Why do Protestants hate the Catholic Church?

[Indifferently]

The reasons many Protestants hate Rome are manifold:
a) Rome claims that communion with the pope of Rome is the measure of catholicity and the summit of the true church
b) Rome asserts its magisterium (certainly practically) over the normative authority of God’s Word alone
c) Rome anathematizes the Protestant gospel of justification by faith alone
d) Rome teaches a synergistic view of salvation
e) Rome practices invocation of saints and other acts of piety that Protestants argue are unbiblical
f) Rome’s whole salvation system, also including the propitiatory role of ordained priests, the mass, purgatory, the treasury of merits and indulgences granted therefrom
g) the papacy
and other factors. If Rome is the true church, then Protestantism is under God’s anathema. If Reformed Protestantism is the true church, then Rome is under God’s anathema. There is no middle way possible.

 

[Mystophilus]

The reasons many Protestants hate Rome are manifold:
a) Rome claims that communion with the pope of Rome is the measure of catholicity and the summit of the true church
b) Rome asserts its magisterium (certainly practically) over the normative authority of God’s Word alone
c) Rome anathematizes the Protestant gospel of justification by faith alone

Exclusivism does not promote rapprochement, true.

d) Rome teaches a synergistic view of salvation

I guess that we already know that I’m a bad Protestant, which may be part of why this one bothers me not at all, but don’t Lutherans follow something similar?

e) Rome practices invocation of saints and other acts of piety that Protestants argue are unbiblical
f) Rome’s whole salvation system, also including the propitiatory role of ordained priests, the mass, purgatory, the treasury of merits and indulgences granted therefrom

Like d), I find this a peculiar reason for hatred: difference is not a reasonable cause for antipathy, let alone anything as extreme as hate. It also depends rather heavily upon a particular version of Protestantism, and a particular view of the role of the Bible.

g) the papacy

Do you mean that in some fashion distinct from a)?

If Rome is the true church, then Protestantism is under God’s anathema.

Is it? Joseph, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus, asserted in The Meaning of Christian Brotherhood, p.88, that “Protestantism today is something different from heresy in the traditional sense, a phenomenon whose true theological place has not yet been determined”; Catholic Canon Law 748.1 says, “All are bound to seek the truth in the matters which concern God and his Church; when they have found it, then by divine law they are bound, and they have the right, to embrace and keep it.”; the Catechism of the Catholic Church section 818 declares regarding “those who at present are born into these [Protestant] communities” that “the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers . . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church.” That is not anathematization.

Certain individual Catholic apologists might make claims about Protestantism being heretical, but that is far from making it the belief or teaching of the Catholic Church.

If Reformed Protestantism is the true church, then Rome is under God’s anathema. There is no middle way possible.

Unless, of course, one admits that both assertions about God’s view of the other group may well be based upon human views of the other group, and so the middle way is that the true Church is coterminous neither with Reformed Protestantism nor with anti-Protestant Catholicism.

 

[michaelhutto]

Hello all, this is just a though, is it not possible that the body of out Fathers true church is not Prodestant, Catholic, or any other version of Christianity, but is made up of all of us who hold to our faith, and trust in Christ, and our Father? It just seems to me that every faith says we are the way, we are the truth, trust us. Well personality I trust the words of my Lord, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes unto the Father but by me”. I think we must remember what Christ said we he was called good, he said" why do you call me good, for there is none good no not one, except the Father who is in heaven".
A brother in Christ who loves all my brothers and sisters, Prodestant, Catholic, whatever. May our Father bless and keep you all forever and ever. Just a though…

 

[Mystophilus]

Hello all, this is just a though, is it not possible that the body of out Fathers true church is not Prodestant, Catholic, or any other version of Christianity, but is made up of all of us who hold to our faith, and trust in Christ, and our Father?

Is it even limited to Christians?

 

[michaelhutto]

I would think yes. As I said the words of Christ, " I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes unto the Father but by me". It seems to me that Christ is stating flat out He is the only way to the Father. Also when He was speaking of the path to heaven and hell, broad is the path to hell, a path only gest that way with heavy use and much traffic, also the path to heaven is narrow, well a path stays narrow due to little use. These statements seem fairly self explanatory.

 

[Mystophilus]

It seems to me that Christ is stating flat out He is the only way to the Father.

Yes, he is, and the curious thing about the passage is the very considerable extent (via the near-fronting of the verb ειμι, the redundant doubling of the subject in εγω, and the framing of the whole comment by the self-references εγω … εμου) to which it is emphatic about its being the very person of Jesus himself, not his teaching, not the Bible, and not the faith to be founded upon that, who is the way and the truth and the life.

He could have said, “My word is the way”; he could have said, “My church will be the way”; he could even have said, “Your faith will be the way.” He did not, which gives us cause to wonder how he operates as the way and the truth and the life, and whether he operates thus for others beyond the scope of what we perceive to be his followers.

 

[michaelhutto]

You make a good point, when I would ask what about the people who have never heard of Christ, I.E.(baby’s, or the peoples of the Americas) these are of course just a few examples.I would be told God is good and just, and that just because He may not have told us does not mean He does not have some kind of plan for all to have a chance at salvation. It seems like people want to know every detail of our Fathers plans, but no parent tells there small children everything for they are not pepard, nor do they have the knowledge or wisdom to understand what there parents may be doing or why they are doing it. We expect our children to trust us, thet we are doing what is right. I believe the same is true of my heavenly Father. There are things I don’t need to know, I trust Him for He is Holy, Holy, Holy.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael.

 

[JustaServant]

The reasons many Protestants hate Rome are manifold:

If Rome is the true church, then Protestantism is under God’s anathema. If Reformed Protestantism is the true church, then Rome is under God’s anathema. There is no middle way possible.

Dang dude, little over the top don’t you think?
Glad someone from your own denomination, Mystophilus, answered this.

 

[Peter_J]

Dang dude, little over the top don’t you think?

Is it though? “Protestants” (leaving aside, for the moment, those who say that such a category doesn’t even exist) are a subset of NCs, no?

 

[JustaServant]

Is it though? “Protestants” (leaving aside, for the moment, those who say that such a category doesn’t even exist) are a subset of NCs, no?

Peter, even in my flaming fundamentalist days I would never have said I “hated” the Catholic Church. I think the word “hate” is actually thrown around without much thought. For many today disagreement=hate.
I’ve been in conversations with young people and they’ll say something like"you’re HATING on…whatever the person or subject is. And I have to correct them that:

1. I don’t know what “hating ON” means, that’s bad English.
2. Disagreement does not equal ‘hate’. I don’t think think the debaters on this forum “hate” each other, I think they actually have a lot in common, they love to debate.

 

[JustaServant]

A quote from Blackadder (slightly edited).

I hate you Catholics. With your boring trousers and your shiny toilet paper and your ridiculous preconceptions that Protestants are great lovers… How lucky you Catholics are to find the toilet so amusing. For us, it is a mundane and functional item. For you it is the basis of an entire culture…

.

 

[Indifferently]

Dang dude, little over the top don’t you think?
Glad someone from your own denomination, Mystophilus, answered this.

I hold to the confessions of my church. He does not.

 

[spedteacherita]

A quote from Blackadder (slightly edited).

I hate you Catholics. With your boring trousers and your shiny toilet paper and your ridiculous preconceptions that Protestants are great lovers… How lucky you Catholics are to find the toilet so amusing. For us, it is a mundane and functional item. For you it is the basis of an entire culture…
.

Justa!!!

 

[Peter_J]

1. Disagreement does not equal ‘hate’. I don’t think think the debaters on this forum “hate” each other, I think they actually have a lot in common

If anyone says that the Catholic has a lot in common with the Non-Catholic “Protestant” etc] let him be anathema.

Sorry I don’t recall which Council said that … but anyhow I agree with your point that disagreement does not equal hate. (My post was more about the “If Rome is the true church, then Protestantism is under God’s anathema.” issue.) Who knows, maybe someday the NCR Forum will grow into two different forums: the ACNCR (Anti-Catholic Non-Catholic Religions) Forum and the PCNCR (Pro-Catholic Non-Catholic Religions) Forum. Maybe. :idea:

 

[Mystophilus]

Dang dude, little over the top don’t you think?
Glad someone from your own denomination, Mystophilus, answered this.

He is quite right in regard to the difference between our views, however: the Thirty-Nine Articles, which I believe Indifferently takes quite seriously and which are decidedly anti-Catholic, I take as relics of a former age.

 

[GKC]

He is quite right in regard to the difference between our views, however: the Thirty-Nine Articles, which I believe Indifferently takes quite seriously and which are decidedly anti-Catholic, I take as relics of a former age.

Save for the clergy of the CoE, technically (per the Subscription Act of 1571), they are not normative for any Anglican, merely by their existence. They are certainly in part relics, of how Elizabeth chose to address certain issues of the day, in governing a fractious Church, but certainly in part mere Trinitarian Christianity. And certainly some Anglicans treat them as a confession. No stopping such folk, if they do.

When reading assertions such as Indifferently makes on this point, do recall the term “motley”.

GKC

 

[Eastsideteacher]

The OP is an embarrassing post to have on this board and not the query of a thinking person.

 

[Mystophilus]

The OP is an embarrassing post to have on this board and not the query of a thinking person.

The OP expresses a quite-understandable frustration, shows a willingness to enquire into others’ claims, demonstrates an imperfect grasp of a subject which is so tremendously complex that it can take decades to understand properly, and expresses a call for solidarity. I see nothing there which should embarrass the initial author, the other members, or the moderators, and* I do not agree with the claim that most Protestants hate the Catholic Church*.

The OP does not, for example, make grand assumptions about its own right to judge the fitness of anyone else’s comments or their intellectual value, especially when making such assumptions off far-too-limited data.

 

[Mystophilus]

When reading assertions such as Indifferently makes on this point, do recall the term “motley”.

Always.

At some point, we are going to need to fit it into one of the prayers: “And this week, we are praying for the motley Communion; may God have mercy on us all.”

 

[GKC]

Always.

At some point, we are going to need to fit it into one of the prayers: “And this week, we are praying for the motley Communion; may God have mercy on us all.”

A very good idea.

GKC