I was asked recently why some ex-Catholics and anti-Catholics are so hateful and mean — why they display such fierce opposition to the Church. Of course, not all ex-Catholics are that way, but a good number are.
Though there are probably many reasons, I suggested that sometimes people define themselves in relationship to other groups — a sociological phenomenon. In other words, an ex-Catholic may define himself and his new religion by opposing his old self and religion. His opposition and protestations define who he is.
He leaves the Catholic Church and must now be accepted by his new group, many of which are made up primarily of other ex-Catholics. He proves his new loyalty and the degree of his commitment by the degree of his hostility.
The more hostile he is to Catholicism, the better Protestant he perceives himself to be. The more he shows aggression against Catholics, the more he proves himself a loyal member of the new club. I think that is one reasons we get such hostility from some anti-Catholics.
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At Least protestants aren’t burning our churches these days…. the Knights of Columbus locally are relieved.. AOH as well. They used to sleep in churches in Philly with shotguns. They would have a group hide a few blocks away then ambush the protestants just before they attacked. The Knights would then bring the wounded protestants to nearest hospital and dump them in a pile at emergency exit. Times change…
When Pope came to Philly that Sunday my DM in twitter had over 90 Born agains condemn me to hell for being Catholic…
What else can we expect,martin luther the founder of this so called "reformed" tradition was himself a monk,he was thought the bible by the holy mother church and then what did he do,he went around telling everyone that the Holy spirit had somehow opened his eyes and revealed the errors of the church to him and him alone(To me this seems to be eerily similar to the way mohammed claimed that the archangel Gabriel had revealed "gods" word to him alone),afterall wasnt it luther and later the dutch Calvinists(who were then a minority of the dutch population) the people who said better the moslem turk than the pope,we will have these heretics and schismatics even among our folk,we should not forget that all of western europe from the fjords of Norway down to the seashore of malta,from the sandy coasts of Portugal to the rocky ridges of the baltics were once catholic,as hillaire belloc said the church is europe and europe is the church,no one can change this fact of history to anything else.The catholic church had existed before the franks crossed the rhine,before the Saxons ever saw the english coast,before the false schisms (the so called east-west schism),perpetrated by the power hungry byzantine emperors and their ceasoropapist patriarchs even existed in constantinople,before even the reigns of the great Trajan and Constantine of rome,and yet this church exists today as it existed when St Augustine under the orders of pope St Gregory the great reached the shores of Kent to preach the gospel to the Anglo saxons,It will exist even when Protestantism is dead and buried once and for all.
STEVE RAY HERE: We’ll said Patrick, well said!
I would like to think most Protestants are not this way, but some are. I married a Baptist preacher’s daughter, so I have had many “discussions” in my time.
This biggest issue is misunderstanding and unfortunately many Catholic’s do not know their own faith to defend it…I was one of them at one time. I am thankful to Scott Hahn and Steve for straight ending my path. My arguments usually boil down to making a personal decision to follow Christ. Luckily only a few have been heated.
I myself have been a revert back to the Catholic faith. In looking back, I think I was afraid that the Catholic Church was actually right. It is one thing to be raised Protestant. But to leave the Church is a bit scary. Deep down, I knew that the Catholic Church was the true. If the Catholic Church turned out to be the true Church then how could I hope to be saved? What if I had cut myself from the sacraments and it turned out that these were valid and needed? As a Protestant, I ate up reading how corrupt the Church was in the Middle Ages. It validated my decision to leave the Church. But praise God I am back!
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