Struggling with hatred of heretical teachings

  • Thread starter Thread starter eyesopening
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
“eyes opening”,

You can offer up your distress in union with our Lord Jesus Christ, and keep him company in his agony in the garden.

This can take your mind off of anger, and instead, console the Lord who wants all to be one. In offering up your distress to the Lord, in union with Him, you can help gain graces for those who do not know the fullness of Christ.

Rejoice in the gift of the Faith that you now have! 🙂
 
After re-reading this thread, I feel like I need to clarify. I do not think that all protestants will burn in hell or anything like that. I just hate that these groups teach that which is in opposition to the Catholic Church and they teach others to hate the Catholic Church. I honestly wish that they would all be reconciled to Christ’s True Church. I hate that which they propagate because I know what its source is!
 
Dorothy said:
“eyes opening”,

You can offer up your distress in union with our Lord Jesus Christ, and keep him company in his agony in the garden.

This can take your mind off of anger, and instead, console the Lord who wants all to be one. In offering up your distress to the Lord, in union with Him, you can help gain graces for those who do not know the fullness of Christ.

Rejoice in the gift of the Faith that you now have! 🙂
Click to expand...
Thank you, Dorothy. 👍
 
Heresy is evil. We are to HATE evil, including the evil of Heresy. We are to love Heretics, but hate heresy. Too many people today love the heretic some much, they come to love the heresy. Our forefather’s tended in the opposite direction - they hated the heresy so much, they ended up hating the heretic too. But you seem to be right on track to me.

BTW, don’t listen to people that tell you “the Church sees heresy as a great thing, with much truth in it” - that’s misleading. The Church recognizes that heretics (whom we are to love) believe many true things (i.e. things the Church teaches) mixed with heresy. The Church rightly distinguishes between heretical beliefs (e.g. Calvinistic double predestination) and true things also believed by heretics (e.g. Calvinists believe in the Trinity). The Church does NOT see heresy as a good thing qua heresy, but it reminds us that even heretics believe some true things.
 
PietroPaolo said:
Heresy is evil. We are to HATE evil, including the evil of Heresy. We are to love Heretics, but hate heresy. Too many people today love the heretic some much, they come to love the heresy. Our forefather’s tended in the opposite direction - they hated the heresy so much, they ended up hating the heretic too. But you seem to be right on track to me.

BTW, don’t listen to people that tell you “the Church sees heresy as a great thing, with much truth in it” - that’s misleading. The Church recognizes that heretics (whom we are to love) believe many true things (i.e. things the Church teaches) mixed with heresy. The Church rightly distinguishes between heretical beliefs (e.g. Calvinistic double predestination) and true things also believed by heretics (e.g. Calvinists believe in the Trinity). The Church does NOT see heresy as a good thing qua heresy, but it reminds us that even heretics believe some true things.
Click to expand...
Why are we scared of coming right out and calling it heresy? Or using the term heretic? (Obviously we don’t need to start fights with those words, I understand. But there seems a reluctance to even use these terms.)
 
Is heresy committed by those who knowingly reject the Catholic faith? Protestants can’t be held responsible for that.

Catechism 2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."
 
njlisa said:
Is heresy committed by those who knowingly reject the Catholic faith? Protestants can’t be held responsible for that.

Catechism 2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."
Click to expand...
So I guess what we’re really talking about is Schism, not Heresy. Thanks for the clarification.
 
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with hating an idea as long as it doesn’t lead you to hate or mistreat a person.
 
eyesopening said:
Why are we scared of coming right out and calling it heresy? Or using the term heretic? (Obviously we don’t need to start fights with those words, I understand. But there seems a reluctance to even use these terms.)
Click to expand...
People will tell you that the word “heretic” has a lot of emotional power and they don’t want to offend anyone. But that isn’t the real reason. Sadly, we (Americans/ Western Europeans) just don’t see heresy as evil or we would call it heresy. No one is afraid of calling a Klansman a “racist” even though that too is an emotionally charged word that will offend, but we (as a society) feel that racism is, in fact, evil.

For a less inflammatory word, you can go with “heterodox.”
 
eyesopening said:
So I guess what we’re really talking about is Schism, not Heresy. Thanks for the clarification.
Click to expand...
No, schism is refusal to obey the authority of the Church (like the Eastern Orthodox or SSPX), heresy is able to be committed by any BAPTIZED Christian - you don’t have to be a Catholic to be a heretic. And, of course, anyone (even the unbaptized) can hold heretical beliefs. Protestants may not be guilty of formal heresy (if they were never Catholic) and their guilt might be reduced to zero if they are in a state of invincible ignorance, but they would still be material heretics.
 
PietroPaolo said:
No, schism is refusal to obey the authority of the Church (like the Eastern Orthodox or SSPX), heresy is able to be committed by any BAPTIZED Christian - you don’t have to be a Catholic to be a heretic. And, of course, anyone (even the unbaptized) can hold heretical beliefs. Protestants may not be guilty of formal heresy (if they were never Catholic) and their guilt might be reduced to zero if they are in a state of invincible ignorance, but they would still be material heretics.
Click to expand...
Oh, I see. Thanks for that info.
 
eyesopening said:
So I guess what we’re really talking about is Schism, not Heresy. Thanks for the clarification.
Click to expand...
For example, a Lutheran believing that Mary was conceived with original sin would be heresy - how guilty the individual Lutheran is depends on those factors I mentioned above.
 
Love them. Pray for them. They walk a tightrope instead of a path. The certainty of your words will eventually quiet them.
 
PietroPaolo said:
For example, a Lutheran believing that Mary was conceived with original sin would be heresy - how guilty the individual Lutheran is depends on those factors I mentioned above.
Click to expand...
I’m just asking for my info. How likely is a state of invincible ignorance?
 
If you’re really interested in drilling into the nature of heresy you can read THIS.
 
Here’s Blessed John Paul’s encyclical “Ut Unum Sin, On commitment to Ecumenism.”

The courageous witness of so many martyrs of our century, including members of Churches and Ecclesial Communities not in full communion with the Catholic Church, gives new vigour to the Council’s call and reminds us of our duty to listen to and put into practice its exhortation. These brothers and sisters of ours, united in the selfless offering of their lives for the Kingdom of God, are the most powerful proof that every factor of division can be transcended and overcome in the total gift of self for the sake of the Gospel.

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint_en.html
 
eyesopening said:
I’m just asking for my info. How likely is a state of invincible ignorance?
Click to expand...
Depends on who you are asking. IMHO, not very likely for most people - but God is the only one who knows for sure. You can imagine some small hill village somewhere in someplace like West Virginia where no one has ever heard any theology apart from the local baptist preacher. Those people would be invincibly ignorant b/c there would be no way for them to learn the truth.

Of course, no one is ignorant of natural law, so this would only apply to theological truths like the Immaculate Conception.
 
PietroPaolo said:
No, schism is refusal to obey the authority of the Church (like the Eastern Orthodox or SSPX), heresy is able to be committed by any BAPTIZED Christian - you don’t have to be a Catholic to be a heretic. And, of course, anyone (even the unbaptized) can hold heretical beliefs. Protestants may not be guilty of formal heresy (if they were never Catholic) and their guilt might be reduced to zero if they are in a state of invincible ignorance, but they would still be material heretics.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that clarification.
 
njlisa said:
Here’s Blessed John Paul’s encyclical “Ut Unum Sin, On commitment to Ecumenism.”

The courageous witness of so many martyrs of our century, including members of Churches and Ecclesial Communities not in full communion with the Catholic Church, gives new vigour to the Council’s call and reminds us of our duty to listen to and put into practice its exhortation. These brothers and sisters of ours, united in the selfless offering of their lives for the Kingdom of God, are the most powerful proof that every factor of division can be transcended and overcome in the total gift of self for the sake of the Gospel.

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint_en.html
Click to expand...
The OP isn’t saying he hates members of Churches and Ecclesial Communties not in full communion with the Catholic Church, just that he hates the heresy they believe and that keeps them outside the Church. Of course, the point of ecumenism is to eradicate heresy and reunite the Church, so I’m not sure that JP2 is calling for a tolerance of heresy.
 
A person born & raised protestant that wasn’t catechized by the Catholic Church isn’t recognized by Rome as being in a state of formal heresy anyway. A formal heretic is somebody that has excommunicated themselves from the Church for doctrinal reasons.

I felt (and feel) similar anger towards protestantism because looking back on it retrospectively, I always did have the sense that I was missing a piece of the picture, and I eventually blamed it on my own lack of faith and weakness. Then for the first time in my life I seriously dug into Catholicism and I kind of felt like a kid that showed up late to an amusement park; I was ticked of.

Of course, that’s an overly simplistic way of looking at it. So many people are born in nominal Catholic families and still end up heavily deprived of the true richness of the Church, and even a person born in a strong Catholic family is probably going to have a harder time appreciating it in the same way that an adult newcomer would, where everything is so fresh and new and beautiful. Ultimately God has determined the time and place that each person was meant to live, and I definitely matured enormously as a person prior to ever inquiring into Catholicism.

Whenever I start to feel vindictive over something or someone, I just remind myself of where I was 2, 5, or 10 years ago.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top