You must be on a different religion forum than I’ve been on, or perhaps outrageous statements only register for you when coming from outside your particular sect, because Protestants have been being called heretics for the entire 13 years I’ve been here, on the religion forum with which I’m familiar. Am I going to go back and name every single one? No, I’m not going to spend days looking for it, but do me a favor and police your own going forward, since you’ve made the offer. It will be much appreciated.
Not to be unduly challenging, but just reaching for clarity here: You say thee are "quite a few" Catholics in FR who say Protestants are not Christians. Could you find me one? Seriously.
I've honestly not seen it, but if you have, I want to swing into my self-appointed but hopefully constructive role of Mater et Magistra and Remedial Catechist Lady.
I don't know what your experience has been here at FR, but it's possible there may have been a misunderstanding of basic terms. Believing in a heresy (a religious error) or being in schism (formal church separation, esp. with bishops not in communion with each other) is not the same as being "non-Christian" or "damned."
I fully expect to see throngs of blessed souls rejoicing around the Throne of God who might have been involved in some degree of heresy or schism on this earth. As far as I can see (I speak here of my own observation), most heresy and schism stems from having been born and raised in a "separated" group and involves honest mistakes with no conscious choice against the Truth.
You have to be pretty "knowing" and "intentional" --- in other words, informed and deliberate --- to be culpable guilty of "formal heresy" especially in today's world, where confusion is so endemic.
Jesus is a just judge: so just, that when He makes His judgment, every single soul will say, "He's a genius: He's speaking exactly to my heart and my condition, and He got that absolutely right."
So Catholic doctrine explicitly teaches that a person in innocent error is not, for that reason, non-Christian or hated by God or damned.
I suppose there may be people who don't know that.
So far you haven't name a SINGLE one, let alone the "tons" you claim to "know".
Mrs. Don-o and I were curious because from personal experience we would find it very strange to see a catechism-beliving faithful Catholic try to argue with a straight face that devout mainstream protestants "are not Christian". I've never met anyone who says that in this day and age. It would be like hearing a Trump voter argue that George W. Bush was not President.
I had an interesting debate on facebook with fellow Catholics about a week ago, and they claimed the opposite: that they had "never" seen a devout protestant facebook friend claim Catholics "are not Christian". I was then able to show a discussion thread from only one day earlier where one of the board members on their friends list made a public statement that "many people do not know the real truth behind the Catholic Church, that it mixes Christian-sounding terms with paganism so to be Catholic means that one is not a Christian and does not know Christ"
Funny how they "never" noticed comments like that.
Agree! I've seen this "challenge" put out there before and I doubt the sincerity. We could probably all show comments from various and assorted RCs on these threads that have said EXACTLY that "Protestants" or non-Catholics are not Christians and are bound for hell unless they "come home to Rome". I could name five such offenders just from memory.
The problem, like you said, would be the time it would take to comb through threads and pick them out only to be accused after all that work of "dragging disputes across threads" or "playing the martyr". They are there and they know who "they" are. Here's one:
“And you my friend, and the rest of this heretics that deny God’s Pilgrim Church on Earth will bust hell wide open one day.” (I'll Freepmail you the commenter's name and thread if you really want it.)