What has been the experience of the Roman Catholic Church with other religions that do not share its beliefs or practices?

Answer 1

A:Throughout most of its existence and until the time of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the Catholic Church has experienced the supremely held belief that it was the only true faith and that non-Catholics, with the reluctant and inconsistent exception of Jews, must be forced to become Catholics or at least prohibited from worshipping as they wished. It was the Church's view that only the Catholic Church had the right to freedom from persecution.

For example, the Syllabus of Errors, issued by Pius IX in 1864, stated that where Catholics are in the minority, they have the right to public worship, but where others faiths are in the minority, they have no right to public worship because only the true faith has the right to public worship. In 1965, the Church had finally come to the realisation that it would no longer be possible to force all people to believe and practise the one faith, even where Catholicism was the majority faith.

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Catholic Answer

First of all, there is no "Roman Catholic Church." It's just Catholic, not Roman Catholic. Roman is an epithet first commonly used in England after the protestant revolt to describe the Catholic Church. It is never used by the official Catholic Church.

Secondly, the Catholic Church's primary experience with other religions has been to share their faith, to live good Christian lives, preaching Christianity primarily with their lives, and secondly with words, (if necessary, as St. Francis said). For the first three centuries, Christians were persecuted and killed by the hundreds, and yet they went gladly to their deaths happy to be able to imitate their Savior in this way. Those martyr's blood eventually fertilized the soil of Rome to such an extent that Rome, itself, gave up its pagan religions and converted. Since then, Christianity has remained a missionary faith. This changed, in practice among the faithful, after the protestant revolt, when the Catholic faithful withdrew for the most part and tried to maintain their faith while allowing the priests and nuns to do the missionary work. Vatican II sought to correct this false understanding, as all Christians are called by their baptism and confirmation to be missionaries and to spread God's word to all.

The protestants are a particular problem as the first belief that they are raised with is that they are saved and that the Catholic Church is wrong, if not the anti-Christ on earth. The Church throughout the past five centuries) has seen protestants as our separated brethren (to the extent that they are validly baptized) and the need to evangelize them is the more urgent, the less it is practiced. In actuality, since Vatican Council II, the Church itself has been infected mightily with Modernism, which started in the protestant churches, and is losing members due to this. Protestants, who are validly baptized, are consider part of the Church, howbeit in a imperfect manner, and the Church teaches that God, who desires that all men be saved, reaches out to all of them in their own circumstances.

All men are called to be saved, and all baptized Christians are called to evangelize them. We cannot do this unless we ourselves become holy, and live exemplary Christian lives. Up until now, our experience with non-Catholics has been pretty poor of late, with some notable exceptions. St. Francis de Sales who lived two generations after the protestant revolt was appointed Bishop of Geneva, a completely protestant diocese at that point. In short order he reconverted nearly the entire population back to the Church. The religious orders have done some great work in foreign lands. But on the whole, particularly in the past fifty years, the Church, itself, is suffering a malaise that makes her dealing with other faiths kind of non-existent beyond official meetings at the Vatican.

I would suggest that you read the Catechism, particularly paragraphs 836-856, and Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas' book, Salvation Outside the Church.