What do Protestant really believe about the Catholic Church?

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It depends on the Protestant. There’s a pretty big difference between a High church Anglican and an Independent Baptist.
 
As long as you mentioned prayer to saints to intervene, I would add that from a Jewish point of view there are two different rabbinical interpretations of the Deuteronomy verse which prohibits this. One is that it is indeed strictly forbidden, as you state. But the other is that so long as the prayer is not directly addressed for the departed “saint” to INTERVENE but instead to INTERCEDE, it is allowed. The latter interpretation has some precedents in the Hebrew Bible. Catholics are no doubt influenced by this teaching, as they are by the Jewish teaching of purgatory.
 
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William_Scott said:
As a Protestant One of the biggest issues I have with Roman Catholicism (and Eastern Orthodoxy for that matter) is the beliefs and practices toward saints and angels.
I believe communicating or seeking to communicate with those who have passed from this life is necromancy–. The Scriptures teach that we are not to speak to/seek to speak to/invoke the name of those who have passed from this world–even those who are alive with God.
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Re: necromancy
Consider this explanation Does Praying to Saints Contradict Isaiah 8:19? | Catholic Answers
That said, saints in heaven aren’t dead. They are more alive than we are.
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William_Scott:
It was taught in the Old Testament that even the Old Testament saints are alive with God. Christ pointed out to the Sadducees how the Pentateuch taught that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive. However, this is never cited in Scripture as a ground for invoking a departed Saint. Rather, any attempted communication with the departed, whether or not he/she is a saint, is explicitly condemned. We have true communion with all those alive in God in Heaven and Earth, but this does not entail that we can invoke those whom we have no physical means of communication with (either on Earth or in Heaven).
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Answered in the previous link + the internal link. Saints on earth praying to saints in heaven and saint in heaven praying for saints on earth… And on and on it goes
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William_Scott:
Further, we have countless prayers of praise and supplication recorded for us as a perfect pattern in Sacred Scripture and every single prayer is offered to God and not one of them to a saint. To invoke and offer prayer is treated throughout Scripture as an act of worship,
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Pray is to ask. If I ask someone here to pray for me, am I worshiping that person? No. Quite frankly, if I ask someone to pray for me, would I restrict that request to only corrupt individuals here on this earth? No. I’m including the big guns as well already in heaven
 
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Why not just Christian on here as well. I make a point to refer to any non-Catholic “whatever” as simply that, Non-Catholic. Also I wont go and call anything non-Catholic, Christian as that would also be unfair to Catholics.

The term Protestant is totally superfluous in my opinion as the fact that there is a Catholic Church has absolutely no relevance to my faith.
 
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You gotta remember I am in Australia. I am sure there are protestants here, somewhere. WE don’t have your evangelical traditions. Although we do have Hillsong Church and our new Prime Minister belongs to it.

Thanks be to God we have a Church going deeply spiritual leader, even if he is not Catholic.
 
MichaelP3 said:
Why not just Christian on here as well. I make a point to refer to any non-Catholic “whatever” as simply that, Non-Catholic. Also I wont go and call anything non-Catholic, Christian as that would also be unfair to Catholics.

The term Protestant is totally superfluous in my opinion as the fact that there is a Catholic Church has absolutely no relevance to my faith.
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It took me a while to process what you are saying here but I finally got it! You are absolutely right…the term “Protestant” no longer has a useful purpose. How to deal with the Catholic/Christian thing is difficult, for example, I recently engaged in conversation with a street vendor in Mexico. We got onto the subject of Religion and when I asked him if he was Catholic, he responded with “I am Catholic, but really more Christian than Catholic.”
 
The division between Catholic and non-Catholic Christian breaks my heart, and I think it breaks the heart of Jesus too, especially considering his high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. He prayed over and over that we might be one; his last earthly prayer for us, as it were. Every time a new denomination or non-denominational church is birthed, how does that not fly right in the face of Jesus’ passionate prayer that we might be one? I understand there are differences, but I’m also convinced that the differences are greatly exaggerated by semantics and ignorance, and too often, a willful ignorance. How often does pride needlessly drive the divisions deeper? And yet especially for those of us who have been in both worlds, we have clearly seen living faith in both Catholics and non-Catholic Christians. I can’t help but to think that much (not all, but much) that divides us are false walls.
 
VeryBlessed said:
The division between Catholic and non-Catholic Christian breaks my heart, and I think it breaks the heart of Jesus too, especially considering his high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. He prayed over and over that we might be one; his last earthly prayer for us, as it were. Every time a new denomination or non-denominational church is birthed, how does that not fly right in the face of Jesus’ passionate prayer that we might be one? I understand there are differences, but I’m also convinced that the differences are greatly exaggerated by semantics and ignorance, and too often, a willful ignorance. How often does pride needlessly drive the divisions deeper? And yet especially for those of us who have been in both worlds, we have clearly seen living faith in both Catholics and non-Catholic Christians. I can’t help but to think that much (not all, but much) that divides us are false walls.
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Is it too simplistic to believe that we ARE all one in our common belief that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, that He was crucified for our sins and that He rose from the dead to complete the plan of Salvation? Catholic and non-Catholic Christians all echo Joshau of old in that “as for me and for my house, we will serve the Lord”. How we apply and work out that belief results in differences of ideas and practice but if those practices do not negate the common core belief, why do we make judgements and anathemas against each other that cause division?
 
Wannano, I definitely agree, and I thank you for the thought. Yet I think that the unity you describe, while real and wonderful, may perhaps fall short of what God really wants. I’ve even heard well meaning Christians justify divisive words and actions by pointing to this same rather ethereal unity and claiming that this sort of unity is all that is required. I guess I want more than the unity you describe. I’m glad we have at least that, yet I long for more. God bless you.
 
VeryBlessed said:
Wannano, I definitely agree, and I thank you for the thought. Yet I think that the unity you describe, while real and wonderful, may perhaps fall short of what God really wants. I’ve even heard well meaning Christians justify divisive words and actions by pointing to this same rather ethereal unity and claiming that this sort of unity is all that is required. I guess I want more than the unity you describe. I’m glad we have at least that, yet I long for more. God bless you.
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Thank you and I also agree that what we have may very well fall short of what God truly desires. I also long for more. Yet it cannot be accomplished if one says the other does not have the fulness of Truth when the Truth is our common Lord not our individual understanding or the conclusions of men.
 
Being on the receiving end of “whore of Babylon” and “you’re not really a Christian” puts a real damper on unity too…
 
VeryBlessed said:
Being on the receiving end of “whore of Babylon” and “you’re not really a Christian” puts a real damper on unity too…
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Absolutely, I believe that. I hope I have not said that.
 
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VeryBlessed said:
Being on the receiving end of “whore of Babylon” and “you’re not really a Christian” puts a real damper on unity too…
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Even aside from Catholicism, remarks here on CAF are made by mainline non-Catholic Christians who marginalize all those of us who are not Sacrementally based as “Evangelicals” in a derogatory fashion, yet, some of them have the same word in their own denominational title, for instance, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada etc.
 
VeryBlessed said:
The division between Catholic and non-Catholic Christian breaks my heart, and I think it breaks the heart of Jesus too, especially considering his high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. He prayed over and over that we might be one; his last earthly prayer for us, as it were. Every time a new denomination or non-denominational church is birthed, how does that not fly right in the face of Jesus’ passionate prayer that we might be one? I understand there are differences, but I’m also convinced that the differences are greatly exaggerated by semantics and ignorance, and too often, a willful ignorance. How often does pride needlessly drive the divisions deeper? And yet especially for those of us who have been in both worlds, we have clearly seen living faith in both Catholics and non-Catholic Christians. I can’t help but to think that much (not all, but much) that divides us are false walls.
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I take it that you have been in both camps. What do you see as “false walls” that keeps Catholics from seeing the positive elements of non-Catholic Christianity?
 
Yes, both camps, love both, revert Catholic. Ignorance and mistrust, I think, is a biggie that keeps Catholics from seeing the good in non-Catholic Christianity. Catholics don’t fellowship in non-denominational gatherings because of the harsh “you’re not really a Christian” stuff that begins as soon as you admit to being Catholic. So Catholics keep to themselves. In this isolation, many tend to think of all non-Catholic Christianity as one big united homogeneous “Protestant” church, just as Catholicism is one. Many Catholics have no clue how divided N-CCs are amongst themselves. Seeing the N-CC world as united (mistakenly), they will tend to mistrust it all due to the meanness or excesses of just one small part of N-CC. For other Catholics, N-CC seems like a puzzling free for all; the disunity there makes it seem very complicated and bewildering. So they mistrust it all. Thanks for the honest question.
 
VeryBlessed said:
Yes, both camps, love both, revert Catholic. Ignorance and mistrust, I think, is a biggie that keeps Catholics from seeing the good in non-Catholic Christianity. Catholics don’t fellowship in non-denominational gatherings because of the harsh “you’re not really a Christian” stuff that begins as soon as you admit to being Catholic. So Catholics keep to themselves. In this isolation, many tend to think of all non-Catholic Christianity as one big united homogeneous “Protestant” church, just as Catholicism is one. Many Catholics have no clue how divided N-CCs are amongst themselves. Seeing the N-CC world as united (mistakenly), they will tend to mistrust it all due to the meanness or excesses of just one small part of N-CC. For other Catholics, N-CC seems like a puzzling free for all; the disunity there makes it seem very complicated and bewildering. So they mistrust it all. Thanks for the honest question.
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Thanks, that actually gives me insight that I never realized. I think it is true though that at one time the Catholic Church did not allow Catholics to participate in N-CC services or am I incorrect?

So mistrust may be one of the biggest walls on the Catholic side of the fence. It seems like many Catholics on CAF love to point out how fractured the Non world is but perhaps they are more up to speed by being here!
 
It’s funny. On both sides we take the excesses of the other side and misrepresent it as their normal. But we suffer loss because of the disunity (we are weakened due to our lack of exposure to the strengths of the other side), and worst of all, so does the Christ-less world, due to our infighting.
 
VeryBlessed said:
It’s funny. On both sides we take the excesses of the other side and misrepresent it as their normal. But we suffer loss because of the disunity (we are weakened due to our lack of exposure to the strengths of the other side), and worst of all, so does the Christ-less world, due to our infighting.
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So the big part of that is the lack of genuine love …the very thing Christ said would identify us to the world as his disciples.

My father passed away in September and one of the things I am struggling with appreciating is hearing Catholics here saying that when all Christians get to heaven, they will be Catholic. Some seem to say it with integrity and others seem to have gleeful contempt. I have no problem saying all Christians in heaven will be catholic for that is the Church I believe Jesus started. How would you suggest I should process this?
 
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