In your conversations with conservative Evangelical Christians, has anyone else ever noticed a strange double think? It is a common tactic for Conservative Evangelical Christians to find some abuse of liberal Catholics and beat all Catholics with that abuse. Let us say that the conservative Evangelical discovers that Catholics do not believe in healing miracles, or a liberal Catholic has denied the historicity of the gospels, or a liberal Catholic nun ministers to lesbians or most Catholic priests do not preach against sin, speak in tongues or cast out demons at their weekly Mass. Suddenly all Catholics are blamed for the same problem.
If he were trying to be objective, logical or fair the Conservative Evangelical critic should do two things: First of all, before hitting all the Catholics with the same stick he should find if there are actually Catholics who are different and who counter the impression he has been given by the liberal Catholic.
Secondly, he should realize that if all Catholics have to answer for the liberal Catholics, then all Protestants should have to answer for the liberal Protestants. If he wants to criticize the whole Catholic Church for the beliefs and behaviors of the liberal Catholics, then he should accept responsibility himself for all the liberal Protestants.
This, of course, he will never do. This is because Protestantism is, by its very nature, sectarian. The conservative Pentecostalist doesn’t feel he has to answer for the liberal Episcopalian, nor does the Charismatic Church of God member feel at all responsible for the views of the liberal Church of Christ pastor. All of them can stay in their own holy huddles believing themselves to be the right ones.
In fact such throwing of stones doesn’t do anyone much good. If we’re to really have any dialogs with conservative Evangelical brothers and sisters we must ask them to get away from all the subjective impressions they have of the Catholic Church (for good and for ill) and discuss the facts. The discussions we have should not be on the individual impressions, local practices or abuses of Catholics, but on the objective, quantifiable teachings of the Catholic Church.
This is where the discussions should focus: “This is what the Catholic Church teaches. Is it true or false? If it is true it demands my allegiance. If it is false I must reject it.”
Go Fr Dwight! We got a jewel when we got you!
Fr. Dwight,The Protestant, when confronted with this contradiction, always has recourse to the fact that he does not feel in any way bound or connected to a Christian whom he does not believe to be a ‘true’ Christian. Thus he can say that the Liberals Protestants have lost the Gospel in their hearts and therefore are not Christian. He is in no way bound to account for their heretical foolishnessThe Catholic has no recourse to individulaism. The Catholic feels and knows himself to be bound to other Christians by an indissoluble bond in the Body of Christ. Thus, the Catholic will feel himself shamed at the scandulous actions of his brothers in Christ just as one feels shame at the scandalous actions of his blood brother. So when a brother in Christ scandalizes others, we always feel obligated to defend the family’s honor even while abhoring the sin.
“This is what the Catholic Church teaches.” First you have to convince them. I have shown people right out of the catechism the actual teaching of the Church on purgatory, honor due to Mary, etc and have been told “Fine, I have no problem with what’s written here. Too bad it’s not what the Catholic Church teaches. I know what it really teaches cuz (choose one) my mother, my pastor, the nun in 3rd grade told me.” How do you answer that? Terentia
I guess you have to agree with people from the very beginning that the source for ‘what the Catholic Church teaches’ is not the abuses, the misinformation, the ignorance and the rebellion, but ‘just the facts ma’am’ i.e. the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
That’s right, Fr. When dealing with Protestants, dissenting Catholics, the Orthodox or non-Christians, stick to the Catechism.
A “liberal Catholic nun ministering to lesbians” is a problem? What group(s), exactly, did Christ say we should write off? What groups did Jesus not deem worth the Church’s time? Perhaps you mean that the hypothetical nun is ministering to a group of lesbians without telling them that they’re all going straight to hell unless they change their ways immediately. Perhaps she is bringing Christ’s compassionate love into their midst without condemning them. If that’s the problem, how come we never here of the tragedy of Catholic clergy and religious ministering to wealthy people who greedily covet tax breaks and have no intention of sharing much of their wealth with the poor? Is homosexuality a much greater sin than extreme greed? Sorry. I’m glad that there are liberal (and conservate, and moderate) nuns ministering to a greath swath of us sinners who need to be taught, again and again, about God’s love for them. I don’t see the scandal in that.Jerry
True, Protestants sometimes blame the whole Church for the sins of some Catholics, without themselves taking responsibility for the sins of other Protestants. But sometimes in my discussions with Protestants they’ll take the doublethink a step further, and blame Catholics for things that they do themselves! Some examples:1) It’s terrible to have a statue of Mary in a church– but at Christmastime many Protestants have a little statue of Mary in a nativity scene in their home, church, or town square.2) Someone told me I should take warning from the names of Catholic churches– they’re all named after angels and saints, giving glory to them instead of to God. This person was herself a member of “Sierra Madre Congregational Church”, giving glory to her city and denomination instead of to God!3) My mom began dating my dad while her mother was dying. One of the last things my mom’s mom said to her was “When I am in Heaven, I will intercede with the Lord to let you marry this man.” Our family always enjoyed that story and felt that Grandma helped out when she got to Heaven. But when I turned Catholic, Mom really argued with me about prayer to saints.4) Of course, there are MANY Bible verses that Catholics take more seriously and literally than Protestants do, but they accuse us of not being faithful to the Bible.Those are off the top of my head; I bet I could come up with more. A surprising number of Protestant arguments against Catholicism can be refuted simply by saying, “An atheist could make that same argument to you against Protestant Christianity!” Anyway, this comment’s long enough. 🙂
I’m what you might call a conservative evangelical Christian, but I hope I don’t fall into the category of illogic and subjectivity that you generalise to us as a whole. I think a lot of the time ignorance does get the best of people, because they are afraid–one of my Orthodox friends accused all Protestant Christian churches of the mega-church, feel-good mentality that we see too often.Since you do point out that we are ignorant of the ins and outs of our respective groups, I wonder if you could help me clear something up. One thing I’m curious about is how the Catholic church can approve extrabiblical doctrine such as the catechism. While I understand the need for clarification and exposition, I can’t get my brain out of the thought that it sounds like the scribes’ exposition of Mosaic Law. I certainly do not mean this as a slight against biblical literature or the liturgy, but only that I do not understand and you seem like the type of people who could help me figure this one out. The basic tenets of the Catholic church make sense to me–there are just a few things I am stuck on.Thanks to whoever takes the time to respond to this comment–I appreciate it:)