An ex-Catholic woman found her way to our YouTube channel, and she has an axe to grind. Almost daily, she vomits her anger, hurt, and anti-Catholic rhetoric all over the comments section. Unfortunately, she is a typical example of anti-Catholics who, sadly, never knew their faith before they left. Then, they suddenly become experts on what Catholicism is about and how “evil” it is.
This article was written for two reasons…
1. To show how unstudied most ex-Catholics are and to demonstrate how far off-base their assertions can be. My hope is that other anti-Catholics will look at their own claims and make sure they are correct, not just emotional vomit against the Catholic Church.
2. To offer a Catholic response which shows what people assert and what the real truth is.
The Woman’s Anti-Catholic Arguments:
Here is this lady’s argument: “Catholics pray to their gods, not to God. Their prayers are not answered. The Mary of the Roman Catholic Church is a combination of pagan goddesses merged into one and named Mary by the early church. The “saints” are demons. To pray to the dead is forbidden by God and to pray to angels is also idolatry. When Catholics pray the Our Father, they don’t believe that He is the only one that answers prayers and they don’t believe that Jesus Christ is the only mediator. They believe that Mary as Jesus’ mother has the authority to give her Son orders and he will always obey her. Obviously that teaching of the RC church is as false as all its other teachings.
Wow! The saddest thing about this statement is that that not a single thing in the entire rant was accurate or even close to accurate. It is crystal clear that she has not read a single book or even an article written by a Catholic to verify if what she claims is true. Or to reveal that she is spreading lies and misinformation. All someone has to do is read the official Catechism of the Catholic Church. All of our beliefs are explained there. It’s as simple as ABC.
The problem for ex-Catholics is that it’s easier to yell, scream, rant, and attack than to undertake an honest search for the truth. I guess it’s easier to slander a church, but people who care about truth, do not do this for God is truth and He hates falsehood. Yet, everything this woman presented is falsehood and therefore not from God. Moreover, it reveals that she is a very emotional and broken soul who is in need of our prayers!
The Catholic Response:
Error #1: Catholics do not believe in many gods. In reading that, I immediately wanted to laugh at the lunacy of it… or cry. I would challenge this lady to back up her statement and to prove it from the Catechism or any official Catholic document. (She might thinking of Mormons 0_o)
Catholics believe in only one God. Eternal. Immortal. Uncreated. Omnipotent. The Creator of all things. We believe in the Trinity, three persons, one God, and Jesus is Lord of all. Here is proof from official Catholic documents.
Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Jesus himself affirms that God is ‘the one Lord’ whom you must love ‘with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ At the same time Jesus gives us to understand that he himself is the Lord. To confess that Jesus is Lord is distinctive of Christian faith. This is not contrary to belief in the One God. Nor does believing in the Holy Spirit as ‘Lord and giver of life’ introduce any division into the One God” (Paragraph 202).
The official Catholic Creed states: “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father” (Nicene Creed).
From one of many Vatican documents, Domini Iesus, “For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:4-6).“
See? One God! One Lord Jesus Christ. Official Catholic teaching. Anyone who does not believe this is not truly Catholic or has not been educated in the faith properly. In contrast, this woman never cites any sources or backs up her claims in any way… because she cannot.
Error #2: Mary is not a pagan goddess. She is not a goddess at all. She is only a human being, and no human can be God. Mary was the Mother of Jesus, who is God, and the Bible states that she followed God closely having great faith, humility, and obedience. She is a great example of living faith. But again, she is not a goddess, and Catholics do not believe that.
Some claim that Mary is “Queen of heaven,” which is a pagan belief. Spme pagans believed in a goddess “queen of heaven (like in Jer, 44), however, even a cursory overview of their beliefs puts in in another universe for what Catholics actually believe. They are not even close.
The Catholic belief is based on Scripture. In 1 and 2 Kings, you will read about the “Queen Mother,” or the “Mother of my Lord.” The king of Israel always had his mother reign by his side on her own throne. Of course, she was in no way the king’s equal, but she had authority and the highest respect. For example, Bathsheba was the queen with King David, and David loved and respected her. He did not worship her in any way.
The queen mother is often mentioned and is even listed among the members of the Royal Court in 2 Kings 24. In Jeremiah 13, her royal office is also described by the prophet Jeremiah, who tells how the queen mother possessed a throne and a crown, symbolic of her position of authority in the kingdom.
Jesus is the new and eternal King of Israel, and Mary His mother would be the queen mother. It’s that simple. Nothing to do with worshipping her. This title is exactly what Elizabeth calls Mary when she calls her, “the mother of my Lord” — same term as the queen mother in the Old Testament. We also see Mary in Revelation 12:1, the one who gave birth to Jesus, the male child who would rule all nations. The kings of old always honored to their mothers as queen, and Jesus did too. Nothing about worship. Only Jesus is the Lord of all!
Error #3: “The saints are demons.” Does anyone else observe how extreme some anti-Catholics and their mindsets are? Sadly, so many ex-Catholics are stunted and blinded by their anger and ignorance, that it leads to real extremism.
The truth is that the “saints” were regular people like you and me who lived extra-ordinary lives of holiness and who are in heaven. People like Mother Teresa, for example, who spent every day working with the poorest of the poor that everyone else forgot about. Is she a demon? What about the humble Vincent de Paul who spent his life loving Jesus and serving the poorest of the poor also? Is he a demon? Mt. 23 is the only time Jesus mentions the unforgivable sin, and it was to the Pharisees whose hearts were so hard that they called the things of God “the devil.” This lady should examine herself quickly!!
Error #4: The saints are dead. No, the saints are alive in heaven! Since Jesus died and rose from the dead, and broke the shackles of death, the dead are alive in heaven forever more, for “God is the God of the living!”
After all, in Matthew 17, Jesus speaks to the dead – Moses and Elijah. Also, Jesus tells a story of a rich man who spoke to Abraham (also dead). In 1 Samuel 28:15, Samuel, speaks to Saul after he dies. Likewise, in Revelation 6, it shows that the souls in heaven under the altar are alive and remember everything.
In Rev. 5:8, the elders receive the prayers of the saints and bring them to God. Analogously, Rev. 8:3-4 states that the angels are receiving the prayers of the saints on earth also and bringing them before the throne of God. So not only do we see that the saints are alive, and not dead, but we see intercessory prayer too like in Rev. 5:8 and Rev. 8.
Of course, Jesus is the one true mediator. Therefore, all intercessory prayer, whether we ask friends and family on earth to pray for us or the saints in heaven, all go to Jesus the one true mediator who brings our prayers before the Father. That is Catholic teaching.
From the Catholic encyclopedia and the Council of Trent: “As God-man, Jesus stands in the midst between God and man partaking of the natures of both, and therefore, by that very fact, fitted to act as Mediator between them. He is, indeed, the Mediator in the absolute sense of the word, in a way that no one else can possibly be. “For there is one God and one mediator of God and men the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Tim 2:5). … The saints who reign together with Christ offer up their own prayers to God for men. It is good and useful to invoke them, and to have recourse to their prayers aid, and help for obtaining benefits from God, through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, Who alone is our Redeemer and Savior.”
Error #5: Catholics do not believe that Mary “orders her son around.” How nice it would be if this lady could prove her assertions using Catholic documents. Of course, that is impossible. We believe that Mary’s prayers are powerful for sure, as hinted at in James 5:16. However, she is always perfectly subjected to God and His holy and perfect will just as she was on earth.
Our hope is that this post will help give many people a new understanding of Catholicism and bring some Catholics back home or help them to take a second look at their actions and patterns. This post helps to accentuate the great disparity between what anti-Catholics claim and what the Catholic Church actually believes, and it is very telling.
Thank you for reading! Feel free to share this with others and help spread the word with people who need to know and learn more about the Catholic faith.
