During a slightly religious conversation with a friend of mine, he mentioned: “well you know, that Catholics aren’t really Christian.”
I was pretty astounded by this. Its a totally foreign concept to me. I’m sure it is a controversial idea and probably pretty inflamatory.
I just don’t get the idea of how anyone could justify such a thought. Would someone please fill me in on how this could have any basis in logic.
If not logic, can you at least explain how someone can believe this to be true?
Some hardline Protestants advocate this belief. Especially in the deep south, at least based on personal experience as someone who was raised Catholic in the south (albeit not the deep south.) It’s mostly just a combination of anti-Catholic bigotry prevalent in the leadership of some more hardline Protestant churches along with the general ignorance of most people being what it is a lot of the Protestants know little to nothing about the history of the Church or Catholicism.
It’s almost astounding how little the average American Proestant knows about the history of Christianity. I don’t mean the bible, I mean the historical events that happened after the chronology covered in the bible itself. Very few know about things like the Council of Nicaea, how the church evolved in the first 1000 years, about the schism between east and west and etc.
Doctrinal differences, residual bad blood over the Reformation, a strict reading of the bible that conflicts with a more interpretive reading used by the RCC (and also most mainstream Protestant bodies) and general fundamentalist nuttery.
Of course, hie thee to the complete nuttery of chick.com. It’s pretty much mandatory SDMB reading if you haven’t seen it, a new Pit thread each time a new one comes out. Jack Chick hates Catholics, especially the Jesuits. He has all kinds of conspiracy theories, too.
Straight to the point: Are Roman Catholics Christians?
NO! Says Jack
And the classic: The Death Cookie.
Catholics built up a pretty extensive human hierarchy. Martin Luther, who as you may remember, sparked the protestant reformation was irritated at things like indulgences, or donations to the church that would reduce the time in purgatory a beloved one’s soul had to spend. In his eyes, the catholic church had set itself up as a replacement for god and calling shots it had no right to make nor authority to compel the spiritual world to comply. As years passed, the veneration of relics, Marianism and saints as intercessors, along with the fealty to the pope have struck many non-catholics as polytheism in all but name. The catholic church also preaches that salvation comes via faith and good works, while other denominations believe only faith is necessary, so they tend to feel that catholics think they can buy their way into heaven.
A lot of it is also popular with the “Left Behind” crowd, the ones who believe in the Rapture.
I wish that the Eucharist was a “Death Cookie”. It would have tasted a hell of a lot better.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I went to a very conservative (some would say fundamentalist) Christian high school (nominally non-denominational but probably 50% Baptist). Even there the belief that Catholics weren’t Christians was pretty uncommon. I know one student asked me if Catholics worship Mary. I had to explain that no, Catholics ask Mary and the saints to pray for them. They don’t pray TO them as one would to God. (the ones who do pray like that, at least)
It wasn’t that many centuries ago that Protestants, or proto-Protestants, were considered heretics by the Catholic Church, and were in very real danger of being executed if they did not recant. At least you don’t see many Catholics being burned for heresy by Protestants these days. And I think the lack of burnings from either side is more about loss of political power than the loss of fanatical assurance that its doctrine is the One True Faith.
There is a sort of compulsive desire among some fundamentalist Christians to feel persecuted; they want to feel as if they are under spiritual siege. I suspect this has something to do with insecurity about the communal bonds within their congregation (and something else to do with substitution for a more healthy fantasy life). The solution to this, of course, is Satan–“Don’t leave the congregation, the Devil is waiting for you out there. Stay here with us.”
The problem with that is that it’s rather abstract. Sure, they’ll tell you that Satan is real, but they’ve never seen him. It makes for a nebulous threat, and often that’s not good enough, so they need something more solid and close to home to fear. That’s where “devil-worshippers” come in. This role generally falls on whichever group in the area is the least like the congregation; the congregation is Godly, after all, so the more different someone is, the more Satanic they are.
Churches in religiously diverse areas have it easy. They have lots of people to fear. In more isolated areas there may not be any atheists, or Jews, or Muslims, though. In places like that, the congregation must rely on fearing other Christians, which is just a little awkward. Fortunately, Catholics are superficially pretty different from Protestants, they have that whole wine-as-blood thing, and horror-movie Satanists use Catholic trappings. All they have to do is redefine Catholics as “non-Christian”, and they’re good to go. In no time, you’ve gone from Communion to lurid stories about Catholics killing babies and drinking blood. (Yes, I’ve actually heard blood libel aimed at Catholics–oh, the joys of a rural Southern childhood.)
In extreme cases, there may not even be any Catholics handy to fear. This has been known to initiate church mitosis. The congregation picks some obscure point of doctrine–conveniently held by fellow members that they don’t much like–to fight over. Eventually, one side kicks the other out, and both sides declare the other to not be “true Christians” (and therefore tools of the Devil). This provides both groups with someone to be afraid of and tell stories about, and is how such churches reproduce.
It does seem to be less common for them to turn on Catholics (or each other) these days, though. I attribute this mostly to improved communication making it easier to fill their persecution needs remotely. They need only tune in to their chosen Fundie Channel, clutch their pearls, and be outraged at the War On Christmas.
Besides the anti-Catholicism described above, there is the general habit of the use of the words “Christian” and “Christianity.” Many people use them when what they really are referring to is the process of being born again, which is by default a conversion to some kind of Protestant sect–often fundamentalist or evangelical. “I’ve become Christian” has come to be another way of saying “I’ve been born again,” and by implication precludes Catholicism.
Spanish speakers do this a lot, especially if they’re from some Latin American country where Catholicism is kind of the default faith, whether you’re faithful or not–saying, “I’m Catholic” is almost meaningless, because most people are kind of automatically Catholic. And so in Latin America, saying “I’m Christian” would also be meaningless if you understood that to include “Catholic,” because it wouldn’t distinguish you from others. As it is in fact used, it’s actually a way of saying, “I’m not the default anymore,” hence implying “Protestant.”
It’s pretty annoying, actually.
My cousin used to date a dude who is Catholic and brought up Catholic (not sure of the extent of his Catholic education) and he had a big fight with her saying that Catholics weren’t Christians.
She was brought up woo-woo Christian (non-denominational) and she was the one correcting him.
So it’s not just fundamentalists who think this way.
We had a somewhat recent thread about this, and I shared my experience as a Catholic that we sometimes reinforce this because “Christian” is so often used to describe a certain kind of Christian in the US, like an evangelical, fundamentalist, hardline Protestant. So there have been times when someone has asked if I’m a Christian, and in that context, my response is “no, I’m Catholic.” Without really thinking about it, even. I know some people say Catholics aren’t Christian in a way that is either ignorant or inflammatory, however plenty of Catholics will say it themselves because the assumption is that the other person is using Christian to mean a very particular cultural thing that is different from Roman “we’re in it for the bingo, the lawn fetes, and the idol worship” Catholicism. 
If the question were worded “Do you believe in Christ?” the answer would be “of course, I’m Catholic.”
I may be weird but I always liked the cardboard-crackery taste. And they gave you wine at seven. That was cool. When I went to my mom’s Methodist church, where communion was maybe a biannual thing, it was a a bit different. The bread was a thick, rather sweet loaf that they tore pieces off of. And the wine! Presumably, Welch’s Finest N.A. “wine”.
I’ve heard fundamentalist Christians refer to Catholics as “papists”, inferring that they (the Catholics) worship the Pope as a deity.
Heh… I have friends who hail from strict Scots Presbyterian roots…and they talk about “Papists” and “Papery.” Just as some Americans still are re-fighting the American Civil War in their souls, so these friends are re-fighting the English Civil War!
350+ years, and it’s neither forgotten nor forgiven. Says a lot about the human spirit…
Yes, Ian Paisley is Ireland’s Jack Chick without the art skills. He takes the use of the word “papist” to an art form, though. And there it goes beyond the Civil War and into the Plantations and in the 20th/21st century it still goes on…
As Christ’s followers were known as Christians, and Not Catholics,
that may be the answer!!!
This has been discussed before here on the boards. See, for example, Are Catholics Christian, Part Two, which, as the title indicates, is not the first time the topic has come up, but I couldn’t find “Part One.”
Sometimes, this mindset comes most from former Catholics. Here is how it can happen…
A person is raised Catholic, takes the classes, goes through the Sacraments, attends Mass, may even devoutly believe or may be just going through the motions because Mom & Dad did, but they come to a place that they feel spiritually empty.
THEN they hear either from a friend or a TV preacher or by attending another church service that they can have a personal relationship with Jesus as Lord & Savior, be born again into new spiritual life, & that church & rituals & rules come second to that personal relationship. Then “accept Christ”, “become born again”, and when they give their testimony, it can often come out as “I was raised Catholic, believed all the doctrines, followed all the rituals & rules, but never knew about having a living relationship with Jesus…” I have met plenty of these, also of those raised in mainline Protestant churches.
I have annoyed some of my fellow Evangelicals & Charismatics by telling them that several generations from now, their descendants may need to become Catholic or Orthodox or Mainline Protestant to develop their own personal faiths in Jesus.
Alternately, someone may just conclude that all the hierarchy & power-tripping & doctrines & rituals & scandals that have developed around the Catholic Church over the past 1700 years have so removed it from the original Bible-based Jesus-centered faith that the RCC no longer represents Biblical Christianity. I don’t agree with that but I can sure understand it.
They weren’t known as Protestants, either.
So who does that leave?
When my mom was a teenager in New Jersey in the 50s she had a cousin who whose Catholic girlfriend was forbidden in his house by his parents.
About ten years ago my grandparents attended church with me, an Episcopal service. My grandfather leaned over after the procession and asked “What are you, some kind of Catholic?” I think he was trying to sound non-judgemental. I said no but I should have said “Yeah, some kind of Catholic.”
I remember growing up Baptists I was taught that Roman Catholics could be Chrisitan, but their church made this difficult because of it’s heretical teachings like Mary-worship and salvation through works. In college I actually got to study Catholocism and had Catholic professors so that bit of ignorance was thankfully corrected. Several years ago I even toyed with the idea of converting to Catholicism, although ended up not.