Topic: How should non-Catholics learn about Catholicism?

Source of this posting: Moderator response

Date originally posted: December 12, 2002

Moderator who originally posted this source: Mary Pat Fourqurean

Question:   I am currently dating someone who is not catholic. Since we are both from different denominations, he is methodist, we have had many discussions about the likes and differences. He is an absolutely wonderful guy and wants to learn more about the catholic faith, so he can understand it better. I have sent him some books I own written by someone who is catholic and he has read books written by people of the protestant faith about catholics. The problem with both of these types of authors is they are biased in their own ways and say harmful things about the other faith. Do you know of any books out there that are not biased and that he could read about the catholic church? Thank you!

Answer: 

Dear Courtney,

Thanks for your question and I think it is great that you two have found each other and want to grow together in your faiths. (My husband was raised as a Methodist and I was raised as a Catholic, and we have had some wonderful talks about the similarities and differences between the two ways of expressing faith in Christ.) Did you know that the Catholic Church and Methodist Church have done a lot of ecumenical work together in the last two decades and have made real progress towards unity? In fact, two and half centuries ago, the founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley, wrote a famous and unusually friendly letter to a Roman Catholic in which Wesley emphasized what they had in common as fellow Christians, not what they disagreed about. It is called "An Olive Branch to the Roman Catholics" and it is found at the end of Albert Outler's book, John Wesley. Perhaps as a Catholic, you could read that. Then he, as a Methodist, could read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but not from first to last. Rather, he should scan its Index in the back and look up those sections that look interesting to him (the numbers in the back refer to sections, not to pages). Actually, it might be helpful to read both of those writings together. Also, the famous Catholic Council called "Vatican II" (1962-1965) addressed the issue of how Catholics and baptized non-Catholics should relate to one another. Specifically, it made the historic move away from calling Protestants "heretics" and was the first time that the Catholic Church began calling Protestants our "separated brothers". That meant, on the one hand, that Protestants are "brothers" united to us in terms of Christ and baptism, but, on the other, that they are still "separated" from us in terms of Pope and Eucharist. You can find that in the "Decree on Ecumenism" in Austin Flannery's 1995 edition of Vatican Council II, p. 456 or in sections 3 and 4, which are especially beautiful in their balance between love and truth. That means that they balance a love that warmly reaches out and listens to Christians who are different than us, with truth that remains faithful to what it means to be a Catholic. Hope this helps a bit. Mary Pat Fourqurean.