We are dealing with very different views. You all think of the Church as a society of the elect, but we think of it as a hospital for sinners. You all trust God, but want it all in writing; we throw ourselves on God's mercy every day. You all claim that anyone can dope out the message of salvation from the Scriptures alone; we admit that we can't do it all by ourselves and that we need each other to make the fullness of the Body in which different members have different functions.
Because of these widely varying views, dealing with one another is like dealing with folks from a very different culture.
The cultures are so different that you can scarcely understand what we think. Most of your accusations and charges go right by us because they have nothing to do with our lives and our beliefs.
We acknowledge you all as brethren, but you treat us with scorn. I have read the Letter to Diognetus so I am prepared to feel like a stranger and foreigner among you. But I cannot fail to notice that my main impression in dealing with non-Catholics is that they have no idea what Catholicism is.
You all don't even know what nominalism is, and you are slaves to it. You consider yourselves spiritual, but you are materialistic, not in your values but in your thinking, as your attempts to argue against transubstantiation indicate. Part of the tragedy of the so-called "Reformation" is that it cut Christians loose from their background and cast them adrift in time and thought.
They end up in Montanist ecstasy, in Manichean contempt for creation,and in gnostic schemes and calendars.
The situation and the estrangement, call for deliberate and meticulous courtesy and care. But these are difficult and "refudiated." More's the pity.
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I am reposting the above because it is (imho) one of the most thoughtful, heartfelt and honest attempts to communicate with our Protestant friends.
I most sincerely hope that it is read and understood by those who may wish to know what many Catholics feel when we encounter the kind of antagonism that is found daily here on the Religion forum. May God bless us all.
agreed:)