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

  • Thread starter Thread starter CheesusPowerKid
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

CheesusPowerKid

Guest
Please be honest:) I was just curious about how many Protestants were raised with a negative nias against the Catholic Church, whether recieving it from your parents, your congregation, your pastor, or anyone else. Whether you still agree with it or have become more open to Catholicism, was that slant something you gained growing up from other adults or friends?
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. I have corrected so many misunderstandings about the Church, like how we worship Mary and statues and how if you divorce you’re kicked out of the Church…but they people who have asked me about it just never knew any different until they actually asked me or another Catholic.
So were you raised with any sort of slant toward Catholicism that may have or still affects your opinion of Catholics? If so, what are some of them that you know now to be untrue?
 
No, I can honestly say no one has ever enstilled in me some negative bias towards Catholics or the Church. The church I attend almost never mentions anything to do with Catholics. My parents never raised me to think certain things about Catholics. I can honestly say that my feelings towards Cathoics and the Church are my own and not influenced by what people have said to me because frankly, no one has said much about them to me. As for my feelings…I am confused about a lot of things pertaining to the Church and Tradition and rituals and stuff. It’s not something I try really hard to figure out or research…I simply look into things here and there on this forum and think about things I have read on here when reading in my Bible. That’s pretty much it.🙂

Oh, and hey Britty!!!🙂

Ryan
 
Knocking down any other Christian believer’s faith was not a good idea when I was growing up…My grandmother was small but she was mighty, & she was not going to have that kind of thing going on around her.
Did I ever hear this kind of talk at all? Yeah, but it wasn’t anything that I didn’t hear about other groups, too. (Usually from people who didn’t believe in anything…
 
I am a pastors son and the only thing I really ever heard about our local parishes priest from my father was regert that the guy never partisapated in the cities church counsul (even though the invitation had been extended many times). When we got a new priest who accepted the invitation my Father was happy and often had meetings with him.
 
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.” When I left my parents’ Southern Baptist faith, I immediately was drawn to the Anglican church, because I loved the reverence, ceremony, and intellectual freedom. I never even considered the Catholic Church as an option, because I knew that I could never agree with it. That’s why these past few weeks have been such a shock. If I fail my exam this Monday, I’m blaming CA. 😛
 
40.png
CheesusPowerKid:
Please be honest:) I was just curious about how many Protestants were raised with a negative bias against the Catholic Church, whether recieving it from your parents, your congregation, your pastor, or anyone else.
Click to expand...
I was not raised Protestant, because I was not raised with any religion. Nevertheless, I did grow up in an English-speaking country, and there are certain anti-Catholic elements built into the culture of the English-speaking world, because they derive from English culture, and ultimately from C16th English anti-Catholicism.

It was not until I became a Christian and started to attend church that I started to hear how truly wicked Catholics are, in Baptist, Open Brethren, Methodist, Presbyterian, and various Pentecostal churches (never Anglican). Catholics, after all, owe their first allegiance to Rome, and are therefore anything from merely unpatriotic to utterly traitorous (q.v. Guy Fawkes). Catholics worship Mary; they have set her up as the Queen of Heaven; as the wife of God. Catholics worship the saints. Catholics worship idols (of the saints and of Mary). Catholics do not believe in the Bible. Because they can go to Confession, Catholics commit any sins that they like, and then confess them, and then commit them again ad infinitum. Catholics are incapable of individual thought; every idea has to be approved by the clergy. Catholics imprisoned Galileo for daring to disagree with the Church. Catholics, via the Inquisition, tortured and murdered tens of thousands for unbelief. The Catholic Church is the world’s largest and oldest confidence game. Catholics exclude non-Catholics from communion.

In fact, Catholics are so bad that there is an entire set of words set aside for them: papist, papistry, popish, popery, Romish.

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.
 
I do not recall hearing anything negative about the Catholic Church growing up and I was raised Protestant. I was very surprised when I came here and started learning that there is contention between Catholics and Protestants. To me it was something that went on in England under the reign of Henry VIII or in current day Ireland! I didn’t know it existed now and in America. That may sound silly or naive but I really never heard anything like that.

The one thing I do remember hearing as an adult was that my grandmother (now deceased) was upset when her son (my uncle) converted to Catholicism but I just assumed that was because she was Baptist and thought that was the way to go. Unfortunately I’ll never have the chance to ask her about it now as I would be curious to know exactly what bothered her.

Amie
 
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.
 
I was raised as a JW. Bias against the Catholic Church was beat into us daily.

-B.
 
I was raised as a Protestant. My family basically told me that all Catholics were going to hell. My mother, when I told her I was converting, told me my becoming Catholic was the equivalent to my becoming a Jehovah’s Witness or a Morman.

Scout :tiphat:
 
No. Respect and love were requirements of my family. We grew up in a very loving family with a variety of denominations, including cousins who were Catholic. I grew up going to my Aunts home and ‘Sister’ visiting her. Most my friends claimed not to be religious, and any religious education was of a generic variety in school.
I attended an Anglican Church (of the ‘High’ persuasion)(Never baptized, unlike my siblings) I was left to follow my heart in religion.
To be honest, I was always drawn to Catholicism, but for the time being, I need to get some things sorted out. Perhaps one day I will become Catholic…only time will tell.

Peace and love.🙂
 
40.png
Mystophilus:
I was not raised Protestant, because I was not raised with any religion. Nevertheless, I did grow up in an English-speaking country, and there are certain anti-Catholic elements built into the culture of the English-speaking world, because they derive from English culture, and ultimately from C16th English anti-Catholicism.

It was not until I became a Christian and started to attend church that I started to hear how truly wicked Catholics are, in Baptist, Open Brethren, Methodist, Presbyterian, and various Pentecostal churches (never Anglican). Catholics, after all, owe their first allegiance to Rome, and are therefore anything from merely unpatriotic to utterly traitorous (q.v. Guy Fawkes). Catholics worship Mary; they have set her up as the Queen of Heaven; as the wife of God. Catholics worship the saints. Catholics worship idols (of the saints and of Mary). Catholics do not believe in the Bible. Because they can go to Confession, Catholics commit any sins that they like, and then confess them, and then commit them again ad infinitum. Catholics are incapable of individual thought; every idea has to be approved by the clergy. Catholics imprisoned Galileo for daring to disagree with the Church. Catholics, via the Inquisition, tortured and murdered tens of thousands for unbelief. The Catholic Church is the world’s largest and oldest confidence game. Catholics exclude non-Catholics from communion.

In fact, Catholics are so bad that there is an entire set of words set aside for them: papist, papistry, popish, popery, Romish.

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.
Click to expand...
just curious, and not to change the topic or anything, but do you still believe these things, or have you learned different?
 
In short I had had anti-catholic sermons (and I liked them as they gave me “weapons” against the Catholics) as a protestant…but I converted and now all is good! 😉
 
My option wasn’t there.

Yes, I was raised with a positive bias towards the RCC.

I have an Aunt that’s Catholic so even though we were protestant, we grew up with an understanding of the traditions of the Catholic Church. In fact, it wasn’t until I was grown that I even heard anyone say anything bad about the RCC.

God Bless
 
Well, I was raised Southern Baptist and I know my parents and siblings (well, my brothers at least) would say negative things about Catholics or tell jokes about the Catholic Church.
Thankfully, a family of Catholics lived across the street from us, so we were friends with the kids and didn’t think anything negative about them. My parents only fear was when we got older and my sister dated (and eventually married) a Catholic. Being friends with Catholics was ok, but to date one was very frowned upon. After all they
were considered a cult and possibly not Christian.:rolleyes:
(I never could understand that one though.)
I do remember in college and having a Catholic roomate and saying some typical thing like worshipping Mary, ect. (Sorry Rosine, wherever ya are! G)

Fast speed many years. Now that I’ve learned that 99.9% of the things I thought the Catholic Church believed and taught was wrong, we’re starting RCIA. (Tonight in fact, so gotta hurry this post up! 😃 )
 
It wasnt untill I began talking about Catholicsm that I really began to learn that my parents were’nt exactly “pro- Catholic”. Which is kinda hard, especailly since I’m considering conversion.
 
I was raised Missouri Synod Lutheran, and had negative comments about Catholicism put into me from the church and parents. Part of my confirmation was to take a class called “Lutheranism and Other Religions” which basically went on how other religions were wrong, and how eeeeeevil those Catholics were.

One of my friends growing up was Catholic, and I was jealous that she got to have the Saints help her out. My mom was always afraid that her family would ‘brainwash’ me. Everything from Mary to bc to confession was SOOO EEEVIL. I looked in the Luther’s Small Catechism that I was taught from when I was in confirmation classes, and there’s a whole section about confession, and why/how to confess them to a pastor. I seriously cried for a few hours when I read that, because I was taught the “confess your sins to God only, you don’t need a pastor/priest”. I felt completely lied to and very, very angry.

But I’m getting off track.

My mom still has her biases. Having all that negativity about Catholicism got me curious, and once I was out of the house I started researching and understanding things better.

Now I am contemplating when and how to tell my mom I’m converting. It will hurt her to no end. When my brother told her he was baptized in a non-denom church (despite being baptized Lutheran), she told him “Well, it’s not our church but at least you’re not becoming Catholic.” 😦
 
40.png
CheesusPowerKid:
just curious, and not to change the topic or anything, but do you still believe these things, or have you learned different?
Click to expand...
Most of the points are false, some more blatantly than others, e.g., the one about patriotism (C16th propaganda). The comment about sin-confess-sin is true in the minds of some Catholics, but only a tiny minority.

Catholics are certainly capable of individual thought, because that is a feature of being human. However, Catholicism has a much stronger drive for orthodoxy than most Protestant churches, which tends to result in opposition towards dissent.

Galileo was imprisoned, but it was within a palace, which is not much to complain about.

The Inquisition did torture and murder many. However, it was begun, if memory serves, to destroy a suicide cult, a situation which necessitated fairly extreme measures. In terms of the ‘violence against unbelievers’ stakes, the Protestants tried very hard in the C16th and 17th to beat the Catholics for total body-count, and cannot reasonably point any fingers.

The Catholic Church is the world’s largest charity organisation, if not quite the oldest.

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.
 
40.png
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.
Click to expand...
I could see that might be the response. I guess that it is up to the priest or the Catholic friends of the non-Catholic to explain the reasons for the exclusion in such a way that those persons would not take it as a personal affront. Some priests will take the time when conducting a wedding or funeral and it is known that non-Catholics are present.

In a sense it is to protect them, so that they don’t commit a sacrilege without realizing.

Back to the poll, we were raised to stay away from those Catholic kids. Without a whole lot of explanation I had a number of weird ideas and impressions of what could be wrong with those Catholics.
Now I are one!
 
40.png
april_hosen:
It wasnt untill I began talking about Catholicsm that I really began to learn that my parents were’nt exactly “pro- Catholic”. Which is kinda hard, especailly since I’m considering conversion.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top