As a kid, I was always suprised by how much some non-Catholics "knew" about the Catholic faith, and how little I knew about other (protestant) faiths. Now that I'm older, I wander if a lot of other denominations were actually teaching these inacuracies about Catholics in their churches. Are they? I'm happy about the fact that "anti-protestantism" was not taught to me by Catholics.

Also- have you written a conversion story? Enjoy your posts.

-- mark advent (adventm5477@earthlink.net), May 01, 2004

Answers

Bump, and sorry for the elay in responce mark.

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), May 01, 2004.

i went to a couple of protestant churches with my mom (who didnt want me to become catholic). Some of them seem to base their whole liturgy on bashing other churches/denominations, not just catholics. others seem to just hate catholics, and some are at least trying to make it with a message that promotes love and charity and not invoking hate and misinformation.

it varies from church to church, though i'd estimate that half the churches out there teach innacuracies about other religions or denominations as a part of their liturgy.

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), May 01, 2004.

Hi Mark,

The church that I attended growing up is Nazarene, and they never spoke against other denominations or against Catholics. I remember my pastor saying that he is grateful for any church that preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am actually very grateful for the solid foundation of Biblical teaching that I gained from my church growing up.

I was in a program called Bible quizzing, which was especially helpful. Each year the teens in our church who were in the program would focus on a book or several in the New Testament to study and/or memorize. I was seriously involved for three years during which we did (Matthew), (Romans and James), and (Acts). We went to competitions with our church team to compete by answering questions from whatever book it was that we were studying that year. Thus, I have many verses of these books memorized (albeit in NIV, which some here will not like, lol). I loved this program and I hope that someday Catholics catch on and begin something similar. It gave me such a solid foundation that I will never regret gaining, and I made so many wonderful friendships.

My parents were both raised Catholic and became Protestant as adults. Almost all of my relatives are Catholic, and my mom now wishes to become Catholic also (she has been such a wonderful support and help to me in my faith journey). In my family and among other former Catholics who were friends of the family, there was not an anti-Catholic mindset (which would have been very difficult anyway considering most of my relatives). It was more of an idea that we should feel sorry for Catholics in their deception, because they don't know any better. I remember as a child my parents would instruct me and we would pray for all of our Catholic relatives to "get saved." We thought that it was possible for Catholics to be saved in spite of being Catholic, but it would be best to free them from their deception. Boy were we wrong, lol!

Thank you for the compliment - you are very kind. God has just blessed me, I think, as I pray for Him to show me the Truth, He continues to reveal it to me, confirming the Catholic faith over and over again. Praise God for drawing His children unto Himself!

As for my conversion story, no I have not written one. However, my mom has written a wonderful, extensive one that I can email to you if you like. It has the Scriptural support for all kinds of Catholic teachings. Send me an email if you'd like it. It's a Word document that I will have to send by attachment.

God bless,

-- Emily (jesusfollower7@yahoo.com), May 01, 2004.

paul h said: i went to a couple of protestant churches with my mom (who didnt want me to become catholic).

Are you a convert? From Protestant or what? I never knew!

I should add, most Protestants will express more hesitation toward someone like me who is becoming Catholic, because I was supposedly in the Protestant Truth and now I am deserting it. As opposed to someone who was raised Catholic and supposedly deceived all along, so they cannot help it. This has been my experience multiple times when sharing my desire to become Catholic with Protestants.

While they can be loving and accepting of cradle Catholics or Catholicism, at the same time, they get this queesy hesistancy about my situation. Not that they are necessarily anti-Catholic. There is just this unspoken sense among Protestants that Catholics are somehow wrong. It's a general assumption that most Protestants just "know."

-- Emily (jesusfollower7@yahoo.com), May 01, 2004.

Emily: tht's a magnificent testimony you are giving about your conversion.

Let's pray that many more Protestant brethren will see the light and some day accomplish Jesus' wish: one fold under one Shepperd.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), May 02, 2004.

Are you a convert? From Protestant or what? I never knew!

yes, when i was young my parents were more or less atheists. they got divorced when i was 5 years old. three years later my dad remarried and became catholic (he got an annulment first). i went to mass with him. at the same time, my mom started going to church as well... a church which was about as anti catholic as they come (one of the kind where every sermon trashes on many churches, and at least once on catholocism). my catholic church, however, never said a word about other churches, but stoically proclaimed its doctrine and stood by it.

over two years i decided that i would become catholic, i was baptized. after that i was baptized i went to my mom's church when she would take me on her weekends and i would sit through the youth services. after each service i would walk up and discuss with the minister how he got something misinterpreted or just plain wrong about the catholic church (i was a fearless ten year old). slowly, each of the youth ministers who had me in attendence realized that they couldnt preach against catholicism with a catholic in the room and they stopped. it made the lay people mad to no ends whenever they saw the crucifix i always wore (i believe the saying was "hey brother, dont you know that Jesus came down from the cross?")

then i recieved confirmation when i turned thirteen, as a special case, because my mom, who had the majority custody, wouldnt take me to RCIA classes... so my dad taught me and the priest quizzed me afterwards (actually, more like the priest and i had a lengthy discussion).

so, i guess for sure converted at age ten, but it was so long ago that i normally only discuss having to attend protestant church with my mom.

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), May 02, 2004.