M
mjfbinks
Guest
No man is perfect and I’ll be the 1st to admit I have many short comings and I pray for the Lord’s assistance and guidance with them however that said what brings me to my post today is something that has troubled me for some time. I am a practicing life long Catholic and happened to be watching a EWTN show called The Journey Home. Although I have only seen the show 2 or 3 times my understanding is that it is about stories of people from other faiths converting to Catholicism, all of which I think are powerful stories. In any event today’s guest is a gentleman named Guy Doud who some of you may have heard of. He is a former Evangelical Free Pastor and former National Teacher of the year winner under the Reagan administration. Something Mr. Doud said during the show struck a nerve with me although he apparently said it in jest and has long since changed his thinking. What he said was, half laughing, “… and I thought to myself, I guess Catholics can be Christians, because I had kind of been taught that they weren’t”
It occurred to me that this kind of thinking was and is more prevalent than I cared to admit and was and still is somewhat upsetting to me as having a Sister who is “born again” has rejected the Catholic faith for many years; I pray for her. But not long ago I had stopped to look around at a so called “Christian” Bookstore. It was one of the larger chain bookstores and I was considering purchasing a new Bible. Well, long story short upon browsing the store not only could I not find a Catholic Bible in this “Christian” bookstore, I couldn’t locate a single Catholic book about anything and asked the clerk where I could find the Catholic section and she hesitantly, somewhat embarrassingly told me I won’t find a Catholic section because wait for it, once again, Christians don’t believe Catholics are Christian and are not part of Christianity! Really? Here was this young girl telling me this and now this morning I was hearing this middle aged man telling me “he had actually been taught that Catholics are not Christians” I really pray for patience with this. Who is teaching so many people, for so many years, that Catholics are not Christians? I don’t know why I hadn’t heard of this earlier. Can anyone shed some light or offer some reasonable explanation about this frankly ugly distortion that many people, both young and old have not only been taught but actually believe. I can’t help feeling these awful teachings must be stopped and corrected. Yes people have a right to believe as or what they wish but this just not accurate. Thank you.
It occurred to me that this kind of thinking was and is more prevalent than I cared to admit and was and still is somewhat upsetting to me as having a Sister who is “born again” has rejected the Catholic faith for many years; I pray for her. But not long ago I had stopped to look around at a so called “Christian” Bookstore. It was one of the larger chain bookstores and I was considering purchasing a new Bible. Well, long story short upon browsing the store not only could I not find a Catholic Bible in this “Christian” bookstore, I couldn’t locate a single Catholic book about anything and asked the clerk where I could find the Catholic section and she hesitantly, somewhat embarrassingly told me I won’t find a Catholic section because wait for it, once again, Christians don’t believe Catholics are Christian and are not part of Christianity! Really? Here was this young girl telling me this and now this morning I was hearing this middle aged man telling me “he had actually been taught that Catholics are not Christians” I really pray for patience with this. Who is teaching so many people, for so many years, that Catholics are not Christians? I don’t know why I hadn’t heard of this earlier. Can anyone shed some light or offer some reasonable explanation about this frankly ugly distortion that many people, both young and old have not only been taught but actually believe. I can’t help feeling these awful teachings must be stopped and corrected. Yes people have a right to believe as or what they wish but this just not accurate. Thank you.