Should I give money to protestant

  • Thread starter Thread starter esr
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
E

esr

Guest
friend who is moving her family to Mexico to become missionaries. I think her husband is going to be teaching English classes and the mother is going to start a mom’s group. My concern is that Mexico is predominately Catholic and that they would be trying to pull people away from the Catholic faith. I am not very close to this person. I have attended a few bible studies with her, of which I am usually the only Catholic. However, I think I may be the only one in the bible study group who has not donated any money. I have been invited to an open house for the family before they leave next month and it is at their nondemoninational church. I do not feel comfortable going to the open house because I have not given them any money. Does anyone have any suggestions how they would handle this situation? Am I being overly sensitive?
 
Who are they evangelizing? Non-Christians? Catholics? If they aren’t going to evangelize Catholics, it seems ok to me. If theres a chance they ARE, I would politely decline.
 
The answer above (Post 2) refelects my attitude exactly. The sole purpose of Protestant missionary work in a Catholic country is to proselytize, with the tacit assumption that almost no Catholic is actually a Christian and needs to hear the gospel.

I would go to your friends party, but I would not contribute (I have been in a similar position). If no one questions you about your lack of monetary support, fine. If they do, be prepared to tell them why. If you have the funds anyway, try and find a good Catholic missionary apostolate and contribute to them. Then you can tell your friends you are already supporting a missionary. There are plenty of deserving Catholic causes you can contribute to without supporting non-Catholics who are trying to pull people out of the Church.
 
There are plenty of deserving Catholic causes you can contribute to without supporting non-Catholics who are trying to pull people out of the Church.
Click to expand...
AMEN!

I’ve had someone praying for me to become Christian for two years.

I finally did.

Now, she’s praying that I am “saved” and become a “real” Christian - apparently, I can only do that if I join the Church of Chuck Smith. :rolleyes: (At least, that’s the impression I get from reading through the websites of the Church of Chuck Smith 😉 )

No, I would not support “evangelical” missions into heavily Catholic areas.

Elizabeth
 
If they will preach for the Gospel why not give them money.

If they will preach for their religion, we’ll think of it? LOL
 
I have some Missionary friends in Portugal, they chose an area that is more agnostic than Catholic. The thing is that just because a Missionary goes to a country that is predomonantly Catholic doesn’t mean that the whole place is. You may want to find out more about the areas they will be working in before amking your final dicision. You might also ask about how “Mary worship” plays into it. It happens a lot down there and I don’t see anything wrong with evaqngelizing someone who thinks he has to pray to mary for salvation.

I’m not talking about praying WITH Mary, I’m talking about praying TO Mary. The cit I grew up in was predominantly Catholic and some of my friends though you had to pray to Mary and that they wern’t Christians because of it.
 
I think that it depends on what the missionary work they are doing is comprised of. Sometimes, “missions” is not religious in nature. (I know that sounds odd, but it’s true!) A lot of Protestant missionaries are simply involved in literacy programs, medical missions, & the like.
On the other hand, if what they are doing is simply trying to “help themselves” to other churches’ members, I wouldn’t contribute myself, & I’m not even Catholic! I feel that missions is supposed to be reaching people who have not been evangelized, not getting into a numbers war over how many people you can get away from another Christian group.
I like the suggestion to find a program that you can support wholeheartedly, to donate to, instead of something that you find questionable.
There is no reason to feel embarassed at possibly being the only one who does not give them money. It is your money. You are entitled to do with it as you see fit.
God bless.
 
I have friends who frequently go on missionary trips to far off places. They are Christians, but not Catholic. They try to help the people with food, comraderie and building non-denominational churches.

My husband and I often give money to support thier cause. We call it ‘loving thy neighbor’. We believe this giving builds bridges between us and our non-catholic friends.

These friends are not anti-catholic. I would not advocate financially supporting someone who is.

esr - I think if you were invited to the open house, it is totally legitmate that you should attend, if you want to. This isn’t about money. On the other hand, if you don’t feel close to this person and you don’t want to attend, that is fine, too. Let us know what you decide to do.
 
Support Catholic missions and Catholic charity, and you can’t go wrong.
 
When Communism fell I was donating to a Catholic charity , "Aid to the Church In Need " . It was givingmainly to Russia and Eastern Europe.When Communism fell it expanded its aid to include Orthodox institutions in Russia including " Seminaries " .When the ROC became hostile and incited trouble for the church in Russia.Catholics complained to the charity insisting that their donations not go to Orthodox,anything.The charity agreed and allowed people to specify,that there money only be used for Catholic institutions.
When I was a child my diocese told the people it needed money for a " specific purpose " My Mother a widow made and fullfilled a pledge to the diocese. For the purpose they had announced !The money was never used for that purpose.The diocese never explained what they had done with the money.From that day, My family never gave to any bishops anything. Instead we to this day give to the Salvation Army a Charity above reproach,protestant or not.
Also as things stand now,any Catholic that gives his bishop money .Well, it would be prudent to know what the money is for and to make sure its used for that purpose.
 
40.png
FuzzyBunny116:
Who are they evangelizing? Non-Christians? Catholics? If they aren’t going to evangelize Catholics, it seems ok to me. If theres a chance they ARE, I would politely decline.
Click to expand...
Good answer, and partly the reason that I don’t support my church’s missionary program. One family recently went to Siciliy, and before they left, they displayed Catholic artifacts so we could see the “superstitions” from which we were saving those poor Catholics. Its one of the reasons I’ve started looking elsewhere.
 
WHy not simply ask your friend? Invite her over for coffee and ask her about the people that she is going to mission to. Even ask her to bring some literature from the organization that she is going with. I would be upfront and say that you really want to help, but you have questions. I don’t see why this should offend her, she probably is anxious to talk about the subject.
 
May I introduce a little structure to this debate? Thanks!

First off, the following reasoning applies to Catholics only. Here goes:

So far, the only solid reason anyone has put forth for NOT supporting a non-catholic mission is that:
  • there is a CHANCE that they might actually be working AGAINST the Catholic Church by promoting another version of Christianity and hoping to convert Catholics. Correct?
Once this premise had been established several people followed with indirect attempts to exclude certain non-Catholic missions because their work was entirely secular: feeding the poor, building houses, etc. However the problem with such reasoning is that ya never know what exactly is going to happen on the missions do ya? Given this realization, shouldn’t the question become:
  • If you have the choice between 2 charities which are identical in all aspects except their respective affiliations (one is Catholic, one is not), isn’t always best to support the Catholic charity?
Please note - we’re not talking about sinning, or right and wrong, simply what makes the most sense for a Catholic.

Phil
 
I had a missionary from Calvary Chapel come to my house, before he headed out to the Phillipines. Now all he preached was how the Catholic Church was wrong. Once I started answering his questions and showed him my notes and read the Bible with him we had a long discussion. This ended up with him leaving quickly, accidently leaving his Catechisms with his notes and several other books. I gave him a copy of Scott Hahn’s -Rome Sweet Home- but he hasn’t returned my calls.

I know he spent several weeks in the Phillipines and has just come back, I really hope that what I said touched him about preaching the truth and not just trying to make the Church look bad. I can just pray he seeks the truth.

I have seen many missionary advertisements to countries such as the Phillipines and Mexico where there is a large Catholic population. I really doubt they are targeting only non-catholics. And many people when shown the “wrongness” of Catholicism feel betrayed by Catholicism and then become a little anti-catholic.

So I for one will never support non-catholic missionaries unless they specifically do only charity work. I have also talked to family of my wife’s in Mexico to help them to learn more about their faith and why they should practice and be familiar with it. Hopefully some missionaries meet them and seek the truth, instead of just leading them to their particular denomination.

God Bless
Scylla

BTW here is an interesting link
envoymagazine.com/backissues/4.4/found.htm
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top