StickMan
2007-07-23, 11:36 PM
OK so I'm Roman Catholic and I've learned that there are a lot of people who really don't like Catholics all that much, don't think much of us, or just plain are wrong about what they think we believe. I would like to talk about how you deal with people that are Intolerant of your religion to help me in the futer as I have had to deal with it a lot and I'm not one to be quite when some one says something wrong about Catholicism.
First I would like to share some of my experiences:
For me I normally only have had to deal with some people at school and at work that did not understand catholicism. The most common thing I have come across is having to explain Catholics are Christians. This may seem simple to most people as we are and in fact were the first main Christian Church (I am not counting the Christian Cults before Catholicism). But I have had to argue with more than one person that we are in fact Christian, I hope you can understand that having to argue that you are in fact a Christian is very very annoying as I am one and feel I should be able to call myself such. I have had other things such as telling people that when we take communion we do not in fact think were are eating the 2000 year old physically body of Jesus but its is spiritual and that we do in fact know that it is just physically bread and wine. I have had to deal with may other minor things but these are the most common ones.
Now my girlfriend has had it far worse than me. She has told me that in the town we grew up in there use to a church that catholics worship Marry and that we were all going to hell. The girls at her elementary school felt that it was O.K. to inform her of this and treat her as if she was going to hell. The pastor at this church has moved away, and the church is now not denominational and I have friends that go there now. This we are both thankful for.
My mom is a nurse does in home care of a boy who is very handy caped and is in a wheel chair. His family goes to a local church in which they teach that Catholicism is wrong, that we are going to hell. The woman that she works for when talking to my mom about lint said that when we give something up we are supposed to be giving the money we would be spending on what ever we are giving up to the Church and it is just a way for the church to get money. My mom tried to explain this is not true, the church does not ask for that money, and never with in her life time have. My mom tried to tell her that many of the things her church have said about Catholics is not true. To this she responded "well every church does it" to which my mom responded "may be every church you have gone to but Catholic churches do not". There is one note I should add to this we did once have a new priest at a local church say something bad about another religion. This shocked the church and in a short amount of time he was removed from the church and a new priest was put in.
In my life I have been taught both at home and in my church to not only be tolerant of other religions but also to learn from them. If you could help me to fight further intolerance by sharing your stories plz do. I do ask that you do not refer to any specific groups as I have tried to done so we don't get in to a who my church would never say that kind of thing fight.
First I would like to share some of my experiences:
For me I normally only have had to deal with some people at school and at work that did not understand catholicism. The most common thing I have come across is having to explain Catholics are Christians. This may seem simple to most people as we are and in fact were the first main Christian Church (I am not counting the Christian Cults before Catholicism). But I have had to argue with more than one person that we are in fact Christian, I hope you can understand that having to argue that you are in fact a Christian is very very annoying as I am one and feel I should be able to call myself such. I have had other things such as telling people that when we take communion we do not in fact think were are eating the 2000 year old physically body of Jesus but its is spiritual and that we do in fact know that it is just physically bread and wine. I have had to deal with may other minor things but these are the most common ones.
Now my girlfriend has had it far worse than me. She has told me that in the town we grew up in there use to a church that catholics worship Marry and that we were all going to hell. The girls at her elementary school felt that it was O.K. to inform her of this and treat her as if she was going to hell. The pastor at this church has moved away, and the church is now not denominational and I have friends that go there now. This we are both thankful for.
My mom is a nurse does in home care of a boy who is very handy caped and is in a wheel chair. His family goes to a local church in which they teach that Catholicism is wrong, that we are going to hell. The woman that she works for when talking to my mom about lint said that when we give something up we are supposed to be giving the money we would be spending on what ever we are giving up to the Church and it is just a way for the church to get money. My mom tried to explain this is not true, the church does not ask for that money, and never with in her life time have. My mom tried to tell her that many of the things her church have said about Catholics is not true. To this she responded "well every church does it" to which my mom responded "may be every church you have gone to but Catholic churches do not". There is one note I should add to this we did once have a new priest at a local church say something bad about another religion. This shocked the church and in a short amount of time he was removed from the church and a new priest was put in.
In my life I have been taught both at home and in my church to not only be tolerant of other religions but also to learn from them. If you could help me to fight further intolerance by sharing your stories plz do. I do ask that you do not refer to any specific groups as I have tried to done so we don't get in to a who my church would never say that kind of thing fight.