person doesn’t go back to the Church. I find it disgusting that they are going into Catholic countries (Poland comes to mind) and I refuse to support them in their endeavors. my best friend has bugged the daylights out of me, to include becoming pretty nasty, because I have REFUSED to support them financially. Going to far as telling me that I’m not following God’s word by supporting God’s missionaries. Whatever…

Yes, we as Catholics can do better. I agree. And I do my best to support those organizations that promote and spread the Truth of God’s word, which would be through Catholic missionaries. Someone already mentioned Blessed Mother Teresa… she is the perfect example of proper and loving evangelization. And she had the right resources… our Holy Mother Church.

 

[uther]

In my part of the world, we call this sheep stealing. I frankly detest the practice by Protestants and many Protestants don’t even believe that Catholics are Christians when Catholics are the original Christians! Catholics need to be doing a lot more to counteract Protestant evangelisation attempts.

I usually don’t get upset about sheep stealing because, quite frankly, I wouldn’t hesitate to help any Protestant into the Catholic Church.
However, as a rule, the negative preaching and teaching, the name calling, the condemnations and so forth come from, at least in our time, the Protestant side. To be fair, it comes from a minority within the Fundmentalist segment. Many of the rest, at least among Evangelicals, believe the same thing in their hearts, but are much too charitable to go into attack mode.
God bless them, sometimes I wish we had their evangelical commitment, instead of nuancing the message to death.

IMHO we need to ask ourselves why missionaries to Catholics are successful. In order to do that we need to scope the other side and hear the testimonies of “ex-Catholics” and, if we can get past the rhetoric, get to the heart of the matter. There are also Catholics who have been over to the other side and have come back. Marcus Grodi has had a few guests on his Journey Home program with that experience. Their stories are very instructive as to why they left in the first place. What did they find that they were looking for?
Karl Keating, in his book Catholicism and Fundamentalism, ascribes it to apologetics and doctrine. Of course, he’s in the apologetics business so I would expect him to focus on that part of it, and it certainly is a large part. But I find it hard to believe that someone raised with the Real Presence, Confession, Catholic Tradition and Scripture, and so on, just one day out of the blue reads the Bible and says, “That’s all wrong.”
They accept the doctrines of Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura because they trust the people that teach them. That involves a lot more than apologetics. It often has to do with some grudge they have against someone or something in the Catholic Church. These are the things we have to understand and pay attention to. And, of course, as many have pointed out here, people will not remain faithful to what they do not know or understand. And that is the fault of Catechesis, either at home or in the school or in the Church, or some combination of the three.

 

[Wisdom]

The missionaries I’ve come into contact worked in Poland and South America. These are two areas that still have a strong Catholic Church. I don’t know anyone working in France or Italy or even England.

but, that is just my experience.

I kinda noticed that trend myself they concentrate on areas of easy pickens, countries where Chrstian faith is till relevant, they don’t for the most part evangelize Islamic countries or post Christians countries of Scandanavia etc. I kinds wish they put as much effort in saving the Islamicst as they put into saving the Mary Worshippers ie us Catholics.

 

[rr1213]

I kinda noticed that trend myself they concentrate on areas of easy pickens, countries where Chrstian faith is till relevant, they don’t for the most part evangelize Islamic countries or post Christians countries of Scandanavia etc. I kinds wish they put as much effort in saving the Islamicst as they put into saving the Mary Worshippers ie us Catholics.

It’s easy to say that you should evangelize Islamic countries. What is the Catholic Church doing to evangelize Islamic countries? In many (most?) Islamic countries, it is against the law to preach the Gospel and converts can be executed. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to carry the Gospel there, but, again, it is easier said than done.

 

[Wisdom]

It’s easy to say that you should evangelize Islamic countries. What is the Catholic Church doing to evangelize Islamic countries? In many (most?) Islamic countries, it is against the law to preach the Gospel and converts can be executed. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to carry the Gospel there, but, again, it is easier said than done.

The Catholic Church has a significant presence in many Islamic countries the point is Evangelicals make it a point to evangelize traditionally catholic countires and areas but put far less emphasis as far as money and people in traditonal Hindu, Buddist and Islamic countries or regions and yes the catholic church attempst to evangtelize all these areas and for the most part has a significant minority in many of these lands. And that is my point evangelicals are taking the easy route of converting Catholics. The early catholics and current catholics have for 2000 years have converted by threat of exectution adn persecution from the Time of Nero till today. Many protestant sects will not even go there if there is a hint of persection so off to latin america they go converting the pagan catholics.

 

[rr1213]

Really? That’s interesting. What significant presence does the Catholic Church have in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Indonesia, Turkey?