What are the biggest misconceptions about Catholicism?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

I would say the one I run into the most is, people seem to believe we have turned Our Lady of Guadalupe into some sort of idol and that Catholics are idol worshipers. I think that is reason most given to me by those who tell me I am going to hell.

[CBHagman]

1. I used to run into anti-Catholic propaganda.

I remember a youth minister at a Baptist church claiming that Catholics believed Mary was born of a virgin (that is NOT what the Immaculate Conception is) and that we would eventually make Mary part of the Godhead.

In the South I used to see those anti-Catholic Chick comics and references to Charles Chiniquy (look him up on the Internet). It actually shook me up a little. I'm the first to criticize the Catholic Church, and my theology is a lot simpler than what the church teaches, but the sort of Ian Paisley-type materials are genuinely a problem.

Fortunately, I never faced anti-Catholic bigotry myself, though some people I knew thought weird thoughts about Catholics. One friend of mine set her Baptist mother straight in a brilliantly succinct statement: "Mom, the Catholics just emphasize works more than we do."

By the way, a lot of Catholics have misconceptions about their church, too, even people who are lifelong Catholics. People confuse the Virgin Birth with the Immaculate Conception, for example.

[Maeve]

2. There is also the "lock-step" idea

That all Catholics must do whatever the Pope says, or their priest says, or what some nun fifty years ago said, or what some talkinghead said the Vatican said...and that all Catholics are just like the ones who grab the spotlight in the US.

There is really a lot of diversity in the church, despite the authoritarian attempts to impose conformity. Altho sometimes the diversity heads underground...

[newyawker99]

10. I agree Maeve. There is a lot of diversity but

unfortunately it doesn't get covered by the
news media.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

15. Going with that "all the same" idea, the whole priest scandal

tended to get all Catholic priests painted as perverts and all Catholics painted as pervert supporters.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

3. A little girl told one of the RCIA teachers that her mommy said that...

The woman was a satanist. People think that Catholics don't believe in the same things. And just because one screwed up priest turned to the occult and integrated it into his church, we're all of a sudden satanic? It's sick. And when I was in junior high, or youth pastor was obsessed with satanism and the occult. He used to tell us that Catholicism was a cult, and that all catholics were going to hell. But I grew up southern baptist, so what did I expect, REALLY?
Duckie

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

4. One of my favorites is that Catholics are really sun-worshipers

Check this shit out: http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/monstr.htm

[YellowRubberDuckie]

5. Such crap...

They don't understand that if it weren't for the Catholic Church, Christianity wouldn't exist!! PETER, one of Christ's most beloved friends and disciples, was the first pope! People are so dumb.
Duckie

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

6. The most glaring thing many protestants mistake about us is our ability

to worship the Eucharist as God because it IS God yet they feel that this is idolatry.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

9. Yeah, I don't get that one either.

How can the original christians not be christian? :shrug:

[newyawker99]

11. and don't forget....we worship fairy gods in the sky.

:eyes:

[pelagius]

20. Round things = sun. Got it.

NBA players do not merely worship the sun (ball) they take the sun and bounce it around a defined universe (court) and toss it into a stylized vagina (basket) representing the interpenetration of sun and earth. Through this ritual, they symbolically enact their role as Gnostic Archons, manipulating the very cosmos itself, thereby usurping the natural, God-given order with their Satanic aspirations.

[Beware the Beast Man]

7. Many:

1. The above-mentioned sun-worshipping thing (communion). This may have come about since Constantine the Great's original patron god was Apollo before her converted.
2. Catholics worship idols
3. Adoration of Mary is a form of goddess worship (Isis in particular)
4. Catholics and the Vatican are attempting to instill a one-world religion.
5. Hitler was a practicing Catholic, and the Vatican turned a blind eye to Nazi atrocities.
6. Papal infallability means the Pope can never do wrong.
7. The Church "added" books to the Bible (the Apocrypha).

Gosh, I could go on forever. All one needs to do is find a good anti-Catholic webpage to see some of the ridiculous allegations against us.
Oh my, here's one. This is a hoot!

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/2594/

on edit- the above page is one of the mosty sickeningly hateful and inaccurate websites I have ever seen. Proceed with caution.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

8. Ahh, yes. "Hitler was a practicing Catholic"

I really really despise that one.

The Apocrypha surprised me. I went to a catholic grade school, middle school and high school. So when I got to a lutheran school I was shocked by the hatred for catholics. I can't believe how many people hold modern day catholics responsible for indulgences.

[Princess Turandot]

13. Leaving aside the question of whether Pius XII was anti-semetic ..

as some claim, which is not the point of my post, I never quite understand this debate on a practical basis. The Nazis and non-Nazi Germans who knew what was going on with the 'transports to the East' needed an external religious authority to tell them that what they were doing went beyond immorality?? Priests who spoke out against Nazism weren't listened to, they were killed. In the 21th Century, John Paul II speaking out against war without provocation and the death penalty has fallen on deaf ears in the US. People actually think Hitler, who was a lunatic, would have listened to a Pope?? At best, he would have gotten rid of whomever it was and appointed his own head of a Reich church.

[Beware the Beast Man]

16. Bingo!

Great way to put that argument into perspective. :hi:

[Stunster]

17. Actually, the Protestants were much more likely to support Hitler!

Sorry if I sound unecumenical, but the definitive study of Nazi voting patterns is: THE NAZI VOTER: THE SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS OF FASCISM IN GERMANY, 1919-1933, by Thomas Childers, (University of North Carolina Press, 1983).

Using census data and multivariate regression analysis, Childers identifies all the key social variables influencing votes for the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in the elections to the end of the Weimar Republic. Among other things, he shows quite conclusively that Catholics were far less likely to vote for the Nazis than were Protestants, especially in rural areas where the influence of the Church was strongest. The statistical tables, 4.8 on page 261 ('Party Vote and Religious Confession'), A. II. 1 on page 280 ('National Socialist Vote and Major Structural Variables, 1924-32, Urban Sample'), and A. II. 2 ('National Socialist Vote and Major Structural Variables, 1924-32,
Rural Sample'), all clearly demonstrate that German Protestants were
substantially more likely to vote Nazi than were German Catholics. This was in part because the Catholics were urged to vote for their own party, the Center Party (Zentrum), by the Catholic hierarchy.

Here are some telling quotes from Childers' work:

"Just as the industrial working class remained by and large immune to the National Socialist 'contagion', so areas of Catholic concentration continued to be relatively impervious to Nazi electoral advances." (page 258)

"In spite of these efforts to reassure Christians, and particularly
Catholics, of the NSDAP's support for Christianity, the party continued to fare far better in Protestant Germany than in Catholic areas. Although the Nazis registered sizable gains throughout the country in 1932, their vote in Catholic towns and villages lagged far behind their totals in Protestant communities." (page 259)

"The NSDAP also encountered a major obstacle to its ambitions in the
Catholic population. Although the party won an increasing percentage of the Catholic vote after 1928, its electoral base remained far smaller in Catholic Germany than in Protestant areas. Catholic support for National Socialism was by and large concentrated in the same social and occupational groups that formed the mainstay of the party's constituency in Protestant areas, but the NSDAP was never able to undermine the solid foundation of Catholic support for the Zentrum. Backed by the Church, the Zentrum, like the Marxist parties, offered its followers a well-defined belief system vigorously reinforced by an extensive network of political, social and cultural organizations. Although a vote for the Zentrum was hardly an enthusiastic endorsement of the Weimar system, the strong Catholic support for the party continued to impose a solid barrier to the potential expansion
of the National Socialist constituency." (page 266)

So much for the Goebbels-like rantings within anti-Catholic circles on this issue!

[Princess Turandot]

12. The doctrine of Papal Infallability is so 'sacred' that it has been used..

just once in the 20th Century, in the 1950's, I think. It requires very specialized language and is used in rare circumstances. I don't think many Catholics really understand that either.

[Stunster]

18. On papal infallibility

There's a great line in Evelyn Waugh's comic novel, Brideshead Revisited, about papal infallibility.

The character Rex, who is getting married to Cordelia (if I remember rightly), is receiving instruction on the Faith from a Jesuit priest at Farm Street in London.

The priest quizzes him about the doctrine of papal infallibility. He asks, suppose the pope said it was going to rain on a certain day---would that be bound to happen?

Rex responds 'yes'. The Jesuit is slightly exasperated at Rex's lack of understanding, and says 'But suppose it didn't rain!'

To which Rex responds, 'Well, I suppose it would be raining spiritually, only we'd be too sinful to see it.'

:eyes:

[Stunster]

19. 1950, to define the dogma of the Assumption

My mother, God rest her soul, was in Rome for that occasion, and saw the pope real close up as he was carried out in his sedia gestatoria. She (my mother, not Pius XII :-)) told me that he looked straight into her eyes as he passed by.

[sandnsea]

21. It's hard to find them

I've tried to find a list, so to speak, of actual dogma that has been declared infallable. Seems to me, it's very hard to find. My best understanding is that it's only the very basic tenets of the Church that are infallible. Basically the Creeds and not much more. Maybe somebody could start a topic on that.

[DemBones DemBones]

23. Oops, I thought it was the Immaculate Conception,

but then I saw Stunster said her mom was there in 1950 and it was the Assumption, and I knew she (he?) had to be right about this. So I checked and found the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception:

"THE DOCTRINE"

"In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin."


You can read up on any and all Catholic topics at newadvent.com, where they have the entire Catholic Encyclopedia. It tells a lot more about the Doctrine of Immaculate Conception after the definition above, and the article on Infallibility was very long. It goes over all the history of the Church being infallible and perfect because of what Jesus said, before ever mentioning papal infallibility. Anglicans and Orthodox also believe in Infallibility of the Church, but differently.


I also found this on Pius XII making an infallible declaration in 1950:

[Stunster]

26. See my thread on the Immaculate Conception

Hey, feel free to post a reply to it!

:shrug:

[Princess Turandot]

14. The idol worshipper thing..

I don't get into many discussions with people on this (thank God, I live in NYC) but when I do, I ask them if they ever watch a sporting event like a baseball game, and see a player point to the sky when he hits a home run. Often, the commentator will refer to the player thanking his deceased father or mother, for I assume, bringing him luck. Kind of like interceding with God because they are up in heaven. I tell them that's what saints do, but they might have a higher margin of success because of how they lived their lives. If you want to call that superstition, because you are irreligious, that's fine, but equating that with the 'worship' of God is just silly.

NYC's Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, which has long been the all-around pre-eminent organization in the research and treatment of cancer is located around the corner from the Shrine to St. Jude, the Saint of Impossible Causes. The shrine gets a lot of 'business' and I'd bet it isn't all from Catholics.

[Reverend_Smitty]

22. I grew up in a heavily Catholic area (NJ)

and I come from a large Catholic family, so growing up I new of nothing else, it wasn't until I moved to Florida in I guess the 4th or 5th grade that I experienced a little anti-Catholicism. I guess the whole Mary worshiping thing is the big one.

I was always taught to venerate Mary but worship God. There is a difference between my respect and love for Mary and my devotion to God, which is something that 10 year old kids weren't able to wrap their heads around.

[DemBones DemBones]

24. But you could wrap your head around it when

you were 10, right? You're saying it just wasn't understood by non-Catholic kids?

[Reverend_Smitty]

25. I didn't know as much then as I do now...

naturally... but because I grew up in the church, I knew there was a difference. But it struck me strange that kids were even bringing it up, you know that came from their parents. A kid would not come up with the concept of Mary worshiping on their own

[UrbScotty]

27. Some DUers think all the Church cares about are marriage and abortion.

I mean all respect to those DUers; aftrer all, we must be united as Democrats against the Bush regime.

But we Catholics are also concerned with hunger, poverty, war, education, and other important issues.

[Princess Turandot]

28. What troubles me are the DU people who in the 21st Century blame so

everything that troubles them on the Catholic Church. Islam does not look kindly on gay people, and that isn't because they are listening to the Pope.Same with orthodox Jews. Same with many of the Protestant sects. There aren't female Islamic clerics as far as I know, just as there are very few conservative female rabbis and no orthodox female rabbis. My assumption is that there is something else at work here, which is a bigotry towards Catholics that motivates peoples'posts but which they will not admit to since it isn't a very "democratic" thing to do. Or perhaps it is because there is an recognized body for Catholicism, unlike many other religions:i.e the Pope & the Vatican, which gives them a target.

If the Catholic Church disappeared tomorrow, there would still be ample opposition to gay marriage and abortion. What would be gone would be the people who believe that faith and good works are necessary for a moral life. What would be 'Left Behind' are a lot of the 'I believe in Jesus so I got me a get out of Hell free' card. And what a loss that would be.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

29. Yeah, I don't understand. People use "fundy"

and they mean Catholic, but a fundy is NOT a catholic. Fundies HATE catholics.

[Zynx]

30. It's the idea that we all worship the pope and we are all lock step with

the right-wing Catholics.