I need help with a Religion Issue

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-03-2006
I need help with a Religion Issue
24
Fri, 02-03-2006 - 1:27pm

Hi

I am new at the community here. I need help with this issue.

I have a sister in law that recently became a "Christian". My mother in law is Catholic and she practices the religion. Since my sister in law has become a Christian (about a year ago) she has thrown away at my mother in laws house the image of the Sacred Heart and a rosary my mother in law had. She complains all the time that it is evil and that she has to get rid of all of it. She criticizes everything about Catholicism and does see that if she does have Jesus in her heart like she says she does she should be more considerate and respect other people's religions and not step all over their lives.

I am sorry but if you are a Christian I think that you should respect other people's religions especially when you havent practiced any at all until now and just RESPECT should be the main word here. I dont know how to make myself clear to her that she needs to respect her mother's religion. I am a Catholic too and I do not put down any religion just because it is different than mine. I need to find articles or something that can help me make my point. I am not good at words or explaining things .I feel bad to see that all her life my mother in law has practiced Catholicism and feels strongly about it and that now in her third age she needs to put up with this.

If you have any page you can please direct me to where I can gather info or articles about respecting religions so I can confront her with it will be appreciated.

Thanks so much

Ivee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 02-03-2006 - 6:33pm

I'm a bit confused... does your SIL not understand that Catholics are Christians as well.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-03-2006
Fri, 02-03-2006 - 11:40pm

Thanks for your reply.

yes, that is the exact same thing I think. I am just not good at words. She says to have an image of God in the home is evil and that the rosary is evil too because those "are not things of God". it really really infuriates me that wherever it is she is going , supposedly a church of Christian denomination are so ignorant as to do this.

My mother in law does not want to be always arguing so she just went ahead and let her take those things out of the house. I really got upset because it is not fair and like you say if you believe in God you are a Christian. She is not too intelligent and pretty stubborn that is why I wanted to give her some reading material so she would open her eyes a little bit and let others live in peace and worry about her own faults. Obviously her religion is not setting in too good with her because she does not respect others and it honestly annoys me a lot. I will try to talk to her again with lots of patience but she always has some idiotic remark to make.

Thanks so very much :)

xoxo

Ivee
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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 02-04-2006 - 12:24am

Maybe it would help if she actually understood what these objects are that she has such a problem with.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-19-2003
Sat, 02-04-2006 - 12:48am
Having an image of God in the home is evil? What in the world kind of Christian denomination does she belong to? That doesn't sound like any I know, and it definitely doesn't sound Christ-like to me.
I just don't get people like that...


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2005
Sat, 02-04-2006 - 1:26am
it looks like someone over reacted. perhaps when one is ready they must realize that their time has come and others time is yet to come...........my teacher taught me False prophets and false teachers are always present in the world of darkness and moartality, for people in the darkness love the things of the world and teachers work to gratify their desires for the selfish gains the obtain. This especially characterises the plane of religion, and to such an extent that many deluded but not inlightened egos attempt to place the same interpretation upon the Real Teaching and the Truth revealed by the Word at this time. ..But these only display their own ignorance and their rejection of the Master, for if they had the Spirit of Truth they would know the Truth when It is expressed. These receive according as they measure and need not be reviled, but error is uncovered that Truth may be all in all. Thus the True Teachers expose the false only to those who have the knowledge and Love of the Truth. But those who are true are unaffected by those who are false, even though the false will see according to their understanding and love, often placing false interpretations upon the True and the Truth.....ida m


Edited 2/4/2006 11:14 pm ET by irakrause
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-13-2003
Sat, 02-04-2006 - 7:53am

Hallo mamabear and others

ah! I was raised a roman catholic but later in life I was drawn into what the Catholics call 'protestants'. And indeed that group of people, are repeatedly taught, that the catholics worship statues and that it is sick to see in their homes, christ hanging on the cross.

The protestant movement has taken it upon themselves to preach as 'truth' their preceptions.. and because in the various different protestant faiths, preachers are seen as word of god directly coming to them via the mouth of the preacher, they are sooo exact in that following that they don't even want to see the forest for the trees and are a very judgemental group of people.

The very, very,very few people, who are also protestant and don't agree with the preachers, keep mum, as they know that they are up against a brick wall..

I found those people (and I was for a very long time, with many different religions and congregations on my path to what would become my life and has very little to do with formal and conventional religion) were being trained in being judgemental and it gave them the power of judging their fellow men, and making decisions for their fellow man, which they wouldn't have liked being made for themselves. ooooh, they knew soooo well the scriptures to be quoted, but many times, made them to come out of context and to suit their own purpose.

The group of protestants, don't see the roman catholics as christians AT ALL!!!!!!! but as a group of power sick people who need to be saved for christ, through THEIR TRUTHS.

Long ago? when I was still with them? I found a way of stopping them.. and it is a way of the Hopi Indians... I started to send them lovehearts, everytime they started their own little reigns of terror as I doped the actions of them... and eventually, it was quite amusing, it caused such a confusion in their actions, that eventually they began to take stock of their behaviour patterns and things slowly began to change..

I also remembered a thing my mother used to do... if there was a person, which she couldn't handle? she would write her name on a piece of paper, wrap it in a piece of alluminum foil and placed it in the freezer.. in those days, between blocks of ice in the icebox... Oddly enough? it just went that or those problems. I don't know how it works? but IT DID!! So I have followed that example from time to time in my life...

Maybe this is something mamabear could do? for her mother in law? Sometimes a silent action is better than a verbal combat, as these people really, really, thrive on verbal combats, to show YOU how WRONG Y O U ARE!

I no longer practice catholicism, but some things I do do.. I still burn a candle in front of a picture of a favorite saint but I annoint the candle with olive oil or almond oil and then burn it... things do work, tis just how you go about them.

god bless and best of luck!
brush

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2003
Sat, 02-04-2006 - 9:58am

Ivee, sometimes stereotypes and false understanding fed through a power structure like a church can cause real damage to the people swallowing the hook.


iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2003
Sat, 02-04-2006 - 10:13am

The very, very,very few people, who are also protestant and don't agree with the preachers, keep mum, as they know that they are up against a brick wall..


This is a rather broad stereotype of an entire belief system, don't you think?


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 02-04-2006 - 11:47am

what the Catholics call 'protestants'


I just wanted to point out that this isn't a Catholic term... most of the Protestants use it too.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-13-2003
Sat, 02-04-2006 - 12:09pm

Hallo gingercookie
all of a sudden, I couldn't help it, but I had to laugh! For of course (just to interject here) all catholics know about martin Luther.. and the word protest and protestants, but when I was with all those various religions... being pulled on the 'right' track so to speak.. I always thought that it was very humorous, that the 'protestants' feel that the catholics were equal to heathens.. and not christians at all..

If there was anything about that matter in those days.. it was THE one thing which put me off them.. and made me leave all conventional religions..

My husband is what could be called a 'protestant' and it took him a while to understand where we were really coming from and that we weren't at all, worshipping nor venerating any statues in our churches.

In those days, I had a lot to do, with teaching bibleclasses to small children en teenagers.. also held seminars for women and couples.. as I was pulled in quite quickly for some reason, that due to my life, I could advice others well.. something I was never quite comfortable with, for I found that label, quite incorrect.. and because I had followed and gotten degrees in psychology and psychiatry, I could help troubled relationships etc.. Using the scriptures.. Except, my method was very different and to make a long story short. I simply HAD to leave all that to find myself..

There is no reasoning with fundametalists or those people who are realy closeminded by nature,I think, and has always led to strife and trouble..

Still, also a lot of the methods the lady in the first posting talked about, looks to me, that it has nothing to do with religion, but more with disrespect that has been allowed to continue in a new form and/or power struggles and this time around religion is the tool for bullying. Bullies in my opinion, always know how to get their victims.. and to me, this is what is happened to that lady's mil...

then the question of 'senior-abuse' is another matter, that comes to mind.. sad situation there and it looks as there is little or no help for the old lady.
greets and hugs from the old brush

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