Calling all Catholics out there? Why do so many people think that Catholics are not Christians?

Question

I see a disturbing misconception out in the Answers community about Catholics, that they are something other than Christians. This mostly from other people who identify themselves as "Chrisitans". I wonder what they think we are, if not Christians? Do they not know the history of the Christian faith?
Are we Catholics somehow to blame? Or, is this just every day, common garden variety ignorance?

Regarding "added books", please note that the Protestants removed books that were pre-existing.

Thank you all for your serious consideration of my question. I see some answers that are disturbing to me, and some that are just wrong, but I don't think this is the right forum to try and rebut them, cause I would be here all day.
I think that education is the key to tolerance in matters of religion, just as in other aspects of our lives.
Thank you all for your insight.

Answer 1

Pastor Billy says: why you've got 1.2 billion Catholics out in the world and you know they aren't Muslim or Jewish you have to label them as something so the other Christians wanting to be Catholic like to claim we aren't Christians. :)

Seriously Protestantism did not start out to be pro-Christian, it started as an anti-Catholic movement. That is why some Protestants still to this day are taught Catholics aren't Christian. If they didn't hold to this premise they would be Catholic.

This is not verbatim but G.K Chesterton wrote "Protestant would be empty if not for all the isms in the world (capitalism, nationalism, fascism, materialism...) with the exception of Catholicism".

Originally to be Protestant was to protest the first Christian Church Catholic.

What is really sad is when I read assumptions by fallen away Catholics like cthemagicofdawn who were never properly instructed on the Catholic Christian faith. This person talks as if he/she has met all 1.2 billion Catholics in the world.
magiciandawn also mentions ritual but neglects to realise all the high points of life such as birth, death, graduation, marriage are marked with ritual I have to ask does cthemagicofdawn feel ritual is not good enough in worship of God? Sadly many Catholics fall away from the One Christian Church after listening to half-truths and misinformation from anti-Catholic Protestants never taking the time to learn what the Church actually teaches. We must pray for them so they will continue to seek what is more than superifical doctrines and practices and traditions of men.

St. Augustine
"There are many other things which most properly can keep me in [the Catholic Church’s] bosom. The unanimity of peoples and nations keeps me here. Her authority, inaugurated in miracles, nourished by hope, augmented by love, and confirmed by her age, keeps me here. The succession of priests, from the very see of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep [John 21:15–17], up to the present episcopate, keeps me here. And last, the very name Catholic, which, not without reason, belongs to this Church alone, in the face of so many heretics, so much so that, although all heretics want to be called ‘Catholic,’ when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house" (Against the Letter of Mani Called "The Foundation" 4:5 [A.D. 397]).

Answer 2

Many Christians of other faiths see only the externals of the Catholic church and they are alien
to them. Catholics and Chrisitians of other faiths often times do not realize that we share a lot in common in our beliefs. This includes faiths whose style of worship is not similar to the Catholic Church, including many evangelicals.

We need to be patient and if a misconception about our faith is brought up we need to explain it in a courteous and Christian like manner. We might say we understand they might not see it that way but this is how we believe. We shouldn't be smart alec in our approach. Often poorly catechized Catholics are responsible for many misconceptions. Even those who had 12 years of Catholic schooling, if they have not tried to understand and learn their faith as an adult, they are not able to deal with answering the misconceptions. This includes people who had just 12 years of Catholic schooling before Vatican 2. I found a lot of them did not know the difference between doctirne and church law and in church law they didn't know what was divine and what was human. They were really thrown off by the changes of Vatican 2.

Learning about our faith is a life long process and we shouldn't think it ends at a certain level.

Answer 3

I'm a former Baptist who converted to Orthodoxy. I'm only going to speak on Evangelicals here.

First, Protestants are mostly ignorant of Catholicism and rely mostly on misinformation and apologetic works.

Secondly, from their perspective, it is the only appraisal. Evangelicals are very big on "no works," and where that is compromised, they believe it is damnable heresy. If you have works at all in your salvation, then they have to condemn you as non-Christian. I'm actually amazed at the inconsistency of Evangelicals who *do* accept any Catholicism as Christian.

Of course, they don't understand what "Christian" is since they don't know from whence comes the Bible or the beliefs of the Early Church. The problem is reinforced by the fat that in our culture "Christian" means "Protestant" and Catholics will often specify "Catholic," so the Evangelicals assume they're denying it.

It's a comedy of errors.

Answer 4

Most non-Catholic Christian denominations accept Catholics as Christians. A very few do not.

A dictionary would say that a Christian is someone professing belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus.

Catholics would fit this definition.

In the Nicene creed, from 325 A.D., Catholics profess:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being with the Father.

Through Him all things were made.

For us and our salvation He came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit, He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered, died, and was buried.

On the third day He rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures: He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We are baptized as Jesus commanded in Matthew 28:19, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

We truly are spiritually "born again," we just don't usually use those words.

With love in Christ.

Answer 5

I think that there are several reasons that come together to account for this mentality;
The first reason I believe is the way Protestants are indoctrinated with mistrust and in a lot of cases hatred for the Catholic church, another is this curious mentality of `Being Saved` which also helps identify Protestants to one another.
This once saved always saved notion is for them a fail safe and to a large extent a safety blanket, while we Catholics believe that sin is a constant threat to our salvation and for us mortal sin is the reality that you can lose Heaven in a heartbeat, unless repented in the sacrament of confession.
Probably though the greatest barrier to understanding is the fact that the Gospels have been tampered with so much by various people since the reformation, some of the most important truisms of the church have been done away with, eg. the fact that the Eucharist is the real presence of Christ both body and blood, also the down grading of the Blessed Virgin from being preserved by God from all stain of sin to just a pious woman, hence the mockery of the Immaculate Conception.
It is a reality though that whenever a large body of like minded people develops a split, the breakaway group have to bring the other down in order to justify the initial break, and this is another reason for the anti-Catholic mentality.
The rot of course began with the rebellion of Luther who like Satan and Adam and Eve declared,`I will not serve` I will oppose and serve my own interests.
Luther eventualy got his mistress(a nun) pregnant and died on the verge of insanity, and so are we to seriously believe that this man was chosen by Christ to oppose the very church that He founded on Peter and the Apostles?

Answer 6

I think it all comes down to this.

For 20 centuries, the Catholic Church has been guilty of the very worst crimes against humanity, costing the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Good people who are Catholic continue to defend such evil, even deny such evil ever occured even today. If you look through previous answers, you'll see this pattern continues.

Catholics seem particularly unable to come to terms with the involvement of the Vatican and the Popes in some of the most horrendous acts of human history including World War I, World War II and specifically the Holocaust.

See the Almanac of Evil for more details
http://one-faith-of-god.org/final_testament/end_of_darkness/evil/evil_0200.htm

So how can Catholics claim to be true followers of Jesus if they refuse, again and again to bear witness against evil? If they refuse to take a stand and denounce evil?

Answer 7

I am a Roman Catholic and yes I've been told that I'm not a Christian because I had not been "born again". I always say well pardon me for getting it right the first time. It is as you very nicely put it, everyday, common garden variety ignorance with a touch of bigotry thrown in for seasoning. LOL
God Bless

Answer 8

Hi Honey!

Sore subject for me. I can't begin to tell you how many Catholics I come across who say they are not Christian.

People are goofy.

It's a long slow process of explaining. Person by person.

I think a significantly large number of Protestants don't even know the history of their own faiths. Much less the true origins of Christianity.

Many of them are told the Constantine-lie. We're all familiar with that. Constantine hijacked Christianity and out came Catholicism. Not true! Nothing changed with Constantine. All of that can be seen in the writings of the Early Church Fathers.

How many times do we have to say We Do Not Worship Mary?

For my friend who wants to talk about the crusades and Catholics supposedly burning good men, you might want to do a little research on the Protestant inquisition. Luther persecuted millions. Henry VIII persecuted millions. His daughter Elizabeth I persecuted millions. yadda yadda.

Answer 9

This query continuously amuses the hell out of me. Until Henry VIII (Anglican) and Martin Luther (Lutheran, then a few 30,000 different sects, and counting) got here alongside, the Orthodox and Catholic church buildings WERE the Christians. There have been no others. Catholics = Christians for 2000 years. Protestants = Christians for approximately 500 years. And the one change among the Catholic (common) bible and the protestant bible(s) of their countless translations is that Martin Luther threw out one of the vital books the catholics had discovered to be the "Inspired Word of God" again within the Council of Nicea within the 4th century. All protestant bibles are derived from this common supply. I'm now not even going to contact the "what catholics do isn't within the bible" one. The Trinity isn't within the bible. "Original Sin" isn't within the bible, that used to be invented by means of Augustine (a catholic theologian) within the 4th-fifth century. The Rapture isn't within the bible. The bible evidently states Jesus is the "son" of "god" in a few areas, it's claimed that the bible additionally says Jesus IS "god" in different areas and the protestants are nonetheless combating over that. This isn't a safety of the catholics, incidentally. I'm agnostic, I suppose all you men are combating over plenty of made-up stuff and not using a evidence. BUT, if you're going to battle among yourselves, please a minimum of attempt to get your historic details directly and your dogmas properly recognized as to supply. Otherwise, you simply make yourselves appear ridiculous. Blessings for your Journey!

Answer 10

Yes it is ignorance. I don't quite get this Christian label, when I was growing up nobody said I'm Christian, they would say I'm Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, etc... We all understood these are all denominations of Christianity.

Personally most of the Catholic folks I know are much more tolerant of other beliefs. I can't say that about some other denominations.