Protestants: Were you raised with a bias toward the Catholic Church?

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Les Richardson:
I hope you do join us. It is well worth the trip, even though there are those in your family that don’t wish you well. You will find that this is home.
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I’ll second that!
 
Mystophilus:
Most Catholic churches do prefer that non-Catholics do not take part in the Eucharist. I am not particularly bothered by this, but I am saddened by the fact that it can make others feel excluded rather than loved.
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This bothers many people, thinking that they are being excluded. The real reason Catholics (non-catholics used to do this) is because Catholics don’t want people to lie to God or themselves. Receiving the Eucharist is equivalent to professing you believe what Catholics believe. Out of respect to non-catholics and to the blessed Sacrament, non-catholics are discouraged from doing so. 1 Cor. 11:27​

I grew up Catholic, so I have little to contribute other than the comment above. I spent a lot of time in different Churches, mostly evangelical , and listened to Christian radio, and have just heard to usual knocks against the Church, never anything really extreme, except for once listening to Jimmy Swaggart radio (sonlife radio) that is a little scary.

God Bless
Scylla
 
Many Mexican Americans tend to be Catholic, and where I am from, they are plentiful. My dad was a Catholic growing up, and my grandfather and that side of the family still are. I have grown up surrounded by Catholic influence. I actually plan to marry a Catholic someday. At one point in time, I considered converting, however, God has not called me to.

There are a few churches around here that think all Catholics are going to hell, but they are just ridiculous. An ex-girlfriend, Episcipalian, and I visited a non-denom church with a friend, and they tried to be subtle in saying, “people who worship idols, like Mary (cough cough), are going to HELL!!!” We were outraged that such a wicked statement would be made. Needless to say, the only other time I ever visited that church was for the funeral of another friend.

Peace be upon all who read this
 
I was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church and my family remained there until I was eight. Even after leaving the Roman Catholic Church, my family never spoke ill of it. My present position regarding Roman Catholicism is not the result of childhood experiences.
 
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CheesusPowerKid:
I have noticed more and more that everything non-Catholics typically hate about the Catholic Church is either completely untrue or very, very exaggerated, but they truly think it’s factual because that’s what they were taught growing up.
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I just heard a new one last night, and it went like this:
in Rome, there is a church which is made of gold. This is because the Catholic Church told all its believers to bring their gold to Rome, and so they brought it, and the priests made a church out of it.

It took me a moment to figure out how they had come up with this one, and then I realised that they were talking about the Vatican. At some point, someone was told about the idea of believers giving money to the church and about the wealth of the Vatican. They then symbolised this as a ‘church made out of gold’. The symbol was heard by others, but interpreted as literal truth rather than metaphor. It was an interesting example of mythogenesis.
 
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Mystophilus:
I just heard a new one last night, and it went like this:
in Rome, there is a church which is made of gold. This is because the Catholic Church told all its believers to bring their gold to Rome, and so they brought it, and the priests made a church out of it.

It took me a moment to figure out how they had come up with this one, and then I realised that they were talking about the Vatican. At some point, someone was told about the idea of believers giving money to the church and about the wealth of the Vatican. They then symbolised this as a ‘church made out of gold’. The symbol was heard by others, but interpreted as literal truth rather than metaphor. It was an interesting example of mythogenesis.
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I think this is a good example of how most of the misconseptions people are raised with about the Catholic Church started a long time ago and became like rumors, constantly being misunderstood and then spread incorrectly until they so ourtrageous and so far from the Truth that they don’t even resemble what it really is…the problem is, people believe them, and then the trend continues.
 
My Dad is Catholic; my Mom, God rest her soul, was Lutheran. I was raised Lutheran but with quite a bit of Catholic church attendance as well. My mother didn’t like my Grandma, her mother-in-law, for various reasons. The biggest was her reaction to my mom being Lutheran and wanting to use birth control.

My mom felt a lot of anger and hurt, and she would say negative things about my grandma and about Catholicism. She didn’t ever say anything negative about Catholics themselves. Living in Wisconsin, most of our friends were either Catholic or Lutheran.
 
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djrakowski:
My father is the 4th of 10 children, and grew up in the Catholic Church. He went to Catholic school, as was expected of the families in the parish in which he grew up. My mother’s family was nominally Baptist, but I never heard anything about Christianity from them.

Interestingly, I had most of my negative impressions of Catholicism formed by Catholics like my dad, who spoke of a Church that was repressive and outdated (when he spoke of it at all). In my years in Protestant (Episcopal, Lutheran and Baptist) churches, I’ve never heard a nasty remark about Catholicism, only that it was different.
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I hear it more on tv and in private than in my church.
But I do have to say that there was generally a grumble about the practises of Catholics than the people themselves.
 
I was raised in the conservative Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. We were taught the the Pope was the antichrist (this was more than a few years ago). Catholics were probably not Christian, although charitable people said that Christians could possibly be found in their Church. We didn’t talk much about the Catholic religion, although it was generally assumed that most of them were going to hell because they weren’t following the pure religion as taught by Martin Luther. Imagine my mother’s horror when I said that my daughter and I were converting to the Catholic faith! She actually said, “Couldn’t you have waited until I was dead?”

We don’t discuss religion, yet I don’t forget for a moment that I chose the Catholic faith over trying to please my mother.
 
I picked the middle option, because it was the closest of the three. I wasn’t really raised to think Catholics were evil, but I was certainly raised to think Catholicism was incorrect. When I was a kid, I believed no Catholics were Christians. This was quite distressing for me, because it basically meant that during the entire Middle Ages (which is when I figured Catholicism started), no one went to Heaven. When I was older, I started to be told that there were Christians in the Catholic Church, though this was in spite of Catholic doctrine. When I was old enough to figure out for myself what was really going on, I started to have a more positive attitude toward Catholicism (though I still didn’t agree with its “manmade” doctrines). Since I’ve really begun to study it (in the last couple months), I’ve begun to believe it is true after all. Crazy, eh?

God Bless!
 
Honestly, I had to say yes. I don’t think all protestants are “anti-catholic” however. In my case, I think a lot of it had to do with my parent’s feelings about the Church, and so I was only exposed to those protestant churches that in some way facilitated or enabled their veiws.

Though my mom grew up catholic, she became rather rebellious in her late teens, and as she had me while still in this “youthful” state (at 20), it took her until after I left and had my own family before she could reconcile.

At anyrate, when certain of my old fundamental family freinds heard I was leaving mormonism for catholicism, the responses basically indicated that “at least I am getting a step closer to returning to the Truth”.

Regardless, for some reason I am relatively good natured about it. We each have our own social conditioning to overcome…
 
Mystophilus wrote:
What I have found very interesting in this respect is the fact that the USA is, like all other English-speaking nations, predominantly Protestant and yet the simple majority of portrayals and the vast majority of positive portrayals of clergymen in American movies are of Catholic clergy. The majority of portrayals could be explained by the comparative visibility of Catholic ecclesiastical accoutrements, but the tendency towards validation cannot.
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Not anymore, I’m afraid. The reason so many films portrayed Catholic priests in such a favorable light up until the 60’s was because filmmakers were predominantly Jewish or Catholic before then. Why should Jews make movies favorable to Catholic priests? Because, at the time, both Jews and Catholics were the outcasts of society in the eyes of the elite. So, they banded together, quite loosely and with no conspiracy in mind, to make stories in which both groups would be treated well.

Now days, though, Hollywood has been taken over by people who hate the Catholic Church, mostly for our stand against their moral excesses and their support of abortion and euthanasia. Hollywood recognizes that the Catholic Church is the one institution it cannot tell what to believe that won’t crumble before their withering attacks. Catholics and Fundamentalist now find themselves as a bastion against this kind of thinking and behavior on the part of Hollywood producers, directors and actors.

Now about the subject of this thread. I was brought up with a mild dislike for the Catholic Church based on ignorance and a bit of snobbery. It wasn’t until my family became Pentecostal that we became outright hostile to all things Catholic.
 
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Della:
Mystophilus wrote:

Not anymore, I’m afraid. The reason so many films portrayed Catholic priests in such a favorable light up until the 60’s was because filmmakers were predominantly Jewish or Catholic before then. Why should Jews make movies favorable to Catholic priests? Because, at the time, both Jews and Catholics were the outcasts of society in the eyes of the elite. So, they banded together, quite loosely and with no conspiracy in mind, to make stories in which both groups would be treated well.

Now days, though, Hollywood has been taken over by people who hate the Catholic Church, mostly for our stand against their moral excesses and their support of abortion and euthanasia. Hollywood recognizes that the Catholic Church is the one institution it cannot tell what to believe that won’t crumble before their withering attacks. Catholics and Fundamentalist now find themselves as a bastion against this kind of thinking and behavior on the part of Hollywood producers, directors and actors.
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I agree…but you’ll notice it was always the Catholic Church and its members who scared Satan and his demons…Exorcist? Amnityville Horror? Bless the Child? I could go on for a while:)
 
The biggest anti-Catholics in the world are “ex” Catholics who join fundamentalist “churches” or who grab a bible and go for it on their own.
 
Hmm. i choose the middle option, but i’m not sure. I was raised catholic, and my grandparents were highly involved in the church. My parents were pretty midly involved( i mean they were up there administering the eucharist, my dad taught a confirmation class, ect.)

Eventually, we were stirred, and realized the faults of the catholic church(age 10 or so). Since then, we have really come to the truth in christ, my dad is a pastor at our new church, and i am planning on going into ministry.

For those who claim that most of those who disagree with the catholic church misunderstand it, you may be right. I don’t know what the majority is. However, i can offer myself as a counter to that. I love theology, and i have spent much time on this board, hearing and seeing what Catholicism is. And still i find major fault in it.
 
I voted YES…

I haven’t read this whole thread…I will when I have time.

My father still makes comments about Catholics…the older he gets though the less I here from him, especially since I told him that I was thinking of sending my son to Catholic school when he starts school next year.

Anyway, the comment that I most remember my father telling me…Catholics pay their way to heaven.
 
Kristina P.:
I chose the middle option, but none of them fully applied to me. I was raised with plenty of misconceptions about what the Church really taught, but no malice toward Catholics themselves. It was more of a, “Catholics are Christians, but they believe a lot of extra stuff along with the gospel. That stuff can be dangerous and lead someone away from God.”
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That sums up my upbringing as well.

I actually went to pre-school at a catholic church, despite my southern baptist upbringing. So in that regard, I think that helped shape my opinion as I grew up.
 
My option wasn’t there to pick either; the area that I grew up in had no Catholic Church for many years - it was a college town, too.

I always wondered where they were. (?)

O+
 
My Father was a non-practicing methodist and my Mom a semi-practicing lutheran, my Grandma a “never-go” church of God. (we all lived in the same house) I well remember a lot of anti-Catholic comments, jokes and rhetoric.
In my case, from early childhood, I just looked at Catholics as exotic and fasinating creatures. I so wanted to know the “why” of it, as in, “why are they so different and disliked by my family”.
It all worked in reverse for me. I was indoctrinated with so much anti-Catholicism, that I dove into The Faith with an insatiable hunger for knowledge and came out the other side as a faith filled joyful Catholic.
I often wonder what my deceased family would think. The ones living are still very anti-Catholic.
 
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