Cradle Catholics vs Converts

[Anonymous]

IME converts are often protestant and tend to be much more conservative. They find their churches too progressive and like the latin mass. They don't like pope Francis.

I am a liberal cradle catholic and never thought pope Francis was a radical - just that he spoke about our beliefs as I understood them.

I won't leave the church in part because I don't want to be a WASP - agree the cultural Catholic ties are strong and cross countries.

[Anonymous]

Well, there shouldn't be a "vs."

But of course, there is. It is true that converts often come in with deep Christian knowledge. They've probably spent more time with the Bible than most Catholics.

The church has to find ways to keep the cradle Catholics and welcome the converts, and the cradle Catholics shouldn't be snobby toward the converts.

Catholicism seems to be having a moment, and I hope we can keep the loving grace of a Pope Francis without succumbing to the more conservative wing.

Wishful thinking, maybe.

[Anonymous]

This whole thing started because Suzanne Lambert (tiktok influencer from Alexandria) made fun of JD Vance. She's totally right - converts who try to get all the gold stars get the side-eye from cradle Catholics. OF COUSE JD is party of Opus Dei, so he can believe he out-Catholic'ed the lifelong Catholics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, there shouldn't be a "vs."

But of course, there is. It is true that converts often come in with deep Christian knowledge. They've probably spent more time with the Bible than most Catholics.

The church has to find ways to keep the cradle Catholics and welcome the converts, and the cradle Catholics shouldn't be snobby toward the converts.

Catholicism seems to be having a moment, and I hope we can keep the loving grace of a Pope Francis without succumbing to the more conservative wing.

Wishful thinking, maybe.

Vs is a comparison not a competition…

Nobody is being “snobby” just that there is a clear difference in how they practice. Like make 2 columns and compare

1. Bible study vs non Bible study
2. Understanding catechism and cannon law vs not even knowing what that is
3. Having catholic parents/grandparents/cousins/friend vs having a few catholic friends

Neither is better. It’s just different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole thing started because Suzanne Lambert (tiktok influencer from Alexandria) made fun of JD Vance. She's totally right - converts who try to get all the gold stars get the side-eye from cradle Catholics. OF COUSE JD is party of Opus Dei, so he can believe he out-Catholic'ed the lifelong Catholics.

I don’t want this thread to be about JD Vance, but here’s perfect example.

He didn’t baptize his children as Catholic.

He even talks about his seven-year-old “choosing” to be baptized in the “Christian” faith.

That is in no way shape or form anything a practicing cradle Catholic would ever do.

Again, I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. I’m just saying it’s not something we do.

[Anonymous]

Btw Suzanne Lambert is a comedian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s a lot of discussion online about the difference between cradle Catholics and converts and the difference in just being seeped in the culture of being catholic and converting and trying to learn from a book.

Anybody else following this?

Many explain it much better than I can. As a multigenerational cradle Catholics I feel like it’s finally being explained in a way I never could.

I could see many returning to being more active if we could just connect with more cradle Catholics.

can you provide some links? I have not noticed any discussion, though it does interest me. I am a convert and generally find that I have a lot of trouble connecting with cradle Catholics. I don't know any of the cultural stuff they know, and they generally lack much real knowledge of theology.

The "cultural" stuff is usually just that - cultural, not religious. It comes from having an Italian, Irish, Polish, Hispanic or German family. It doesn't actually come from Catholicism.

It’s cultural for sure, but as an Irish Catholic, I can talk to an Italian Catholic and we will share experiences where if I talk to an Italian Protestant, we wouldn’t show those cultural experiences, which is why it’s a Catholic culture not a culture based on where your ancestors are from.

Are you talking about Americans with Irish and Italian immigrant ancestry in the 1800s or actual Italians, etc? Those are very different conversations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s a lot of discussion online about the difference between cradle Catholics and converts and the difference in just being seeped in the culture of being catholic and converting and trying to learn from a book.

Anybody else following this?

Many explain it much better than I can. As a multigenerational cradle Catholics I feel like it’s finally being explained in a way I never could.

I could see many returning to being more active if we could just connect with more cradle Catholics.

can you provide some links? I have not noticed any discussion, though it does interest me. I am a convert and generally find that I have a lot of trouble connecting with cradle Catholics. I don't know any of the cultural stuff they know, and they generally lack much real knowledge of theology.

The "cultural" stuff is usually just that - cultural, not religious. It comes from having an Italian, Irish, Polish, Hispanic or German family. It doesn't actually come from Catholicism.

It’s cultural for sure, but as an Irish Catholic, I can talk to an Italian Catholic and we will share experiences where if I talk to an Italian Protestant, we wouldn’t show those cultural experiences, which is why it’s a Catholic culture not a culture based on where your ancestors are from.

Are you talking about Americans with Irish and Italian immigrant ancestry in the 1800s or actual Italians, etc? Those are very different conversations.

In my experience, it’s all Italians and Irish, who lived in their countries. Italian and Irish immigrants. And Italian and Irish Americans.

The point wasn’t to debate cradle Catholic versus converts. The question was really about. Was anybody else seeing the conversation and finding it interesting how we all have the same experiences all over the world actually.

It was awesome to hear after so many years all these experiences people had as Catholics that I completely identified with.

And they were all pretty hilarious.

I work with a woman who was raised in India but she went to Catholic school and she and I had so much in common from that experience it was wild.

I also had a coworker who was from West Africa, but moved to England and went to a Catholic school and we were joking about some of the things in common that went on in Catholic school, even though they were in different countries.

[Anonymous]

As a cradle Catholic I have more in common with Jews than Protestants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a cradle Catholic I have more in common with Jews than Protestants

This wasn’t discussed in the recent discussions online, but this has been found to be true when getting married there’s a lot of research that Catholics and Jews have a lot in common and have one of the most successful marriages of people having different religions.

It would be interesting to see if cradle Catholics more so than converts.

[Anonymous]

I am cradle Catholic my wife is a convert from Protestantism. (Nothing to do with politics and she's more liberal than me.)

I like converts because one thing most Protestant denominations do well is keep it simple and keep it about Jesus. Sometimes Catholics get distracted with all the smells and bells and the canon law and the history and the debates and forget the MOST important thing is connecting with and conforming our soul to the Source. The easiest way to do that is to understand that the Source came down and took human form to show us the path to eternal life and follow the example He set for us. If someone starts there, you can build outward to infinity. But if you forget the basics, everything falls apart.

I could make various other criticisms of Protestantism but they tend to get that simple part right in their teaching more often than Catholics.

[Anonymous]

cradle catholic - I don't want our intellectual tradition to fade away. the church should be living and changing - not sure that is what is happening.

[Anonymous]

The demarcation throws the conversation off.

There are absolutely cradle Catholics who are deep in Bible study (Bible in a Year was a smashing success in Catholic circles), know the catechism well, and generally try to actively live out their faith/the sacraments.

There are also cradle Catholics who are (a) poorly formed in the faith; (b) not particularly active in the faith; or (c) do not identify with it as a faith but rather as a cultural identity. There are other types, too.

On (a) I once had someone in total shock tell me they had never heard of HDOs and they had been educated by Jesuits for 13 years (you don’t say!) and clearly I was making it up.

On (b) a poster up thread mentioned not being particularly active in the Church.

On (c) there is the poster who mentioned Jewish and Catholic interfaith marriages working well; which sort of fits the bill (both ways).

These are all individuals captured by “cradle Catholic” along with everyone else. Just too broad of a term.

Given that converts are more likely to be conservative (not always), and that the swath of cradle Catholics is just way too broad to categorize, I don’t think these comparisons are helpful.

I do think that converts can be caught by surprise by just how big the tent of Catholicism is and the many ways people practice within that tent.

I also think converts can struggle with the mysticism within Catholicism. One of my closest friends is a convert (but his wife is cradle). We’ve taken our families on multiple pilgrimages together to places like Mexico City and Rome and he is still learning to embrace the mysticism. We’re planning on going to Fatima next year and that will be another interesting case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s a lot of discussion online about the difference between cradle Catholics and converts and the difference in just being seeped in the culture of being catholic and converting and trying to learn from a book.

Anybody else following this?

Many explain it much better than I can. As a multigenerational cradle Catholics I feel like it’s finally being explained in a way I never could.

I could see many returning to being more active if we could just connect with more cradle Catholics.

can you provide some links? I have not noticed any discussion, though it does interest me. I am a convert and generally find that I have a lot of trouble connecting with cradle Catholics. I don't know any of the cultural stuff they know, and they generally lack much real knowledge of theology.

If you go to Instagram or TikTok and just search on cradle Catholic, you’ll get a bunch of posts.

Many of the posts are tongue in cheek because that sort of how cradle Catholics talk about religion. It’s literally like being Italian like you can’t explain what it’s like to be Italian. You just are Italian.

Cradle Catholics are from soup to nuts. Every little bit of our life is catholic..

My grandmother would say, Jesus, Mary and Joseph every time something happened. Every time I scrape my knee, they would say offered up as a sacrifice to God. These are just teeny tiny examples of how Catholicism permeated my life.

They also talk about converts really know the “Bible”, but they don’t know Catholicism, which would be the study of the catechism or Cannon Law or understanding Humanea vitae or what happened in Vatican 2 or each iteration of the translation of the Bible like the 1946 translation of the Bible would be something that a cradle Catholic would know but maybe a convert wouldn’t know

They talk about how converts study the Bible, which is something Catholics do not specifically do. We don’t really do Bible study.

Converts often don’t really understand Saints or the role of Mary in the church because they come from religions where they have a personal relationship with God. Or they come from a religion where all you have to do is believe Jesus is your Lord and your savior to be saved and Catholics really have to go through a maze of rules and life choices to get to heaven.

In my experience, converts know more than cradle catholics because they actually study the religion as adults.

In my experience, converts are familiar with the law, but don't understand the spirit at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Converted Catholics are the worst. Vance is Exhibit A

- a Cradle Catholic

We called people like him born again Christians. Didn't matter the religion. It was a narcissist finding religion as a tool for personal superiority rather than being on a journey to live the faith daily.