Hey Romulus!
The shirt itself is to keep you warm. Any message on the shirt is to relay a message to whomever sees it-that’s why it’s there. There is no problem whatsoever in you wearing what you want. Period.
That said, because it does have a “religious” reference to it, you should indeed be:
“always ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope" (1 Peter 3:15)
Meaning, be ready to be peppered with questions and maybe some attempts to undermine your faith by their sincere, but misuse of, specific Scripture verses. (“Just Christian”'s are famous for that.) If you feel you can handle that and do a good job in defending your faith with the armor and guidance of the Holy Spirit, then brother GO FOR IT! Definitely a good evangelism tool!
Being on someone else’s “turf”, it’s easy to overlook that the question is
not:
¿So WHY are you Catholic?
The
correct question is: WHY are
THEY NOT? (But see 1Pete3 quote above!)
“Few Americans hate the Catholic Church, but millions hate what they think is the Catholic Church.” --Bishop Fulton Sheen
It is not at all boastful to wear your KofC shirt. It demonstrating an affiliation of yours. I’ll bet they have their own shirts!
You mention “fear of being ridiculed”. Everyone has this fear. True that non-Catholics may seem to have memorized more Scripture than Catholics but at the cost of the real meaning, just use it for verse-slinging, and conveniently skip other verses. It’s up to each Catholic person to come up to speed with Scripture, the Church and his own reasons for willingly choosing the Catholic Church over other “churches”.
You said you’d be helping out and “shortly after” you have Mass (i.e. a commitment at a certain time very close to your time of helping). Your “good friend” is of that non-denom faith and so it sounds like he can “stand” your Catholicism just fine! If you feel “backed into a wall” just let them know you’d like to stay a bit longer and discuss, but you have a prior commitment very shortly and you don’t have time right then to get into a long discussion. Ask
them to write down whatever questions they have, give them to your friend, and you’ll send a reply when you can. That’ll show whether they’re serious or not about asking you questions - I’ll bet mostly to make you realize that since they have memorized more versus that you, it makes them look superior and by default, “right”. If they do give you a list, hey! You can post it here on
catholic.com and we can all help out!
Have fun Jammin’ :harp: 4 Jesus!
Peace.
CRJ
“Are you Christian or Catholic?” For the record: “catholic” means “universal”. Catholics are the
original universal Christians.
