Why do people judge catholics so harshly?

Question

Why do ppl claim that catholics hate them and dont follow the bible and are pagans? I dont understand how someone can just say that catholics altogether hate them. I'm catholic and I dont press my religion on anyone and I respect every1's religious beliefs. I believe in abstinance untill marriage and Im sick of ppl saying that most catholics have sex before they r married. so w/e

Im also sick of people calling all catholic priests perverts, not all of them are like that! and how do you know that the catholic religion is the only religion w/ perverted religious leaders?!

Im really upset how other christians are really the ones that are mad at catholics...

how can catholics be seen as pagans when all christian sects branch off of catholicism?!

Answer 1

The Catholic-bashers can basically be divided into two camps: those who don't really believe in God or religion at all, and those who are Christian but think Catholics are not Christian.

As for the first group, they don't have any use for any religion, Catholic or otherwise. Our faith teaches against many things that their secular world holds near and dear -- premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, and so on.

As for the second group, unfortunately, they "know" many things about Catholicism that just aren't true.

For instance, they "know" that Catholics believe in salvation through good works. They "know" that we pray to statues. They "know" that we worship Mary, the saints, and even the Pope.

They "know" that we have to follow everything the Pope says. And they "know" that one of the duties of every Catholic married couple is to have lots of babies, even if they can't feed them all.

They "know" these things, even though none of them are true in the slightest.

I've spent a pretty significant amout of time on this Q&A addressing misconceptions about Catholicism.

In many cases, these misconceptions are so far off the mark that I have to pick my bottom jaw up from the floor before I start responding to them.

"Where the &%$# did they get THAT idea???" often crosses my mind after reading some of these comments.

Answer 2

I am not catholic, however some of my good friends were raised catholic they have since changed denominations. I would still like these people if they had remained catholic. I probably would not know them as well as I do now. From what I understand there are strict catholics, less strict catholics, and anything goes catholics. I guess that is what throws me the most. Most of the catholics I know are not very schooled in the Bible. You put a Bible in their hands and they don't know the back from the front. I am protestant and I am full protestant. I am not strict about some things and lenient about others. I truly try to witness by the way I live my life.

From your question it seems to me that your feelings get bruised fairly easy. This site is no place for that. A lot of people on here will say things to purposely hurt your feelings. And then you have the people who are really trying to help. You need to pray that God will give you wisdom to discern the good answers from the bad ones. Hope this helps. Jesus loves you.

Answer 3

These kind of questions are hard to answer because there is no one answer that fits all. i can supply some POSSIBLE reasons:

1) catholics, being the largest and most well funded of christian organizations suffers the cost of being at the top. The yankees, Microsoft and any other organization that is seens as the most powerful of its type will have as many haters as supporters.

2) Although ti should not manifest itself in a hateful way, fact is much of catholiscism has elemnts of paganism. Not trying to demean catholiscism since it can be arghued that incorporating these elemnts was a way to avoid a power struggle and bring thr primarily pagan population of the Roman empire into the christianity fold with a minnimal amount of struggle and/or bloodhsed.

3) the controversies historically like the inquisition as well as modern ones like pedophile priests paint a big target as well. it's not fair to make pedophilia a catholic thing because i am sure a cross section of boy scout troupe leaders and other positions with easy access to boys would produce a lot of pedophiles as well. The church's covering up and lack of punishment did not help the image.

bottonline. any organization as large as the catholic church will have it's share of enemies and there is nothing you can do about it other than live your life the way you believe. That makes for the best example and may change some people's view of catholics.

Answer 4

It is because the Catholic Church has been around for 2000 years and most of the hate comes from Protestants who broke away from the Church about 500 years ago. Listen closely to some of the Protestant preachers out there as they nip away at Catholic beliefs, using the Bible which Catholics compiled and canonized at the Councils of Hippo 393A.D.and Carthage 397 A.D.( prayers to saints, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, honoring Mary who is our spiritual mother in God's family).

No other institution has stood firm against heresies like the Catholic Church(same sex marriage,divorce,contraception, etc...)
Sadly, the infestation of Modernism/Humanism has weakened the Catholic Church, which includes the Priests, Bishops and Cardinals. The faith of many Catholics has been compromised. Some blame it on Vatican ll, others blame it on the liberalism that came with the French Revolution in the late 1700's.

Whatever the reason, (and the reason is because of the battle for souls) the new belief is that any religion is as good as the other. The Catholic Church has been put in the pile along side the false religions instead of where it once was as the beacon of Truth. It has withstood many attacks from within the Church itself as well as from the outside.

"Blessed are you when men reproach you,and persecute you,
and speaking falsely, say all manner of evil against you, for My sake."
These are the perfect opportunities to pray for those who persecute you.
As a Catholic, you belong to the Church Militant, which if you have received the Sacrament of Confirmation, should be living it out by winning souls for Christ by being a witness for Him in your way of life.
The life of every Catholic should mirror the teachings of the Catholic Church, which is the Body of Christ, however, the world has dulled our zeal. People who do practice their Catholic faith are out there, but they are too few and far between.

Answer 5

I've not heard anyone say that the Catholics hate them. As to the other questions, well, I'm not Catholic, but I went through catechism long ago, and can tell you that there are many things that the Catholics do in their worship that the protestants don't think are biblical. Pray for guidance and don't take it to heart. Protestants and catholics are all supposed to be children of the same God, but sometimes people seem to forget this. They tend to concentrate on the differences and forget about whats important.
I don't think that sexual promiscuity is any more prominent among Catholics than it is with protestants. As far as the priests thing goes, well its gotten a lot of bad press in recent years, and is often used by people who take issue with catholics to begin with.

Answer 6

The haves blaming the have nots. about 70% of Americans are Christian. The families that built this country from the beginning and have prospered are mostly white Christians.

From what I've noticed there has been a popular belief going around that minorities hardships are because of the white man. Al Sharpton is a shining example of how you can get a group of minorities(blacks in this case) to blame a race for all of their hardships instead of working hard to succeed like pretty much every minority before them. In exchange he receives power and money.

White guilt has been a powerful tool in disrupting the American sense of power. If we wanted to go into Iraq 90 years ago there would have been no question. President Bush gave multiple times the amount of relief money to hurricane Katrina victims then to Andrew because of an out cry that he was racist. The fact that this attitude is being appeased is what gives it more power.

The Hollywood crowd attacks Christians on all points. For brain washing, Imposing, or my favorite "Fat Cats". You could apply those stigmas to any belief that becomes wide spread.

So If you just skimmed through all of that overall THEY ARE JUST PLAYER HATERS.

Answer 7

Christians DO judge Catholic people harshly. But it is not you that they are angry with, just your church. Why?

Catholics call themselves Christians, but this offends other Christians because the very definition of Christian is one who follows Christ. Catholics do not follow Christ, they follow the pope. The Catholic church has stated that the pope supercedes Jesus Christ. To Christians, this is wrong.

The Catholic church also changed the Bible (for example the Ten Commandments). Then they stated that the Bible is a dead book. Christians feel like this is wrong.

The Catholic church defines a heretic as anyone who does not believe as they do. Then they state that all heretics should be killed. (This is just recently too, so don't give me the "that was in the past" excuse ya'll). Christian "heretics" take offense at this.

There are many reasons for this. I can provide anyone who is interested with documents from the Catholic church stating these things and many more amazing things. Just contact me.

I don't hate you. I would like to be your friend. But I cannot in any form like your church. I'm sorry.

Answer 8

I don't think it's Catholic's in general that are being judged harshly. It's anyone that has a fundamental belief in God. There are a lot of people that believe "God is just pretend." On another note. It's impossible to follow the Bible completely. All Christians are hippocrites to some extent, because we try to life a perfect life according to the Bible which is impossible to do.

Answer 9

Don't know. The philosophy professor in college I liked the most was an active Catholic and made philosophy less scary, as he respected the Bible and did not turn it into less than what it was. It is my opinion that people are not secure in their own spirituality and lifestyle if they have to attack others. I might point out differences once in a while, but I appreciate all faithful Christians.

Answer 10

I do not consider that one faith appears down on anybody anymore than every other faith. Everyone has unique morals. There isn't any ideal faith. My husband is Catholic and I am Methodist and we are each divorced however we're warmly authorized within the Catholic church although we don't seem to be allowed to take communion. No one has the proper to pass judgement on anybody. A greater vigour will make the judgement name. We all recognise the do unto others factor... do not factor palms except you desire them pointed again at you... It's time to heal.