I attended BYU as a nevermo Catholic who was highly interested in Mormonism. (Not one to make decisions hastily, I wanted to be fully sure of what I was entering into. My research paid off and while living as a "dry Mormon" for quite some time, I eventually found out the truth about Mormonism and never "took the plunge".) Back then, navigating the day as a Catholic at BYU, and among Mormons in general was really a test of ones mettle. Barely an interaction went by where the Catholic church, its clergy, doctrine and professors weren't ridiculed. ( I suspect much of my inner anger towards Mormonism is a result of these circumstances).

The criticism didn't stop either, once I married my RM TBM fiance and moved to a small town in Northern Utah. His family made no bones over their disappointment at my being Catholic and not a "member".

A few months after our marriage JP I died. Imagine my consternation when a few TBM family members (namely my MIL) expressed their condolences to me over his passing. Their reaction confused me for a number of reasons, not the least of which was their stated hatred of the Catholic church. What was more puzzling was their assumption that I would be personally effected by his passing. A lifelong, faithful Catholic, still, I was stunned that anyone would think to use the same words of sympathy to me as they would had he been a close relative.

I was chagrined, however when my BIL (the one who turned out to be a child molester) told DH how he thought it was "funny" (comical) that this pope had died so soon after taking office.

Not surprised. I don't know how long ago this was for you, but when I was in seminary in the sixties the Catholics were still a major target of the Mormons as they saw themselves in a "David vs Goliath" position with them. My seminary teacher relished in referring to the Catholic Church as the BoM did, "The great and abominable whole of the earth," I believe the passage went.

I heard. non-stop comparisons in SS and SM about why we were obviously God's church and the Catholics were not. We made fun the prayers, the robes and the gold laden cathedrals. We held up our cinderblock buildings as the equivalent of Jesus humble robe and sandals while the Catholics worshipped in filthy lucre--as would be expected of Lucifer.


So, most Mormons at least from back then were groomed to see the Catholic Church in that light. I can certainly empathize with what you must have gone though in your all Mormon environment. I lived in a 100% Mormon mountain town and during my sixth grade year we had one Catholic kid there for while. Poor kid.

You should get some kind of medal or something!

As the attitudes I experienced were a direct product of the circumstances you describe.

Upon hearing I was Catholic, the first fellow BYU student I met when I stepped off the plane from NY proceeded to tell me a few Pope/Prophet jokes. I was stunned. I had no idea there was a competition and having spent all of my young life in suburban NY among Catholics, Jews, Lutherans and other Protestants, (never met a Mormon till I was 18), I never heard a joke about Mormons.

When I married my mostly-lapsed Catholic, Filipina wife, I got two kinds of comments from my mormon relatives:

"Couldn't you find someone your own type to marry?"
(referring to her being Filipina)

"A Catholic? Really? They're so...weird!"
(referring to her being Catholic)

Most mormons only know mormonism. Those that know anything about other religions (or people, even RMs who went to other countries) are the exception. So they haven't got a clue how to talk to a Catholic about the pope. Or anything else. They can't put themselves in your shoes to consider how you might or might not feel -- your shoes are entirely alien to them. And weird. And evil.

I wonder how you expressed sympathy for the death of Monson.

Thank you, notmonotloggedin, for confirming another fact that the Mormons have denied and tried to erase from its history: Catholic-bashing.

When I was at BYU, the Catholic church was referred to as "The Great and Abominable Church." I think this was a quote from one of Joseph Smith's fake "scriptures." I grew up in an area of California which was dominated by the Catholic and Jewish religions. I loved these neighbors! I spent time in their homes, as they were the parents of some of my best friends. What great families! I live in Utah, now, and I miss the good people of my childhood.

It must have been very hard for you to cope with BYU, as a Catholic "minority."

I'm curious to know if your marriage survived your TBM inlaws' "disappointment." My marriage to a BYU Mormon did not. I was a good, faithful TBM, but I had been divorced from a brief temple marriage to a wife-beater, and I was not allowed to get married in the temple. My fanatic TBM in-laws blamed me for my husband's leaving the cult--he left before I did--and they regarded our children as "not-sealed, not-forever temporary grandchildren.

If you were not Catholic, perhaps your in-laws would find something else to criticize about you. So many TBM families are infested with jealousy, competitiveness, and control issues. Mormons don't believe in unconditional love; in fact, they preach against it, calling it "un-Christ-like."

I had never heard the term "Catholic Bashing." Ka-ching. That is exactly what we were doing back in my day.

I think you might like this passage from my favorite exMormon book. It is extracted from a section about excommunication and is a person's thoughts as they sit in the all waiting for their court of love to begin:

"Before I was brought into the council room, I sat in the long hallway jutting out at a right angle from the foyer that was the entrance to the chapel. The ward buildings were all pretty much the same worldwide. Same as the one I had helped my father build. Same painted cinderblock walls; cheap, prefabricated brown metal doors and windows; and industrial carpeting. It could have just as easily been a government annex building or a tax preparer’s office if you were judging the furnishings. Nothing about it said God, really. Ironically, I was suddenly at odds with the lifeless, generic quality of this building precisely because I had once felt reverence for this type of dowdy simplicity. I had been so sure that these now sterile chapels were of God and Jesus specifically because they were not the grandiose, gold-laden cathedrals with their finery that we had been taught contempt for. No stained-glass ceilings and intricate arches that had taken hundreds of years to construct. No, I had always felt these
humble finishes were simply pure in the way of Jesus. They were the edificial equivalent of a simple robe and sandals.
Our Jesus was the one who abhorred the pomp and circumstance and embroidered remnants of the Catholics.

“And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Mathew 19:24

Didn’t Jesus cast the moneychangers who bought and sold out of the temple? This was our lesson from the new Testament. Jesus eschewed riches. His house should be devoid of lucre and nourish the people instead. That was the standard by which we proved to ourselves that we were on the right track.

We were the meek. We were the lambs with no worldly goods. We were pure. We were Mormon. We had cinderblock!

Of course, now I know that as Mormons, we were also the ones with the vast land holdings worldwide, cattle ranches, pineapple farms covering nearly an entire island, major stock in major cor- porations, and that eventually we would build a several-billion- dollar shopping mall that would house all the iniquity that we supposedly despised. The multi-billion-dollar City Creek Mall is not the edificial equivalent of a simple robe and sandals. That is for sure. and at the opening of this mall, the Mormon prophet would utter the words that would finally be his signature: “Let’s go shopping!”

I laughed then, realizing this simple garb we had worn, the white shirt and tie, the frumpy, modest dress, bore more arrogance woven into those threads than any papal robe and crown and staff and gold-leafed, overly ornate filigree on every cathedral wall combined. It was some odd kind of reverse religious discrimination. We had taken humility full circle right back to arrogance. We were disguising our hypocrisy in the bland and as
such became more “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and therefore more disingenuous than all the gilt-and-stained-glass-type churches in the world put together.

These were my thoughts when suddenly my daydream was broken. a short, balding man in a tired gray suit came out from one of the rooms off of the hallway where I was waiting and announced himself to be the ward clerk, brother Waldron. he started to bend over and extend his hand as I started to rise, but then he seemed to think better of the friendly gesture and looked embarrassed to have made the mistake and changed in midair. He indicated the door that he had left open and motioned for me to enter the room.

how frequently Mormons made fun of everything Catholic. (McConkie did plenty of this in "Mormon Doctrine"). Everything was ridiculed from the "pealing of bells" to the "lighting of candles". It sickens me to know that I swallowed this tripe.

I recall someone making fun of the way Catholics would say group prayers in church-they remarked how "rote" it was and even "creepy" to hear everyone reciting the same thing together. Oh had I only known then about the temple ceremony. Everything they criticized, and more, had its counterpart in the Mormon church.

I was a TBM at the time of John Paul I. The LDS Church issued a statement of condolences. This may have been the first time they did so for a pope. One of my roommates wondered why the leaders would issue a statement for the evil Catholic Church.

Trying to lose their "cult" status and look more "mainstream christian."

"Hey, look at us, we're not weird, we can play nice with other christian religions!"

Yeah...no.

BYU Boner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was a TBM at the time of John Paul I. The LDS
> Church issued a statement of condolences. This may
> have been the first time they did so for a pope.
> One of my roommates wondered why the leaders would
> issue a statement for the evil Catholic Church.


They didn't issue one for Paul V1 who had died not more than 2 months earlier?? That must have been odd indeed.

DH always says she'd follow JS in lock-step over a cliff.

On my mission, I saw a pamphlet written by (surprise!) Mark E. Petersen called "Which Church Is Right?" It was essentially an anti-Catholic screed. I suppose it was there because we were proselyting in a predominantly Catholic region.

The tract is long out of print, but I did find its text online:

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/basic/gospel/restoration/Peterson_Which_Church.htm

Yeah, we were actually supposed to use this when discussing religion with the locals. Wonder why it never seemed to result in any baptisms… /s

I believe he was standing in front of the Vatican.

We laugh about it now.

I had a companion on my mission, he was from northern CA, somewhere close to San Francisco but I don't recall the name, lo these 40+ years later. I don't remember his name either.

We were in an area in the City of São Paulo, Brasil. As you can imagine it was very Catholic and regardless of the area, it always had a big Catholic church on a major street.

He was so rabidly anti-Catholic and kept using the term "The great and abominable church ". I was from Sandy UT about 8 miles from Temple square, I'd never heard that phrase and not even sure I'd seen a Catholic church before then. I was kind of taken aback when he said it, since because of my home location, I'd never had much (or any) contact with Catholics.

We were having a conversation with the BISPO of the ward there one night and he used that term. The bishop said to my companion "You need to stop saying that, especially if its while you are talking to investigators. Você precisa parar de dizer isso, especialmente se estiver enquanto conversa com os investigadores. "

He didn't like that much but I will say he didn't use it any more. He probably still thoought it but tried to control his use.

Yes, I imagine that attending BYU as a Catholic would be tough. I wonder if it's improved over the years. It's interesting that Mormons viewed the Catholic church as "the competition," even to the point of being derisive.

The Catholics I knew growing up did not have the same attitude. Maybe that comes with being such a massive denomination. We were friendly with kids from other denominations, and I was encouraged to attend activities with them. My mom grew up the same way.

I remember when JP I died. It was rather shocking coming so quickly on the heels of Pope Paul's death. I was sorry that he died so early during his reign, since he seemed to be very kind and broad minded, not unlike Pope Francis.

I was told in Sunday School class (50 years ago) that the "last great war" preceding the 2nd coming would be between the Mormons and the Catholics. There was a supposed prophecy that the enemy would wear a peaked hat--kind of like the Pope's hat. I wonder if this was one delusional SS teacher or a real church teaching.

I never heard it lol. It wouldnt be much of a war considering how much Catholics outnumber Mormons.