Should we Catholics silence ourselves in public because others are offended?

[La-Petite-Fleur]

Thank you. I really appreciate each post, each and every one. I’m so glad to read these responses, because it’s what I was hoping for. Even if pagans call me a bigot because I say pagan gods are false and that salvation is from Christ alone- I will still stand up for the truth of Christ. I won’t give into the lies of “what may be right for you, may not be right for others, and you have to accept that Jesus & His salvation are subject to moral relativism… or else you’re a bigot”. I will stand firm in the God’s truth. After all that Jesus has done for us, after dying for us because of the sins of the world, I don’t dare insult him by saying “Oh, pagans, it’s okay if you worship gods, they aren’t false, and your paganism isn’t lesser than Christianity, and Jesus is just one of many ‘paths’”. That’s what quite a few of these wiccans and pagans want us to say, and when we refuse, they seem to love to whip out those hellish slurs “intolerant” “fascist” and the all time favorite, “bigot”.

Jesus is worthy of all our love. And I would be doing him a tremendous disservice if I hid His universal truth because pagans and others thought it was bigoted. So there it is: Jesus is Lord, salvation comes through Him alone, all other gods are false- only the Trinity is worthy of worship, the occult is a sin, and everyone on earth should accept Jesus as their Lord & Savior and follow Him. I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be called all kinds of bad names for speaking these truths or for even just believing them. But Jesus is worthy, and I’ll do it for Him. Even if the whole world hated me because I’m not ashamed of Him or His universal truth, I’ll endure every insult against me, because Jesus is worthy. And I love Him.

I feel like several of the responses I received in this thread were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Bible passage that Eileen T mentioned, the dream slyboots wrote about, Caesar and all of the other posters who all responded in accord that we are not to hide the truth or pander to moral relativism. You have all inspired me, and I thank you.

Slyboots- I also wanted to mention that I think your dream has great meaning. I’ve heard of others having dreams of a future Christian persecution. About ten years ago when I was a teenager, I experienced something similar: something happened to America and many people died. The ones that remained had to make their way to the states boarding oceans, where an international military set up green tents to hand out purified water. Farmers were scratching at the ground for potatoes. Soon after, a bad public figure appeared. Then a strange, powerful, cruel army of men forced Christians to convert or die. Then I saw the Church. Just as she began to faint, Jesus caught her. And Christ was victorious. Maybe there was nothing to this. But quite a few people have had similar themed dreams. But the point is, as you mentioned “If we are concerned about offending others by our faith, how then will we defend it in our time of trial?” You’re right. Thank you.

Thank you all again. You’ve really inspired me, and I’m comforted by all that each of you have written here. May we always speak of God’s universal truths, and not give into moral relativism. Be brave in Christ! God bless you all.

 

[Steadfast_love]

One of the other things quite a few pagans (wiccans,etc) seemed to have a problem with is when Christians make definitive statements. For instance, instead of saying “I believe Jesus is lord” we say “Jesus is Lord”. Many expressed moral relativism, and of course definitive statements do not fall in line with moral relativism. So that, too, many find “bigoted”.

No, you’re looking at this wrong. This is one place where you can have your cake and eat it too.

You **should **say: “As Catholics, we believe” or “The Catholic Church has always taught” or “Based on sacred scripture” or “According to the Catechism” or “Last month the Holy Father said” or “Saint Hilary of Poiters wrote” or “Leading historians agree that…”

Talking in this way gets you SEVEN huge advantages.

1. They can’t play the bigotry card.
2. You get to speak objectively. (It’s true that the church actually teaches such-and-such)
3. You’re backed up by authority of the Church instead of your own say-so.
4. You familiarize them with authors and documents that can lead them to Christ.
5. You can minister to the misreadings that are at the root of every heresy.
6. You can further the cause of ecumenicism and widen your argument with the weight of approximately three billion people by saying things like “Jews, Christians and Muslims believe…”
7. You can keep from getting side tracked into non-Catholic stuff by narrowing your argument to what the Magistierium teaches.

Basically, you’d be crazy not to do it!

Some also think it’s “bigoted” for the Catholic Church & Christians to say Jesus is not “a way” but “THE way”, even when acknowledging that non-Christians can go to heaven.

Just emphasize that it is “our belief” – it’s politicaly correct but the absolute claim is still made.

It’s like trying to get a message to someone in a communist prison. You encode the letter and hope that the meaning gets through. (And why should we complain? Prefacing each sentence with “We believe” is childs play compared to the stuff Jesus had to pull to outsmart the Pharasees!)

I’m asking… should Catholics just keep quiet & deny Christ in public because others find our non-‘moral-relativist’ statements about Christ, etc, to be “bigoted”?

Our Lord said that if you deny him before men, he will deny you before our heavenly Father. bible1:Matthew 10:33) You don’t have to be a doctor of the church to figure that one out!

But we’re also supposed to be “fishers of men” and every good fisherman knows that the most important thing is: Don’t scare the fish. If you scare them away, you’re just wasting your time and making it hard on the other fishermen. My grandfathers fishing rule was: Whatever you’re doing to scare the fish, knock it off!

Besides, you should feel grateful that the Pagans are willing to tell you what works and what doesn’t. A talking fish is unheard of, but a fish that talks AND tells you how to catch it? Miraculous!

 

[La-Petite-Fleur]

You **should **say: “As Catholics, we believe” or “The Catholic Church has always taught” or “Based on sacred scripture” or “According to the Catechism” or “Last month the Holy Father said” or “Saint Hilary of Poiters wrote” or “Leading historians agree that…”

Interesting points. I agree, but as long as I add “and it is the absolute truth”. Because I recall in the Bible when Jesus was being crucified, the crowd that had handed Him over to Pilate was upset that he had written “King of the Jews”. Then they said, "No, don’t write it that way. Say “He said he’s king of the Jews.” So that in that way, it would no longer become a statement of truth, but a claim:

NIV Translation: 19Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. 21The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”
22Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written

King James Translation: “Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews…”

So while stating the truth by including the strong references of Jesus, the Bible, the Church, etc, is good, it leaves a loophole for others to think of it merely as a claim if I don’t also add “and it’s the truth, period”. And instead of saying “It’s true that the church actually teaches such-and-such”, (because confirming that the church says something, doesn’t actually imply that what the church is saying is true) I should say “the church teaches such-and-such and it’s the absolute truth” Right?

 

[La-Petite-Fleur]

Or maybe an even more solid way would be to say:
“Jesus taught in absolute truth such-and-such”.

 

[Steadfast_love]

:bible1: Matt 5:11
*Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. *

So if you want evil things uttered against you, making absolute claims to pagans is a great strategy. It’s quick, it’s predictable, it nets you blessings. The downside is that by playing into their stereotype of a bigoted Christian, you’re reinforcing their knee jerk reactions. You get blessed, but are you a blessing to them?

I wouldn’t say “Jesus taught in absolute truth such-and-such” because it plays into their trick question. By saying “it’s only our opinion” you agree with relativism. By saying “Jesus is the Way” you agree with their stereotype of the bigoted Christian. But if you say “We believe in such-and-such” you disagree with relativism (by being monotheist) and disagree with their stereotype (by not relying on ‘because I said so’ epistomology.)

If they call names anyway, I respond by saying something like: “Of course we believe in only one God, that’s why we’re monotheists.” When we say “we believe” they can’t call us bigots without exposing the lie at the heart of relativism: that some beliefs are more equal than others – and that’s a trade I’d make any day of the week!

 

[puzzleannie]

in response to title of OP, we should show the same consideration to the sensibilities of others by our words and actions as they show to us: those others being gay lib activists changing the definition of marriage and family by acting out their “lifestyle choices” in public, publicly funded “artists” promoting pornography in public places, free speech proponents who have made the MSM a cesspool of obscenity, and news “commentators” whose idea of balanced reporting is a televised shouting match involving a Hollywood Squares array of talking heads.

If we are not offending people by what we say, do and preach we are not preaching the message of Jesus.

 

[the_phoenix]

One time I attended a Star Trek convention in New Philadelphia, Ohio, called the Camp Dover Peace Conference, sponsored by the Klingon Assault Group.

After dinner, I was walking around the hotel in my Star Trek costume mingling with the other convention-goers. Going into the ballroom, by accident I discovered I had walked in on a pagan wedding. In fact, they were invoking some goddess, I think!

The Bible verse came to me, about how if you publicly recognize Jesus Christ, He will recognize you before His Father in Heaven, but if you are ashamed to acknowledge Jesus before men, He will not acknowledge you. So I made the sign of the cross and left the room, walking past an ice sculpture of a swan.

Later that night after the pagan wedding had ended and the Star Trek convention dance was being held, I walked back into the ballroom and was startled to see that the wedding couple’s ice sculpture which had started off as a swan, had melted into the form of an angel … but that was not all that was going to happen.

Now one of the convention attendees happened to be a priest, and celebrated Mass for us in the hotel the next day. During his sermon, he also mentioned the ice sculpture … and the fact that towards the end of the evening, it had melted into the form of a cross !!!

~~ the phoenix

 

[blessedtoo]

Interesting points. I agree, but as long as I add “and it is the absolute truth”. Because I recall in the Bible when Jesus was being crucified, the crowd that had handed Him over to Pilate was upset that he had written “King of the Jews”. Then they said, "No, don’t write it that way. Say “He said he’s king of the Jews.” So that in that way, it would no longer become a statement of truth, but a claim:

So while stating the truth by including the strong references of Jesus, the Bible, the Church, etc, is good, it leaves a loophole for others to think of it merely as a claim if I don’t also add “and it’s the truth, period”. And instead of saying “It’s true that the church actually teaches such-and-such”, (because confirming that the church says something, doesn’t actually imply that what the church is saying is true) I should say “the church teaches such-and-such and it’s the absolute truth” Right?

I would not phrase things in this way. I agree with Steadfast on this. Evangelization is not intended to provoke or taunt and using statements like “it’s the truth, period” would probably anger anyone who doesn’t understand the Catholic Church. Beginning a statement with “The Church believes”, or “we, as Catholics, believe”, allows one to harnass 2,000 years of authority and eliminate any charge of personal opinion. However, if a person were to object to the authority of the Church, it would be right to say that we as Catholics have the fullness of the faith, and that we are members of the Church Christ began. Truth is not a thing, but a person, and that person is Jesus Christ. As such, we as Catholics, are the inheritors of that truth.

 

[asquared]

One time I attended a Star Trek convention in New Philadelphia, Ohio, called the Camp Dover Peace Conference, sponsored by the Klingon Assault Group.

Now one of the convention attendees happened to be a priest, and celebrated Mass for us in the hotel the next day. During his sermon, he also mentioned the ice sculpture … and the fact that towards the end of the evening, it had melted into the form of a cross !!!

~~ the phoenix

so I am dying to know, what did the priest wear?

 

[the_phoenix]

so I am dying to know, what did the priest wear?

The priest did not wear a Star Trek costume, that much I remember, and for that I am truly grateful !

Have a great day, asquared.

~~ the phoenix