"i Hate Converts"

[BG45]

You know, it's articles like this that are off-putting to potential Catholic converts...the whole "you're going to be nothing more than a petulant holier than thou child who will be sure he/she is holier than the Pope" thing. Sort of like how a lot of Baptists I know start off with "OMG YOU R GOING TO HELL!!1!".

[url="http://www.beliefnet.com/story/198/story_19843_1.html"]http://www.beliefnet.com/story/198/story_19843_1.html[/url]

[b]I Hate Converts (and I Am One)[/b]

[quote]My heart longs for everyone in the world to become Catholic, just as I did during my early twenties, when I converted from the Southern Baptist faith of my childhood. So why does my heart sink when a non-Catholic of my acquaintance starts looking into the Church of Rome? Because in my opinion, there's hardly anyone so Annoying as a new Catholic convert—and there are plenty of them around these days to annoy me. I'm fed up.

You know the expression "more Catholic than the Pope"? That describes the convert mentality, or at least the mentality of many converts I know. No sooner have the waters of baptism trickled onto their foreheads than they're lecturing the rest of us on fine points of doctrine, hanging a crucifix in every room in the house (including the bathrooms!), looking down their noses at laggards who don't confess their sins every week, and writing letters to Rome castigating the pontiff for not excommunicating this or that dissident.[/quote]

He goes on like that for three pages. Granted he brings up some good points along the way (and some truly wacky examples), but the whole angry tone of the article...

Edited March 3, 2008 by BG45

[Autumn Dusk]

I have to say I kinda agree with the poster.

It makes it hard for quiet converts. Technically, I've been catholic my whole life, but I was raised in a church gone wrong, a very liberal "lets reject the pope and make women priests and sing non-Christian songs cause they sound cool" church. No rosary, no bible-reading, infrequent sacramentals, open communion...you get the idea.

I converted when I went to a "happy clappy" mass in which the participants received communion only in a state of grace (or atleast no moral sins) even if they were Catholic, where nuns and other women were happy serving their role, I was introduced to the rosary, adoration and many other prayers. Honor was given to the pope and bishops and priests. So even though some may disagree on how Catholic it really was becuase of the music but it was there I converted to catholocism.

There were some there who were in constant fervor, questioning, badering..."should the alter really be carpeted?" and silly things like that. I was curious and needed my questions answered, too, but these people took up much time.

Unlike many other religions Catholics go through a process of learning about the faith before we accept them into it. I think it really needs to be conveyed that we are still humans and we still need to be treated with respect and not kamakaze fervor of a person who's "found their way"

[blovedwolfofgod]

Me and the Pope got into an arguement about which of us was more Catholic. So, he had a seat on his funny little chair, said he was more Catholic than I, and as I opened my mouth to protest, I decided that I was so Catholic I would submit to his authority.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='blovedwolfofgod' post='1472867' date='Mar 3 2008, 08:56 AM']Me and the Pope got into an arguement about which of us was more Catholic. So, he had a seat on his funny little chair, said he was more Catholic than I, and as I opened my mouth to protest, I decided that I was so Catholic I would submit to his authority.[/quote]
okay, this is phunny

[Deb]

I have never met any converts like the ones he described. Sounds to me like he just doesn't like the reminders of how lukewarm a Catholic he is.
I was raised Catholic, left the church for 35 years and am now enjoying a roller coaster of a conversion. I will be confirmed at Easter Vigil.
I hate to say it but, I do know more than most of the Catholics that [b][u]I[/u] [/b]know, including my family members. I have a thirst for everything that has to do with the Church, our Lord, my faith.
I go to confession once a month. I go to mass three to five days a week and adoration one to two days a week. I pray two to three hours a day. I do not push myself on anyone but, everybody asks me about my conversion and about my faith because my transformation is so amazing. If you ask me, I will tell you. I will not preach, nor will I correct others, nor give my opinion on anyones practice unless I am asked.
Once I get confirmed, all bets are off. It will be my duty to evangelize. At least that is what it says in the Catechism but, many Cathlics have never read that.

Of course none of the above applies if I am on Phatmass.

[blovedwolfofgod]

...

Edited March 3, 2008 by blovedwolfofgod

[Ash Wednesday]

Hahahaha.... I like this article. Especially the reference to the Anarchist Organic Farmers for Social Justice. But I DO hear they grow a pretty wicked zucchini.

I do think that books and audio tapes by converts are a good thing, though. And converts do help inject a bit of zeal in the Church. I think converts can fall into the trap of becoming too pushy, and cradles can often fall into the trap of being too relaxed. So in a way the author does have a point.

[MissyP89]

I, too, can almost see where he's coming from. As a revert, I've been allowed to glimpse both sides of the Tiber, I guess you'd say--both born in it, and coming back to it.

I've been that laxed cradle girl who didn't know her faith, just going through the motions because everyone else did, and they probably didn't know why, either.

As a revert, I had (and it's only been a year, so at time still have) this terrible urge to make up for all that wasted time. I'm not scrupulous, but I'm not easy on myself, either. I try not to correct my cradle Catholic friends, but I also remember how much I didn't understand, and would have appreciated more if there had been someone to teach me the "real stuff," something more than prayers and the "Jesus loves you" messages they hammered at us for eight years in CCD.

He's not all wrong about converts--heaven knows I've met a few who were a bit off the Richter scale. However, converts do, as Ash Wednesday said, inject a zeal into the Church that she so desperately needs right now.

Edited March 3, 2008 by MissyP89

[MC IMaGiNaZUN]

I agree, there is a point to be made here.
Someone can come into the faith, just starting out, and have all the knowledge of the church,
but still lack holy prudence.

SHALOM
Bro Mark

[jeffpugh]

This thread reminds me of the first analogy in Chesterton's "Orthodoxy". He says when he first discovered it, he was like an eager man who "discovered England", who planted his flag right in the middle of London proclaiming the new country he discovered. The analogy is all too true. If "new converts" get really annoying, tell them that they've not really found anything new.. (though I'm quite zealous about sacred music... but I insist it's nothing new )

[prose]

Stupid new converts on fire in their faith reminding me that I should be too.

gah.

I can't stand that.

[cathoholic_anonymous]

There is actually a proverb about this: "There's none so zealous as the convert." The phenomenon is not just unique to Catholicism - I once read a funny article by Sara Umm Zaid about converts to Islam, called [url="http://www.iprofess.com/convertitis.htm"]Convertitis: The Case of the Insta-Scholar[/url]. I've seen it in converts to several religions. When I reverted to Catholicism as a teenager ('discovered' Catholicism would be a better way of putting it, as I had hardly any Catholic education as a child) I started hectoring my parents for cooking meat on Fridays, cluttering my room with religious paraphernalia, and generally being an objectionable little brat. It wore off after a while. It always does, from what I can see.

This doesn't just affect religious people, either. I can remember a person who was newly diagnosed with dyspraxia trying to lecture me about the condition and correct what he termed my 'misunderstandings'. (I've written a book on the subject, and he had only known what the word meant for ten days.) People are usually quite zealous when they come across something that is new and important to them.

[jeffpugh]

Yeah, I guess I was "bratty" too when I became a Catholic. How ironic...

[Mercy me]

[quote name='MC IMaGiNaZUN' post='1473043' date='Mar 3 2008, 04:58 PM']I agree, there is a point to be made here.
Someone can come into the faith, just starting out, and have all the knowledge of the church,
but still lack holy prudence.

SHALOM
Bro Mark[/quote]

Very well put.

[Paddington]

I did the same thing when I went from lapsed Catholic to Evangelical. I really thought that people would convert. Why wouldn't they? Then I thought, "well I just have to get the right words for part 2. And part 3. They must need it before they convert."

I have seen the same thing in others. Prot and Catholic. Blah, blah, blah.

Anywho...immodest apologetics can come from long-time believers too. The problem is that the "immodesty" can have something of dishonesty to it. Maybe more likely than dishonesty is "everybody is impressed by the same things as me. And should react the same as I do to these ideas." Always waiting to pounce is the idea "I have to be right all the time or I might not be saved (or in a state of grace), which is of course not true."

Then there is the complacency of "victims" of zealous converts. Many of them could care less about trying to say one intelligent thing and they can further illusion a "conceited" believer/convert. And, to be fair, the "victims" don't spend their free time practicing.