Cradle Catholics vs Converts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is a really good example of something cradle Catholic would never say or would be met with a deer in headlights.

Really a cradle catholic only cares about doing unto others, what would Jesus do, feed the poor, be kind. We’re not all about the source whatever the hell that is.

I agree Catholicism (not cradle Catholics) loves the rules and all the other crazy stuff. We aren’t the Council of bishops. We are Cradle Catholics we know all the rules, but don’t get all tied up in them because we know all the loopholes, and we all know all the contradictions.

Also, besides love being the greatest of them all we understand primacy of conscience.

I mean, seriously if you started talking to cradle Catholics about the source and the soul and blah blah blah yeah you would lose them immediately.

Now, if you come to them and say hey, we’re gonna be feeding the poor, clothing the homeless or building a house for someone they’d be all in.

Did you read PP's post? He is a cradle Catholic, and he wrote (said) that. In other words, he said what you claim a cradle Catholic would never say.

All cradle catholics are not alike. Why would we be?

[Anonymous]

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.

I'm a cradle Catholic, English speaker and American. I'm still American and still speak English. Those things are OK. I'm not Catholic any more, though. Personal choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is a really good example of something cradle Catholic would never say or would be met with a deer in headlights.

Really a cradle catholic only cares about doing unto others, what would Jesus do, feed the poor, be kind. We’re not all about the source whatever the hell that is.

I agree Catholicism (not cradle Catholics) loves the rules and all the other crazy stuff. We aren’t the Council of bishops. We are Cradle Catholics we know all the rules, but don’t get all tied up in them because we know all the loopholes, and we all know all the contradictions.

Also, besides love being the greatest of them all we understand primacy of conscience.

I mean, seriously if you started talking to cradle Catholics about the source and the soul and blah blah blah yeah you would lose them immediately.

Now, if you come to them and say hey, we’re gonna be feeding the poor, clothing the homeless or building a house for someone they’d be all in.

I used the Source as a non-Christian term that might help a non-Christian understand what I am talking about. People use terms like that in new age spirituality, it's not really a Protestant term. However, it is accurate. (Not everything about new age spirituality is wrong, btw, just like not everything about Islam is wrong either.)

I do agree with you on the substance of your message. Many Catholics have very thin faith that's comprised of works and understanding history and not based on a deep spiritual connection with God. Because Protestants don't emphasize works or history, they do a better job of making sure people in their congregation actually have a deep spiritual life. In that way, they are superior to Catholics.

I am happy being Catholic. Protestant theology is all mangled because it's disconnected from history, and they constantly splinter into sects that disagree and then end up generations later with people that don't even understand what the disagreement is about. But on a personal level I find individual Protestants to usually be stronger in their faith than individual Catholics. And that's a shame.

lol, what?

You continue feeling complete in your spiritual connections and all. God bless!

I’m gonna go do a good act for someone else and then not tell anybody about it in honor of my “thin faith”, ✝️😂 then I’m gonna say Seven Hail Marys in four our father’s feeling guilty that I didn’t help more people.

You know this whole thing isn’t about which is better.

Serving at a soup kitchen and saying penance is great, but "it is by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works."

The Catholic Church signed the ecumenical declaration that affirmed that teaching.

Faith in Christ is the source and summit of the Christian faith. My point is that some Catholics (I don't know about you, just some Catholics) are so focused on the soup kitchen and the Hail Marys that they forget about the single most important thing. We could learn from our Protestant brothers and sisters in that regard.

Nope. That’s an other denominationChristian teaching Catholic’s teach you only get into heaven by being good.

“Man, by his natural endowments, cannot produce meritorious works proportionate to eternal life; but for this, a higher power is needed, viz., the power of grace. And thus, without grace, man cannot merit eternal life” (Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 109, A. 5).

Nope

Atheist can go to heaven.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is a really good example of something cradle Catholic would never say or would be met with a deer in headlights.

Really a cradle catholic only cares about doing unto others, what would Jesus do, feed the poor, be kind. We’re not all about the source whatever the hell that is.

I agree Catholicism (not cradle Catholics) loves the rules and all the other crazy stuff. We aren’t the Council of bishops. We are Cradle Catholics we know all the rules, but don’t get all tied up in them because we know all the loopholes, and we all know all the contradictions.

Also, besides love being the greatest of them all we understand primacy of conscience.

I mean, seriously if you started talking to cradle Catholics about the source and the soul and blah blah blah yeah you would lose them immediately.

Now, if you come to them and say hey, we’re gonna be feeding the poor, clothing the homeless or building a house for someone they’d be all in.

I used the Source as a non-Christian term that might help a non-Christian understand what I am talking about. People use terms like that in new age spirituality, it's not really a Protestant term. However, it is accurate. (Not everything about new age spirituality is wrong, btw, just like not everything about Islam is wrong either.)

I do agree with you on the substance of your message. Many Catholics have very thin faith that's comprised of works and understanding history and not based on a deep spiritual connection with God. Because Protestants don't emphasize works or history, they do a better job of making sure people in their congregation actually have a deep spiritual life. In that way, they are superior to Catholics.

I am happy being Catholic. Protestant theology is all mangled because it's disconnected from history, and they constantly splinter into sects that disagree and then end up generations later with people that don't even understand what the disagreement is about. But on a personal level I find individual Protestants to usually be stronger in their faith than individual Catholics. And that's a shame.

lol, what?

You continue feeling complete in your spiritual connections and all. God bless!

I’m gonna go do a good act for someone else and then not tell anybody about it in honor of my “thin faith”, ✝️😂 then I’m gonna say Seven Hail Marys in four our father’s feeling guilty that I didn’t help more people.

You know this whole thing isn’t about which is better.

Serving at a soup kitchen and saying penance is great, but "it is by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works."

The Catholic Church signed the ecumenical declaration that affirmed that teaching.

Faith in Christ is the source and summit of the Christian faith. My point is that some Catholics (I don't know about you, just some Catholics) are so focused on the soup kitchen and the Hail Marys that they forget about the single most important thing. We could learn from our Protestant brothers and sisters in that regard.

Nope. That’s an other denominationChristian teaching Catholic’s teach you only get into heaven by being good.

“Man, by his natural endowments, cannot produce meritorious works proportionate to eternal life; but for this, a higher power is needed, viz., the power of grace. And thus, without grace, man cannot merit eternal life” (Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 109, A. 5).

Nope

Atheist can go to heaven.

That's a separate debate, and I'm inclined to agree with you, though obviously it's a riskier life strategy, but that's not what this quote is about.

It says you can't "get into heaven by being good." No human can produce good works proportionate to the good of eternal life. So merit cannot be enough. There is a gap between the goodness you can produce and the goodness of eternal life. (A huge one.) That gap is filled by grace, a gift freely offered by God that is unearned (by us) and undeserved.

(The beauty of grace is that it makes life unfair.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is a really good example of something cradle Catholic would never say or would be met with a deer in headlights.

Really a cradle catholic only cares about doing unto others, what would Jesus do, feed the poor, be kind. We’re not all about the source whatever the hell that is.

I agree Catholicism (not cradle Catholics) loves the rules and all the other crazy stuff. We aren’t the Council of bishops. We are Cradle Catholics we know all the rules, but don’t get all tied up in them because we know all the loopholes, and we all know all the contradictions.

Also, besides love being the greatest of them all we understand primacy of conscience.

I mean, seriously if you started talking to cradle Catholics about the source and the soul and blah blah blah yeah you would lose them immediately.

Now, if you come to them and say hey, we’re gonna be feeding the poor, clothing the homeless or building a house for someone they’d be all in.

I used the Source as a non-Christian term that might help a non-Christian understand what I am talking about. People use terms like that in new age spirituality, it's not really a Protestant term. However, it is accurate. (Not everything about new age spirituality is wrong, btw, just like not everything about Islam is wrong either.)

I do agree with you on the substance of your message. Many Catholics have very thin faith that's comprised of works and understanding history and not based on a deep spiritual connection with God. Because Protestants don't emphasize works or history, they do a better job of making sure people in their congregation actually have a deep spiritual life. In that way, they are superior to Catholics.

I am happy being Catholic. Protestant theology is all mangled because it's disconnected from history, and they constantly splinter into sects that disagree and then end up generations later with people that don't even understand what the disagreement is about. But on a personal level I find individual Protestants to usually be stronger in their faith than individual Catholics. And that's a shame.

lol, what?

You continue feeling complete in your spiritual connections and all. God bless!

I’m gonna go do a good act for someone else and then not tell anybody about it in honor of my “thin faith”, ✝️😂 then I’m gonna say Seven Hail Marys in four our father’s feeling guilty that I didn’t help more people.

You know this whole thing isn’t about which is better.

Serving at a soup kitchen and saying penance is great, but "it is by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works."

The Catholic Church signed the ecumenical declaration that affirmed that teaching.

Faith in Christ is the source and summit of the Christian faith. My point is that some Catholics (I don't know about you, just some Catholics) are so focused on the soup kitchen and the Hail Marys that they forget about the single most important thing. We could learn from our Protestant brothers and sisters in that regard.

Nope. That’s an other denominationChristian teaching Catholic’s teach you only get into heaven by being good.

“Man, by his natural endowments, cannot produce meritorious works proportionate to eternal life; but for this, a higher power is needed, viz., the power of grace. And thus, without grace, man cannot merit eternal life” (Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 109, A. 5).

Nope

Atheist can go to heaven.

That's a separate debate, and I'm inclined to agree with you, though obviously it's a riskier life strategy, but that's not what this quote is about.

It says you can't "get into heaven by being good." No human can produce good works proportionate to the good of eternal life. So merit cannot be enough. There is a gap between the goodness you can produce and the goodness of eternal life. (A huge one.) That gap is filled by grace, a gift freely offered by God that is unearned (by us) and undeserved.

(The beauty of grace is that it makes life unfair.)

Even if that is true (but it’s not in the Catholic Church), you can’t get into heaven by “accepting Jesus as your savior” in the Catholic Church. If you just wanna accept, Jesus, is your savior and not do act good don’t be a Catholic.

Reality is, there’s a whole bunch of hoops to jump through in the Catholic Church to be accepted into heaven if you are Catholic. You have to be baptized in the Catholic Church for starters. You have to go to church on Sundays. You have to go to church on holidays of obligation.

The list is endless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Nobody said that cradle Catholics don’t read the Bible. They said they don’t go to Bible study.

Also, nobody said that cradle Catholics are all the same what was said is that they have some themes and shared experiences that are the same that make them feel connected to each other.

They could have 80% of their experiences be different but the 20% that is the same that other people don’t experience is what they were bonding over.

I’d be really surprised if a cradle cat was getting all wrapped up in the mysticism of anything. I haven’t been to Fatima yet but most my family has and it’s just like oh wow that was cool. There’s no spiritual awakening or anything.

This is an example of the poor formation category of cradle Catholics. Perhaps the mysticism is not for you. Perhaps it does not speak to you. But the idea that you would be “really surprised if a cradle [Catholic] was getting all wrapped up in the mysticism of anything” reveals a shallow contact with the faithful and a disengagement from the faith. I’m frankly shocked any Catholic who is engaged with the Church would say such a thing. I mean, what do you believe you are receiving in the communion line?

I do think there is a tendency for low engagement/poorly formed cradle Catholics in America to assume that their low engagement/poor formation is the universal experience of Catholics. First, there are literally hundreds of millions of Catholics outside of the USA who embrace the mysticism of Catholicism, especially outside of Europe.

There are also millions of Catholics in the USA who do as well. I know a very highly educated family who is moving their children to a different Catholic school because they sincerely believe the patron saint of the school has cared for their family over the years. There are literally Catholics who in this country wake up every single morning and go to Mass with religious orders that guard and treasure Catholic mysticism.

I was deeply moved by my own pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe and observe her feast day every year. I also sequester myself on the Feast of the Holy Innocents because I mourn them. And All Souls Day is a feast day we stringently observe in our family.

My 12 year old son still laments over a Cross of the Good Shepherd touched by Pope Francis that he lost a year ago.

Many of the commonalities cradle Catholics experience are cultural in nature. Not necessarily spiritual or driven by the faith.

I completely agree with you. This variation among Catholics is exactly what a previous poster meant when they referred to the "big tent."

I am a cradle Catholic and very interested in the Mystic Saints, especially Saint Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.

I see what you describe as differences between people, not Catholics, with in part explains why there are so many different Christian religions and religions in general. People are different and want to acknowledge it. Some people are so different that they may want no religion at all.

[Anonymous]

I think maybe it's different in other countries. I'm a "cradle Catholic" (though no longer Catholic) and not from the US. I don't recall anything about Vatican 2 or various bibles despite many years of catechism. I first heard "Accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior" when I came to the US and I thought at first the person was a different sort of Christian and not Catholic because that did not resonate at all with me. Neither does praying to Jesus per se (Our Father, yes, but that is a prayer Jesus taught) We had so much emphasis on Mary and the Saints. We prayed most to Mary, and to this day I'll still instinctively pray to St Anthony if I lose something. And I'll never not feel emotional going into a beautiful church because they just make me feel so connected to my grandmothers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is a really good example of something cradle Catholic would never say or would be met with a deer in headlights.

Really a cradle catholic only cares about doing unto others, what would Jesus do, feed the poor, be kind. We’re not all about the source whatever the hell that is.

I agree Catholicism (not cradle Catholics) loves the rules and all the other crazy stuff. We aren’t the Council of bishops. We are Cradle Catholics we know all the rules, but don’t get all tied up in them because we know all the loopholes, and we all know all the contradictions.

Also, besides love being the greatest of them all we understand primacy of conscience.

I mean, seriously if you started talking to cradle Catholics about the source and the soul and blah blah blah yeah you would lose them immediately.

Now, if you come to them and say hey, we’re gonna be feeding the poor, clothing the homeless or building a house for someone they’d be all in.

I used the Source as a non-Christian term that might help a non-Christian understand what I am talking about. People use terms like that in new age spirituality, it's not really a Protestant term. However, it is accurate. (Not everything about new age spirituality is wrong, btw, just like not everything about Islam is wrong either.)

I do agree with you on the substance of your message. Many Catholics have very thin faith that's comprised of works and understanding history and not based on a deep spiritual connection with God. Because Protestants don't emphasize works or history, they do a better job of making sure people in their congregation actually have a deep spiritual life. In that way, they are superior to Catholics.

I am happy being Catholic. Protestant theology is all mangled because it's disconnected from history, and they constantly splinter into sects that disagree and then end up generations later with people that don't even understand what the disagreement is about. But on a personal level I find individual Protestants to usually be stronger in their faith than individual Catholics. And that's a shame.

lol, what?

You continue feeling complete in your spiritual connections and all. God bless!

I’m gonna go do a good act for someone else and then not tell anybody about it in honor of my “thin faith”, ✝️😂 then I’m gonna say Seven Hail Marys in four our father’s feeling guilty that I didn’t help more people.

You know this whole thing isn’t about which is better.

Serving at a soup kitchen and saying penance is great, but "it is by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works."

The Catholic Church signed the ecumenical declaration that affirmed that teaching.

Faith in Christ is the source and summit of the Christian faith. My point is that some Catholics (I don't know about you, just some Catholics) are so focused on the soup kitchen and the Hail Marys that they forget about the single most important thing. We could learn from our Protestant brothers and sisters in that regard.

Nope. That’s an other denominationChristian teaching Catholic’s teach you only get into heaven by being good.

“Man, by his natural endowments, cannot produce meritorious works proportionate to eternal life; but for this, a higher power is needed, viz., the power of grace. And thus, without grace, man cannot merit eternal life” (Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 109, A. 5).

Nope

Atheist can go to heaven.

Atheists don't believe in heaven - or hell.

[Anonymous]

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.

At least that's what Catholics believe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is a really good example of something cradle Catholic would never say or would be met with a deer in headlights.

Really a cradle catholic only cares about doing unto others, what would Jesus do, feed the poor, be kind. We’re not all about the source whatever the hell that is.

I agree Catholicism (not cradle Catholics) loves the rules and all the other crazy stuff. We aren’t the Council of bishops. We are Cradle Catholics we know all the rules, but don’t get all tied up in them because we know all the loopholes, and we all know all the contradictions.

Also, besides love being the greatest of them all we understand primacy of conscience.

I mean, seriously if you started talking to cradle Catholics about the source and the soul and blah blah blah yeah you would lose them immediately.

Now, if you come to them and say hey, we’re gonna be feeding the poor, clothing the homeless or building a house for someone they’d be all in.

I used the Source as a non-Christian term that might help a non-Christian understand what I am talking about. People use terms like that in new age spirituality, it's not really a Protestant term. However, it is accurate. (Not everything about new age spirituality is wrong, btw, just like not everything about Islam is wrong either.)

I do agree with you on the substance of your message. Many Catholics have very thin faith that's comprised of works and understanding history and not based on a deep spiritual connection with God. Because Protestants don't emphasize works or history, they do a better job of making sure people in their congregation actually have a deep spiritual life. In that way, they are superior to Catholics.

I am happy being Catholic. Protestant theology is all mangled because it's disconnected from history, and they constantly splinter into sects that disagree and then end up generations later with people that don't even understand what the disagreement is about. But on a personal level I find individual Protestants to usually be stronger in their faith than individual Catholics. And that's a shame.

lol, what?

You continue feeling complete in your spiritual connections and all. God bless!

I’m gonna go do a good act for someone else and then not tell anybody about it in honor of my “thin faith”, ✝️😂 then I’m gonna say Seven Hail Marys in four our father’s feeling guilty that I didn’t help more people.

You know this whole thing isn’t about which is better.

Serving at a soup kitchen and saying penance is great, but "it is by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works."

The Catholic Church signed the ecumenical declaration that affirmed that teaching.

Faith in Christ is the source and summit of the Christian faith. My point is that some Catholics (I don't know about you, just some Catholics) are so focused on the soup kitchen and the Hail Marys that they forget about the single most important thing. We could learn from our Protestant brothers and sisters in that regard.

Nope. That’s an other denominationChristian teaching Catholic’s teach you only get into heaven by being good.

“Man, by his natural endowments, cannot produce meritorious works proportionate to eternal life; but for this, a higher power is needed, viz., the power of grace. And thus, without grace, man cannot merit eternal life” (Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 109, A. 5).

Nope

Atheist can go to heaven.

That's a separate debate, and I'm inclined to agree with you, though obviously it's a riskier life strategy, but that's not what this quote is about.

It says you can't "get into heaven by being good." No human can produce good works proportionate to the good of eternal life. So merit cannot be enough. There is a gap between the goodness you can produce and the goodness of eternal life. (A huge one.) That gap is filled by grace, a gift freely offered by God that is unearned (by us) and undeserved.

(The beauty of grace is that it makes life unfair.)

Even if that is true (but it’s not in the Catholic Church), you can’t get into heaven by “accepting Jesus as your savior” in the Catholic Church. If you just wanna accept, Jesus, is your savior and not do act good don’t be a Catholic.

Reality is, there’s a whole bunch of hoops to jump through in the Catholic Church to be accepted into heaven if you are Catholic. You have to be baptized in the Catholic Church for starters. You have to go to church on Sundays. You have to go to church on holidays of obligation.

The list is endless.

What I am saying is basic theology. It's from Aquinas. So it is Catholic. But yes, there is more to it once you get past the basics, but they still matter.

I have mixed feelings about the labyrinth of rules. I find them useful guideposts and follow what I can but try to remember they aren't the point of the thing.

[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.

At least that's what Catholics believe.

It’s what Catholicism teaches. I wouldn’t say that’s what Catholics believe..

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote: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.

This is a really good example of something cradle Catholic would never say or would be met with a deer in headlights.

Really a cradle catholic only cares about doing unto others, what would Jesus do, feed the poor, be kind. We’re not all about the source whatever the hell that is.

I agree Catholicism (not cradle Catholics) loves the rules and all the other crazy stuff. We aren’t the Council of bishops. We are Cradle Catholics we know all the rules, but don’t get all tied up in them because we know all the loopholes, and we all know all the contradictions.

Also, besides love being the greatest of them all we understand primacy of conscience.

I mean, seriously if you started talking to cradle Catholics about the source and the soul and blah blah blah yeah you would lose them immediately.

Now, if you come to them and say hey, we’re gonna be feeding the poor, clothing the homeless or building a house for someone they’d be all in.

I used the Source as a non-Christian term that might help a non-Christian understand what I am talking about. People use terms like that in new age spirituality, it's not really a Protestant term. However, it is accurate. (Not everything about new age spirituality is wrong, btw, just like not everything about Islam is wrong either.)

I do agree with you on the substance of your message. Many Catholics have very thin faith that's comprised of works and understanding history and not based on a deep spiritual connection with God. Because Protestants don't emphasize works or history, they do a better job of making sure people in their congregation actually have a deep spiritual life. In that way, they are superior to Catholics.

I am happy being Catholic. Protestant theology is all mangled because it's disconnected from history, and they constantly splinter into sects that disagree and then end up generations later with people that don't even understand what the disagreement is about. But on a personal level I find individual Protestants to usually be stronger in their faith than individual Catholics. And that's a shame.

lol, what?

You continue feeling complete in your spiritual connections and all. God bless!

I’m gonna go do a good act for someone else and then not tell anybody about it in honor of my “thin faith”, ✝️😂 then I’m gonna say Seven Hail Marys in four our father’s feeling guilty that I didn’t help more people.

You know this whole thing isn’t about which is better.

Serving at a soup kitchen and saying penance is great, but "it is by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works."

The Catholic Church signed the ecumenical declaration that affirmed that teaching.

Faith in Christ is the source and summit of the Christian faith. My point is that some Catholics (I don't know about you, just some Catholics) are so focused on the soup kitchen and the Hail Marys that they forget about the single most important thing. We could learn from our Protestant brothers and sisters in that regard.

Nope. That’s an other denominationChristian teaching Catholic’s teach you only get into heaven by being good.

“Man, by his natural endowments, cannot produce meritorious works proportionate to eternal life; but for this, a higher power is needed, viz., the power of grace. And thus, without grace, man cannot merit eternal life” (Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 109, A. 5).

Nope

Atheist can go to heaven.

That's a separate debate, and I'm inclined to agree with you, though obviously it's a riskier life strategy, but that's not what this quote is about.

It says you can't "get into heaven by being good." No human can produce good works proportionate to the good of eternal life. So merit cannot be enough. There is a gap between the goodness you can produce and the goodness of eternal life. (A huge one.) That gap is filled by grace, a gift freely offered by God that is unearned (by us) and undeserved.

(The beauty of grace is that it makes life unfair.)

Even if that is true (but it’s not in the Catholic Church), you can’t get into heaven by “accepting Jesus as your savior” in the Catholic Church. If you just wanna accept, Jesus, is your savior and not do act good don’t be a Catholic.

Reality is, there’s a whole bunch of hoops to jump through in the Catholic Church to be accepted into heaven if you are Catholic. You have to be baptized in the Catholic Church for starters. You have to go to church on Sundays. You have to go to church on holidays of obligation.

The list is endless.

What I am saying is basic theology. It's from Aquinas. So it is Catholic. But yes, there is more to it once you get past the basics, but they still matter.

I have mixed feelings about the labyrinth of rules. I find them useful guideposts and follow what I can but try to remember they aren't the point of the thing.

Aquinas also taught that a fetus was not human until 80 or 40 days depending on the gender lol.

All this back-and-forth about the rules can go on forever, but the reality is this thread is about the hilarious trend on social media about cradle Catholics and all these crazy rules and how they have formed us into a certain culture.

Some of the stuff discussed these rules it’s just crazy $&@) that went on if you were raised a cradle Catholic.

Like getting yelled at if you swung your legs in a pew. Staring at the crucifix and wondering if it was breathing. Wanting to gag at the incense and hiding your face in your grandmother’s arm.

That’s what the trend is actually about.

[Anonymous]

Convert here. Of course we cannot generalize across cradle Catholics. I have met some who are very thoughtful about their religion. In theory, everyone needs to have their own conversion moment, whether cradle anything or not. But I find for a lot of cradle Catholics, the religion is about their everyday practices (so yes, more similar to Judaism), and not about theology.

Also as a convert, I sometimes find cradle Catholics, esp the older generation, to border on superstition. All the medals and their powers, it really drives me crazy a bit. I am willing to accept that they help to bring some people closer to God, but I also think a lot of people go haywire and become superstitious. Same with Mary. I know what is officially taught and I am ok with that but I think in some Catholic cultures (Hispanic ones mainly), honor of Mary comes uncomfortably close to worship, at least to this outsider. I went to churches in Mexico where the crucified Christ was off to the side and a statue of Mary was front and center of the altar. That, to me, is not ok.

I did not come from a protestant background, but I do find myself to have more of a protestant leaning view. I came to the church for God, not Mary and not the saints (though I understand their positions). I also emphasize personal relationship with God vs intercessions through Mary, saints, and ritualized prayer. But I appreciate that the church is truly a bit tent, and there is room for all paths to Jesus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Convert here. Of course we cannot generalize across cradle Catholics. I have met some who are very thoughtful about their religion. In theory, everyone needs to have their own conversion moment, whether cradle anything or not. But I find for a lot of cradle Catholics, the religion is about their everyday practices (so yes, more similar to Judaism), and not about theology.

Also as a convert, I sometimes find cradle Catholics, esp the older generation, to border on superstition. All the medals and their powers, it really drives me crazy a bit. I am willing to accept that they help to bring some people closer to God, but I also think a lot of people go haywire and become superstitious. Same with Mary. I know what is officially taught and I am ok with that but I think in some Catholic cultures (Hispanic ones mainly), honor of Mary comes uncomfortably close to worship, at least to this outsider. I went to churches in Mexico where the crucified Christ was off to the side and a statue of Mary was front and center of the altar. That, to me, is not ok.

I did not come from a protestant background, but I do find myself to have more of a protestant leaning view. I came to the church for God, not Mary and not the saints (though I understand their positions). I also emphasize personal relationship with God vs intercessions through Mary, saints, and ritualized prayer. But I appreciate that the church is truly a bit tent, and there is room for all paths to Jesus.

Your second paragraph is exactly what cradle Catholics would agree with you on except they had to live in those houses with their grandmothers and their aunts and their great aunts telling them all these crazy superstitions. And we had to be respectful about it.

My aunt literally buried some sort of statue in front of her yard in order to sell her house.

My other aunt said Novenas when a strip club came to town and then weeks later it burnt down. Imagine that.

The trend is something like this… if as a kid you had to wonder whether your aunt is magical and novenas made a strip club burned down or you wonder if she’s an arson then you are a cradle catholic.

What the trend is talking about is if you haven’t had an aunt who buried a statue in front of her yard so that our house would sell you don’t know what it’s like to be a cradle Catholic.

Do you get it now?

[Anonymous]

Cradle Catholic...and went to Catholic HS, college, and grad school. Most of my friends went to Catholic colleges, where you study theology and philosophy. Lots of us have friends and/or family who became priests or nuns.

I think we're a quietly confident group when it comes to our faith. We know our stuff, but aren't compelled to tell everyone. We do service work, donate to charity, go to church, help out with committees, etc. We don't wear religious jewelry or put fish stickers on our cars.

My perception of converts is that they are more demonstrative and loud that I'm comfortable with. It's like they have something to prove. Their insecurity can be a little annoying. I think some of that happens when they come from evangelical sects.