How Do You Respond?

[princessgianna]

When people make comments about how close Catholics are to other Christian denominations. What you respond with?

[Vincent Vega]

I always find it odd that protestants like to say how "close" they are to Catholics...it's almost like they feel some kind of need for...validation.

[Jaime]

[quote name='princessgianna' date='24 January 2010 - 01:37 AM' timestamp='1264315035' post='2043308']
When people make comments about how close Catholics are to other Christian denominations. What you respond with?
[/quote]

I say "Catholics aren't a denomination."

[princessgianna]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' date='24 January 2010 - 01:40 AM' timestamp='1264315210' post='2043310']
I always find it odd that protestants like to say how "close" they are to Catholics...it's almost like they feel some kind of need for...validation.
[/quote]
That is a good point.

[goldenchild17]

[quote name='princessgianna' date='24 January 2010 - 12:37 AM' timestamp='1264315035' post='2043308']
When people make comments about how close Catholics are to other Christian denominations. What you respond with?
[/quote]

Then I would ask them why so many protestant denominations feel the need to evangelize us so strongly and yet quite often consider other protestant denominations to be brother/sister christians.

[Happy_Catholic]

I don't get it. If Protestants are comparing themselves to Catholicism and saying how similar the faiths are, why not come back to the faith their spiritual ancestors shunned?

Oh, yeah, and the biggest difference between the faiths, we have the physical presence of the Lord. All the other trappings don't matter. I don't care if our churches end up identical, if the dogma is the same, the Lord is present in the Catholic mass.

[BG45]

[quote name='goldenchild17' date='24 January 2010 - 03:19 AM' timestamp='1264317552' post='2043320']
Then I would ask them why so many protestant denominations feel the need to evangelize us so strongly and yet quite often consider other protestant denominations to be brother/sister christians.
[/quote]

A recent example is my dad, who has little love for the Church, having to tell a coworker that Catholics are Christians. His former doctor started his own church and used to be a Catholic. "I thought Lou was a Catholic" "He used to be, but he found Jesus!" "C. Catholics are Christians."

And really, I've never heard anything but negative commentaries, and that was when I was a Baptist. No one disses or compares Catholicism to my face anymore.

[add]

i change the subject to politics and really shut them up

[CatherineM]

If we were that close, there wouldn't be any protestants.

[Veridicus]

It's called pluralism and denominationalism. By bringing Catholicism down to the level of commonness with Protestant denominations in theology or practice, you abrogate any semblance of honor or preeminence due to her historical antecedence or rightful claims to apostolic tradition. In a sense this does validate their own broken sectarianism.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='princessgianna' date='23 January 2010 - 11:37 PM' timestamp='1264315035' post='2043308']
When people make comments about how close Catholics are to other Christian denominations. What you respond with?
[/quote]
There are of course areas of commonality between Protestants and Catholics, after all Protestantism came out of Catholicism, but there are also major differences, which is why the two sides are divided. How close or far a particular Protestant group is from Catholicism would need to be judged on a case by case basis.

[Veridicus]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='24 January 2010 - 10:43 AM' timestamp='1264351385' post='2043434']
There are of course areas of commonality between Protestants and Catholics, after all Protestantism came out of Catholicism, but there are also major differences, which is why the two sides are divided. How close or far a particular Protestant group is from Catholicism would need to be judged on a case by case basis.
[/quote]

While it is of course true that there exists true shared truths between Catholics in Protestants, in my experience when protestants take the time claim how close they are to Catholicism it usually isn't out of any altruistic sense of honoring our Church. Instead it seems a way of minimizing their protestations and justifying their reticence to convert.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Veridicus' date='24 January 2010 - 09:47 AM' timestamp='1264351642' post='2043436']
While it is of course true that there exists true shared truths between Catholics in Protestants, in my experience when protestants take the time claim how close they are to Catholicism it usually isn't out of any altruistic sense of honoring our Church. Instead it seems a way of minimizing their protestations and justifying their reticence to convert.
[/quote]
Of course that can happen, but as a former Protestant myself I do not think it is necessarily the case.

[Ed Normile]

I estimated a job a few weeks ago and the guy asked me what religion I belonged to, I told him I was Roman catholic. I thought that was the end of that and I would never get the job, well he called me back and when I came out to work he was wearing a shirt that said top twenty reasons for being an episcopalian, kind of like a Letterman skit, anyway I caught snippets of it without staring as I really was not interested, the 20th reason was , all the pomp and ritual without any of the guilt. Seemed to sum up their faith.

ed

[jmjtina]

The closest we get is during Christmas and they have to put out the Mary figurine.......