Real Anti-Catholicism

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Anti-Catholicism from Catholic is worst than Anti-Catholicism from Catholicism.
 
The worst I’ve encountered was from my dad, he disowned me when he found out that I was becoming Catholic. Since then he’s had a heart attack and mellowed out. Now he wants me to say that the Catholic church is only a worship style preference. I won’t so he just avoids the subject.
Hey, look at it this way. If he considers Catholics as simply another type of worship style, then that’s good news. At least it means that he’s starting to acknowledge that the Catholic Church is Christian! Keep praying for him. 👍
 
Surely, and the most blatant anti-Catholicism comes from family. Last Thanksgiving, we had an interesting a-C moment with my mother-in-law.

We were at her house for dinner. As is our custom, everyone circled around to pray, and to give a short testimonial about why we are thankful today. When it was M-I-L’s turn, she noted that she is thankful for her dearly departed mother, who raised her to know Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, not like SOME MOTHERS (eyes boring a hole through me) who raise their children to be PAGANS!!! Not sure that I handled it as well as I could have, but I pretended to ignore it as if she was not talking about me. Several other family members asked me later if my feelings were hurt, and I played dumb. ("Why would she be talking about me? We’re not pagans, we’re Catholic. *[flutters eyelashes] *;))

The Lord will have to convert this family, as I’ve decided I can do nothing except give a charitable and faithful example. I’ve tried to patiently answer their questions, and inform them gently about their misconceptions, but the ears, eyes and hearts are closed. My prayer for them is often “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
 
What a horrid woman. :eek:
Surely, and the most blatant anti-Catholicism comes from family. Last Thanksgiving, we had an interesting a-C moment with my mother-in-law.

We were at her house for dinner. As is our custom, everyone circled around to pray, and to give a short testimonial about why we are thankful today. When it was M-I-L’s turn, she noted that she is thankful for her dearly departed mother, who raised her to know Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, not like SOME MOTHERS (eyes boring a hole through me) who raise their children to be PAGANS!!! Not sure that I handled it as well as I could have, but I pretended to ignore it as if she was not talking about me. Several other family members asked me later if my feelings were hurt, and I played dumb. ("Why would she be talking about me? We’re not pagans, we’re Catholic. *[flutters eyelashes] *;))

The Lord will have to convert this family, as I’ve decided I can do nothing except give a charitable and faithful example. I’ve tried to patiently answer their questions, and inform them gently about their misconceptions, but the ears, eyes and hearts are closed. My prayer for them is often “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
 
People do seem to think insulting the Church is more acceptable than insulting, say, Jews or Blacks.
Yes, anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice. Today, I responded to one of my A-C ‘Catholic’ neighbours well I think. He tried to give me some things (the usual trade-off for permission in his mind to rant).

Rather than invite him around so that he could bellow again from the latest Jack Chick tract, I politely declined the things, talked about something not remotely related to faith, then said I had to go --smiling warmly all the while.

Ah! Peace! 🙂
 
I don’t know why some people think that, upon finding out that I am Catholic, that I immediately wish to engage in a theological debate…:rolleyes: Why can’t they just smile and be polite, like they would if they found out I was gay… 🤷
Yes, anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice. Today, I responded to one of my A-C ‘Catholic’ neighbours well I think. He tried to give me some things (the usual trade-off for permission in his mind to rant).

Rather than invite him around so that he could bellow again from the latest Jack Chick tract, I politely declined the things, talked about something not remotely related to faith, then said I had to go --smiling warmly all the while.

Ah! Peace! 🙂
 
I’ve never actually met anti Catholicism anywhere in my day-to-day life (though sometimes I wish I did so the 1 Peter 3:15 preparing would come in handy 😃 ), but on the same note, I’ve never had anyone knock on my door either. I would think living next to a Catholic Church would get some door knockers, but I guess I’m just lucky 😛
 
Why the poor me’s? Maybe I am lucky to live in Australia, but it’s not like you can be killed as you can in some countries for faith. Any Christian if open about their faith is likely to be persecuted. It’s something Jesus warned us about. It’s not specifically against Catholics. Try saying you’re Mormon, SDA, or gay or something for a while and see if Catholicism really is the last acceptable prejudice.

Is it part of the Catholic psyche to have a persecution complex?

Catholics, listen to me, you can just sit back, smile and say, well “We are the biggest, the original and the best” and be smug about it. It’s 2007. Unless you are in Northen Ireland of course…
 
We are actually getting it badly the other way. We are doing the RCIA and one of the people there is extremely anti-Protestant. She told my wife to pray for her parents to be converted. Her parents are AOG pastors! I am sure they are doing just fine.
That’s a very thoughtful sentiment; it’s not anti-protestantism at all.

There’s nothing wrong with recognizing Catholicism as the Truth and wanting others to be a part of it so that they have a better chance at salvation; it’s loving your neighbor. To remain complacent in the face of their error is just the opposite.

We should pray for the conversion of protestants as well as jews and all others so all may partake of the full complete Truth of the Church. What better service can we do for another person than to point them to the Truth?
 
Coming from this woman, yes it is anti-protestant, and it is not Catechismal. I suggest you read the CCC or Compendium for the Church’s official teaching regarding our attitude to other traditions, and their members’ salvation. Try around para 818 (from memory).

They are on fire for God in their own church. My wife’s Mum actually converted from Catholicism after 20 years of devout practice. People love to take “One True Church” to mean that all other churches are false. This is believed by many, but I challenge anyone to point me to anywhere in the catechism that says that. There are many teachings in the RCC that are not the teachings of the RCC. They are prejudice dressed up as teaching.😊

The RCC has the fullness of Truth, but not a monopoly on truth. Big difference.
 
Other than hearing insensitive and disparaging remarks made about the Church, I haven’t been a victim of any type of persecution. People do seem to think insulting the Church is more acceptable than insulting, say, Jews or Blacks.
Because a black person might kick off in their backside and a Jewish person might read them a rather embarrassing riot act and hang a one word ad hominem on them that would be true. “Bigot”.
 
Though I may agree we need to be careful of bit playing victim, I would like to make one comment…

The most heated A-C I’ve come across Know exactly what our church teaches, and what the bible says about Catholics. However, I find it extremely funny that when in separate conversations, when talking about the bible, I will almost always find out that a majority of them never even open it. They know Revelations backwards and Forwards, and some of Ephesians and Romans, but thats it. Was even told once that reading the bible in private is impossibly difficult to understand, and that all they need to do is listen to their pastor, and thus, they dont see a need to read the bible. However, somehow, they are always biblical experts when it comes to Catholicism.

Sad, but Funny…

In Christ
 
Though I may agree we need to be careful of bit playing victim, I would like to make one comment…

The most heated A-C I’ve come across Know exactly what our church teaches, and what the bible says about Catholics. However, I find it extremely funny that when in separate conversations, when talking about the bible, I will almost always find out that a majority of them never even open it. They know Revelations backwards and Forwards, and some of Ephesians and Romans, but thats it. Was even told once that reading the bible in private is impossibly difficult to understand, and that all they need to do is listen to their pastor, and thus, they dont see a need to read the bible. However, somehow, they are always biblical experts when it comes to Catholicism.

Sad, but Funny…

In Christ
:ouch: I know what you mean though. There were a couple of guys I knew who were real serious church goers and big into going every time there was some event, like a “Dr. Dino” video or something like that. There were times that they’d come back from stuff like that and come find me and immediately make allegations about the Catholic Church and I’d deal with them as charitably as possible.

One day I found this Catholic Bible quiz in a magazine that had like 50 questions on general Bible knowledge and so I took it and scored out at about 96 or 98. The I got the idea that it would be fun to see how the other guys that I knew went to church and talked about the Bible all the time did on it. There were about 3 questions that were uniquely Catholic in nature, so I just skipped them and gave them credit for those questions so as to be fair.

They still scored substantially lower than I did and I was really really surprised because from the way they talked you’d think they were borderline Bible scholars or something. It was weird.

Also back when I was in the AoG as a Sunday School teacher I discovered that the young adults that I was teaching not only didn’t know the Bible well at all, but instead of carefully studying to show themselves approved unto God, they told me flat out that what they believed they did because the pastor said so. They couldn’t even begin to defend their faith, and they had grown up in the church. (Which I guess just proves that, like me, [when I was a Catholic kid] they went, but really weren’t paying attention.)

I still find today that I know the Bible better than most people I talk to, which I think is just weird. :bible1:
 
Absolutely. And almost always from other (fallen-away) Catholics.
Precisley!

There are so many lost souls out there who do not even know about Christ, and they want to confront me about their supposed “facts.” There ae also many who try at stick the faith with the old “pedophile priests” remarks too.

👍 At least we have the real truth.
 
Also back when I was in the AoG as a Sunday School teacher I discovered that the young adults that I was teaching not only didn’t know the Bible well at all, but instead of carefully studying to show themselves approved unto God, they told me flat out that what they believed they did because the pastor said so.
So the pastor was their pope?
 
Coming from this woman, yes it is anti-protestant, and it is not Catechismal. I suggest you read the CCC or Compendium for the Church’s official teaching regarding our attitude to other traditions, and their members’ salvation. Try around para 818 (from memory).

They are on fire for God in their own church. My wife’s Mum actually converted from Catholicism after 20 years of devout practice. People love to take “One True Church” to mean that all other churches are false. This is believed by many, but I challenge anyone to point me to anywhere in the catechism that says that. There are many teachings in the RCC that are not the teachings of the RCC. They are prejudice dressed up as teaching.😊

The RCC has the fullness of Truth, but not a monopoly on truth. Big difference.
No evidence given = gratuitous and false accusations = the poster has conceded the discussion.
 
Sadly enough, most of the anti-Catholic stuff that I have heard in my own life has spewed from my own mouth, when I was not a practising Catholic. Most of the AC stuff I hear now is from some fallen away catholics, or those who are struggling in their faith.

I have gotten very little Anti-cath rhetoric from protestants throughout my life. In fact, some of my protestant friends and co workers were the ones who encouraged me to become more acitve in my faith. Go figure.

It’s kinda funny, but I owe so much to many of my protestant friends and coworkers who set such good Christian examples for me in their lives, and their examples led me back to the Catholic faith. I really admired their faith, and how they really put their faith into practise.
 
Heck yeah, I’ve come across both anti-Catholic and anti-Orthodox people. I went to church with them for several years and was one of them before being brought to Orthodoxy.
When it was M-I-L’s turn, she noted that she is thankful for her dearly departed mother, who raised her to know Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, not like SOME MOTHERS (eyes boring a hole through me) who raise their children to be PAGANS!!!
Wow… Luke 18:9-14 anyone?
 
Unlike most here, I don’t see anti-Catholicism very much, and whenever I do, it is pretty much an even balance between atheists and Catholics spewing anti-Catholic trash, and maybe very occasionally a Protestant.

Maybe things are different in Australia. We don’t really have much of a bible belt. These days it’s hard to find practicing Christians from any denomination unless you’re looking for them. Maybe it’s also because I make an effort to avoid Protestants ever since one tried to convert me about 3 years ago. I have a couple of friends in the local area who are non Catholic Christians, but they respect my Catholic beliefs (if they didn’t, they probably wouldn’t be my friends much longer. In fact once I got into a bit of a debate with one of my friends on the subject which clearly was not productive so I think we silently agreed not to discuss religion any more).

But yea. There are the stereotypical atheist lefty pro-abortion types who don’t like the Church’s teaching on a myriad of moral issues and like to have a go at it. Then there are the stereotypical Catholic lefty pro-abortion types who don’t like the Church’s teaching on a myriad of moral issues and like to have a go at it, and also who don’t like it how the Catholic church claims to be the one true church and teaches about absolute truth (they’d prefer it if we taught moral relativism and that any group that talks about Jesus is an equally good path to heaven, or whatever). Needless to say, they all think I’m in the wrong. How I wish people would quit questioning my faith…

On another note - I may have read it before, but Church Militant’s testimony is tops! Thanks for posting a link to it again.
 
davidarlette,

Protestant churches have a “portion” of the truth.

I agree with you (and the Catechism) that they teach the Gospel (a portion of it) and that the baptized believers are Christians. I’m not quite sure if I am willing to agree with you that Protestant churches aren’t “false churches.”

IMO, they are false in the sense that they aren’t offering the whole truth. They are missing so much! Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist, and they’re missing Him.

I was evangelical Protestant for over 40 years, and I feel like stepped from a shanty into a castle when I became Catholic. All the glitzy music and drama, youth programs, Bible studies, great speakers, missionary rallies, prayer meetings, manifestations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, church growth programs, world relief organizations, etc.–none of it can compare to Jesus Himself in the Eucharist.

And there are other things that Protestants teach that are false; e.g., the doctrine of sola Scriptura. This doctrine has caused so much harm. Also, Protestants teach (falsely) that we can’t ask the saints to pray for us, and that Mary was just a woman used by God.

And one of the biggest falsehoods that Protestants teach is that baptism is not necessary for salvation. Yikes. It’s right in the Bible, but many sects of Protestant call baptism a “work of man.”

Protestants also have some dicey doctrines about faith and works, e.g., the “snow-covered dunghill” doctrine that says that Jesus just “covers our sins.” Yikes again.

And finally, Protestants ignore the authority of Christ-appointed leader of the Christian Church on this earth, the Vicar of Christ. At least nowadays, many Protestants do respect him and don’t label as “anti-Christ.” But they don’t accept the teaching that the CHURCH led by the Pope and Magisterium, is our authority.

This is pretty major falsehood, to reject the Christ-appointed leader.

So yes, I pray for their conversion into the fullness of the faith–the Catholic Church. I don’t want them to continue to believe these falsehoods, and I don’t want them to miss out on the truth of the Catholic Church.

I don’t consider that anti-Protestantism on my part. I consider it compassion and love.
 
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