The most frequent question: what do you actually believe? The best place to go to understand the core of the Church's teachings in her Creed
http://www.beginningcatholic.com/apostles-creed.html
The next most frequent question, or rather accusation, is that Catholics worship Mary. This stems from a near complete misunderstanding of the Old Testament, particularly those pertaining to temple regulations. We find in the Old Testament that the Ark of the Covenant is where God chooses to show His presence. The Ark had to be pure, and if any person who was not pure (right with God and granted permission) touched the Ark, he or she would die because the holiness of God would consume them (I Chronicles 13: 9-10. This is hard to make an analogy of, except maybe if you think about the way that evildoers respond to Ghost Rider if he looks them in the eye. They are actually consumed by their own guilt. Understanding that sets the stage for understanding Mary and her role in the incarnation of Christ. In order for God Himself to dwell within Mary, it was necessary for her to be completely free of sin and of the hereditary taint of original sin. God did something unique with her. God, not being bound by time, granted the effects of salvation to Mary from the time of her conception. She was born without original sin, like Eve had been before the fall. Mary, however, cooperated with God's calling on her life and never fell into sin. Because of this, when Mary consented with God's will to conceive His Son in her through the Holy Spirit,(Luke 1:38) she was a worthy vessel. If Mary had not been a worthy vessel, the presence of God within her would have consumed her, causing her to die. Therefore, if Mary was not a virgin, free of sin, then Jesus could not possibly be God. There is no other way to look at it if one believes that what was revealed partially in the Old Testament was fulfilled and fully revealed in the New Testament. The other side of the coin is this; in order for one to state unequivicably that Jesus was the Son of God from conception, one must believe that Mary was His human mother. That it why she is given the title Mother of God. It is not that Mary preceded or created God; she gave her humanity to the Son of God who was conceived in her. She was Jesus' human mother and God himself was His divine father, thus Jesus possessed humanity and divinity simultaneously. This is a very important tenet of Christianity. Thus, when Catholics state what they believe about Mary, they are affirming what they believe about Jesus' nature.
That now brings me to the frequent charge that Catholics are idol worshippers, worshipping saints and their images. This is another misunderstanding. We do not give worship to any created being, not even a saint. We do believe that those who died in faith are alive in Heaven, however. Such saints are worthy of respect and their lives are worth examining as an example of Christian fidelity. The letters of Paul suggest that Christians on earth are witnessed by those who came before them. Revelation 5:8-10 tells that the saints offer up the prayers of the Church before God's throne. Therefore, since we know that the saints offer our prayers to God face to face, we ask them to pray for us. Human beings are multi-faceted. We have both physical and spiritual faculties. When we see, hear, touch, and taste things, we are better able to comprehend the reality of them. Spiritual realities are represented in artwork and music. The art of the Church helps us to make a more palpable connection to the things we hear and read. Art and music connect our senses and bring us more fully into contemplation and meditation on spiritual truths. Catholics often pray before images, but they are not praying to the images. They are praying to God and asking the saints to pray with them. This is a reflection of a firm belief in life after death for Christians.
Protestants also misunderstand the concept of indulgences. There have been times when indulgences were improperly granted to individuals who made donations, but that only obscures what they truly are. When indulgences are granted, they are granted for making a commitment to prayer and meditation on scripture. These indulgences are not a way to avoid just punishment for wrongs nor a guarantee of skipping Purgatory. Instead, the actions required of a person seeking indulgences dispose that person to a deeper relationship with God.
Many misunderstand relics as well. As a Protestant, I thought that the veneration of relics was tantamount to idolatry. I somehow missed the scriptures that show a precedent for this. In the Old Testament (II Kings 13:21) we see a situation where a dead man is brought back to life when he touches the bones of Elisha. In Acts 19:11-12, we see that handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched the Apostle Paul were being used to heal the sick. Thus, we can see that there is a precedent of God using objects to transfer His healing power to people. It should not be surprising, then that relics are often associated with miraculous happenings. There have been persons, places and things on which God's presence rested powerfully. To encounter these is to encounter the miraculous, to encounter God's presence in a deep way.
As one can see by reading this, most of the misunderstandings that Protestants have with Catholics revolve around the fact that we see God as interacting with us on both the spiritual and the physical level.
The most important way in which this plays out is in regards to Communion. Catholics are not alone in believing this, but many detractors fault us for believing that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. We believe that the spiritual reality of the elements of bread and wine is changed by the blessing in Christ's words, transforming them into His body and blood. In this way, we sense physically the spiritual reality of Christ's presence within us.
God became a man and He understands men. We have need to observe, to touch, taste, hear and see. Our faith is strengthened by the physical presence of Our Lord Jesus as He offers himself to us under the form of wine and bread. That is why He commanded that it be done. An unbloody sacrifice is offered to bring to our present reality the death of Our Lord. Do not forget that He changes the substance of things (John 2:1-12) and that He multiplies things (John 6:1-14). He also promised that He was the Bread of Heaven (John6: 25-69).
I hope that Catholics and Protestants alike will have a better understanding of what Catholics believe and why we do some of the things we do. As a Protestant, I was taught to measure what I was told by the standard of scripture. I have done so, and found that the teachings of the Catholic Church align with scripture.
One further note: the scriptures used as "proofs" against Catholics are frequently taken out of context. As I matured and studied more, I read entire passages rather than just the 'bullet points' speakers pulled out of scripture. I found out that the conclusions drawn did not fit the original writers' meaning in many cases. I found that many Protestant dogmas did not measure up to the scriptural standard they pretend to hold themselves to. If anything seems odd, ask for scriptural proofs to back it up. Open your Bible and read the entire passage. Read the notes on the Biblical author and his audience. If what you read is different from what you are being told, ask yourself why and pray about it. Ask yourself, too, how Jesus taught the Apostles. Would they have taught in this manner in turn? Probably. That leaves us with the fact that Jesus taught His Disciples the new traditions He wanted them to maintain in the Church, and they were passed down by word of mouth, in the rabbinical tradition of their time. The Gospels themselves tell us that they do not contain all of the doings and sayings of Jesus (John20: 30-31).
I hope that Protestants who read this will realize that Catholics are fellow Christians. I hope that the faith of all Christians who read this will be edified by gaining an understanding of some practices they may have misunderstood previously. I hope that all who read and can understand would gain a deeper devotion to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Through Whom and In Whom we have Life.
