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A question concerning Catholics.
Kyougu
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Okay, this has been bugging me forever, maybe some can shine a light on it.
For the longest time now, I have noticed that people will often say something along the lines of "I'm not a Christian, I'm Catholic" or something along those lines . Now am I crazy, or does this not make sense? Catholics believe in Christ, hence they have to be Christian by definition. It's in the damn name. It seems simple enough to me, but none the less I notice people will not identify Christians and Catholics together. I know it shouldn't bug me (I'm actually agnostic, but I was raised Catholic, which may have something to do with it) but it's just a pet peeve of mine.
So, anyone have any idea why this is? The frequency I hear this makes me think it can't just be isolated incidents.
For the longest time now, I have noticed that people will often say something along the lines of "I'm not a Christian, I'm Catholic" or something along those lines . Now am I crazy, or does this not make sense? Catholics believe in Christ, hence they have to be Christian by definition. It's in the damn name. It seems simple enough to me, but none the less I notice people will not identify Christians and Catholics together. I know it shouldn't bug me (I'm actually agnostic, but I was raised Catholic, which may have something to do with it) but it's just a pet peeve of mine.
So, anyone have any idea why this is? The frequency I hear this makes me think it can't just be isolated incidents.
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I guess there are so many flavours of Christianity, that they want to stand out from the crowd. It would be like calling a Shia and a Sunni a pair of Muslims: They may not like being painted with the same brush, no matter how technically correct it is.
Like walking up to someone and saying YOU ARE A WHITE PERSON
"Well, I am French, yes"
I come from mixed parentage, my father is Protestant my mother Catholic. When I grew old enough to relate to my relatives and understand who they where, I found myself identifying alot more with my mother's side of the family. Much more tolerant, educated, and in general happier. No criticsm towards protestants here, this is only what I have observed in my own family.
It's like this. The point of religion, at least to me, is to get you out of the day to day, and focus your mind and soul on deeper issues than, say, your diet, your mortgage, last nights rerun of Wings. We sit on cold hard benches in ancient buildings and celebrate a mass spoken in a dead tounge. Most protestant churches I have visited are newer, more comfortable, easier to relate to, the preacher plays the guitar. I don't think that religion is meant to be comfortable. It's meant to take you out of the moment, make you think. The Catholic church with it's history and it's traditions provides this for me. I'm very proud of my heritage, and I am one of the guys who, when queried, identifies himself as a 'Roman Catholic' rather than a Christian.
One note. I also believe religion, or more appropriately, spirituallity is a very personal issue and not something to be forced on others of different beliefs. I'm happy to talk about my religion when asked, but I don't bring it up as a target of conversation. I'm not looking to start ad arguement, as other viewpoints can be just as valid as my own.
And just in case anyone feels so inclined, I don't need a thouroughly detailed history of all the wrongs commited by the Holy See in the last two thousand years, I'm all good there thanks.
Given that the Protestants tend to refer to themselves as Christian (or their specific denomination more likely), it could be the Catholics wanting to stress their particular denomination and not be lumped together with the broader group.
Currently DMing: None
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Them: "Are you a Christian?"
Me: "Yes."
Them: "When were you saved?"
Me: "What?"
\\\
Them:"Are you saved?"
Me: "From what?"
To answer your question though, I agree with most everyone else. They are proud of their Catholic faith and want to distinguish themselves from Protestant churches.
I always saw the term Christian as a blanket word. If you believe in Christ as your savior, you're a Christian. Protestant, Catholics, Baptists, etc, they're all sub sects of this larger word. Sounds like a group (least in the U.S) has basically taken over the word Christian.
This just makes me think of game terms. Like certain Christians have figured out how to save/reload when they screw up.
This.
I like to counter the evangelicals with this handy little verse from James 2:10 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We are all sinners, all imperfect, but He loves us just the sames. So take your holier than thou 'tude and go sell it to the tourists. I'm a blessed child of the New Covenant and was saved two thousand years ago thank you very much.
Man, wouldn't it be great if everyone woke up and realized that Jesus, Bhudda, Muhammod, and the FSM messsage is all boiled down to 'Be excellent to eachother and party on dudes!'. Probably put a hurting on the church coffers though if it got out that the road to heaven doesn't neccessarily lead past their collection plate.
Opps, getting off topic. Not here to criticize any other faith, regarless how wack-a-doo they may seem to me.
I bid this thread a fond farewell. I hope I helped.
So basically you want the world to be the future in the Bill and Ted Universe.
Uhmm..I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvZyGp-LG4I
But if you really want to get technical, Protestants, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox denominations are all Christian.
I owned the Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey soundtrack. In retrospect I'm not sure how I feel about that.
:edit: There are certain sects who believe he is the anti-Christ, but all of Christianity doesn't.
I have recently been told (by my husband, who went to a Christian school when he was younger) that there actually are ideological differences which some guy somewhere defined, and that those differences are what originally defined the distinction between Christians and Catholics (and other sects too). If I recall correctly, which I may well not, the Catholic focus on the Trinity is one such distinction. The details of the conversation are fuzzy, but I can ask him when he gets home.
However, the other posters have hit in the nail on the head with regard to the cultural clash that has caused this semantics issue in the first place.
Edit: Whoah, lots of posts since I first loaded the topic and hit the "compose reply" button
"I'm Christian, but not Catholic": "I'm Protestant of some description. (I may be clarifying this because I live in a heavily Catholic area, or because I don't want you to lump me in with them.)"
"Catholics aren't Christian.": The most common argument I see about this is that having saints or praying to saints (in particular Mary) is basically idolatry. Also, depending on the group, they may disapprove of the concept of papal infallibility, or dislike the concept of the Pope itself (though the latter usually seems to take the form of a conspiracy theory-ish paranoia). I've seen the Trinity thing come up some, but to a much lesser extent, as a lot of Protestant sects still have the concept of a Trinity (even though it might be different)....it seems to be more of an evangelical complaint.
The general sentiment also has an extra veneer of decades of US culture backing it up as many of the larger immigrant waves to the US have been primarily Catholic (ex: Italian, Irish, Hispanic), and seizing upon Catholicism was an easy way to demonize them. (Here's a great example. And it has crocobishops.)
That's what it means.
- Saints
- Mother Mary
- Exactness of the Bible
- Who the "Great Evangelist" is for their sect.
- The Pope
- The Eucharist (body and blood....thing...)
- (Lots of others I can't remember or haven't learned)
For Example, Catholics believe that during the service, when you eat the bread and drink the wine, that it's actually Jesus' body and blood (don't think too hard). Most branches of Christian don't believe this, and simply treat it like some ritual we do because "Hey, Jesus did it."
Another is that Catholics believe that Mary was a very important person in Jesus' life. A lot of the other branches (not all) think she was just a vehicle to deliver God's wedlock son.
Methodists and Protestants are much more literal to the bible, Catholics are "Spirit of the law" in most cases. Catholics have Priests, whereas Christians have Ministers/Reverends (can be either gender and can marry).
As you can see, the devil's in the details (pun totally intended.)
Notice, there's nothing about the big J man. It's the uniting tie between all the different sects. Christian is the umbrella definition for people who believe in Christ, Catholic is a specific branch. You can be Christian, which means you don't follow any of the "splinter groups" that have formed over the last 2000 years.
Catholic = Square
Christian = Rectangle
I too was raised Catholic, and one of the best weapons they have for keeping you Catholic is by not informing you about other branches of Christianity or even Christianity at it's core. Because, if you identify Christianity as different, then it raises the possibility that this is the wrong branch. Instead, they simply gloss over it to the point where most Catholic people don't know what Christian means.
Wait, you think Christianity is a poor choice of terminology, insulting, and used to vilify Catholicism or am I missing something here?
He's mentioning how saying "He's not Christian, he's Catholic" sounds insulting, because it seems to separate Catholics from the entire faith.
Oh, yeah. That did seem like a weird thing to say.
You, among countless others, personify the reason the founders beautifully inducted freedom of religion into our society.
Your mix of adherence to your religion, whilst being tolerant of others, would change our world, our planet.
Teach that to others and we'll soon inhabit someplace better than what we've known.
It goes a little further than that though, because Catholics believe that other Christian faiths have got a few things wrong and are therefore not "true" Christians.
I've been to a few Catholic weddings (and as is standard procedure) the priest informs all non-Catholics that they are not allowed to take part in communion (because their beliefs are in controdiction to the Catholic view of communion and they would be committing sacrilege by partaking--not that the priest tells them that mind you). I always here a few grumbles from the Protestants in the crowd about how unwelcoming and disrespectful it is for the priest to say such a thing.
It all depends on the priest and the congregation. I had a catholic priest that would probably mock the one in your example. Others might say protestants are going to hell. It's a crapshoot.
That would depend on what your priest was like I guess. I was raised Catholic and I encountered a bit of the above but also a fair bit of pragmatism or liberal behaviour. I once went to a non church/religious wedding where the bride's long time RC parish priest officiated, despite the happy couple both being atheists. I, as best man and also ex RC and atheist was given several bible readings to deliver as well. It was a strange but good experience.
Well, that's one thing, but giving the consecrated host to non-Catholics is another. Pretty sure that a priest that got caught knowingly doing that would be excommunicated.
I suspect it is simply people who do not understand the terminology or history of the term. Maybe they had a teacher misinform them.
Ah, I forgot about this scenario. When I was being home-schooled through 7th and 8th grade, my mom and I attended some kind of home school conference and by the end of it we were about at that point. Though saying "I'm not Christian" would have been going too far. (It was a bunch of people freaked out about the lack of god in public schools; completely embarrassing and not what we were hoping to encounter - e.g. resources on how to do the home school thing well.)