Why You Hate Catholics

As I read the questions that are being posed to Catholics, I see that almost all of the questions/problems that arise about Catholicism are based on a lack of knowledge about Catholicism.

Firstly, Catholics do not pray TO any of the saints. At least not in the way you are taking it. Catholics pray THROUGH the saints. Big difference. If you hear a Catholic say that he/she is “praying to a saint”, they simply mean that they are praying and asking the saint to relay a message to God for them. To use an analogy, a protestant may go to a Pastor and ask the Pastor to pray for him. The Pastor doesn’t say “no, you must speak to him yourself.” The Pastor listens to you and prays FOR you TO Jesus. This is a very similar thing that Catholics do with Mary and other saints. We talk to Mary and other saints through prayer and ask for them to pray for us and relay the message to God. That is not the same as idolizing another God. “bornagain”, you say “when you pray to anyone or anything, you are ascribing worship to it.” I completely disagree with you on that, for the aforementioned reasons that we are not “praying to” Mary in the sense that you mean. You simply don’t understand Catholicism if you think otherwise. Ask any Priest if you don’t believe me.

Secondly, having a statue/pictures of saints in a church is not “worshiping a false God”. Every legitimate (not commercialized) Catholic Church I’ve been to has a crucifix/Jesus front and center in the Church. The Catholic Church does not place the saints above Jesus or even on the same level as Jesus. Jesus is Christ and died for our sins. Period. Having statues/pictures of saints to commemorate them and use them as teaching tools/visual reminders is not “worshiping” them. The bible does not forbid statues/paintings used in this way. Examples: (Ex. 25:18–20) and (1 Chr. 28:18–19) to name a couple off the top of my head.

“bornagain” brought up that the sabbath should be on Saturday instead of Sunday because Saturday is the 7th day of the week. To me, that is a ridiculous thing to criticize Catholics for. Just by bringing that up, you are missing the point of having a sabbath day. You are getting into technicalities instead of looking at the reason behind the commandment. The point is to have a day at the end of the week to use as a time to reflect back on God and to help you regroup and put everything back in perspective before you go back to your busy lives again and “work”. Also, no one really knows when the 7th day actually was. The bible doesn’t say “on the seventh day, Saturday, God rested”. A day was arbitrarily picked (for reasons not known to me), and it stuck. Along the same lines: You do know that Jesus wasn’t actually born on December 25th, right? And have you noticed that the date of Easter changes every year? The specific date is not the importance. It’s about what the date stands for.

“bornagain” also said “Confession to The saviour and not to the priest. Jesus alone can forgive sins”. Again, you show a lack of understanding of the Catholic faith. We do not ask the Priest to forgive us. That’s completely wrong. The Priest simply acts as a mediator. Anyone can apologize and ask for forgiveness to God in their own head through prayer. But it takes true regret and shows true remorse (for the most part) to say your sins out loud to another human being. You should try it some time. It’s not easy for anyone who has a good set of morals and truly attempts to live as God intended. And if you read the bible, Jesus bestowed power upon his apostles to forgive sins IN THE NAME OF GOD. AKA, the Priest is not the one forgiving you. Rather, he is using power bestowed upon him to forgive in the name of God.

Next, anyone that claims “Catholics don’t read the bible” is either not knowledgeable about Catholicism or is talking to a non-serious Catholic. I assure you that practicing Catholics do read the bible. Every mass, excerpts are read from the bible. Catholics have bible studies. Etc. Anyone who says they’ve talked to a Catholic and were told they don’t read it was probably talking to a fringe-Catholic. That is, someone who goes through the motions but does not put in any additional effort into their religion other than going to mass for one hour a week. These fringe people can be found in all religions, not just Catholicism. Catholics should not be judged based on these select few.

I understand that you may not agree with all of my reasons, otherwise you would be Catholic. But I do hope that I gave answers to help you understand why it is that Catholics do certain things. And once again, Catholics do not “worship” saints. I cannot emphasize this enough. It is one of the most common and quite ignorant misconceptions about Catholicism.

I can’t hate Catholics or any religion. I am personally a happy Catholic. I know what you mean. My sister-in-law has been receiving negative questions since she decided to be Catholic. My brother is very devout and she is too now. My husband is Baptist but he watches all the Catholic tv he can to inform himself. He likes our faith very much. I once stood in a line where this girl started yelling that she was “immersed in holy water not just sprinkled.” I think it is just ignorance that leads to hate. Just like in discrimination of color so is discrimination of religious belief. It’s the cross we bare just like Jesus did.

I do not believe in any god or religious doctrine. I even think that religion can be very damaging in some peoples life and I actively fight religious injustice (and as it turns out, the Catholic church provides lots of issues that deserve to be hated with a passion: clerical sexual abuse, educational indoctrination, abuse of power, historical cultural hypocrisy, etc).
However, living in Ireland, virtually all my neighbours and most of my friends are Catholics. I grew up with Catholics, played with them, made love with them and cried with them and if one would generalize, they are the most tolerant, helpful and generous bunch of ‘lunies’ I know.

okay.. I’m a christian. And I certainly don’t hate catholics. But here’s the thing now days… People have simply forgotten about christ and focus primarily on how they think churches “should be”. And I know that some christians don’t think catholic churches are the way they “should be”… same goes for catholics. some don’t believe the christian church is the way it “should be”. My dad is a preacher so I’ve been around churches my whole life… and as wrong as it is… not all.. but many.. catholics AND christians have simply lost the message of God… The church is simply getting to caught up in itself.

Thats why some you think christians hate your religion.. they don’t… but its easy to mistake their behavior as hatred.

I don’t hate Catholics- I don’t hate any religion.

I couldn’t feel more blessed to be a Catholic. I get my own spiritual counselor, my priest. I get a support system rivaled by no other, the Mystical Body. I get not only Jesus’ grace and forgivness, but I get to be reminded of his sacrifice each week when I take the Holy Eucharist. I feel so much more closer to God as a Catholic than I ever did when I was sitting in a massive auditorium of people at the “non-deniminational Christian” church where I was judged for being baptized Catholic.

Catholicism has not been the perfect religion. We have had our share of mistakes and scandals, but it doesn’t effect my Savior’s love for me.

I don’t think Jesus could care less if you were Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, or anything else. He cares about your faith in him.

And for the record, we do not worship saints, Mary and the Pope above God and Jesus. We do not worship them at all. We pray to them for guidance because God has deemed them as worthy. We WORSHIP only one. The Lord.

I think that is where the problem comes in, many people don’t UNDERSTAND, especially Christians from other dominations. My one friend decided to turn to the Catholic denomination the other day, because it agreed most with what he believed in and immediately he had 10 other christian friends on his case.

You should also remember that when it comes to religion many people are close-minded, they want you to believe what they believe and unfortunately Catholics is quite different from the other Christian denominations and Christians struggle to accept that.

I am a Catholic and yes I do read the bible. Every Catholic I know reads the bible. We read the bible at church, so enternallife, please stop making statements about Catholism that are just not correct.

There are differences in the way we worship God at church and such but our more important beliefs, the ones that are most fundemental to us are the same as any other Christian denomination and im not saying that im right to a Catholic and that other Christians are wrong (actually, in most cases it feels like its other Christians telling me that I am wrong) for me its just what I feel comfortable withChristianity in general feels right to me no matter what denomination you are, its just that some of us express ourselves and our beliefs in different ways and I dont see whats wrong with that.

we christains don’t hate catholics.we just get tired of you guys not noticing that some of your beliefs are wrong and should be correctd

Elaborate please, also Christianity DIFFERS A LOT between all denominations, so by saying that you’re denomination is the right one, you are saying all the other Christian denominations are wrong.

CATHOLICS ALWAYS FEEL THE NEED TO PUSH THEIR VIEWS ON EVERYONE ELSE. CASE: TRYING TO STOP SAME SEX MARRIAGE. IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN IT, THEN DON’T DO IT BUT IT’S NONE OF YOUR PEOPLE’S BUSINESS WHAT EVERYONE ELSE DOES. IF YOU WANT TO BELIEVE IN SOME RIDICULOUS ALL KNOWING GUY IN THE SKY, THAT’S YOUR PROBLEM. DON’T MAKE IT EVERYONE ELSE’S.

EVERYONE FOR THEMSELVES HONEY. ITS NOT ONLY CATHOLICS WHO ARE NOT FOR THE SAME SEX MARRIAGE EVERY CHRISTIAN AT THIS CHURCH CENTER IN MY LITTLE TOWN WAS PICKETING AGAINST IT. NOONE JUST HATES A CATHOLIC AND NOONE JUST HATES A CHRISTIAN. SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST IGNORANT AND SO FILLED WITH THEIR “LOVE TO HATE” THEY LOST THEiR EFFIN MIND!! DRAMA AND GOSSIP AND ALL THAT IS JUST HATRED AND ITS JUST BEING JUDGMENTAL. ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE YOU BABY AND IF THEY HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE CATHOLIC, “FUGGEDABOUDiT”… LOVE YOURSELF AND KEEP YOUR FAITH. ALL WILL BE FINE.

Catholics defy Christ by claiming Christ said things and meant things He clearly never did. Catholic place the Pope and the saints before Christ, and worship graven images and idols of the saints. In any Catholic church, there are always way more images and statues of saints than there are of Jesus on the cross. Also, Catholics don’t worship the risen Christ. They worship the dead Christ and His dead body and dead blood. They claim they can re-sacrifice Jesus every time they say Mass by claiming they can turn bread and wine into real flesh and blood and then they eat it, thinking it’s the dead Jesus’ flesh and blood. They also exert mind control and force over their followers by making all kind of crazy rules Catholics have to follow in order to go to heaven, and they believe non-Catholics will go to hell for not being Catholic. They also believe that being Catholic places you above others automatically and that they’re always better than everyone else.

I was also under the impression that Catholics are Christian. Around here it is considered the same thing, Catholics are just another Christian denomination. As the for you question.. I think most Christians seem to have a problem with the catholic’s way of doing things e.g. how they pray and who they pray to (I hope I am correct, but don’t catholics pray through Mary??)

Thank you utopia for telling it like it is. We are ousted in this subtle way sometimes because if you say you are Christian than the assumption is that Catholics aren’t Christian too.

I don’t hate you. In my immediate family, there is 1 hardcore Catholic, one atheist, one agnostic Baptist, one generic Christian, and one “don’t know don’t care”.

If I had to choose between Catholics and Baptists to hang out with, Catholics would win hands down.

Hey Sammiejoe,

Happy to see that you are growing in your faith, sad to hear that you were feeling judged becasue of your faith but please remember that it comes with the territory of being a christian. we have always been judged and it will continue that way. everyone who stands for something will alwasy come under attack.

And for the record, we do not worship saints, Mary and the Pope above God and Jesus. We do not worship them at all. We pray to them for guidance because God has deemed them as worthy. We WORSHIP only one. The Lord.

when you pray to anyone or anything, you are ascribing worship to it. there is nowhere in the Bible that endorsed prayer to Mary or the Pope. if you show me I would be happpy to discuss this with you.

your greatest guidance comes from the Bible. Use it to test your doctrines.

Im SIB its like the Basels…well I dont hate chatolic…what maybe bugging you is people always have question on what is the difference…Cathoilic is christian but I dont know that if this a study of christian, but christian have 3 types, protestant(sib,basel…), roman catholic, (and another that I forgot, maybe SDA)…but just be patient and beleive in God…

Yes. She would be closest to God if she was chosen by Him to be mother of Jesus His only son she should be closest. We pray through her not to her. We don’t have pagan beliefs either. We have pictures and statues as reminders and nothing else. You look at your family pics as a reminder of who they were not that you worship them either. It’s a deep misunderstood concept.

As a jew, I always found it interesting that many christians don’t consider catholics to be christian. To a jew, if you believe in christ, you are christian, or gentile as I like to say.

Im christian but I don’t hate your religion I don’t even know anything about them to hate not every christian hates catholics only the ones you came into contact with that hates catholics

I’m Catholic and I fully agree with luthien. Most of the things that Christians dislike about Catholics are things they do not fully understand. And the disagreement about justification by faith alone also hinders the ability of Christians and Catholics to agree with and understand each other. I personally am sick of protestants telling me why I am wrong when they don’t fully understand things themselves. Some are understanding, but others make judgments and assumptions based on false information and stereotypes of the Catholic Church.