Please correct me if I am wrong. I am a baptist who believes you must trust Jesus to be saved. But I run into trouble with other believers who say a Catholic cannot be saved because they worship Mary and have idols like prayer beads. But I believe there are humble village priests that have given their all to serve Jesus and the poor around them. How can anyone say that Mother Theresa or John Paul II did not truly love Jesus? I know I’m wading into deep waters here that have not been solved in 2 millenia of history. Are there not charismatic Catholics that rejoice in the love of Jesus Christ?
"But I run into trouble with other believers who say a Catholic cannot be saved because they worship Mary and have idols like prayer beads." 1) Catholics don't "worship" Mary, they deeply respect her. The Church's constant teaching since 400AD (and probably earlier) is that one respects the saints, respects Mary above the saints, and worships ONLY the Triune God. The Latin terms used are "dulia", "hyperdulia", and "latria". Note that the last term is the only one that means "worship".
2) "Prayer Beads" are not idols. They are a mnemonic to keep track of prayers said.
Thank you for your gracious words. I'm Catholic and have the pleasure and privilege of knowing a lot of good non-Catholic Christians, since all of my husband's side of the family are Baptists or some other kindred kind. Plus, here in Upper East Tennessee less than 2% of the population are Catholics, so naturally other kinds of Christians predominate in the things I'm interested in, like pro-life, better green tomato recipes, religious liberty, lose weight now without diet or exercise, and shape-note singing.
I find the other-Christians I know "in real life" are some of the best people in the world, and we have no trouble understanding each other. There's high trust, no spite and lots of mutual God Bless.
It is unfortunate that the same can't be said for (some of) the interfaith relations here at FR, because there is almost always a
HUGE SQUEAKIN' SQUEALIN' FREEPIN' FRACAS
going on somewhere in the Religion Forum. If I had to judge people by that alone, I would say the WHOLE PASSEL of us (variety-pack Christians) are about as winsome as pushing your lawn mower through a nest of yellow jackets.
But I'll gladly take all that back because, fortunately, all that fracas, seen in real-life perspective, is de minimis.
Long way 'round of saying that I think the closer we are to Christ, the closer we are to love, and that works every time.
NOTE: DO keep in mind that we don't worship rosaries and statues. We now worship felt banners ;oD 