Top Ten Myths About Catholics

It’s been said that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice in the west. And whenever you hear someone bashing the Pope or the Catholic Church, it’s always the same myths and lies. Let’s dispel the top ten biggest myths about Catholics and the Catholic Church:

1. Catholics are Full of Guilt: I remember a ’90s rock band in Boston named “Big Catholic Guilt,” clever name, but way off the mark. Practicing Catholics who go to Confession on a regular basis know that they have been forgiven by God! And when you’re right with God, the guilt has been washed clean away!
2. Catholic Teaching Caused the Priest Sex Abuse Scandal: Huh? Catholic teaching expressly forbids sex outside marriage and homosexual acts, while also requiring priests to remain celibate. One could safely argue that it was disobedience to Catholic teaching that led to this tragedy.
3. Catholics Worship the Pope: Nope. The Pope is just a man. A sinner like all men and women. Catholics look to the Pope as the successor of St. Peter, and so we follow his teachings on faith and morals.
4. Catholics Worship Mary: Not true either. Catholics are devoted to Mary. Worship is reserved exclusively for God alone.
5. The Catholic Church Opposes Science: This is a real persistent one. I suppose it indicates ignorance that it was the Catholic Church which founded the world’s first universities…You ever heard of the scientist Copernicus? He was a Polish Priest. And you can thank Jesuit priests/scientists for the development of astronomy.
6. The Catholic Church is Rich: Okay…I suppose the Catholic Church is rich in the same way that the British Royal Museum is rich. It’s true that there is a lot of gold, art and expensive real estate in the Vatican, but don’t expect it on eBay anytime soon. When Pope John Paul II died he owned virtually nothing, get the picture?
7. Catholics Think Sex is Dirty: Wrong again. It’s Victorians who think sex is dirty. Catholics understand that God became flesh, which rendered the body sacred. Catholic marriages are elevated to the level of a sacrament as well, and the sexual act is the central unitve expression of marriage.
8. The Church Obsesses on Homosexuality:  It’s actually contemporary American culture that is obsessed with forcing Christians, and the Catholic Church in particular, to abandon their moral stance against homosexual acts and gay marriage. Catholic teaching on homosexuality is 2,000 years old and will not change.
9. Women are Oppressed by the Church: Feminists work overtime on this one. Help me understand how divorce, abortion and the sexual revolution have helped women? One need only look at the breakdown of the African-American family in the last 40 years to see what happens when Christian values are tossed aside. Is it any surprise that it was women in the Roman Empire who first recognized that Christianity offered them respect, protection and a moral code that applied equally to both men and women?
10. Catholics are Religious Fundamentalists: Technically speaking, fundamentalists are Protestant Christians who read the Bible literally. This is not the Catholic approach to Scripture…Yet if one means a fundamental faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and our God, then maybe we are fundamentalists.