Why do people dislike Catholicism so much?

Question

I'm Catholic, and alot of people argue with me that I should join their church, and Catholicism is wrong, and our traditions are wrong, and we shouldn't pray to Mary....(Just so everyone who thinks we worship Mary, we don't....We worship God, and God alone, Mary is someone we pray to to help us bring us closer to God....)

Catholics are the original Christians. The early Christians grew into what we now know as the Catholic Church. In the late 1500s a Catholic priest, named Martin Luther, decided he knew better and split from the Church. He started the Protestant reformation and is the father of the thousands of religions and biblical interpretations we now have.

http://www.fisheaters.com/responses.html

So, we were the first Christians, why does everyone say we're wrong....When the Catholic Church has been around alot longer than the Baptist's or Seventh Day Adventists....And we have the tradition?

Thanks everyone....I just want everyone's opionion on this...

Thanks....

Answer 1

Because they would rather go by hearsay and not actually learn about our Church, that we do none of the things they say we do

Catholic and proud of it!

Answer 2

I'm not sure where I read this quote but I think it answers your question, which is the same question I have asked myself, especially since I have been coming on R&S.

There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church.

It's all misconceptions and misunderstandings. You know...like how we supposedly worship the Virgin Mary, statues and the Pope! They hate what they THINK Catholicism is, and not really what it is.

I really hope that the Catholics on here are able to see Christ within all of these people and help open other's eyes to the truth through love, honesty, and patience.

God Bless You!

Answer 3

Rebellion led to the formation of the Protestant churches. If you're fighting against something, you have to make it into the enemy and take every opportunity to "prove" that it's wrong. . .even if it isn't. Otherwise, you'd have to admit that: A) you're in rebellion against legitimate authority and B) the thing you're rebelling against is true.

Oddly enough, even Martin Luther continued to venerate the Virgin Mary and kept the parts of Catholicism that he liked. (If you've ever been to a Lutheran church service, you know how much it's like the Catholic Mass.) But since he was in rebellion against the legitimate Apostolic authority of the Catholic faith, he couldn't admit that there were parts of the Church that he still clung to.

Like leader, like followers.

Answer 4

Envy. After founding his Church in Peter Jesus said, "Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me." - Luke 10,16

Let me add this in answer to some of the responses to your question.

The Catholic Church is a Church of sinners and much suffering. It is also a Church of saints and scholars. The story of the Catholic Church is a divine and human story. The Church is divine in its Founder, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only founder of a religion who claimed to be God, and proved that claim by rising from the dead. The Catholic Church is also human - afflicted with all the frailties of human nature - the sin and suffering, but also the saintliness and scholarship. When the Church was failing God, God raised up prophets or reformers. A reformer is one who changes people's hearts, not revealed doctrine. There have been thousands of great reformers in the Catholic Church, like St. Francis of Assisi, St. Clare, St. Benedict, St. Teresa of Avila, etc. The Catholic Church and the Bible have not, in 2000 years, changed any of the many truths revealed by God; among these truths:
a. that Holy Communion is really and truly the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ,
b. devotion to Mary,
c. confession,
d. praying for the dead (Purgatory),
e. the Pope is the visible head of the Church on earth. (Christ of course, is the invisible head of the Church.)

Answer 5

I am a nondenominational Protestant..But I greatly admire the Catholic Church. There are only a few doctrinal points that I disagree with. I feel closer to Catholicism than some of the Fundamentalist churches!

Answer 6

People whose various manmade traditions came into existence through a rebellion against the Catholic Church bear the burden of showing that what they rebelled against is VERY VERY BAD, so that their open rejection of the stated will of God - "that they all may be ONE" - might somehow be justified. If the Catholic Church is all it claims to be, and all that history plainly reveals it to be, then obviously the Protestant Rebellion itself was VERY VERY BAD, and the doctrinal chaos that has resulted from it cannot be justifed on any grounds.

Answer 7

Notice how you never see baptists bashing lutherans, or JW's lashing at pentacostals. It's always Catholic Catholic Catholic. Either we too blind, stupid and deaf to hear the truth being yelled at us from so many people, or... we HAVE the truth, they all know it, yet refuse to acknowledge and submit, instead assaulting us at every turn (since, afterall, if they have it right, which one? None believe the same things, but each claims to be right).

Why should we expect different? Christ was hated the same way. He was killed for what He was trying to give people - life.

God bless.

Answer 8

I think many people just say they don't like something / someone because they don't understand it / them. It is good that you explained the prayers to God rather than Mary because many (including myself) believe that you worship Mary rather than God. Until this R&S site I didn't know that.

Many people also think that Catholics are the only ones who sexually abuse little boys and we all know that is not true.

Answer 9

I think people don't like the rigidity of the Catholic faith. Also, the Roman Catholic Church was incredibly corrupt for a large part of its history in the Middle Ages. That and with the recent priest molestation scandal, I think people have problems believing in Catholic legitimacy.

By the way, there are several other Christian denominations that existed long before the Protestant Reformation, including Eastern Orthodox and the Coptic faith of Africa. Some of those are as old as Catholic dogma.

Answer 10

It took the message of Christ and over the years added so much crap to it (which I'm sure made sense in the cultures at a certain time) and made the proclamation that in order to get to heaven everyone has to believe and practice so much extra stuff, that it is insanely ponderous and creates a barrier between men and Christ/God.

It has become a charicature of itself.

Christ became man, poured out his blood for his fellow man...but the Catholic church keeps his body locked in a tabernacle and often keeps the blood from the faithful out of an obsession that a drop of it might touch the ground.

It has become obsessed with it's own sense of importance and forgot what Christ instituted it for. Now most of it's energy goes into trying to save face and explain itself, instead of spreading the true message of Christ and being Christ on earth.