Do you believe that there are people posting on this thread who are somehow willing to do you harm because you are Catholic?
The most you have to fear from any on these kinds of threads, I believe, is that we will continue to attempt to pursuade people away from Catholicism as a form of religion so that they will not be just like our Catholic family members and neighbors.
Not any physical harm. However, I do believe that some are unstable and irrational in their opposition to the Church.
Let me tell you about my Catholic friends and neighbors.
With God and my guardian angel watching me key these words, which are true:
* The example of the Catholic neighbor when I was a little girl who was my first experience with any Catholic and became my godmother at my baptism at age 21
* The wonderful priest, now deceased, who was my spiritual adviser for many years
* The parishioners at my parish, where I have gone to Mass for many, many years. They were the ones who prayed with me when I needed it, gathered in my home for Scripture study, gave me courage and the support of prayers in the face of a tragedy in my life. They are also the ones who helped to support Vietnamese refugees (in the wake of ‘Nam)) with housing and sustenance, and who also did the same for Sudanese and Iraqi refugees from persecution.
* The over 100 fellow parishioners who are there at morning weekday Masses to share Mass and prayer with me and to provide the “shelter” of their friendship as described in the Book of Proverbs
* The priests and lay people who helped in the catchesis of our children
* The countless number of people who come to the 24-hour prayer chapel at the parish. The chapel is open 24/7 and there are always people there, at any hour of day or night. They come as young couples to pray together, they come when they get off their night shift at the hospital and before they go home to sleep, they come leaving prayer requests in a notebook there for that purpose: that we would be aware for the needs of others and pray for them. They come in all ages and sizes. They come in good weather and in bad. They come with their Bibles.
* My own children—who have blessed me in my old age with their prayerful lives and their loving concern for their parents and for each other.
It is a Biblical truth: “all that is hidden will be revealed”. Because so much of what I have described as my experience of living life as a Catholic may seem not-so-typical to those of you who are not Catholic, you would be very surprised at how widespread it is without being noticed by anyone.
There’s a life going on that is hidden from many, but is very real and is happening. One day, it will all be revealed.
Yes.
Not physical harm. But there is no question in my mind that there are people posting on this and on other threads who do violence to the truth in almost every post.
There are many facets of my leaving Protestantism, but one was this: The Episcopal Church seemed to have chosen disobedience, and having chosen to abuse the faculty of choice, it became unable to choose at all. At first, the process was slow, and there were excellent theologians and pious men and women. But especially since the Lambeth Council of 1930 the Episcopal Church became more and more a group with a thin shell of specious piety and deliberation covering a body in feckless turmoil.
For example, the House of Bishops could resolve not to ordain practicing homosexuals, and Bishop Spong could ordain a practicing homosexual shortly after the passage of that resolution. And for this he would acquire fame and prominence.
So, whichever side one might take on the question itself, one was left wondering what exactly was the point of the solemn (and not inexpensive) gathering of alleged bishops if none of them held himself bound by what they had decided together? It was like children playing church, not like anything real.
Similarly, on these threads I see truth of any kind being despised in favor of scoring rhetorical points. Consider: we have a half a millennium of estrangement; there are vastly different 'cultures' and terminologies; systems and methods vary.
For example, let's look at the issue of "blessed assurance." If Bunyan is any authority, it's not foreign to reform Protestantism to think that "everybody talkin' 'bout heaven ain't goin' there." "Ignorance" in Pilgrim's Progress, as I have remembered since I first read the book before I was a teenager, is bundled off to hell even at the gates of heaven. And on the other hand, we Catholics fondly repeat tales of Dominic and Terese confidently asserting that they will be in heaven, and in heaven will intercede for all of us with the availing prayers of the righteous. And none of us (I think) says they are presumptuous.
So those are the phenomena - Calvinists who think they are assured of heaven going to hell instead (if one takes Bunyan as authoritative -- and I promise myself a re-read of the book as a Christmas present to myself), and Catholics who sure SOUND like they are enjoying the blessed assurance.
Instead of looking at this kind of thing with the care and charity of estranged brothers, we end up debating like testosterone-drunken teenagers, or like hoodlums.
So I fear for all of us, and a few of us have an interdenominational group devoted to prayer for all of us, because those who prefer triumph to truth will have neither, while those who have the grace to embrace humility for the truth will have triumph as well.