why do some people think Catholics don't know Jesus?

[JesusforMadrid]

He said he was put off by Protestants who are very aggressive in talking about their faith; who seem to see Jesus in everything. He said it was not practical and presumptuous; and yes, it looks like surreal emotion. At least Catholics are more real people. He opted for Catholicism. I don’t know how he gets his fiancée to follow suit. They will be getting married next year.

God bless you.

I am happy for your nephew.

I won’t deny that there is “empty emotionalism” or hypocrisy in Evangelical churches. However, the same can be said for RC churches; Sevilla at Easter is a sickening display of hypocrisy, where heathens cry publicly for the repentance of their sins as the Virgin is carried past and then proceed to get utterly drunk during the subsequent raucous parties. That is empty.

Notwithstanding these abuses, I am always sceptical about those who claim it is fine to be a Christian as long as one is not too emotional or public about it. Isn’t Christianity a love relationship between us and God, akin to a husband and wife? Would a wife say to her husband “You don’t have to show me that you love me. Just eat the bread and wine I serve you and love me in your heart. And you need not tell anybody about our little relationship”?

We don’t have to be falsely happy, but the Scriptures tell us that we should be joyful in our relationship with Jesus, and that relationship should produce fruit that is evident to others.

 

[kalt]

I am happy for your nephew.

I won’t deny that there is “empty emotionalism” or hypocrisy in Evangelical churches. However, the same can be said for RC churches; Sevilla at Easter is a sickening display of hypocrisy, where heathens cry publicly for the repentance of their sins as the Virgin is carried past and then proceed to get utterly drunk during the subsequent raucous parties. That is empty.

Notwithstanding these abuses, I am always sceptical about those who claim it is fine to be a Christian as long as one is not too emotional or public about it. Isn’t Christianity a love relationship between us and God, akin to a husband and wife? Would a wife say to her husband “You don’t have to show me that you love me. Just eat the bread and wine I serve you and love me in your heart. And you need not tell anybody about our little relationship”?

We don’t have to be falsely happy, but the Scriptures tell us that we should be joyful in our relationship with Jesus, and that relationship should produce fruit that is evident to others.

Evident how? Are you looking for all signs? Or are you looking for only one?

A person may seem unhappy to you, and maybe they are unhappy. They’re sick. Their spouse has died. Who knows what causes there could be.

And still they live as good Christians. They go to Mass every week. They are charitable. The don’t shirk responsibility, even though they aren’t “happy” at the moment.

Or maybe they are happy, but they aren’t demonstrative. Their faith is a quiet faith. They live a life that would do you well to imitate, but they don’t have the outwardly joyful apprearance that you say marks someone who really knows Jesus.

All of these people know Jesus and produce good fruit.

The good fruit is there to see. If the searcher is prejudiced (has a limited idea of what good fruit looks like), he’ll miss it.

 

[kalt]

FollowGodAlone:

Now catholics are loving, caring, and good people but they are mislead, and deceived by the high powers of the catholic church. Catholics are not Christians, if that were true how come they are their own religion? Why do they not call it christianity instead of catholicism?

People post here to discuss other religions. Everyone has opinions, and we often disagree. But telling outright lies is crossing the line.

I have never put anyone on ignore before, but I will make you the first. Your posts are full of anti-Catholic hatred that really doesn’t deserve our comments or time. At first I hesitated to do this, but then thought that if you were an anti-semite posting on a Jewish board, you would be banned or would be put on ignore.

Anti-Catholicism is no less a prejudice than anti-semitism or racism.

 

[Tanner9188]

I have never prayed to anyone other than God. So no.
God bless you

Is Mary of the Catholic Church God? Meaning I have never met a devout Catholic who did not pray to the Catholic Mary. You stated you have never prayed to anyone but God. Are you the exception to the devout Catholic?

 

[kalt]

Is Mary of the Catholic Church God? Meaning I have never met a devout Catholic who did not pray to the Catholic Mary. You stated you have never prayed to anyone but God. Are you the exception to the devout Catholic?

Are there two Marys - one Catholic and one not?

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us.”

If you want to pray for us, too, please do. Wait. Did I just pray to you?

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

Is Mary of the Catholic Church God?

No. You can see the Catholic belief on God in the Nicene Creed that we recite at every Mass.

We believe in one God…

Meaning I have never met a devout Catholic who did not pray to the Catholic Mary.

Pleased to meet you Tanner But who is the “Catholic Mary”?

You stated you have never prayed to anyone but God. Are you the exception to the devout Catholic?

I have never prayed to Mary. Does this make me an exception I am a lot of things I supposed but I will leave that judgment up to others. I have met a lot of Catholics who don’t pray to Mary.

I have, however, asked Mary to pray for me. Much in the same way I am going to ask you to pray for me.

Please pray for me Tanner.

God bless you

 

[Tanner9188]

Are there two Marys - one Catholic and one not?

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us.”

If you want to pray for us, too, please do. Wait. Did I just pray to you?

**The Epistle of Ignatius to the Virgin Mary **

---

Her friend(1) Ignatius to the Christ-bearing Mary.

Thou oughtest to have comforted and consoled me who am a neophyte, and a disciple of thy [beloved] John. For I have heard things wonderful to tell respecting thy [son] Jesus, and I am astonished by such a report. But I desire with my whole heart to obtain information concerning the things which I have heard from thee, who wast always intimate and allied with Him, and who wast acquainted with [all] His secrets. I have also written to thee at another time, and have asked thee concerning the same things. Fare thou well; and let the neophytes who are with me be comforted of thee, and by thee, and in thee. Amen.

Reply of the Blessed Virgin to This Letter.

The lowly handmaid of Christ Jesus to Ignatius, her beloved fellow-disciple.
The things which thou hast heard and learned from John concerning Jesus are true. Believe them, cling to them, and hold fast the profession of that Christianity which thou hast embraced, and conform thy habits and life to thy profession. Now I will come in company with John to visit thee, and those that are with thee. Stand fast in the faith,(2) and show thyself a man; nor let the fierceness of persecution move thee, but let thy spirit be strong and rejoice in God thy Saviour.(3) Amen.

searchgodsword.org/his/ad/ecf/

Luke 1 -
45 “And blessed {is} she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.” 46 And Mary said: "My soul exalts the Lord, 47 And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

I do not want anyone to take my word, but from the mouth of the Lord proceeds the truth.
Search to see if these things are true.

You must weigh the evidence and judge if it is the same Mary; not for me to decide for you.

"…by the Holy Roman General Inquisition under Paul V on 20 January, 1613, in a Decree to the following effect:

It is permitted to the Carmelite Fathers to preach that the Christian people may piously believe in the help which the souls of brothers and members, who have departed this life in charity, have worn in life the scapular, have ever observed chastity, have recited the Little Hours [of the Blessed Virgin], or, if they cannot read, have observed the fast days of the Church, and have abstained from flesh meat on Wednesdays and Saturdays (except when Christmas falls on such days), may derive after death — especially on Saturdays, the day consecrated by the Church** to the Blessed Virgin — through the unceasing intercession of Mary, her pious petitions, her merits, and her special protection.

**
With this explanation and interpretation, the Sabbatine privilege no longer presents any difficulties, and Benedict XIV adds his desire that the faithful should rely on it (Opera omnia, IX, Venice, 1767, pp. 197 sqq.). Even apart from the Bull and the tradition or legend concerning the apparition and promise of the Mother of God the interpretation of the Decree cannot be contested.

newadvent.org/cathen/13289b.htm

Gibberish IMO: Look at how they try to talk around the plain reading of Scripture; my gosh
As to Mary’s virginity after her childbirth, it is not denied by St. Matthew’s expressions “before they came together” (1:18), “her firstborn son” (1:25), nor by the fact that the New Testament books repeatedly refer to the “brothers of Jesus”. [66] **The words “before they came together” **mean probably, “before they lived in the same house” , referring to the time when they were merely betrothed; but even if the words be understood of marital intercourse, *they only state that the Incarnation took place before any such intercourse had intervened, without implying that it did occur after the Incarnation of the Son of God. [67] * - Did anyone get that last sentence - me neither!
newadvent.org/cathen/15464b.htm

Sorry about all the colors; getting around Elvis too much-will clean it up.

 

[Tanner9188]

No. You can see the Catholic belief on God in the Nicene Creed that we recite at every Mass.

We believe in one God…

Pleased to meet you Tanner But who is the “Catholic Mary”?

I have never prayed to Mary. Does this make me an exception I am a lot of things I supposed but I will leave that judgment up to others. I have met a lot of Catholics who don’t pray to Mary.

I have, however, asked Mary to pray for me. Much in the same way I am going to ask you to pray for me.

Please pray for me Tanner.

God bless you

Can you give me a short example of a prayer you might routinely pray to Mary? Thanks and nice to meet you as well. And I will pray now for you…God bless.

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

Can you give me a short example of a prayer you might routinely pray to Mary? Thanks and nice to meet you as well. And I will pray now for you…God bless.

I don’t pray to Mary Tanner.

Something I may say, or have said in the past, may be on the lines of:

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

God bless you Tanner

 

[RevDrNorth]

Can someone PLEASE explain this to me?



I just read a “testimony” by someone who used to be really involved in the Catholic Church but didn’t “truly know Jesus” until he became Protestant.

I tend to hear this a lot from people…when they’re speaking either about themselves, or others.

In my experience though, I got to know God better and in a closer way once I became Catholic! Can we be any closer to Him than the Eucharist? that’s receiving Jesus physically into ourselves!

if there are Catholics who aren’t really close to God… that’s perhaps cause they weren’t properly catechized, or whatever, but it’s not because Catholicism somehow prevents people from “having a relationship with Jesus”. It doesn’t prevent…quite the contrary! those who HAVE followed the Church teachings well, became Saints…and if you read anything they wrote, it’s so obvious they were very close to God.

I just don’t understand why people say things like this and it’s really bothering me… sorry about the rant

I understand if some people disagree with Catholic doctrine and think the Church is wrong on points. But they seem to go even further, and say that Catholics don’t “really know” God. How come this is not said about other Protestant denominations, even though they have different doctrines too? how come Catholics don’t say things like that about other Christians? even if we think their doctrines are heretical, we still admit they can be saved and know God and they’re still Christians… why all this anti-Catholicism?

I have some Protestants friends who go on missions to evangelize Catholics…and bring them into “Bible believing” churches as they’re called… I hear so much about how Catholics “dont know God”, and to be honest, it’s just gotten to the point that it’s both puzzling and hurtful.

thanks for reading my rant…lol

I think because for many Catholics as with mainline Protestant denominations there are a great many pew sitters for whom the church represents a social entity through which you go through various stages of life. So, when the Catholic (or Protestant mainliner) meets an evangelical Christian who is on fire with the love of God it makes a huge impression. If they join that kind of active community it becomes a major part of their life and their families life (programs like AWANA and so on). Couple that with the fact that your average Evangelical can run circles around your average Catholic or mainline Prot in terms of knowledge of scripture and it is powerful.

The thing to remember is that just because a converted Catholic or mainline Prot discovers Jesus in an evangelical Church does NOT mean He was not to be discovered within the body or support of the Catholic Church (or mainline Prot).

Note that if the Catholic Church were to fill up with Priests of the sold out for Christ evangelical fervor of John Corapi…there is no telling what would happen. The Catholic Church needs more men like him.

 

[Tanner9188]

I don’t pray to Mary Tanner.

Something I may say, or have said in the past, may be on the lines of:

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

God bless you Tanner

Thank you for the brief example and God bless you

 

[SteveGC]

Can you give me a short example of a prayer you might routinely pray to Mary? Thanks and nice to meet you as well. And I will pray now for you…God bless.

Tanner, this is decidedly off-topic. To put one or maybe two posts up about a tangential subject is fine. To then press the issue and encourage debate of that subject is called hijacking a thread. I would recommend you go start your own Mary thread or join one in progress. Peace.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Shakespeare prayed to quite ordinary people.

Judges in Europe pray to their ‘learned counsel’ and vice versa.

You see, the verb ‘Pray’ means to ask.

Only in very recent times have certain people tried to make it apply to “God alone”.

We can 'pray to and for each other". . ."Prithee, friend "(Prithee is a contraction of ‘pray thee’). PURITANS used the word prithee, for heaven’s sake, and there is probably nobody LESS Catholic than a Puritan!!

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Oh, and those Judges in Britain. . . they worship beings other than God, too. They address the judge as “Your Worship”.

And don’t forget all the Japanese people who bow down to each other. Shocking.

And don’t think you escape being a Protestant who is “God alone” because I’ll bet you pay reverence (reverence!!!) to a piece of cloth.

Yes, I’ll bet you do. “I pledge Allegiance to the FLAG”. . .

Hmmm??

 

[SteveGC]

I think because for many Catholics as with mainline Protestant denominations there are a great many pew sitters for whom the church represents a social entity through which you go through various stages of life. So, when the Catholic (or Protestant mainliner) meets an evangelical Christian who is on fire with the love of God it makes a huge impression. If they join that kind of active community it becomes a major part of their life and their families life (programs like AWANA and so on). Couple that with the fact that your average Evangelical can run circles around your average Catholic or mainline Prot in terms of knowledge of scripture and it is powerful.

The thing to remember is that just because a converted Catholic or mainline Prot discovers Jesus in an evangelical Church does NOT mean He was not to be discovered within the body or support of the Catholic Church (or mainline Prot).

Note that if the Catholic Church were to fill up with Priests of the sold out for Christ evangelical fervor of John Corapi…there is no telling what would happen. The Catholic Church needs more men like him.

I find this to be a very fair and well articulated observation. I would make a couple additional points…

1. The “on-fire” mentality of Christianity too often becomes equated with being physically energetic and extroverted. In other words, the more vocal and energetic you are in your Christianity, the more you apparently know Jesus. It’s not to say that those who are like this are not intimately familiar with Christ, but these personality traits have somehow become the prerequisite for being authentically Christian and the benchmark against which all others are compared.
2. Quite a large number of Evangelicals only “run circles around Catholics” in terms of scriptural memorization, as opposed to scriptural knowledge. True, the average Catholic and Prot may lack knowledge of many of the biblical stories and historical events, which Evangelicals are readily aware of…but most Evangelicals I know fall flat on soteriological truths and even some moral truths.

This is not to contradict you, RevDrNorth…merely to give my experience of this same reality you expressed so well here.

 

[Tanner9188]

Shakespeare prayed to quite ordinary people.

Judges in Europe pray to their ‘learned counsel’ and vice versa.

You see, the verb ‘Pray’ means to ask.

Only in very recent times have certain people tried to make it apply to “God alone”.

We can 'pray to and for each other". . ."Prithee, friend "(Prithee is a contraction of ‘pray thee’). PURITANS used the word prithee, for heaven’s sake, and there is probably nobody LESS Catholic than a Puritan!!

Doesn’t the word of God tell us exactly how to pray? What are the examples? Jesus and the Apostles? How did they do it? Shouldn’t Christians follow that example?

I certainly would not say to my brother or sister? “I would like to pray to you to pray for my sick friend.” I believe I would say “I would like to ask you to pray for my sick friend”. Thus, a clear distinction between ask and pray. I understand that pray “is to petition”, but the brother or sister will automatically assume I am asking them to pray to God, the Father.

 

[SteveGC]

FollowGodAlone:

To a spiritualist the doctrines of the fleshly faith are ghastly in their grossness. The foundation of the creed was laid in a physical resurrection of the body ; and the flesh and blood of that body were to be eaten in the eucharistic rite as a physical mode of incorporating the divine. It is true the doctrine of transubstantiation was added to gild the dead body for eating. But the historical rendering of the matter necessitated the substitution of the physical for the spiritual interpretation. The founders only carried off the carnalized Horus, the Karast-mummy, for their Christ. They raised him from the grave corporeally ; whereas the Egyptians left that type of Osiris in matter, that image of Horus on earth in the tomb. Horus did rise again, but not in matter. He spiritualized to become the superhuman or divine Horus. The Egyptians did not exhume the fleshly body, living or dead, to eat it with the expectation of assimilating Horus to themselves or becoming Horus by assimilating the blood and body of his physical substance. This was what was done by the Christian Sarkolatras. (Rit, ch. 17).

Can I have the link where you got this from? This doesn’t look like a direct quote to me of the Egyptian text but a modern commentary whose aim was to show that the Catholic belief came from the Egyptians by using words like “Eucharist” and “transubstantiation” in their commentary. May I have the link?

Since he didn’t respond, I took the liberty to find that this came from Gerald Massey’s work: Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World. Massey apparently was a self-taught Egyptologist and practicing druid. I wonder why a Christian is using a resource such as this to provide strength to his anti-Catholic claims. Wouldn’t you think there’d atleast be a Christian source cited?

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress…

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tantum ergo forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif
*Shakespeare prayed to quite ordinary people.

Judges in Europe pray to their ‘learned counsel’ and vice versa.

You see, the verb ‘Pray’ means to ask.

Only in very recent times have certain people tried to make it apply to “God alone”.

We can 'pray to and for each other". . ."Prithee, friend "(Prithee is a contraction of ‘pray thee’). PURITANS used the word prithee, for heaven’s sake, and there is probably nobody LESS Tanner replied>
*

Doesn’t the word of God tell us exactly how to pray? What do you mean by ‘exactly’? You acknowledge that ‘prayer’ is petition (and as above, you can see that sense is STILL used in many countries, including this one. What are the examples? Jesus and the Apostles? How did they do it? Many ways. Paul asks others to pray for him. Maccabees tells us it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead. What do you think we pray to Mary about --that we just bypass Christ? That we don’t know that everything that comes from Mary (including her Son Christ Himself) comes from God? Shouldn’t Christians follow that example? We Catholics do follow that example. We aren’t the ones trying to redefine a word used as ‘petition’ and relating to all people and turn it into a narrow redefinition to ‘God alone’ and then try to argue back that the Bible used that new, modern ‘narrow’ definition way back when.

I certainly would not say to my brother or sister? “I would like to pray to you to pray for my sick friend.” why not? I believe I would say “I would like to ask you to pray for my sick friend”. Thus, a clear distinction between ask and pray. Again, a false and modern narrowing that drives Christians apart by falsely insisting that the Bible says something it does not. I understand that pray “is to petition”, but the brother or sister will automatically assume I am asking them to pray to God, the Father. Do you really have such STUPID friends that if you said, I pray you, please pray for my sick friend, that they would think that you were confusing them with God? I think that people are a lot more intelligent than you seem to give them credit for, and are perfectly capable of understanding the difference. They were, and have been, able to understand the difference in the Catholic (and Orthodox) churches for 2000 years.
__________________
John 5:2

 

[SteveGC]

Most of my friends are Roman Catholic (as is my wife and her family), and indeed most of my countrymen. Nearly of them have been baptised, confirmed and, for those not single, married in the Church. Yet, with some notable exceptions, even those who are regular churchgoers who presumably also participate in the Eucharistic celebration have little or no idea, in my opinion, about the basic teachings of Jesus, what His death and resurrection mean for us, who the Holy Spirit is and how we can live a Spirit-filled life, why we should pray, why we should read the Bible, why we should share our faith, whether or not God heals people today, what spiritual gifts are, and other basic elements of the faith. (In my experience, most Evangelicals, save for recent converts, have reasonable ideas about all these basic elements). Christ does not have a noticeable transforming presence in their lives. They speak, act and live no differently from Non Christians. So that is what I mean.

As to if they are “fully Christian”, I don’t know since I really don’t even know what that means. I do not want to judge them.

By the way, the phrase “sacramentalised but not evangelised” was evidently first used by Roman Catholic Cardinal Suenens. Many other Roman Catholic leaders has made and continue to make the same self-criticism–you can do a google search.

And yes I do believe, whether because of or in spite of theology, that most Evangelicals I know live their faith and experience Jesus very differently from Roman Catholics.

Looking back through this thread, I wanted to comment on this particular observation…

Addressing the OP, one of the biggest reasons people think Catholics don’t know Jesus, basing it on outward appearance and observation (of their fruit), is that these people who think this way don’t know many devout, or even faithfully practicing Catholics. Who they predominantly know are CINOs (Catholics In Name Only). These are the cultural Catholics - not to be confused with “cradle” Catholics. A cradle Catholic (Catholic since baptism) may or may not be a CINO, but not all CINOs are cradle Catholics.

CINOs are Catholics who are content to (and/or encouraged by family to) retain, and publicly profess to others, the title of Catholic for themselves, regardless of the fact that they are lapsed or at best lukewarm in their faith. I don’t know the numbers, but I would wager this is close to half of the Catholic family. That’s nearly half a billion people who give genuine Catholics a bad name. Again, these aren’t actual statistics, and if someone with a better statistical understanding wants to correct me, feel free. And these folks are indeed “Catholic” to be sure. Their baptism makes them so…but the distinction is, they do not in any way represent or express the Catholic faith as it is meant to be.

On the flip side…with lapsed, lukewarm, or otherwise non-practicing non-Catholic Christians…there is no similar identity that they retain…atleast not anywhere near the same type of name retention as the CINO. So, most if not all of these many faithless non-Catholics are rarely identified and associated with any branch of Christianity…certainly no non-Catholic church comes into scrutiny nor is held accountable for their part in negligence of these people.

The long and the short of it is…the Catholic Church is a plentiful, tangible, and all-too easy target for the rest of the world to criticize when it comes to over-zealous evangelicals looking for “no fruit of the Spirit”, looking for those who “don’t know Jesus”. They find them in the Catholic Church only because the lapsed of our faith proudly carry with them the “Catholic” title without living up to it. This is why many people think Catholics “don’t know Jesus”.

:twocents:

 

[Eileen_T]

Looking back through this thread, I wanted to comment on this particular observation…

Addressing the OP, one of the biggest reasons people think Catholics don’t know Jesus, basing it on outward appearance and observation (of their fruit), is that these people who think this way don’t know many devout, or even faithfully practicing Catholics. Who they predominantly know are CINOs (Catholics In Name Only). These are the cultural Catholics - not to be confused with “cradle” Catholics. A cradle Catholic (Catholic since baptism) may or may not be a CINO, but not all CINOs are cradle Catholics.

CINOs are Catholics who are content to (and/or encouraged by family to) retain, and publicly profess to others, the title of Catholic for themselves, regardless of the fact that they are lapsed or at best lukewarm in their faith. I don’t know the numbers, but I would wager this is close to half of the Catholic family. That’s nearly half a billion people who give genuine Catholics a bad name. Again, these aren’t actual statistics, and if someone with a better statistical understanding wants to correct me, feel free. And these folks are indeed “Catholic” to be sure. Their baptism makes them so…but the distinction is, they do not in any way represent or express the Catholic faith as it is meant to be.

On the flip side…with lapsed, lukewarm, or otherwise non-practicing non-Catholic Christians…there is no similar identity that they retain…atleast not anywhere near the same type of name retention as the CINO. So, most if not all of these many faithless non-Catholics are rarely identified and associated with any branch of Christianity…certainly no non-Catholic church comes into scrutiny nor is held accountable for their part in negligence of these people.

The long and the short of it is…the Catholic Church is a plentiful, tangible, and all-too easy target for the rest of the world to criticize when it comes to over-zealous evangelicals looking for “no fruit of the Spirit”, looking for those who “don’t know Jesus”. They find them in the Catholic Church only because the lapsed of our faith proudly carry with them the “Catholic” title without living up to it. This is why many people think Catholics “don’t know Jesus”.

:twocents:

Very well put.

I have to admit that, although I would have described myself as at simmering heat, rather than lukewarm, for many years of my Faith journey, it was largely the example of converts such as Scott Hahn that brought home to me the fact that newbies knew more about the Faith than I did.

That set me off and, studying Scripture and reading apologetics and theological books has put within me a hunger to really know God in a deeper way. The more I learn, the more I love, and the more love I have to give to others every day.