It apparently caused quite a stir in my parents’ high school when Catholic Mary began dating Protestant Tommy. Not only was he a Protestant, but he was a member of DeMolay, the Masonic organization for young men.
Yet Mary wore his DeMolay pin proudly.
Although my mother was a devout Catholic all her life, she never evidenced any prejudice against people of other religions. Many of her best friends were Protestants. She became good friends with our next door neighbors, who were Jewish.
I think her ecumenicalism was based on her own family history. Her father was not Catholic and didn’t attend any church as an adult, but she always talked about him as being a very ethical man. He received extra gasoline rations during World War II, because he worked in the lumber industry in Oregon, which was considered to be part of the war effort. She told me on several occasions how he refused to use any of the extra coupons for family outings, keeping the gasoline solely for business use.
Her maternal grandfather also was not Catholic. My mother remembered him as a jolly old Scot who danced a jig with a pillow on his head and made her an upholstered mattress for her doll bed. (The doll bed was still around when I was a child, so I also put my dolls to sleep on the mattress my great-grandfather made.)
And yet, as family lore tells it, that Scottish grandfather’s mother refused to enter her son’s home after he married an Irish Catholic. So perhaps the prejudice of past generations still festered when my mother was young, and that influenced her lack of parochialism.
I can remember as a young child of two Catholic parents (my father converted before my parents were married) thinking that Catholicism was the best religion. I was in primary grades during the Kennedy years, and it seemed to me that to be American and Catholic was the best thing I could be.
But as I grew, heard my mother tell her family stories, and I met many non-Catholic friends of my own. So I came to believe that we are all imperfect in our understanding of truth.
As Pope Francis said recently, “Who am I to judge?” His comment came in response to a question about a “gay lobby” in the Catholic Church. But the Pope’s question is a good one for everyone to ask in a variety of contexts. We are none of us perfect, and we are none of us all-knowing.
And so we must avoid the temptation to judge others of a different race, nationality, religion, or political persuasion than ourselves.
What could the world be if we all refused to demonize those with different beliefs than our own?
I agree with the Pope’s statement we shouldn’t be judgemental in knowing the condition of someone’s heart. However, if Christians live by a standard, and that standard is God’s word, we have to make judgements based on God’s word.
I have enough of the love of God in me at this stage in my life to love anyone, yet I won’t condone a lifestyle that is in direct opposition to what a holy God has ordained.
In the absence of a holy GOD all things are permissible.
People need to pray more and judge less.
Jill, nicely stated!
Theresa
The world would be a better place, to be sure.
I understand the idea that we must follow “God’s word.” The problem comes with the competing claims of what “God” meant. For example, what people seem to call the injunction/law against homosexuality comes from the laws of Leviticus. It’s a long list, including law #39 Having sex with a man “as one does with a woman” (18:22) [In 20:13, both are to be put to death.] Yep. That’s a law written approximately 3,500 years ago in a different time and different culture and for different reasons.
Our task is to become educated. Read the following article for 76 Things Banned in Leviticus and see which ones we might also, unwittingly, do since we choose NOT to follow those that aren’t important anymore, such as mixing fabrics in clothing (really?? God’s law??) or lying. I’ve lied. I expect most of us have in one way or another. Or touching the skin of a dead animal…oops, no more football.
http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2012/06/13/76-things-banned-in-leviticus-and-their-penalties.html
I also understand people’s fears of someone different/or living a different lifestyle. But we choose to “cherry pick” the laws we follow.
I have been so impressed with the Pope. I’m impressed by his kindness, his refusal to live in Vatican palatial rooms and instead live in simple rooms nearby. My mother, who grew up Quaker, was much the same. Kind. Gentle. Non-judgmental. She said how people live is their choice; our rule is to love one another.
Loving one another means caring for the poor, the hungry, the outcast, accepting differences. That’s what the Pope’s talking about. Actually, I think that’s what Jesus said, too.