Why are Catholics so reserved, generally speaking, about sharing their faith?

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They don’t know how to defend their faith as I did not for many years.
They depended on priests to do it.

However, let me say that in my life I have not had Protestants running up to me all the time at work either. I’ve run in to the occasional evangelical with a pamphlet, perhaps once every 5 years or so and the Campus Crusade for Christ did their tag team on me. But in general people have a difficult time sharing their faith. Discussion or religion in this society seem to be somewhat taboo in some work enviroments as well.

Thess
 
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feather:
I . From what I am seeing here, the Chatholic Church is the one and only true Church and only Catholics are going to heaven. I never knew that and I don’t think I believe that.
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??? You don’t believe that only Catholics will get to heaven? I hope not because that is not what the Church teaches. The Church teaches that each man is responsible for the light he has been given and that we cannot judge how much grace one has been given to come to a full understanding of the truth. We also will be judged harder than our non-catholic brothers and sisters because we have been given much. The Church teaches that God is the judge of the hearts of all men and while we can judge right and wrong we cannot judge anyone’s destiny. All will be Catholic in heaven because that is the fullness of the truth but not all Catholics will get to heaven and there will be some in heaven who we only knew as non-Catholics.

Blessings
 
  1. catholics have not be trained to share any of their faith (even their relationship with Jesus let alone an explanation of different parts of the faith) - we have had to do this in our evangelising community
  2. most catholics have very poor understanding of their faith
  3. most catholics do not see the need or have the desire to bring others into a relationship with Jesus and experience the fullness of Christ in his church
 
Showing my age here, but Catholics, the lay faithful, were never expected to ‘evangelize’ as in today’s new terminology. That was done by missionaries and other religious…and they were trained for it. Even nuns would pray fervently for conversions, but wouldn’t dream of approaching people…because it was considered the job of the Holy Spirit to prepare the heart for conversion. You could do more harm than good by stepping in before a person was ready…Of course, if you were asked, you were to reply.

We were taught…you evangelize by the way you live. God does the converting…not you. Your job is to pray.

I personally find most of the protestant type ‘evangelizing’ very offensive.
 
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sconea:
We were taught…you evangelize by the way you live. God does the converting…not you. Your job is to pray.
I personally find most of the protestant type ‘evangelizing’ very offensive.
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I agree with sconea. God works in people’s lives, and if we are open to being used He can use us to help. I was converted by circumstances and God’s intervention.

I sometimes find it useful to tell people when I don’t agree with their actions. For example, a dear friend of mine was living with a man she intended to marry, though she hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I mentioned gently to her that I was no one to criticize as I was not perfect either, but that it was a bad example to her children, etc.
After they were married, she told me that she had apologized to all her relatives for her bad witness. It didn’t get her any closer to the Church, but maybe closer to God. Who knows what will happen next?
 
i am not going to read to the end of this thread.
i will simply state my thoughts

if God wants you to be a catholic. you are. remember fishermen. when God sets the hook, that is it. there is no place to run and hide. if someone asks me, it would be that person is called. then we can discuss. to go out and “evangelize” is lowering ourselves to the level of protestantism. God knows what He is doing. evangelization…i think St Paul did that.
 
I’ve been meaning to respond to this for a while and never got to it…

I have to agree with sconea and Vicki59.

I’m under 30 and I was quite well catechized as a child (if I do say so myself :)) was taught that the primary way we can convert others is through publicly living out our faith and living a holy life. And I’m still working on that :rolleyes:.

I’m very happy to talk about my faith with others, but I dislike bringing the subject up myself. This is because I’m convinced that one cannot argue another person into belief. One can provide information, encourage, or plant seeds - but only if the other person is willing to listen. I figure if they don’t bring it up; they may not be (excepting cases where someone seems to me to be about to do something very wrong.) I also find proselytizers (sp??) very obnoxious because of this; they seem to assume you’ll be convinced by whatever it is they say and it cheapens what they’re saying.
 
I believe that when Christians ask for advice about witnessing to neighbors and they get this response from a fellow Catholic:

"I agree with TarAshly and Space Ghost. You sound like Mrs. Kravitz on “I Dream of Genie.” From Family Forum

Then many become intimidated and don’t even try to evangelize. As long as fellow Christians continue to ridicule other Christians when they are trying their best how can we hope to be a bold Church?

Besides, Mrs. Kravitz as noted later in that thread was from “Bewitched”.

Dan L
 
Perhaps, having been around for 2000 years we Catholics have become complacent.

I am quite sure that the Catholics of the first centuries of the Church’s growth knew what it meant to stand up for their faith and spread the Good News to the world. Many of them gave their lives for the faith. And they were known for the fact that they lived their faith. Remember the famous quote from a pagan (I can’t remember who) who said: “See how these Christians love each other.”

Perhaps we need to be reminded that a relationship with God is THE most important thing any human being can have and that we can’t selfishly keep this joyful fact to ourselves.
 
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