Why do people think we worship the pope?

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Marilena

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i hear this alot. iam tired of hearing it, but i charitably point out that Catholic’s do not worship the pope, neither do we worship Mary. Its a misconception that others have that we worship the pope. The pope is the head of the church and Christ’s Vicar on earth. where do people get these assumptions?

we are called statue worshippers, Marian worshippers, we do some kind of worship to the pope, and so on and on and on.

let me clarify a few things for some non believers. Catholic’s do not worship the pope. he is the head of the church, and he is the successor of Peter, but by no means to we worship him.

We do not woship Mary, or statues of her. this has been said a great deal in these forums. We love and respect Mary and honor her, but by no means do we worship her.

Now, when it comes to the pope, we respect him, and we listen to him, but we do not bow down and worship him.
 
“Contempt prior to investigation.” – Herbert Spencer, quoted in the book Alcoholics Anonymous
 
I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word ‘worship’ actually means. For us of course there is only one act can truly be called ‘worship’ (since worship of deities traditionally involved offering sacrifice) - which is the Mass.
 
In Korea or Japan, people bow down to each other for showing respect. We do the same with the Pope.

There are few people out there who are taught by someone who have no clue about Catholic and they just believe what they say.
 
I think it is both misunderstanding and prejudice. I truly believe that it is only by the Holy Spirit that one can become Catholic & receive Jesus fully.
 
La-Petite-Fleur said:
I think it is both misunderstanding and prejudice. I truly believe that it is only by the Holy Spirit that one can become Catholic & receive Jesus fully.
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yes, that and people who are misinformed about us and what we believe.
 
Marilena said:
i hear this alot. iam tired of hearing it, but i charitably point out that Catholic’s do not worship the pope, neither do we worship Mary.
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We don’t?😃

The Seven Sacraments of the “anti-Catholic” communion:
  1. ignorance,
  2. “passion,”
  3. misinformed judgment,
  4. well-meaning, but misguided intent,
  5. anti-Catholic hate,
  6. former Catholic discontent, and
  7. refusal to face the facts
Not meant to offend, just point out my observations

Prayers and petitions,
Alexius:cool:
 
mark_a said:
I’m partial to the term “bead mumblers”.
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I object to it - I NEVER mumble 🙂 so call me a bead rattler instead maybe 😃

Although I love the mackerel one, especially seeing that I rarely eat fish of any kind on any day.
 
There’s also the more general “fish eaters”… What’s funny about that is how the fish is a biblical type for Christ.

If you took it symbolically this term could be used to refer to the ones who follow Christ’s command to “eat my flesh” and so if you take it on a deeper level it kind of mirrors their contempt for the real presence. I’m sure they never thought of it that way but it’s still a pretty neat coincidence.
 
Andruschak said:
“Contempt prior to investigation.” – Herbert Spencer, quoted in the book Alcoholics Anonymous
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😃 That about says it, IMO.

I feel bad for people who believe that we do those things. They have been taught some lies and never investigated the truth out of fear.

I once met a girl whose eyes grew large when she heard I was Catholic:

“Catholics worship Mary!” she gasped.
“No, we don’t worship Mary, we ask her to pray to God for us.” I replied.
“Oh, well, that sounds OK…you must be a different type of Catholic then, because I know I learned in church that Catholics worship Mary. What other types of Catholics are there?”

i.e…I’m one of the “good” ones. :rolleyes: That’s like meeting a black man and telling him he must not be like other black men because he doesn’t like watermelon…because you always heard that black men like watermelon.

Prayers, lots of prayers…🙂 and a few belly laughs
 
Well, at least we don’t worship a certain book by a number of dead Jewish gentlemen, mistranslated by significantly less respectable English gentlemen–in an already-archaic dialect of English.

Nor do we grant supreme ecclesial authority to the descendents of a German prince brought in hastily (and illegally) because the *real *King became a Catholic, and might have made the nobles give back the land they stole.

Nor do we follow the writings of a Genevese accountant, bitter that his father had been fired for embezzling from the Church, who wasn’t smart enough to reconcile God’s omniscience with free will.

Nor do we follow the writings of a neurotically guilty mysogynist German monk, who decided that Saint Paul had more authority than Christ.

And these people make fun of us?
 
cecilia97 said:
I once met a girl whose eyes grew large when she heard I was Catholic:

“Catholics worship Mary!” she gasped.
“No, we don’t worship Mary, we ask her to pray to God for us.” I replied.
“Oh, well, that sounds OK…you must be a different type of Catholic then, because I know I learned in church that Catholics worship Mary. What other types of Catholics are there?”

i.e…I’m one of the “good” ones. :rolleyes: That’s like meeting a black man and telling him he must not be like other black men because he doesn’t like watermelon…because you always heard that black men like watermelon.

Prayers, lots of prayers…🙂 and a few belly laughs
Click to expand...
:rotfl:
I’ve been told that I was too smart to be a Catholic because I should know better than to allow a church to tell me what is right and wrong. And my mom has had a few people say that they don’t like Catholics, but for some reason they like her…I find it very strange. My grandma also likes to say nasty things about us sometimes too… I am always amazed by how many things we apparently “worship”. Oh and how sorry I am going to be when I get to heaven (told by a Mormon because I wouldn’t be ascending to god-dom). But to answer the question…probably because show him a great deal of respect (because that automatically constitutes worshipping).
 
Marilena said:
i hear this alot. iam tired of hearing it, but i charitably point out that Catholic’s do not worship the pope, neither do we worship Mary. Its a misconception that others have that we worship the pope. The pope is the head of the church and Christ’s Vicar on earth. where do people get these assumptions?

we are called statue worshippers, Marian worshippers, we do some kind of worship to the pope, and so on and on and on.

let me clarify a few things for some non believers. Catholic’s do not worship the pope. he is the head of the church, and he is the successor of Peter, but by no means to we worship him.

We do not woship Mary, or statues of her. this has been said a great deal in these forums. We love and respect Mary and honor her, but by no means do we worship her.

Now, when it comes to the pope, we respect him, and we listen to him, but we do not bow down and worship him.
Click to expand...
I think we need to come out with a niffty Shirt that tells everyone. There is a store at the local Mall that sells relgious shirts with funny phrases like “Body Peicings Saved My Life” with a pictures of some nails referncing the crucifixion. I think we should do something like that to tell people we don’t do such things. What do you think?
 
I read a lot of conversion stories (probably because I need
a lot of conversion myself) and time after time I find converts
from Protestant denominations (some of them actually
reverts) speaking of their total former ignorance of what
the Catholic Church actually teaches. Most of these folks
had a LOT of theological education of a Protestant kind,
but that never seems to include information on real Catholicism.
Mind-boggling stuff, a lot of it. Scott Hahn is an easily available
example.

Edmac
 
I heard this from a protestant friend of mine once. My response I think made him see how foolish the statement was. I merely said. “We do? Please tell me where I have gone wrong. I have been a Catholic for 68 years and have over 20 years of Catholic education and was never taught that. Please tell me where I have gone wrong so I can correct it and start worshiping the way I should.” He said, I guess that did sound kind of stupid. I assured him it did, and that we dont worship statues or the Blessed Virgin either.
Deacon Ed B
 

1. Partly, perhaps, because of this:​

  • If it be once admitted that the Pope is the head of the beast from the sea, we are bound, on the mere testimony of God, without any other evidence whatever, to receive this as a fact, that, consciously or unconsciously, those who worship the Pope are actually worshipping the Devil.
    You heard it here first: 😃 If we say we don’t worship the Pope, that (to some people’s way of thinking) only goes to prove we don’t know the first thing about our eeeeevil religion.
I think I have more or less worked out why the author is so sure that God is a Catholicism-basher. God hates Catholicism (sorry: Popery) because Revelation (it’s that book again) is inspired by God; & contains denunciations of Babylon the Great; & BtG is a prophetic vision of the Church situated across the Tiber; to which we belong. If one grants the validity of the reasoning, the conclusion pretty well follows. If. Since the book was not written so as to denounce the Papacy, but to comfort & strengthen first-century Christians in what is now Turkey, a denunciation of the Pope would be about as useful to them as a commentary on the U.S. Constitution.

Stuff like this is so “non-accurate”, one has to laugh. It’s better than crying 🙂

For the context: http://philologos.org/__eb-ttb/sect75.htm
  1. Some Pope-worship stuff is founded on misunderstandings of mediaeval & Renaissance theorising about the Pope’s authority. The OT language which applied the title “god” to men was on various occasions applied to the Pope; & this language is quoted against Catholicism at times.
  2. The now defunct ceremony of adoratio, which was paid to Popes after election, could be an ingredient.
  3. Then there is the distinction we make between
  • latria-adoration - of God alone
  • dulia-veneration - of the Saints, in various degrees
    whereas Protestants, at least in theory, subsume all religious veneration under the heading of worship (= latria), which they reserve to God alone. In practice, the love & veneration many of them pay the Bible is an inferior degree of honour - very like the hyperdulia we pay the BVM. Since the Gospel-book is venerated at Mass, that is not a criticism.
  1. And, many kinds of superstition have been a feature of Catholic life at one time or another; this may very well have influenced people’s perceptions of Catholic piety & life, if only indirectly.
I think the accusation of Pope-worship is based on nothing more sinister than ignorance. It is not as though Catholics did not have some weird ideas about Protestants; the same general causes are probably at work among us as among them. Catholicism can look very very very very odd to an outsider - so in the “right” circumstances an honest man can surely pick up all sorts of ridiculous nonsense about it in good faith, & believe the nonsense as truth.

Two quotations from a 19th-century French priest which STM to be very much to the point:
  • I have seen both in books and in real life so many worthy men fall into error and fall in such an incredibly stupid manner that I refuse to consider the inexactitudes of certain persons as due to deliberate falsehood. Are there not enough explanations besides this one to account sufficiently for the blundering of our feeble intellect ? Even genius itself, however high it may tower above us, is still always near to the ground.
    And:
  • In the mouth of a critic, indignation is as pernicious as ignorance.
    From:
  • J.-M.-S. Gorini (1803-59), Defense de l’Eglise, Paris 1886 (10th edition);
    as quoted in:
  • M. V. Hay, A Chain of Error in Scottish History p.158 (London 1927)
 
Don’t get mad at these people. That’s just what they’ve been taught thru the years. They don 't know any better. Alot of times, they were taught that foolishness by other ignorant individuals or bt individuals that just wanted to keep them out of the Catholic Church and keep them in their church. You know the old Protestant health and wealth gospel. You know how they push that down their throats all the time (tithing)! In other words, no congregation, no money coming in, and the church will then fizzle away. Oh, and by the way that also means no money for the pastor either. Think about it!!!
 
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