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He wrote to me in all innocence, a reader from a Catholic country where Mormon missionaries had only recently begun to gather congregations of believers. "I asked my priest," he said, "and he told me that Mormons are a cult."

Well what have Mormon Apostles called Catholics?

In explaining a passage from the Book of Mormon, late LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie wrote,

It is also to the Book of Mormon to which we turn for the plainest description of the Catholic Church as the great and abominable church. Nephi saw this “church which is most abominable above all other churches” in vision. He “saw the devil that he was the foundation of it” and also the murders, wealth, harlotry, persecutions, and evil desires that historically have been a part of this satanic organization. (1 Ne. 13:1-10)He saw that this most abominable of all churches was founded after the day of Christ and his apostles; that it took away from the gospel of the lamb many covenants and many plain and precious parts; that it perverted the right ways of the Lord; that it deleted many teachings from the Bible; that this church was the “mother of harlots;”… (1 Ne. 13:24-42)
Nephi beheld further that this church was the “mother of abominations,” and “the whore of all the earth”… (Mormon Doctrine, 1958 edition, page 130)

Later in the same book Apostle McConkie expanded on the doctrine a bit:

…speaking of harlots in the figurative sense, [Nephi] designated the Catholic Church as “the mother of harlots” (1 Nephi 13:34; 14:15-17), a title which means that the protestant churches, the harlot daughters which broke off from the great and abominable church, would themselves be apostate churches.” (ibid., page 315)

Now which is more offensive?

A Catholic priest calling the Mormon church a "cult",

or a MORMON APOSTLE calling the Catholic Church "The great and abominable church... most abominable of all churches... mother of harlots...mother of abominations..., and the whore of all the earth"?