What do you think about Protestants?

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Tis_Bearself said:
I think when I was growing up a number of decades ago, there was some hesitancy to be exposing Catholic kids to Protestant ideas for fear that they would decide there wasn’t any difference between Protestants and Catholics and then proceed to leave the Catholic Church. A lot of the parents in my day weren’t real keen on their Catholic kids dating Protestants either, because they thought the kid would leave the Catholic church.
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I don’t think all the parents were necessarily all that keen on it, but since the class kicked off with a theological consideration of where the differences were, it did help students have a foundation when they went off to college and were confronted with questions comparing their faith to other faiths. They had some rough idea what the differences were.

It kind of goes with what a friend of mine called the Treasury Department strategy: to train someone to spot a counterfeit US bill, first you teach them inside and out what the real ones looks like under all sorts of circumstances–old, new, roughed up, soaked, and so on. Only after that do you expose them to other real currencies and counterfeits.
 
Yet, I doubt that many Catholics take such approach.

Most Catholics (in my experience) are “silent partners.” A few are active. None aggressive proselytizers.

However, there are numerous zealots who are still fighting the 16th century’s rebellion and some, like me, who take Protestants to task only when they make statements against the Church or attempt to teach what the Church Understanding is.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
I found it interesting how you were not Catholic but still employed by in Catholic school.

Yet, more interesting that Jesus awakened in you the need to be nurtured by His Body and Blood, thank God you not only heard the Call but also submitted to it!

Maran atha!

Angel
 
In my circle of friends and acquaintances, there are virtually no practicing Protestants left. I know of one who sometimes attends a Presbyterian church but isn’t at all concerned (it appears) about what the faith teaches. I’ll hasten to add that there are virtually no practicing Catholics either, except a few scattered ones. This is academia, so go figure. Nearly everyone is post-Christian. Agnostic, atheist, “none.”
 
I like them, baked to a golden brown at 375 degrees and lightly dusted with confectioner’s sugar!🤣😯😜
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I think when I was growing up a number of decades ago, there was some hesitancy to be exposing Catholic kids to Protestant ideas for fear that they would decide there wasn’t any difference between Protestants and Catholics and then proceed to leave the Catholic Church. A lot of the parents in my day weren’t real keen on their Catholic kids dating Protestants either, because they thought the kid would leave the Catholic church.
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Then, as now, there were reason for the apprehension. Catholics were seen as the “whore of Babylon” amongst many groups/congregations and while these sought to convert Catholics (as a means to “save” them) they could not accept their children visiting a Catholic Church, let alone dating/marrying “one of them.”

Has this really changed?

While Catholics, in the US, seem to be more accepting of non-Catholics, how much of that is due to true comradery rather than just general acquiescing with secular principles (“political correctness”)?

Personally, I’ve heard “Catholics” tell inquiring non-Catholics to remain in their group/denomination 'cause all is good!’ (highlighted is my personal emphasis.

Yet, Catholics cannot be true to the Faith unless they preach the Fullness of Faith, even if just through their examples of Living the Faith.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
jcrichton said:
I found it interesting how you were not Catholic but still employed by in Catholic school.
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This isn’t that unusual. I know a Catholic man and K of C member whose wife is not Catholic (I can’t remember if she is Lutheran or Presbyterian) but had a 30-year career at the local Catholic school.
 
Sadly, this is the reality of “enlightenment.”

Give up God to free yourself to “experience life.”

Maran atha!

Angel
 
The reason why I found it interesting is because this has been a practice since forever: the Catholic Church serve the needy, poor, ill without concern for their religious affiliation (I would dare say, even at the cost, at times, of Catholics) while the world continues to malign the Church for not “loving”/“caring” for those who are non-Catholics.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
But I was Christian ! And we are all one family and they supported me all the way. Xx
 
Please, don’t get me wrong. I’m just stating that the Church has always extended herself to non-Catholics (as you yourself experienced) without coercing conversion into Catholicism (which I believe was your personal experience, right?).

Yet, even today (perhaps it’s the area where I reside) you find this animosity towards the Church and Catholics (from my perspective) in spite of her (the Church’s) efforts to serve without reservations (not limiting to “Catholics” only).

Maran atha!

Angel
 
Sometimes I have to suffer them patiently, like when they ridicule me for wearing a Miraculous Medal or calling St Joseph ‘the just and the chaste’. But other times you can have good conversations/debates with them.
 
I don’t think much of Protestantism as an “ism”. But I am rather fond of southern fundamentalists. I grew up with them out in the country in the Ozarks. I’ll agree with Flannery O’Connor who opined that southern fundamentalists would be surprised to learn that they hold more in common with Catholicism than they do with classic Protestantism.

To this day I like singing the old protestant hymns that our music director sometimes has us sing. When I was a kid, I picked strawberries and tomatoes in season, and packed and labled the latter at a local small cannery in the fall. The workers were all hillbillies then. Now and then somebody would start one of those hymns, and everybody would sing along with it. It was neat.

Sometimes it was amusing. In the strawberry patches, older women worked in the sheds, culling and packing the berries we picked. When I took my carrier to the shed I loitered a bit to hear what they were saying. Lots of times it was about religion. I remember one of the big debates they had among themselves was whether it did any good for a preacher to go to divinity school. The consensus among them was that if you had the “call”, you didn’t need school, and if you didn’t have the “call” all the schooling in the world wouldn’t help. 🙂
 
Yeah, it’s the great failed experiment–allowing “secular” minded people to run “Catholic” education; it’s like watching ex-“Catholics” turn into anti-Catholics in an attempt to prove that they have embraced “xyz” religion.

This reminds me of an incident where a college kid wanted a “Catholic” Bible and asked a local Priest if he could provide one… to which the Priest replied that it was “ok to read the non-Catholic Bible.” It seemed more important to not seem “too Catholic” than to provide a Catholic Bible to a Catholic young man seeking one.

Let’s hope (and pray) that people return to God before it’s too late… that old teaching that God will not forgive but so many sins is filtering back into the Catholic view.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Why is it “okay” to hassle Catholics about their faith symbols?
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It’s both learned and cultured–ever noticed how only Catholics are ridiculed in movies/shows and how, it seems, every show/movie with a Jewish actor/actress must emphasize their Jewishness?

Maran atha!

Angel
 
jcrichton said:
Please, don’t get me wrong. I’m just stating that the Church has always extended herself to non-Catholics (as you yourself experienced) without coercing conversion into Catholicism (which I believe was your personal experience, right?).
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Well, not technically “always.”
jcrichton said:
It’s both learned and cultured–ever noticed how only Catholics are ridiculed in movies/shows and how, it seems, every show/movie with a Jewish actor/actress must emphasize their Jewishness?
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Again…only Catholics? The Muslims, for instance, don’t have anything to complain about? The Baptists of the American South are never cast in a bad light?
Could it also be that when a Jewish actor or actress doesn’t emphasize that they’re Jewish, you just don’t know they were raised Jewish and so don’t count them among Jewish actors that “must emphasize their Jewishness”? I mean really–Natalie Portman? Gwyneth Paltrow? Goldie Hawn?
 
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