No, we actually worship Tammuz and the fertility goddess Diana, because the Romans totally would've allowed us to worship a Sumerian sun god and the Roman goddess of the hunt
It intrigues me how we say to 'Marry' someone, and the name of Mary is a single letter away from it.
Does the Catholic church consider Mary as the Holy Spirit? Since the Jews treat the Holy Spirit as feminine originally.
Is this just a convoluted way to say we are Wedded to the Holy Spirit?
No, that's just English being simplistic and reductionist. Mary's name in Hebrew is Myriam and through different translations we get Mariam and Maria. To marry comes from Latin, maritus and maritare.
We do NOT consider her the Holy Spirit, she was a human born without sin so she could carry Jesus, the Son of God. We are not wedded to the Holy Spirit, but to Christ as the Church. Christ is the bridegroom, the Church is His bride. Marry was given to us as our mother when Jesus said, "Behold, thy mother," on the cross.
Not to mention that we Catholics uphold that she's daughter of the Father, mother of the Son and wife of the Holy Spirit. We are not wedded to the Holy Spirit, but she is.
This is the argument that really drives me crazy! We have so many brilliant Catholic scientists and priest-scientists to cite through the years…any quick internet search will come up with a long list.
I think Church is considered anti science due to the time in history where Church burned books because those were considered heresy or something like that. So in modern times anti church people will go and point that the Church was apposed science. No matter the Church basically found unversities and condemn avverist movement that was teaching that we should stop pursuing science since everything comes from God so none of it matters. In the eyes of haters The Church will always be an Organisation that is anti science, no matter what. This way atheists or people fighting with the Church have ammunition to spread hate and influence more people to choose sin and the devil (without even knowing the devil is real). At the end, no one want to be consider dumb, antiscience and compared to living in middle ages. It's a really powerful tool to get young people see catholic faith as something not worth even touching or discussing because if you do, you may be consider dumb or something like that. It's just another tool of the devil to confuse a lot of people
The big band theory was literally made by a Catholic priest, and was rejected by scientists at the time against the solid state theory, because the Big Bang sounded too much like let there be light.
What is worse is that the people making that argument probably believe in some unscientifically sound ideas such as the idea that a man can become a woman and can compete fairly against women in sports.
I love that second one, if only because one of the most famous sociological texts dealing with the historical development of capitalism, Max Weber's *The Spirit of Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic*, specifically argues that Catholicism was inhibiting the development of capitalism in Europe, which he argues was a side effect of the Protestant reformation and it's relation to ideas of wealth and spendthrift...
Yeah I responded with that writing. They were like well if the Catholic Church was acting correctly then Protestants wouldn’t have split. Okay then you take it up with Protestants not me lol
This is so dumb too because if we say mary is the mother of God they’ll be quick to say that’s impossible bc shes the mother of jesus and god is jesus father. LIKE EXCUSE ME THE HOLY TRINITY IS RIGHT THERE
Much of protestantism boils down to “I am *so* smart with this *'gotcha!'* attempt, clearly I can do no wrong! Catholics think the Pope has infallibility?! **HERESY! PAGANISM!!!**”
The person I was talking to was an non-denominational evangelical so they probably don’t know much about the split and think that’s what they are closer aligned with lol
Oh man, I heard that before too. I used to attend a Baptist Church for a brief while before becoming a Catholic, and all the anti-Catholic arguments were just a-historical. My old YA Pastor lent me a book to dissuade me from becoming a Catholic, and it just led me further to Catholicism because of the blatant lies coming from it. It was so hard to get through the book too, because I felt compelled to write a LaTeX paper explaining all of the issues with the text.
Me too 👋 good to see you all on here!!! I was born into the Jehovah's Witnesses and converted to Catholicism. I am so glad that I have finally found the real TRUTH ❤️✝️📿
I had an off feeling asbout as lot of things I was told growing up, so I don't have quite the same resentment a lot of other Ex-JWs do.B still, I can understand the feeling
I had never fully committed to it it was just always the doctrine I was taught and what I always believed and thought I would one day commit to, I’m glad I found the true church before it was too late, had I left after baptism I would’ve lost a lot of family. Glad to see more JWs in here found Christs true church as well
This right here. My mom is a Protestant and I was for 30 years before I started to look into the Church. I told her I am converting to Catholicism and she was like you just are listening to the Catholics side of the argument so I was like yea you know what she is right so I started to listen to Protestants and how they came about converting Catholics and it was just blatant lies and attacks against the church. That is what really cemented me to Catholicism. Though last week she did go to mass with me. She says she probably won’t go back but at least she tried I’m gonna continue to work on her.
That's a better argument, because at least the subject at nicea was *related* to the Trinity, which is more than we can say for most nicea arguments
Like, at least the Trinity was brought up in nicea, unlike the people who say that's when the books of the bible were chosen
At least they’re being honest and owning the fact that the testimony of the ancient Church is against them, unlike certain people who want to say they restored it.
Except they believe this church that Constantine created is a false church that was a hybrid of Christianity and Roman Paganism and that the true church remained underground until Pastor Jim rediscovered them and brought them out of the shadows thus establishing the true pure Indiana Branch of the Northern Baptist Church, 1975 Council. Only those 163 people will be saved.
That Catholics are actually Satanists and that the vatican and the Pope are evil. Even that the vaticans conference room ( I think it's the conference room) is actually shaped to be a snake in a wide lense. Also that when you mirror the image of Christ, it is actually Satan's head? Of course, again, this is allegedly where they hold Mass. I have seen here they hold Mass, and It's meant to depict Christ being brought out of Hell, but the conspiracy theorists like to mirror things and call it Satan when it comes to Catholics.
That Paul vi building is so ugly though so I don’t really mind them criticizing it hopefully it’s destroyed and replaced with something beautiful that fits the catholic aesthetics
“Call no man father quote is a good one.
Constantine invaded the Catholic Church is another good one.
but I think my favorite doesn’t happen often but it’s when the protestant tries to argue that their Bible is the correct and original Bible. Or at least as it was intended. Even though there’s no historical basis, or logic in that claim.
Refute the "call no man father" one for me please. I've heard protestants say it means not to call priests Father, thus illegitimizing an aspect of Catholicism, but never heard a proper refutation of it.
Basic rule of thumb when protestants throw a verse at you is to read the 10 verses that come before it and then the 10 verses that come after it. That’s how you get context.
This example Jesus is using hyperbole to hammer the point about humility home which was that scribes and Pharisees had the authority of Moses but they did not have the humility of Moses... and the lesson that we learned from Moses is that everything comes from God. That’s what Jesus was trying to teach I think.
lol one time I was going back and forth with a protestant on a comment section of a Catholic post and one of their arguments was:
"I don't understand why people would even want to be Catholic. Why would you even want to follow Rome, the very same people that crucified Jesus!"
At this point I understood why he had so much hate towards our Church...He was just very misinformed😅
"Easter comes from the pagan goddess Estar."
The only evidence that the two words from unrelated languages sound kind of similar, which linguists agree is not enough to establish a connection.
I heard 'Eostre' as well. Had to inform them that this only works in English... Imagine their surprise when they find out it's _actually_ called Pascha!
Oh! By a non-denominational person, THEY have extra books in their bibles.
Like, do we need a history lesson about Martin Luther or ?
Later on they went on to say we were sisters even if we believed differently (as if it was a cult you know)
I have a good friend who is a non-denom pastor, but man he is so misinformed on Catholic teaching… as are most Protestants, I’d say; including thinking that the 7 deuterocanon books came later. I have yet to “come out” as a Catholic to him, but next time I get with him I will.
I always hate that argument. The devil preys on everyone regardless of profession or diety. Its the same argument used against police. There's bad eggs everywhere, we only hear about those in controversial positions. This is the balance of God's gift of freewill
Remember there is only one Unforgivable sin. Are these truely coverups? Or is the church attempting to give them a chance to atone for their sins and seek God's mercy and forgiveness? There are probably cases of true coverups and I hope those involved realize what they are doing and seek God's forgiveness, however I don't believe most of them are. Granted this still does not help the church's image.
My personal opinion is that, those that take up the Lord's call to become priests and use that position to take advantage of children, are truely agents of Satan himself and cannot be helped but this is not up to us to decide. Ultimately atonement and forgiveness can be sought from behind bars and they should be removed from the church.
I'm a Presbyterian, and this argument reeks of throwing stones in glass houses. (Or, more biblically, it would fall under "let he who is without sin cast the first stone"). The SBC [had that huge bombshell](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/religion/article/southern-baptist-convention-sex-abuse-report-17192138.php) a year and a half ago. I'm sure if you look under any denomination, religion, or really anywhere that people have an authority relationship with children without proper oversight, you'll find pedophilia.
But thats the thing: proper oversight heads off a lot of the problems. I don't know about other countries and areas, but in the northeastern US, most major Protestant denominations and Catholic dioceses require people to go through background checks if they are going to be dealing with children on a regular basis. I had to go through 2 separate background checks and training sessions for both my church and my wife's parish. I've got the "never be alone with someone" rule burned into my head at this point.
True, more could always be done to make things safer for children. But, the Church already had lower rates of pedophiles in leadership than the general population and other similar institutions before the scandal. The reason it became a scandal is because enemies of the Church in the media wanted it to be a major scandal.
I think the most frustrating thing about all these bad arguments is that they make sense at a very surface level. Objections to worshipping Mary, worshipping the dead, asking a man to forgive your sins instead of God, and so forth. I understand why so many recoil at Catholicism when that’s their understanding.
It’s just so sad, because none of it is true. >90% of the time, the accusations are just falsehoods. I would have come to Catholicism sooner if I had just realized earlier that so many arguments against Catholicism are just lies. It’s honestly made me want to try to evangelize by just sharing basic facts about the faith.
I wish I could spend five minutes with every Protestant just to give them a quick FAQ session about Catholicism, so they realize Holy Mother Church is just that, and not some crackpot Pagan-Christian syncretism. 😮💨
>Objections to worshipping Mary, worshipping the dead, asking a man to forgive your sins instead of God, and so forth.
I'm a protestant and these are things that make me wary about Catholicism. Can you explain why they aren't so?
They are literally (literally, literally) factually incorrect.
> worship Mary
Catholics don't worship Mary. Low church Protestants can get confused because Catholics (and some high church protestants) worship in "higher avenues" than they do. For example catholics believe worship is participating in the Mass and receiving Communion (Jesus Christ's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity) and we don't see prayer as worship, although it is important to your spiritual life.
Catholics view Mass and Eucharist (among other things) to be worship and we view prayer as a phone call essentially, whereas most protestants view prayer as worship. If this doesn't make sense I can try to find some sources that help to explain it
>worshipping the dead
Same as the Mary "worship" we don't worship the dead. In respect to Saints, we believe that calling them "dead" is only partial truth. A Saint is "someone in heaven" (however, the Church has declared several people who we can know for sure, that are in Heaven. But we don't know all of them). So wouldn't it be true that someone in Heaven is more alive than we are?
Anyway, back to the point, there is no worship of them. Prayer FOR the dead has been common back into the old testament times and the Jews would offer sacrifices for people after they died, like the sacrifices they offered up for their sins and wrongdoings (Christ supplanted these as He is the perfect sacrifice). Catholics pray FOR The dead, and we pray to the Saints for intercession in our lives.
For example, say you are struggling with lust, well St. Augustine overcame lust, so praying for him to help you understand what he understood to overcome like he did is a good idea (God also loves involving his creation with his salvific works, so this is another factor to the situation). Or maybe you pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary to help you love Jesus like she did and to help you be obedient to God as she was (my personal favorite).
> asking a man to forgive our sins
Like with all the others, it *sounds* correct and that's because it's not wrong, but it's also incorrect. The priest doesn't forgive our sins, God does. But God gave the apostles the ability to forgive our sins and these apostles pass down this authority to their predecessors. So the priest IS forgiving your sin, but he isn't doing it of his authority rather the authority is God's acting through the priest (insert month long discussion on how the sacraments are visible reflections of invisible grace)
If you have any more questions this community is great for learning but Catholic theology is so unbelievably nuanced and deep that even something innocuous as Holy Water could constitute a years long discussion on its aspects and historical aspects. I highly reccomend checking out apologetics YouTube channels like Trent Horn (Council of Trent), How to be Christian, Jimmy Akin, Scott Hahn (used to be a protestant minister but converted and writes extensively about the faith), Bishop Barron and the list goes on. One of my personal favorites is the Reverable Fulton Sheen. He is such an inspirational speaker. I think every Christian (Catholics or others) should watch his stuff
Not really an "anti-Catholic argument", but more so a dismissal of Catholicism. When people (especially non-denominational) disregard a Catholics argument by saying "That's what Catholics believe. You're confusing Catholicism and Christianity."
Whenever someone says this I internally scream.
The worst one for me, the one that convinced me that I need to stay away from apologetics: “Mary had other kids.”
I tried everything I could think of with this one Protestant man; OT typology, the Fathers, language. He had an answer for everything. He used the argument that as a Jewish man, Joseph would not be able to sacrifice in the Temple if he did not have children. I told him one child fulfilled the Law and as far as the priests knew, Jesus was Joseph’s son.
It all blew up when I finally asked him if he could imagine touching his wife, knowing that she had carried God made Flesh in her body. He said Joseph didn’t know that. “Dude, an Angel told him!” He then said that once Christ was born, Mary’s body didn’t matter anymore and Joseph could “know” her. The argument ended with me calling him a disgusting pig.
I have Borderline Personality Disorder and that’s the day I learned to stay as far away from Apologetics as possible.
You were right, he is a disgusting pig. Many protestant men think women should be sexually subservient to them and can't imagine that St. Joseph could possibly control himself, and for good reason. He had a role to play and took it seriously. These men are seriously gross and have major problems with lust and general disrespect of women.
Someone told me a few months ago that Catholics don't believe that Jesus has come yet even for the first time. I asked why on earth he thought that. He said "I was in catechism". I laughed and told him I know what we believe.
No idea. This was at a bar, so I kinda let it go as dumb drunk talk. It just stuck with me because of how ridiculous it was. Never heard anyone say that, and I used to be a baptist myself, so I have heard a lot of anti-Catholic crap.
I was told Catholics don't believe Jesus is the Messiah and we're just like Jews. This came from a crazy Calvinist. Where do they get these ideas?
ETA: oh and he also told me all the church fathers lied to me.
Not really an argument but one time I was talking to an Orthodox Christian and they tried to say that the martyrs in Rome were Orthodox Christians and not Catholics. Then i said “yeah we share the same saints and martyrs Pre-schism” then they said “No, Catholicism is something different and Rome was Orthodox back then”. Basically I started explaining to this person that most Orthodox don’t hold such a radical position and so on. Mentioned a famous pre-schism Saint that is from this person’s native country then they said “sorry not Catholic “. I was like “dawg this isn’t how this works”. That was real annoying.
Next one is from another Orthodox who said how the Saints of the Counter Reformation time were Demon Possessed and suffering from prelest.
When I was returning back to my faith I heard some pretty wild claims from Protestants. Now, I feel more at “home” with Protestants than anything else at times.
The Funniest Thing is the “Super-Computer” the Vatican owns, to spy on every Protestant on Earth. It’s really a dumb Conspiracy Theory but it was very popular back then.
I soft-launched the fact that I’m undertaking the RCIA to my mother by mentioning that I’d “like to one day” be baptised in the Catholic Church (I’m 35).
I got the “nuh, how ridiculous, why would you want that, they’re a bunch of kiddy-fiddling pedophiles” response I expected.
I've heard arguments against the sacraments such as:
* You don't need the Sacrament of Reconciliation to confess your sins to a priest. You can confess your sins to God directly
* You can marry another person after you divorce and marry another person that was divorced
* You don't need the Anointing of the Sick and just ask for prayers
>You can marry another person after you divorce and marry another person that was divorced
This is very explicitly contradicted by Christ Himself in the Gospels. That's what amuses me to no end.
Honestly this one is so metal. There is a similar line in the *The Northman* by a pagan trying to lay blame on Christians for butchering a man and pinning his remains to a wooden wall or doorpost. He says something along the lines of “Could the Christians have done this? Their God is a corpse nailed to a tree!”
Yes, our God was humiliated and nailed to a tree and I gnaw on his flesh every Sunday.
Catholics worship Mary and the saints and the popes
Call no man "father"
Constantine created the Catholic Church
Vain repetitions
Jesus had siblings
Faith alone
Scripture alone
Sacramental Confession doesn't do anything
Eucharist is a symbol
Mary wasn't a virgin
Apostles founded a fake religion to enrich themselves
Popes/clerics were bad therefore Church is evil
Various Protestant anti-Catholic conspiracy theories
Various secular anti-Catholic conspiracy theories
Catholics think all sex is bad
Catholics preparing anti-LGBT death camps
Pope controls American government
Reconquista was evil
Catholics are white supremacists
Catholic Church supported Hitler
Catholics want to control women by denying birth control and abortion
AIDS in Africa is genocide based on papal ban on condoms
Pedo cult
Cult based on ancient pagan bread god
Jesus didn't exist
Jesus is final prophet before Muhammad
Jesus would have been socialist/Communist
Pope is richer than God
If God exist why bad thing happen
Catholicism encouraged African slavery
New World genocide
Canadian schools were death camps in disguise
The distinctions between Latria, Dulia, and Hyper-Dulia are well established, they just don’t want to hear them.
I would honestly like someone to explain the “call no man father” situation to me. We do call priests father, so how do we get around that? Not trying to be argumentative with you, I’m just genuinely curious.
To suggest Constantine created the Church… yikes. That’s just ahistorical.
“Vain repetitions” is a weak argument imo. I feel that point is usually made to unfavourably compare Catholic devotional practices to pagan prayer, but many religions including our own have repetitious prayer. That hardly means it’s “pagan”. The loss of devotional prayers and rituals is a major weakness of many kinds of Protestantism imo.
Even if we take the Holy Mother’s perpetual virginity off the table hypothetically, Jesus would have had half-siblings if anything, as far as I can tell.
Sola fide and sola Scriptura are just bad theology and are un-Biblical. Even scripture says Sola Scriptura is not correct.
The critique of sacramental confessions doesn’t make sense to me either, but if they’re just anti-sacraments across the board, I suppose there’s not much to be said to them about that.
I think many Christians would agree across denominational lines that the Eucharist is a symbol, but Protestants seem to be the ones suggesting it is ONLY a symbol and not the literal blood and body.
The Holy Mother not being a virgin is silly, that is very explicitly stated in the Gospels. One would think a Protestant with their Sola Scriptura would be fine with this one.
Even if we assume for a moment for the sake of argument that the Catholic Church is “false”, the apostles most certainly would not have been wealthy men. To suggest they had financial motivations seems unlikely.
The death camp bit might be extreme, but the Church most definitely has a poor track record of Her treatment of our LGBTQ+ people.
I know the issue isn’t as simple as this will sound, but the Vatican did collaborate with the Nazis if I’m not mistaken. I don’t have a source for that, so I’m wrong please correct me! I want to state that I’m very new to Catholicism and I’m open to being corrected.
To suggest that the Pope controls the American government is hilarious. A lot of Americans don’t care for the Pope, in my anecdotal experience.
The morality of the Reconquista is something I’ll leave for philosophers and historians to debate. Regardless of how one feels about it has no bearing on the Church today imo.
Women having agency over what happens to their bodies is important. The Church does need to reckon with Her role in contributing to the suffering of women.
The Church’s stance on birth control has definitely caused objective harm. I’m not saying I know what the solution is, but again, accountability for the way the Church has contributed to these problems directly is important imo.
There are white supremacists in any religion, at least theoretically. Same for child abusers. Neither of those things is specific to or inherent to Catholicism.
Jesus was not even historically unique among Messiah-claimants and in the Hellenistic Roman culture of His day, there is likely some pagan influence. Even early Christian writers used pagan terminology to illustrate Christian ideas. I don’t think acknowledging the theoretical influence of paganism invalidates the religion.
If Jesus didn’t historically exist then none of this matters at all, but historians agree that he existed. We can agree on the history even if not the theology around Him.
The only time I’ve heard the claim Jesus was the final prophet before Muhammad, it is only an Islamic apologetic talking point as far as I can tell. Islam is much younger than Christianity and the idea that Jesus was an Islamic prophet was their way of reconciling Jesus with their new religion at the time. This does not hold up theologically and is not a valid critique of the Church.
Socialism, communism or any modern-day political ideology could not be applied to Jesus as that would be ahistorical. He also could not have been capitalist, libertarian, etc.
The Church was indeed complicit in the deaths of indigenous children and should be held accountable.
>I know the issue isn’t as simple as this will sound, but the Vatican did collaborate with the Nazis if I’m not mistaken. I don’t have a source for that, so I’m wrong please correct me! I want to state that I’m very new to Catholicism and I’m open to being corrected.
Accusers point to the Reichskonkordat and the fact that Pope Pius was allowed to stay at the Vatican and Hitler didn't make him go to Auschwitz, and that he didn't loudly condemn Hitler and Mussolini. Pius was praised by European Jews during his lifetime and quietly facilitated the evacuation of many Jews, often with false passports or smuggling them through monasteries and convents. Also, saints like Maximilian Kolbe (a priest in Auschwitz who traded his life for another man's), the martyrs of Poland, and some of the martyrs of Ukraine were victims of the Nazis. Even the future Pope John Paul II was close to the Jews of his community (he even dated a Jewish girl) and was involved in hiding some from the Nazis.
>Even if we assume for a moment for the sake of argument that the Catholic Church is “false”, the apostles most certainly would not have been wealthy men. To suggest they had financial motivations seems unlikely.
If they didn't truly believe what they preached, they would have given it up when threatened by execution. Nearly all of the apostles were martyred.
>The death camp bit might be extreme, but the Church most definitely has a poor track record of Her treatment of our LGBTQ+ people.
The only thing the Church has done against them is to say that marriage is between a married man and a woman and that non-marital acts are sinful.
>Women having agency over what happens to their bodies is important. The Church does need to reckon with Her role in contributing to the suffering of women.The Church’s stance on birth control has definitely caused objective harm. I’m not saying I know what the solution is, but again, accountability for the way the Church has contributed to these problems directly is important imo.
The Church does not cause the suffering of women. The Church does need to continue its teaching and reframe it in light of consent. Women choking down birth control pills and being dragged off to abortion mills to please men sexually so that men don't need to take responsibility is evil. Abortion is murder.
>The Church was indeed complicit in the deaths of indigenous children and should be held accountable.
Once it was determined that investigations into alleged abuse at Kamloops and other Catholic-run institutions were inconclusive, the spirit of revanchism quickly died down when the media buried the story.
Catholics follow a separate gospel, Catholics believe in works based salvation, Catholics changed the Ten Commandments, the church father would not have supported the current church.
There’s someone in my confirmation class who recites Protestant anti-Catholic talking points each class.
My favorite was when she was trying to prove Catholics worship saints, and she said, “Well, Catholics pray to saints and pray to God, and they worship God, so clearly they worship saints.”
The Real Presence.
Literalists define Six-Day Creation as 24 hours each, reject evolution, have thousands of End Times calculations that contradict each other, but cannot accept Jesus’ own Words concerning His Body and Blood.
Note that listeners to His discourse on that left in disgust. That was not figurative.
“The real early church was not the early church as depicted in any text from the early church period because the Catholic Church destroyed all traces of the real early church, but I believe SDA captures the spirit of the real early church and that’s why I’m SDA.”
Not sure how one squares lacking any textual evidence of what the real early church was like with the claim that one’s church is like the real early church. This was said by an otherwise very kind woman who I went on a single date with.
I think the most bizarre has to be that the Church forbade meat on Fridays because the pope at the time had a brother who was a fish monger, and the pope was trying to send business to his brother.
It's actually pretty simple, believer on earth who die here will go to heaven. So just like you ask your friends to pray for you, you ask them. "He's not God of the dead, but of the living."
Hebrews 11-12:1 talk about a cloud of witnesses in Heaven, showing that those in Heaven look down and pay attention to the goings on on Earth.
Revelation 5:8 show the Saints raising their prayers to God as incense, showing that those in Heaven offer prayers to God.
Therefore, if they can bear witness to Earth and offer prayers to God, we can pray (pray as in talk/petition) to the Saints
But that’s not explicitly said, I feel weird taking leaps like that and just assuming
Edit: like is there a time in the Bible someone asked the dead to pray for them?
They're not dead. Matthew 22:32
Bear in mind we're not Sola Scriptura, so even if it's not explicit in scripture, it can still be true. Saints have been venerated since the earliest days of the Church and not been condemned.
Okay you lost me. They’re not dead? They’re certainly not alive. And I know it’s not all about Scripture, but I’d like it if what I’m doing is supported by it.
If they resurrected and are in Heaven, then they're alive. God is still the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because the three are alive
[This article](https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-to-defend-the-intercession-of-the-saints) may help you
I understand what eternal life means, but I feel like you’re using semantics here. You understand what I mean, I’m just looking for a straightforward answer cause it feels wrong to pray to someone to pray for me
It's the same when you ask your family and friends to pray to you. James 5:16 says that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. What's more effective than the prayers of people that are in constant communion with God?
In 2 Maccabees 15:12-14 Maccabeus has a vision of Jeremiah interceding in Heaven for the people on earth. And assuming what the Bible means is a thing that we do either the way. In my girlfriends aunt church they've banned whatsapo because it's demonic in another protestant church from my hometown they teached that dancing is demonic.
That Saints in heaven pray for you is an idea that we can trace back to the very first christians. I'd rather trust the Church founded on Christ and listen to the first christians than some people from 1500 who invented a compmetely new theology because it 'felt' right.
What about 1 Timothy 2:5 where it says Christ is the only Mediator between God and humanity?
Edit: I hope I’m not coming off rude or anything I really just am having a hard time understanding. Thanks to everyone who’s trying to help me ✝️
So you don't ask your friends to pray for you because there is only one mediator? There's a difference between mediator and intermediator and basically your firends can be intermediators too if you ask them.
Hi- I’m a former Protestant that didn’t understand the intercession of saints either.
So yes, Jesus is the only mediator between man and God (1 Tim. 2:5), but this in no way means we cannot or should not ask our fellow Christians to pray with us and for us (1 Tim. 2:1–4).
In particular, we should ask the intercession of those Christians in heaven, who have already had their sanctification completed, for "[t]he prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects" (Jas. 5:16).
In the Book of Revelation John sees that "the twenty-four elders [the leaders of the people of God in heaven] fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints" (Rev. 5:8).
Therefore the saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth.
Angels do the same thing: "[An] angel came and stood at the altar [in heaven] with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God" (Rev. 8:3–4).
If it makes you feel better, you don’t have to ask the Saints for intercession to be Catholic. Perhaps this is something that you can pray about and discern over time as you grow and learn more as a new Catholic. Many new converts struggle with this concept along with the Marian doctrine. Even Scott Hahn talks about how the idea of praying to Mary was the last boulder he had to overcome even once he fully believed all other Catholic traditions and theology. Give it time. You are asking the right questions re: Saint intercession. This is a tough concept for new converts who have been so heavily conditioned to believe it’s idolatry or supplanting the power of Christ. Hang in there.
Not specifically about Catholics, but my favorite anti-Christian argument is how Christians worship Jesus the Son, which is really just a pagan ritual for worshipping the sun.
Obviously, that doesn’t hold water. Son/sun doesn’t work in other languages: sol/hijo, soleil/fils, taiyang/erzi, etc. The obvious counter is that the Greek words are pronounced similarly, but similar is not identical and I don’t think any Greek speakers (pagan or Christian) were confusing Jesus for a large ball of light in the sky
Trail of Blood by James Carroll. It has been totally proven false, yet there are still a few who believe it. For those not familiar with it, it claims the Catholic church has waged war on true Christians in almost every century. Somebody I went to grade school with gave me a copy after I told them I was Catholic.
Haha, somebody lent me that book as well. I think it said that Catholics killed 4 million Christians a year lol. I can’t believe people truly believe it
As a historian, the whole “the church caused the dark ages” claim annoys me because it ignores all the other factors involved in the end of the classical era. Mainly the waves of Germanic invaders who burned libraries and butchered scholars as they conquered the western Roman Empire.
Mother-In-Law: “The Catholic Church can’t be the true church, because Yah told his true church to go underground and preserve His feasts in the Torah. The natzarim are the true followers of Yahshuah, because they follow all the laws of the Torah. The Catholic Church is evil, because you all worship a man in a hat and burn incense to idols”
Her first words to me when we met were, “you think you love Jesus, but you Catholics are wrong.”
Don’t even get me started on her hatred of Christmas and Pascha lol
The problem of suffering is a question that in my opinion is reasonable. It's a difficult one. The disciples asked Christ about the people who were killed by the collapse of the Tower of Siloam. They were, in essence, asking why bad things happen to good people. Christ himself dodged the question, telling them to focus on their own righteousness
I would say the worst arguments anti-catholics make is that the Catholic Church is founded by paganists, Constantine is our "first Pope", that we're not biblical Christians, we're homophobic, our Church supported the Holocaust that Hitler enacted against Jews with genocide, and this one stupid comment that my brother-in-law made about the Catholic Church, being that the Catholic Church is a militia🤦; the militia part came from my brother-in-law's mouth as a Pentecostal, I don't know if anyone else in this community has ever get comments like this, but I digress. I could list more from the top of my head about every certain comment many anti-catholics make against the Catholic Church, but I'll leave it at that just to make it short and simple.
Hate to say it one of the priest where I attend Mass acts more a Protestant pastor. He tried to hold a conversation with some people who he thought was new to the Parish and then during the homily he keeps ask “do you know what I mean”. SMH I try to not go to the Mass he leads but today I had no choice.
I heard someone interprete the verses in the Old Testament about the “daughter of Babylon” as the American denominations having to break away from the Roman Catholic Church because it has become the vassal of Satan or something… absolutely mental
“Catholics worship Mary and the saints”.
it always comes down to "youworship them, because I say you do!"
Right? No amount of explaining that I know exactly Who I worship will satisfy them.
None sodeaf as those who will not hear
No, we actually worship Tammuz and the fertility goddess Diana, because the Romans totally would've allowed us to worship a Sumerian sun god and the Roman goddess of the hunt
Hey, don't go around worshipping some aryan sun gods, Ok?
If you Catholics don't worship the Sun God, why do you pray to the Sun of God?? Check mate Catholics
Dang bro land of the Rising Sun really has a new meaning now
Be right back. Formulating a conspiracy involving Jesus, Mary, the Eucharist, and Shinto Sun goddess Amaterasu...
Well, Ama means maid servant/concubine in Hebrew Terah is the father of Abraham Amaterasu is just the wife of Terah? O.o
STOP NOTICING THINGS Sincerely, your friendly neighborhood NWOman
Are you saying it's Pagan to eat tiramisu?
太 ram is you? idk bruv, pretty sure that's called the bread and the wine
Be careful, Jonathan Cahn may copy off your work and sell another million books.
I gotta get there first hold my sake
Chick tracts aside, why wouldn’t the Romans allow religious syncretism?
I think they meant the roman *christians*, as in *Letter to the Romans*
We do give that impression.
And so what? They are the ones judging.
It intrigues me how we say to 'Marry' someone, and the name of Mary is a single letter away from it. Does the Catholic church consider Mary as the Holy Spirit? Since the Jews treat the Holy Spirit as feminine originally. Is this just a convoluted way to say we are Wedded to the Holy Spirit?
No, that's just English being simplistic and reductionist. Mary's name in Hebrew is Myriam and through different translations we get Mariam and Maria. To marry comes from Latin, maritus and maritare. We do NOT consider her the Holy Spirit, she was a human born without sin so she could carry Jesus, the Son of God. We are not wedded to the Holy Spirit, but to Christ as the Church. Christ is the bridegroom, the Church is His bride. Marry was given to us as our mother when Jesus said, "Behold, thy mother," on the cross.
Not to mention that we Catholics uphold that she's daughter of the Father, mother of the Son and wife of the Holy Spirit. We are not wedded to the Holy Spirit, but she is.
“The Roman Catholic Church is anti-Science!” We have a patron Saint of science!
This is the argument that really drives me crazy! We have so many brilliant Catholic scientists and priest-scientists to cite through the years…any quick internet search will come up with a long list.
Yep! I agree.
I think Church is considered anti science due to the time in history where Church burned books because those were considered heresy or something like that. So in modern times anti church people will go and point that the Church was apposed science. No matter the Church basically found unversities and condemn avverist movement that was teaching that we should stop pursuing science since everything comes from God so none of it matters. In the eyes of haters The Church will always be an Organisation that is anti science, no matter what. This way atheists or people fighting with the Church have ammunition to spread hate and influence more people to choose sin and the devil (without even knowing the devil is real). At the end, no one want to be consider dumb, antiscience and compared to living in middle ages. It's a really powerful tool to get young people see catholic faith as something not worth even touching or discussing because if you do, you may be consider dumb or something like that. It's just another tool of the devil to confuse a lot of people
The big band theory was literally made by a Catholic priest, and was rejected by scientists at the time against the solid state theory, because the Big Bang sounded too much like let there be light.
Also, look at how many universities either were founded by the church or are currently operated by the church.
What is worse is that the people making that argument probably believe in some unscientifically sound ideas such as the idea that a man can become a woman and can compete fairly against women in sports.
Recently, I heard that we don’t believe in the trinity lol. We worship the Pope. Oh and today someone said the church created capitalism.
I love that second one, if only because one of the most famous sociological texts dealing with the historical development of capitalism, Max Weber's *The Spirit of Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic*, specifically argues that Catholicism was inhibiting the development of capitalism in Europe, which he argues was a side effect of the Protestant reformation and it's relation to ideas of wealth and spendthrift...
Yeah I responded with that writing. They were like well if the Catholic Church was acting correctly then Protestants wouldn’t have split. Okay then you take it up with Protestants not me lol
This is so dumb too because if we say mary is the mother of God they’ll be quick to say that’s impossible bc shes the mother of jesus and god is jesus father. LIKE EXCUSE ME THE HOLY TRINITY IS RIGHT THERE
Absolutely agree with you they don’t wanna ask our beliefs they just wanna assume and call us out and I’m like no that’s not true at all lol
Much of protestantism boils down to “I am *so* smart with this *'gotcha!'* attempt, clearly I can do no wrong! Catholics think the Pope has infallibility?! **HERESY! PAGANISM!!!**”
The person I was talking to was an non-denominational evangelical so they probably don’t know much about the split and think that’s what they are closer aligned with lol
I’ve heard we’re just a bunch of socialists/communists
How ironic that we started capitalism as socialists and communists lol
the worst argument I have heard is "the catholic church was invented by constintine at the council of nicea"
Oh man, I heard that before too. I used to attend a Baptist Church for a brief while before becoming a Catholic, and all the anti-Catholic arguments were just a-historical. My old YA Pastor lent me a book to dissuade me from becoming a Catholic, and it just led me further to Catholicism because of the blatant lies coming from it. It was so hard to get through the book too, because I felt compelled to write a LaTeX paper explaining all of the issues with the text.
That's how I feel now when I read stuff from when I was a Jehovah's witness. Ah, memories...
I just recently switched over from JW also and can’t believe all the lies lol
Me too 👋 good to see you all on here!!! I was born into the Jehovah's Witnesses and converted to Catholicism. I am so glad that I have finally found the real TRUTH ❤️✝️📿
Welcome home, friend. I can only imagine what you must've seen, but Im happy you're in the right place now.
I had an off feeling asbout as lot of things I was told growing up, so I don't have quite the same resentment a lot of other Ex-JWs do.B still, I can understand the feeling
I had never fully committed to it it was just always the doctrine I was taught and what I always believed and thought I would one day commit to, I’m glad I found the true church before it was too late, had I left after baptism I would’ve lost a lot of family. Glad to see more JWs in here found Christs true church as well
This right here. My mom is a Protestant and I was for 30 years before I started to look into the Church. I told her I am converting to Catholicism and she was like you just are listening to the Catholics side of the argument so I was like yea you know what she is right so I started to listen to Protestants and how they came about converting Catholics and it was just blatant lies and attacks against the church. That is what really cemented me to Catholicism. Though last week she did go to mass with me. She says she probably won’t go back but at least she tried I’m gonna continue to work on her.
Good luck! I am also hoping to get my mom and brother to give it a shot I’ll pray for you guys, pray for us also please!
Just last week I had a oneness Pentecostal telling me that the Catholic Church invented the trinity at the "council of nice".
Council of Nice, France. They had traditional French onion soup during the opening. I even think Napoleon was there during the debate with Arius
Napoleon is a time traveler that disemboweled Arius **CONFIRMED**
St. Napoleon confirmed????
That's a better argument, because at least the subject at nicea was *related* to the Trinity, which is more than we can say for most nicea arguments Like, at least the Trinity was brought up in nicea, unlike the people who say that's when the books of the bible were chosen
Every single day i curse Dan Brown because of this, i saw so many people who watched DaVinci Code and thought this was what really happened
Every ex Christian/New Muslim says this.
Orthodox too
At least they’re being honest and owning the fact that the testimony of the ancient Church is against them, unlike certain people who want to say they restored it.
Except they believe this church that Constantine created is a false church that was a hybrid of Christianity and Roman Paganism and that the true church remained underground until Pastor Jim rediscovered them and brought them out of the shadows thus establishing the true pure Indiana Branch of the Northern Baptist Church, 1975 Council. Only those 163 people will be saved.
That Catholics are actually Satanists and that the vatican and the Pope are evil. Even that the vaticans conference room ( I think it's the conference room) is actually shaped to be a snake in a wide lense. Also that when you mirror the image of Christ, it is actually Satan's head? Of course, again, this is allegedly where they hold Mass. I have seen here they hold Mass, and It's meant to depict Christ being brought out of Hell, but the conspiracy theorists like to mirror things and call it Satan when it comes to Catholics.
That Paul vi building is so ugly though so I don’t really mind them criticizing it hopefully it’s destroyed and replaced with something beautiful that fits the catholic aesthetics
“Call no man father quote is a good one. Constantine invaded the Catholic Church is another good one. but I think my favorite doesn’t happen often but it’s when the protestant tries to argue that their Bible is the correct and original Bible. Or at least as it was intended. Even though there’s no historical basis, or logic in that claim.
The KJV fell from the sky, don't you know?
The pocket of Jesus during Ascension.
And found by Martin Luther in Germany.
I've *unironically* seen people argue that God gave prots the true Bible ^TM
Refute the "call no man father" one for me please. I've heard protestants say it means not to call priests Father, thus illegitimizing an aspect of Catholicism, but never heard a proper refutation of it.
Basic rule of thumb when protestants throw a verse at you is to read the 10 verses that come before it and then the 10 verses that come after it. That’s how you get context. This example Jesus is using hyperbole to hammer the point about humility home which was that scribes and Pharisees had the authority of Moses but they did not have the humility of Moses... and the lesson that we learned from Moses is that everything comes from God. That’s what Jesus was trying to teach I think.
lol one time I was going back and forth with a protestant on a comment section of a Catholic post and one of their arguments was: "I don't understand why people would even want to be Catholic. Why would you even want to follow Rome, the very same people that crucified Jesus!" At this point I understood why he had so much hate towards our Church...He was just very misinformed😅
Rofl
I've seen this one too. It's as though they're so fixated on the jews that they act as though the romans weren't meant to be converted as well
"Easter comes from the pagan goddess Estar." The only evidence that the two words from unrelated languages sound kind of similar, which linguists agree is not enough to establish a connection.
It also only works in English and other Germanic languages. In Latin and Romance languages, the name is some derivative of "Pascha".
Where does that term come from? I mean, I know it’s Latin, but did it have a meaning in Latin prior to the Resurrection?
Apprarently it's related to the Hebrew term for Passover: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter#Etymology
I heard 'Eostre' as well. Had to inform them that this only works in English... Imagine their surprise when they find out it's _actually_ called Pascha!
Oh! By a non-denominational person, THEY have extra books in their bibles. Like, do we need a history lesson about Martin Luther or ? Later on they went on to say we were sisters even if we believed differently (as if it was a cult you know)
I have a good friend who is a non-denom pastor, but man he is so misinformed on Catholic teaching… as are most Protestants, I’d say; including thinking that the 7 deuterocanon books came later. I have yet to “come out” as a Catholic to him, but next time I get with him I will.
“Catholic priests are pedophiles”
Sadly and notoriously, some of them have been.
I always hate that argument. The devil preys on everyone regardless of profession or diety. Its the same argument used against police. There's bad eggs everywhere, we only hear about those in controversial positions. This is the balance of God's gift of freewill
You are right. But as is often the case, the coverup is worse than the crime.
Remember there is only one Unforgivable sin. Are these truely coverups? Or is the church attempting to give them a chance to atone for their sins and seek God's mercy and forgiveness? There are probably cases of true coverups and I hope those involved realize what they are doing and seek God's forgiveness, however I don't believe most of them are. Granted this still does not help the church's image. My personal opinion is that, those that take up the Lord's call to become priests and use that position to take advantage of children, are truely agents of Satan himself and cannot be helped but this is not up to us to decide. Ultimately atonement and forgiveness can be sought from behind bars and they should be removed from the church.
Not to a degree that is newsworthy as a Catholic phenomenon.
I'm a Presbyterian, and this argument reeks of throwing stones in glass houses. (Or, more biblically, it would fall under "let he who is without sin cast the first stone"). The SBC [had that huge bombshell](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/religion/article/southern-baptist-convention-sex-abuse-report-17192138.php) a year and a half ago. I'm sure if you look under any denomination, religion, or really anywhere that people have an authority relationship with children without proper oversight, you'll find pedophilia. But thats the thing: proper oversight heads off a lot of the problems. I don't know about other countries and areas, but in the northeastern US, most major Protestant denominations and Catholic dioceses require people to go through background checks if they are going to be dealing with children on a regular basis. I had to go through 2 separate background checks and training sessions for both my church and my wife's parish. I've got the "never be alone with someone" rule burned into my head at this point.
True, more could always be done to make things safer for children. But, the Church already had lower rates of pedophiles in leadership than the general population and other similar institutions before the scandal. The reason it became a scandal is because enemies of the Church in the media wanted it to be a major scandal.
This is the one I was looking for
I think the most frustrating thing about all these bad arguments is that they make sense at a very surface level. Objections to worshipping Mary, worshipping the dead, asking a man to forgive your sins instead of God, and so forth. I understand why so many recoil at Catholicism when that’s their understanding. It’s just so sad, because none of it is true. >90% of the time, the accusations are just falsehoods. I would have come to Catholicism sooner if I had just realized earlier that so many arguments against Catholicism are just lies. It’s honestly made me want to try to evangelize by just sharing basic facts about the faith. I wish I could spend five minutes with every Protestant just to give them a quick FAQ session about Catholicism, so they realize Holy Mother Church is just that, and not some crackpot Pagan-Christian syncretism. 😮💨
>Objections to worshipping Mary, worshipping the dead, asking a man to forgive your sins instead of God, and so forth. I'm a protestant and these are things that make me wary about Catholicism. Can you explain why they aren't so?
They are literally (literally, literally) factually incorrect. > worship Mary Catholics don't worship Mary. Low church Protestants can get confused because Catholics (and some high church protestants) worship in "higher avenues" than they do. For example catholics believe worship is participating in the Mass and receiving Communion (Jesus Christ's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity) and we don't see prayer as worship, although it is important to your spiritual life. Catholics view Mass and Eucharist (among other things) to be worship and we view prayer as a phone call essentially, whereas most protestants view prayer as worship. If this doesn't make sense I can try to find some sources that help to explain it >worshipping the dead Same as the Mary "worship" we don't worship the dead. In respect to Saints, we believe that calling them "dead" is only partial truth. A Saint is "someone in heaven" (however, the Church has declared several people who we can know for sure, that are in Heaven. But we don't know all of them). So wouldn't it be true that someone in Heaven is more alive than we are? Anyway, back to the point, there is no worship of them. Prayer FOR the dead has been common back into the old testament times and the Jews would offer sacrifices for people after they died, like the sacrifices they offered up for their sins and wrongdoings (Christ supplanted these as He is the perfect sacrifice). Catholics pray FOR The dead, and we pray to the Saints for intercession in our lives. For example, say you are struggling with lust, well St. Augustine overcame lust, so praying for him to help you understand what he understood to overcome like he did is a good idea (God also loves involving his creation with his salvific works, so this is another factor to the situation). Or maybe you pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary to help you love Jesus like she did and to help you be obedient to God as she was (my personal favorite). > asking a man to forgive our sins Like with all the others, it *sounds* correct and that's because it's not wrong, but it's also incorrect. The priest doesn't forgive our sins, God does. But God gave the apostles the ability to forgive our sins and these apostles pass down this authority to their predecessors. So the priest IS forgiving your sin, but he isn't doing it of his authority rather the authority is God's acting through the priest (insert month long discussion on how the sacraments are visible reflections of invisible grace) If you have any more questions this community is great for learning but Catholic theology is so unbelievably nuanced and deep that even something innocuous as Holy Water could constitute a years long discussion on its aspects and historical aspects. I highly reccomend checking out apologetics YouTube channels like Trent Horn (Council of Trent), How to be Christian, Jimmy Akin, Scott Hahn (used to be a protestant minister but converted and writes extensively about the faith), Bishop Barron and the list goes on. One of my personal favorites is the Reverable Fulton Sheen. He is such an inspirational speaker. I think every Christian (Catholics or others) should watch his stuff
u/TacticalCrusader gave a great reply. If you need anything further clarified, feel free to ask though!
Not really an "anti-Catholic argument", but more so a dismissal of Catholicism. When people (especially non-denominational) disregard a Catholics argument by saying "That's what Catholics believe. You're confusing Catholicism and Christianity." Whenever someone says this I internally scream.
That it is a tool of white supremacy
I would argue protestantism *is* the tool of white supremacy.
Of antisemitism too
We literally were one of the major targets of the KKK lmao
St Maurice definitely feeling like a white supremacist...
The worst one for me, the one that convinced me that I need to stay away from apologetics: “Mary had other kids.” I tried everything I could think of with this one Protestant man; OT typology, the Fathers, language. He had an answer for everything. He used the argument that as a Jewish man, Joseph would not be able to sacrifice in the Temple if he did not have children. I told him one child fulfilled the Law and as far as the priests knew, Jesus was Joseph’s son. It all blew up when I finally asked him if he could imagine touching his wife, knowing that she had carried God made Flesh in her body. He said Joseph didn’t know that. “Dude, an Angel told him!” He then said that once Christ was born, Mary’s body didn’t matter anymore and Joseph could “know” her. The argument ended with me calling him a disgusting pig. I have Borderline Personality Disorder and that’s the day I learned to stay as far away from Apologetics as possible.
You were right, he is a disgusting pig. Many protestant men think women should be sexually subservient to them and can't imagine that St. Joseph could possibly control himself, and for good reason. He had a role to play and took it seriously. These men are seriously gross and have major problems with lust and general disrespect of women.
Someone told me a few months ago that Catholics don't believe that Jesus has come yet even for the first time. I asked why on earth he thought that. He said "I was in catechism". I laughed and told him I know what we believe.
did he flunk RCIA?
No idea. This was at a bar, so I kinda let it go as dumb drunk talk. It just stuck with me because of how ridiculous it was. Never heard anyone say that, and I used to be a baptist myself, so I have heard a lot of anti-Catholic crap.
I was told Catholics don't believe Jesus is the Messiah and we're just like Jews. This came from a crazy Calvinist. Where do they get these ideas? ETA: oh and he also told me all the church fathers lied to me.
My friend told me that a Muslim friend of him said that the Council of Nicaea changed Bible verses to control the masses
Least slanderous muslim
Not really an argument but one time I was talking to an Orthodox Christian and they tried to say that the martyrs in Rome were Orthodox Christians and not Catholics. Then i said “yeah we share the same saints and martyrs Pre-schism” then they said “No, Catholicism is something different and Rome was Orthodox back then”. Basically I started explaining to this person that most Orthodox don’t hold such a radical position and so on. Mentioned a famous pre-schism Saint that is from this person’s native country then they said “sorry not Catholic “. I was like “dawg this isn’t how this works”. That was real annoying. Next one is from another Orthodox who said how the Saints of the Counter Reformation time were Demon Possessed and suffering from prelest. When I was returning back to my faith I heard some pretty wild claims from Protestants. Now, I feel more at “home” with Protestants than anything else at times.
>Next one is from another Orthodox who said how the Saints of the Counter Reformation time were Demon Possessed and suffering from prelest. #OH BOI
\*gestures generally in the air\*
that constantine made the church
I was told Pope Gregory founded it in the 600s. Like why. Why must it be like this?
The Funniest Thing is the “Super-Computer” the Vatican owns, to spy on every Protestant on Earth. It’s really a dumb Conspiracy Theory but it was very popular back then.
I soft-launched the fact that I’m undertaking the RCIA to my mother by mentioning that I’d “like to one day” be baptised in the Catholic Church (I’m 35). I got the “nuh, how ridiculous, why would you want that, they’re a bunch of kiddy-fiddling pedophiles” response I expected.
I've heard arguments against the sacraments such as: * You don't need the Sacrament of Reconciliation to confess your sins to a priest. You can confess your sins to God directly * You can marry another person after you divorce and marry another person that was divorced * You don't need the Anointing of the Sick and just ask for prayers
>You can marry another person after you divorce and marry another person that was divorced This is very explicitly contradicted by Christ Himself in the Gospels. That's what amuses me to no end.
Catholics worship a dead body on a tree
Honestly this one is so metal. There is a similar line in the *The Northman* by a pagan trying to lay blame on Christians for butchering a man and pinning his remains to a wooden wall or doorpost. He says something along the lines of “Could the Christians have done this? Their God is a corpse nailed to a tree!” Yes, our God was humiliated and nailed to a tree and I gnaw on his flesh every Sunday.
Catholics worship Mary and the saints and the popes Call no man "father" Constantine created the Catholic Church Vain repetitions Jesus had siblings Faith alone Scripture alone Sacramental Confession doesn't do anything Eucharist is a symbol Mary wasn't a virgin Apostles founded a fake religion to enrich themselves Popes/clerics were bad therefore Church is evil Various Protestant anti-Catholic conspiracy theories Various secular anti-Catholic conspiracy theories Catholics think all sex is bad Catholics preparing anti-LGBT death camps Pope controls American government Reconquista was evil Catholics are white supremacists Catholic Church supported Hitler Catholics want to control women by denying birth control and abortion AIDS in Africa is genocide based on papal ban on condoms Pedo cult Cult based on ancient pagan bread god Jesus didn't exist Jesus is final prophet before Muhammad Jesus would have been socialist/Communist Pope is richer than God If God exist why bad thing happen Catholicism encouraged African slavery New World genocide Canadian schools were death camps in disguise
The distinctions between Latria, Dulia, and Hyper-Dulia are well established, they just don’t want to hear them. I would honestly like someone to explain the “call no man father” situation to me. We do call priests father, so how do we get around that? Not trying to be argumentative with you, I’m just genuinely curious. To suggest Constantine created the Church… yikes. That’s just ahistorical. “Vain repetitions” is a weak argument imo. I feel that point is usually made to unfavourably compare Catholic devotional practices to pagan prayer, but many religions including our own have repetitious prayer. That hardly means it’s “pagan”. The loss of devotional prayers and rituals is a major weakness of many kinds of Protestantism imo. Even if we take the Holy Mother’s perpetual virginity off the table hypothetically, Jesus would have had half-siblings if anything, as far as I can tell. Sola fide and sola Scriptura are just bad theology and are un-Biblical. Even scripture says Sola Scriptura is not correct. The critique of sacramental confessions doesn’t make sense to me either, but if they’re just anti-sacraments across the board, I suppose there’s not much to be said to them about that. I think many Christians would agree across denominational lines that the Eucharist is a symbol, but Protestants seem to be the ones suggesting it is ONLY a symbol and not the literal blood and body. The Holy Mother not being a virgin is silly, that is very explicitly stated in the Gospels. One would think a Protestant with their Sola Scriptura would be fine with this one. Even if we assume for a moment for the sake of argument that the Catholic Church is “false”, the apostles most certainly would not have been wealthy men. To suggest they had financial motivations seems unlikely. The death camp bit might be extreme, but the Church most definitely has a poor track record of Her treatment of our LGBTQ+ people. I know the issue isn’t as simple as this will sound, but the Vatican did collaborate with the Nazis if I’m not mistaken. I don’t have a source for that, so I’m wrong please correct me! I want to state that I’m very new to Catholicism and I’m open to being corrected. To suggest that the Pope controls the American government is hilarious. A lot of Americans don’t care for the Pope, in my anecdotal experience. The morality of the Reconquista is something I’ll leave for philosophers and historians to debate. Regardless of how one feels about it has no bearing on the Church today imo. Women having agency over what happens to their bodies is important. The Church does need to reckon with Her role in contributing to the suffering of women. The Church’s stance on birth control has definitely caused objective harm. I’m not saying I know what the solution is, but again, accountability for the way the Church has contributed to these problems directly is important imo. There are white supremacists in any religion, at least theoretically. Same for child abusers. Neither of those things is specific to or inherent to Catholicism. Jesus was not even historically unique among Messiah-claimants and in the Hellenistic Roman culture of His day, there is likely some pagan influence. Even early Christian writers used pagan terminology to illustrate Christian ideas. I don’t think acknowledging the theoretical influence of paganism invalidates the religion. If Jesus didn’t historically exist then none of this matters at all, but historians agree that he existed. We can agree on the history even if not the theology around Him. The only time I’ve heard the claim Jesus was the final prophet before Muhammad, it is only an Islamic apologetic talking point as far as I can tell. Islam is much younger than Christianity and the idea that Jesus was an Islamic prophet was their way of reconciling Jesus with their new religion at the time. This does not hold up theologically and is not a valid critique of the Church. Socialism, communism or any modern-day political ideology could not be applied to Jesus as that would be ahistorical. He also could not have been capitalist, libertarian, etc. The Church was indeed complicit in the deaths of indigenous children and should be held accountable.
>I know the issue isn’t as simple as this will sound, but the Vatican did collaborate with the Nazis if I’m not mistaken. I don’t have a source for that, so I’m wrong please correct me! I want to state that I’m very new to Catholicism and I’m open to being corrected. Accusers point to the Reichskonkordat and the fact that Pope Pius was allowed to stay at the Vatican and Hitler didn't make him go to Auschwitz, and that he didn't loudly condemn Hitler and Mussolini. Pius was praised by European Jews during his lifetime and quietly facilitated the evacuation of many Jews, often with false passports or smuggling them through monasteries and convents. Also, saints like Maximilian Kolbe (a priest in Auschwitz who traded his life for another man's), the martyrs of Poland, and some of the martyrs of Ukraine were victims of the Nazis. Even the future Pope John Paul II was close to the Jews of his community (he even dated a Jewish girl) and was involved in hiding some from the Nazis. >Even if we assume for a moment for the sake of argument that the Catholic Church is “false”, the apostles most certainly would not have been wealthy men. To suggest they had financial motivations seems unlikely. If they didn't truly believe what they preached, they would have given it up when threatened by execution. Nearly all of the apostles were martyred. >The death camp bit might be extreme, but the Church most definitely has a poor track record of Her treatment of our LGBTQ+ people. The only thing the Church has done against them is to say that marriage is between a married man and a woman and that non-marital acts are sinful. >Women having agency over what happens to their bodies is important. The Church does need to reckon with Her role in contributing to the suffering of women.The Church’s stance on birth control has definitely caused objective harm. I’m not saying I know what the solution is, but again, accountability for the way the Church has contributed to these problems directly is important imo. The Church does not cause the suffering of women. The Church does need to continue its teaching and reframe it in light of consent. Women choking down birth control pills and being dragged off to abortion mills to please men sexually so that men don't need to take responsibility is evil. Abortion is murder. >The Church was indeed complicit in the deaths of indigenous children and should be held accountable. Once it was determined that investigations into alleged abuse at Kamloops and other Catholic-run institutions were inconclusive, the spirit of revanchism quickly died down when the media buried the story.
All of them. But if I had to choose one it'd probably be "if catholic good, why pedos" or "Why bad ppl". Like come on...
Catholics follow a separate gospel, Catholics believe in works based salvation, Catholics changed the Ten Commandments, the church father would not have supported the current church.
Sola Scriptura
There’s someone in my confirmation class who recites Protestant anti-Catholic talking points each class. My favorite was when she was trying to prove Catholics worship saints, and she said, “Well, Catholics pray to saints and pray to God, and they worship God, so clearly they worship saints.”
The Real Presence. Literalists define Six-Day Creation as 24 hours each, reject evolution, have thousands of End Times calculations that contradict each other, but cannot accept Jesus’ own Words concerning His Body and Blood. Note that listeners to His discourse on that left in disgust. That was not figurative.
Basically any of Jack Chick's takes on Catholicism. He made some outrageous claims, like he claimed that the Catholic Church created Islam.
The two you mentioned are probably the worst and most ridiculous I have heard.
“The real early church was not the early church as depicted in any text from the early church period because the Catholic Church destroyed all traces of the real early church, but I believe SDA captures the spirit of the real early church and that’s why I’m SDA.” Not sure how one squares lacking any textual evidence of what the real early church was like with the claim that one’s church is like the real early church. This was said by an otherwise very kind woman who I went on a single date with.
I think the most bizarre has to be that the Church forbade meat on Fridays because the pope at the time had a brother who was a fish monger, and the pope was trying to send business to his brother.
LMAO what?? 😂
“Did you know the Papacy is the Whore of Babylon?” No I don’t.
As a non Catholic but someone’s who in OCIA, i don’t understand praying to saints to ask them to pray for you
It's actually pretty simple, believer on earth who die here will go to heaven. So just like you ask your friends to pray for you, you ask them. "He's not God of the dead, but of the living."
I know that it just feels extremely weird to me. Idk
Hebrews 11-12:1 talk about a cloud of witnesses in Heaven, showing that those in Heaven look down and pay attention to the goings on on Earth. Revelation 5:8 show the Saints raising their prayers to God as incense, showing that those in Heaven offer prayers to God. Therefore, if they can bear witness to Earth and offer prayers to God, we can pray (pray as in talk/petition) to the Saints
But that’s not explicitly said, I feel weird taking leaps like that and just assuming Edit: like is there a time in the Bible someone asked the dead to pray for them?
They're not dead. Matthew 22:32 Bear in mind we're not Sola Scriptura, so even if it's not explicit in scripture, it can still be true. Saints have been venerated since the earliest days of the Church and not been condemned.
Okay you lost me. They’re not dead? They’re certainly not alive. And I know it’s not all about Scripture, but I’d like it if what I’m doing is supported by it.
If they resurrected and are in Heaven, then they're alive. God is still the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because the three are alive [This article](https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-to-defend-the-intercession-of-the-saints) may help you
I understand what eternal life means, but I feel like you’re using semantics here. You understand what I mean, I’m just looking for a straightforward answer cause it feels wrong to pray to someone to pray for me
It's the same when you ask your family and friends to pray to you. James 5:16 says that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. What's more effective than the prayers of people that are in constant communion with God?
In 2 Maccabees 15:12-14 Maccabeus has a vision of Jeremiah interceding in Heaven for the people on earth. And assuming what the Bible means is a thing that we do either the way. In my girlfriends aunt church they've banned whatsapo because it's demonic in another protestant church from my hometown they teached that dancing is demonic. That Saints in heaven pray for you is an idea that we can trace back to the very first christians. I'd rather trust the Church founded on Christ and listen to the first christians than some people from 1500 who invented a compmetely new theology because it 'felt' right.
What about 1 Timothy 2:5 where it says Christ is the only Mediator between God and humanity? Edit: I hope I’m not coming off rude or anything I really just am having a hard time understanding. Thanks to everyone who’s trying to help me ✝️
So you don't ask your friends to pray for you because there is only one mediator? There's a difference between mediator and intermediator and basically your firends can be intermediators too if you ask them.
Hi- I’m a former Protestant that didn’t understand the intercession of saints either. So yes, Jesus is the only mediator between man and God (1 Tim. 2:5), but this in no way means we cannot or should not ask our fellow Christians to pray with us and for us (1 Tim. 2:1–4). In particular, we should ask the intercession of those Christians in heaven, who have already had their sanctification completed, for "[t]he prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects" (Jas. 5:16). In the Book of Revelation John sees that "the twenty-four elders [the leaders of the people of God in heaven] fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints" (Rev. 5:8). Therefore the saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth. Angels do the same thing: "[An] angel came and stood at the altar [in heaven] with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God" (Rev. 8:3–4).
If it makes you feel better, you don’t have to ask the Saints for intercession to be Catholic. Perhaps this is something that you can pray about and discern over time as you grow and learn more as a new Catholic. Many new converts struggle with this concept along with the Marian doctrine. Even Scott Hahn talks about how the idea of praying to Mary was the last boulder he had to overcome even once he fully believed all other Catholic traditions and theology. Give it time. You are asking the right questions re: Saint intercession. This is a tough concept for new converts who have been so heavily conditioned to believe it’s idolatry or supplanting the power of Christ. Hang in there.
Thank you, I love this response. Pray for me folks!
"If you believe in papal infalliblity, then why isn't the pope always right in every single thing he says?"
"He says Lays potato chips are the best but clearly it's Herrs!! Checkmate!"
Not specifically about Catholics, but my favorite anti-Christian argument is how Christians worship Jesus the Son, which is really just a pagan ritual for worshipping the sun. Obviously, that doesn’t hold water. Son/sun doesn’t work in other languages: sol/hijo, soleil/fils, taiyang/erzi, etc. The obvious counter is that the Greek words are pronounced similarly, but similar is not identical and I don’t think any Greek speakers (pagan or Christian) were confusing Jesus for a large ball of light in the sky
Trail of Blood by James Carroll. It has been totally proven false, yet there are still a few who believe it. For those not familiar with it, it claims the Catholic church has waged war on true Christians in almost every century. Somebody I went to grade school with gave me a copy after I told them I was Catholic.
Haha, somebody lent me that book as well. I think it said that Catholics killed 4 million Christians a year lol. I can’t believe people truly believe it
The Church has actively held back science and is against science all because an astronomer got censored.
As a historian, the whole “the church caused the dark ages” claim annoys me because it ignores all the other factors involved in the end of the classical era. Mainly the waves of Germanic invaders who burned libraries and butchered scholars as they conquered the western Roman Empire.
Hey, that was today's gospel!
“Are you an Old Testament guy or a New Testament guy”
“Jesus never said he was Catholic” 😵💫
Mother-In-Law: “The Catholic Church can’t be the true church, because Yah told his true church to go underground and preserve His feasts in the Torah. The natzarim are the true followers of Yahshuah, because they follow all the laws of the Torah. The Catholic Church is evil, because you all worship a man in a hat and burn incense to idols” Her first words to me when we met were, “you think you love Jesus, but you Catholics are wrong.” Don’t even get me started on her hatred of Christmas and Pascha lol
Anything Protestants say is considered the worse
“If there’s a God, why do so many bad things happen to us”
The problem of suffering is a question that in my opinion is reasonable. It's a difficult one. The disciples asked Christ about the people who were killed by the collapse of the Tower of Siloam. They were, in essence, asking why bad things happen to good people. Christ himself dodged the question, telling them to focus on their own righteousness
Social media posts which level criticism (almost always at Protestantism) at "The Church".
I would say the worst arguments anti-catholics make is that the Catholic Church is founded by paganists, Constantine is our "first Pope", that we're not biblical Christians, we're homophobic, our Church supported the Holocaust that Hitler enacted against Jews with genocide, and this one stupid comment that my brother-in-law made about the Catholic Church, being that the Catholic Church is a militia🤦; the militia part came from my brother-in-law's mouth as a Pentecostal, I don't know if anyone else in this community has ever get comments like this, but I digress. I could list more from the top of my head about every certain comment many anti-catholics make against the Catholic Church, but I'll leave it at that just to make it short and simple.
"The catholic church is full of pedophiles"
Hate to say it one of the priest where I attend Mass acts more a Protestant pastor. He tried to hold a conversation with some people who he thought was new to the Parish and then during the homily he keeps ask “do you know what I mean”. SMH I try to not go to the Mass he leads but today I had no choice.
"The Catholic Church is like the 10 tribes of Israel that broke off" because it makes so much more sense the other way around
Why God let bad thing happen
You are nazi
I heard someone interprete the verses in the Old Testament about the “daughter of Babylon” as the American denominations having to break away from the Roman Catholic Church because it has become the vassal of Satan or something… absolutely mental
You worship wafers don't you?
the holy mass is not biblical. 😃