Thinking about converting to the Catholic Church but I have problems with their history

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My advice: Beyond clearing up misundestandings and myths (of which there are several, from post-Reformation anti-Catholic hysteria to American history textbooks to Hollywood movies), simply get a better context of Catholic history.

That is, learn more about church history. Don’t let chapter headings and movies about the Inquisition, Crusades, and Renaissance corruption be your only familiarity with the Church.

Church history is much, MUCH, more than that — and that’s to say nothing, again, of the misunderstandings and distortions of those kinds of things.

You could even take a lifetime studying just one era of the Church, like the age of the Church Fathers.

Familiarize yourself with Catholic history. And you’ll begin to see how any bad in the Church fits into a complex picture of much good and beauty as well. The Church is divine, but it’s also human.
 
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Israel, God’s original Covenant community, was also guilty of all manner of abuses and horrors. However, He never turned His back on it. He remained faithful even when they didn’t, and He continues to be with our Church, the New Israel, in spite of the failures of its clergy and laity. Don’t let human failures (which are found everywhere) keep you from joining God’s covenant community.
 
DictatorCzar said:
And the sack of Constantinople, why would they attack fellow Christians for some money? I just feel confused.
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this was not done on the order of the Church. If you read the actual history this had a lot to do with the politics in Constantinople and Venice.

Politics is usually at the source of most of the evil in the world. It’s the same reason Henry VIII killed 50,000 of his own people who were Catholics, seized church property, and made it illegal to be Catholic. Had nothing to do with religion because he had the same opinion of Lutherans. It was all about politics and securing his throne.
 
The term ‘selling’ is not essentially the correct term to be used in regard to the indulgences granted by the Church such as in the 16th century or whatever century. It is rather ‘the granting of indulgences’ which the Church can do, does, and did. The pope at this time granted indulgences for various works one of which I believe was for the construction of churches and cathedrals and well as to the crusaders. There is nothing essentially wrong with granting indulgences to the laity for making donations whether in money, materials, or even possibly volunteer labor for the construction of various church works. Such voluntary donations are a good moral human act like giving an alms which even today the Church grants indulgences for. But like any human act, bad intentions make bad human acts even of those that are objectively good such as indulgences. So, there may have been some abuses but the fact is the Church can grant indulgences. Martin Luther and company objected to the Church and pope granting indulgences because they simply don’t believe that the Church can do this but the Catholic Church does and still today grants indulgences. Indulgences are a part of our doctrinal faith Tradition and it involves satisfaction or atoning for our sins which satisfaction is an integral part of the virtue of penance and the sacrament of penance which sacrament incidentally the protestant reformers did away with in their revolt against the Catholic Church.
 
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It’s also worth pointing out that in response to the abuse of indulgences, the Council of Trent forbade the granting of indulgences for monetary donations. This too easily leads to the abuse that Tetzel and others were committing, namely the selling of indulgences.
 
I wrote this in another post.

“There has always been scandal in the Church. We have had a lot of councils during the Millenia to decide what the Catholic faith is all about. There was about 200 years during the Medevial ages when none of the popes of that time have been declared saints by the Church. People like St Francis of Assisi, St Dominic, St Albertus Magnus, St Bonaventura and St Thomas of Aquinas pointed to serious issues with the Catholic Church and were made saints instead.”

There is a funny story with Napoleon meeting with an archbishop or cardinal and Napoleon says that he is going to destroy the Catholic Church. The archbishop/cardinal replies: “I am sorry to say but that is not possible. We, bishops, cardinals and popes, have been trying to do that for several centuries and a Millenia and have not yet succeeded.”
 
Every major group/religion has their scandals over history-nobody is perfect and unfortunately many people get corrupted.

However, I would just like to point out that Catholicism is hardly the only type of Christianity that has done bad things-Many discriminated against Catholics, even within the last 50 years. You can look it up.

Anyway, just remember that these scandals and issues are not what The Catholic Church is about! 😀
 
Catholic Encyclopedia

History presents few characters that have suffered more senseless misrepresentation, even bald caricature, than Tetzel. “Even while he lived stories which contained an element of legend gathered around his name, until at last, in the minds of the uncritical Protestant] historians, he became the typical indulgence-monger, upon whom any well-worn anecdote might be fathered” (Beard, “Martin Luther”, London, 1889, 210). For a critical scholarly study which shows him in a proper perspective, he had to wait the researches of our own time, mainly at the hands of Dr. Nicholas Paulus, who is closely followed in this article. In the first place, his teaching regarding the indulgences for the living was correct. The charge that the forgiveness was sold for money regardless of contrition or that absolution for sins to be committed in the future could be purcha sed is baseless. An indulgence he writes, can be applied only “to the pains of sin which are confessed and for which there is contrition”. “No one”, he furthermore adds, “secures an indulgence unless he have contrition”. The confessional letters ( confessionalia ) could of course be obtained for a mere pecuniary consideration without demanding contrition. But such document did not secure an indulgence. It was simply a permit to select a proper confessor, who only after a contrite confession would absolve from sin and reserved cases, and who possessed at the same time facilities to impart the plenary indulgence (Paulus, “Johann Tetzel”, 103)…
 
I just wanted to publicly state that I’ve been a little too harsh with setarcos, and that’s really been unwarranted. I apologize first and foremost to him, and also to all others who are reading this. It’s really rather unbecoming. Perhaps tomorrow when I am in a bit better frame of mind, I can offer some more productive discussion.
 
Well now, this is a first. I thank you for your apology. Your statement has made me see how applicable it is to my own disposition. I too have come across disrespectful of you and all Catholics. Sometimes one needs someone’s humility to show themselves how to be humble. You are wise indeed and I have learned from you.
I realize now that I think I have the flu and this has caused me to be unreasonable.
That said I too apologize.
 
setarcos said:
you cant condemn the Church for the failures of some of its individuals. Cant we? When the members of the Church follow the lead of those who committed these sins I’d say it becomes a failure of the Church not the individual.
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Are there sinless people in the church you attend?
 
Of course the Church is separate from its members in this case, in that you can imagine such and such a Catholic not existing, or all the Catholics in the past, or even today. And you can imagine other Catholics in existence. Add one more saint. Take away one more saint.

It doesn’t matter. Individual personality does not conflate into the Church itself.

Unless you can point to certain personalities that started the Catholic Church some time post-Christ, then your reasoning is deeply flawed.

The historical fact is, the Catholic Church is now and has always been continuous with the foundation of the Church by Jesus Christ on Peter. Such would be the case if the Inquisition never happened, or this or that bad priest, or this or that Catholic never existed.

The Catholic Church could have done something else much more horrible in the past, or some other unfortunate event may not have ever happened, if certain individuals did or did not exist/make the decisions they did.

But we do not conflate the actions of the people in the Church, and so the Church itself, with its very purpose and divine foundation in Christ.
 
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Jesus did not promise impeccability to all Church members. There have been mistakes yes. But don’t overlook the good history, the 300 years of persecution and martyrdom for example. No other religion has gone through that and remains standing today.
 
As I’ve said in my apology I do feel physically horrible so I must leave off for now. I hope to be allowed to discuss these things further tomorrow. It is most important to me.
Gods blessings be upon you all.
 
Why stop there? Go back to the history given of some of the scoundrels (I am putting it politely) who were listed as part of the lineage of Christ.

Christ made a promise to his future Church, that the Holy Spirit would guide it “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”

Read that again, carefully. Note what he did not promise - that everyone would be holy, that all would be saints.

We have a God of justice, but also of mercy… Christ forgave the thief on the cross during their execution. The other thief? well, nothing was said further…

There are lots of things a bout our history which can be put into context, and a good bit of history shows sinners all along the way. Some sought forgiveness, some may have not. That does not mean that the Gospels are not true. Judas betrayed Christ and committed suicide. Peter denied Christ three times - but repented of his sin.

Throughout history and even today there are many who hate the Church and what it stands for, and there are multitudes who can point to the sinners throughout history, And what happens when you point to someone else’s sin? There are 3 fingers pointing back at you…

There will always be some who can only point to the wrongs that Catholics have done. They should look to their own house. Most Catholics will not dwell on the history of the Church, good or bad, because they are aware that the past of others matters much less then their own need of forgiveness.
 
I feel the need to weigh in on this thread because of something I lived

On March 12, 2000, Pope John Paul II – now canonised as a Saint and indeed the saint that all who worked with him personally knew him, in fact, to be – decreed a Day of Forgiveness for the First Sunday of Lent of the Great Jubilee. It was a magnificent occasion. One made possible because of the renewal of the Church which had occurred at Vatican II

Already both Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II had had occasion to beg the forgiveness of non-Catholic Christians for all the ways in which the Petrine Ministry had failed in ways each enumerated They were, both, stunning admissions

The Saint of God, John Paul II, had many occasions to articulate, across two and a half decades, the failures that litter the Church’s history…sins against the Jewish people, sins against the Orthodox, sins against reformers, sins against women, sins against the indigenous peoples. Against young people. It is a very long list

Here though I reproduce in part the Saint’s own words from that First Sunday of Lent in 2000
…Before Christ who, out of love, took our guilt upon himself, we are all invited to make a profound examination of conscience. One of the characteristic elements of the Great Jubilee is what I described as the “purification of memory” (Bull Incarnationis mysterium, n. 11). As the Successor of Peter, I asked that “in this year of mercy the Church, strong in the holiness which she receives from her Lord, should kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present sins of her sons and daughters” (ibid.). Today, the First Sunday of Lent, seemed to me the right occasion for the Church, gathered spiritually round the Successor of Peter, to implore divine forgiveness for the sins of all believers. Let us forgive and ask forgiveness!

This appeal has prompted a thorough and fruitful reflection, which led to the publication several days ago of a document of the International Theological Commission, entitled: “Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past”. I thank everyone who helped to prepare this text. It is very useful for correctly understanding and carrying out the authentic request for pardon, based on the objective responsibility which Christians share as members of the Mystical Body, and which spurs today’s faithful to recognize, along with their own sins, the sins of yesterday’s Christians, in the light of careful historical and theological discernment

Indeed, “because of the bond which unites us to one another in the Mystical Body, all of us, though not personally responsible and without encroaching on the judgement of God who alone knows every heart, bear the burden of the errors and faults of those who have gone before us” ( Incarnationis mysterium, n. 11). The recognition of past wrongs serves to reawaken our consciences to the compromises of the present, opening the way to conversion for everyone
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Let us forgive and ask forgiveness! While we praise God who, in his merciful love, has produced in the Church a wonderful harvest of holiness, missionary zeal, total dedication to Christ and neighbour, we cannot fail to recognize the infidelities to the Gospel committed by some of our brethren, especially during the second millennium. Let us ask pardon for the divisions which have occurred among Christians, for the violence some have used in the service of the truth and for the distrustful and hostile attitudes sometimes taken towards the followers of other religions.

Let us confess, even more, our responsibilities as Christians for the evils of today. We must ask ourselves what our responsibilities are regarding atheism, religious indifference, secularism, ethical relativism, the violations of the right to life, disregard for the poor in many countries.

We humbly ask forgiveness for the part which each of us has had in these evils by our own actions, thus helping to disfigure the face of the Church.

At the same time, as we confess our sins, let us forgive the sins committed by others against us. Countless times in the course of history Christians have suffered hardship, oppression and persecution because of their faith. Just as the victims of such abuses forgave them, so let us forgive as well. The Church today feels and has always felt obliged to purify her memory of those sad events from every feeling of rancour or revenge. In this way the Jubilee becomes for everyone a favourable opportunity for a profound conversion to the Gospel. The acceptance of God’s forgiveness leads to the commitment to forgive our brothers and sisters and to be reconciled with them.
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I bolded one part of his homily because, across the intervening years, it has continually stood out to me and re-echoes in my ear: " because of the bond which unites us to one another in the Mystical Body, all of us , though not personally responsible and without encroaching on the judgement of God who alone knows every heart, bear the burden of the errors and faults of those who have gone before us" That is a thought that every Catholic must take to heart from the now canonised Vicar of Christ and reflect upon.

It is a message re-echoed by both Benedict and Francis…along with the reminder that we as Catholics have much to learn from our non-Catholic sisters and brothers on our journey From Conflict to Communion, which is a term that applies across our relationship with non-Catholic Churches and ecclesial communities as well as other religious traditions.

https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-...0/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20000312_pardon.html

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...cfaith_doc_20000307_memory-reconc-itc_en.html
 
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All human institutions will have such problems. Given that, what you can probably do is see how they responded to them through time.
 
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