Catholic Perception

Yesterday, I saw a tweet that said “are any Catholics going to give up hating women for Lent this year instead of chocolate?”  Seeing this brought to mind a quote from Fulton Sheen.  He says, “There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.”  Opening up social media, consuming other types of media, and having conversations in-person regularly reveal the countless misconceptions that people have about Catholics and the Church.  Sometimes, it is former Catholics who partake in sharing contempt for Catholics and misinformation about the beliefs and practices.  As Catholics we cannot just sit back and watch.  

The teachings of the Catholic Church are good and true.  Our beliefs about the Eucharist, the right to life and dignity of every person, marriage/family are just a few areas that identify us as Catholics.  It is our job to work to present our faith and beliefs whenever the opportunity arises, especially as the culture works to twist the Church’s beliefs and set forth false ideas.

If we remain silent about our beliefs for fear of offending someone, then our beliefs are really not that important to us.  This can sometimes be a hard pill to swallow.  However, when it comes down to what really matters, we need to ask ourselves an important question.  Do we value the truth of Christ or the opinions of others?  Being human, we naturally want other people to like us.  We want their validation and don’t want to offend anyone.  Putting Jesus and the truth of our faith above what other people think is something we need to work on every day.  It does not automatically happen all at once.

We usually cannot change people’s minds and opinions.  What we can, and need, to do when Catholic beliefs are attacked is present the truths of what we believe boldly, and most importantly, with love.  We can ask others why they believe what they do and try to understand where they have gotten their information from.

​Our beliefs and teachings are central to the faith.  They are what we stand for and they help us know God by showing us His truth.  However, there will always be people who fail to understand what we believe.  There will always be people who tell us we are wrong.  There will always be people who have different beliefs.  All of this is okay.  People may always wrongly perceive what we believe as Catholics.  May they never wrongly perceive who we are as Catholics; a community of people who love like Christ.  When people interact with me, do they experience the love of Christ?  Reflect on this question today and every day.