Hi.
I have never been Mormon (I was born and raised catholic) but one of my best friends in childhood was a mormon girl. She and I used to have lots of wholesome fun together... I remember a lot of things that seemed sort of unusual (once she invited me to hear her returned missionary brother's testimony - he had had doubts in his faith while on his mission, but dismissed them, not because he had examined them in the light of reason, but because he had a 'feeling inside that it was right'). One of the last times I visited her home, I ate dinner with the rest of her family. I remember her father always seemed sort of disapproving, but he started interrogating me (high school kid) about different doctrines - transubstantiation, priest celibacy, etc. It was very uncomfortable and hostile... I think that she was uncomfortable too, but of course he was her father (he always seemed slightly autistic, or emotionally checked out, so he probably didn't read our reactions very well). I didn't visit her house so much after that - it was really alienating, and I couldn't figure out how to explain that to her. I think it was harder for her too. near the trickling off of our friendship, our get-togethers were more with her mormon girlfriends and in a church environment... I wonder if she felt compelled to bring me into the fold... It was probably hard for her as she grew older, learning more and feeling more obligation.
Now I wish we had kept more in contact. The last I heard, she has done well in college, but her mother wants her to marry soon. I don't know why, but recently I really regret losing her friendship (she had a gawky, ridiculous, almost adolescent-boyish sense of humor and a scientific mind- good at math, at least better than me).

That was sort of long, but I have two questions (I never really understood much about mormonism)

1. Do all mormons dislike catholics (is it an innate part of the belief) or is that more of a fundamentalist attitude?

2. I was wondering if that kind of thing is common? Has anyone lost childhood friends as they grew up, because of changing religious pressure and family disapproval? Has anyone mended old friendships?

1. i think it's more of a generational thing and might be dying out

2. sadly mormonism is toxic to ALL close relationships where only one party is a TBM (true believing mormon) - stick around for awhile and you'll see...

So much so that they banded together to help pass California's Proposition H8 back in 2008, proving once again that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Timothy

It is common especially among older Mormons ho were taught that Catholics were the Great and Abominable Church mentioned in the Bible. That is demphasized now. Mormons do often make friends with non Mormons with the idea of converting them. It depends on the people though.

Some may disapprove of Catholics somewhat more than other religions, but it is a matter of degree. All no-Mo religions are in the same dog house.

As for your second question, lost friendships, both childhood, and adult, are as common as dirt around here. Hang around and keep reading.

Yes, old friendships have been mended. Several people here are now living with or married to old flames they dumped because they were not LDS.

As evidence I cite the fact that upon arriving at BYU as a Catholic nevermo I was completely blown away by all of the catholic jokes TBMs through my way...it was bizarre.

notmo

I've told this story before, but would like to tell it to you.

When I was young (1960's) I would pass a catholic church on my way to the library. I always thought it was so beautiful, and loved that the front doors were always propped wide open. My church was almost always in lock down.

My best friend was catholic. She would often walk to the library with me. She showed me how you could go in and light a candle for someone. I loved that. I knew my parents were anti-catholic, so never told them about this. They would have had a fit.

But whenever I went in and lit a candle for someone, I knew my parents were wrong, and just didn't understand.

My daughter is going to marry a catholic this year. I am looking forward to the beautiful catholic wedding that everyone in my family will be able to attend.( Unlike mormon weddings)

That is a cool story. Sometimes the simple things are what stand out in our mind over the yrs. Lighting those candles do allow people to worship and pray at all times. I am sure ALL in attendance for the upcoming wedding will love the catholic wedding.

My nephews and neices are Catholic (brother married into it) and all but 1 are pretty regular attendees. Their weddings were a bit long as I recall with all that they do. But also it was really nice. Non Catholics were allowed to read scripture per bride's request and I thought that was super nice.

My best friend was catholic while I was in high-school. I didn't fit into the group at church, so my two good friends were non-mormon.

That's about the only thing I really regret - she moved right at the end of our senior year and we lost touch. We didn't spend any time together outside of school though - so maybe she didn't realize how important her friendship was to me.

For the record, I never asked her to church activities - I didn't like it there myself.

two observations:


- Your results may vary

- a Lot of the older stuff is being diluted; it's the nature of Mormonism. the G&A handbook, Mormon Doctrine by BRMcNuts... written / published in the late 60's, revered as Absolute Truth by mormons of that era, Because no one else had written an 'authoritative compendum'... is now mostly Forgotten.


Here today, gone tomorrow... SELLS MORE BOOKS!

bona dea- We were so young when we became friends, I am sure that it wasn't a friendship-for-conversion thing. I guess part of maturing is learning how relationships change. I wonder if as her siblings got older and went on missions, or got married, she started thinking more of her identity as a mormon, and felt as if she should convert her friends. If that was the case, it may have changed the focus from me as friend to potential convert...
It looks like mormonism is very evangelical. I guess must be hard for mormons to keep friends who are not mormon, as that reflects on their ability/worth as mormons?

Mia - Your story is beautiful. It is very peaceful and reflective to be all alone in a church, and just to sit and think or pray (or not think of anything and have solitude).
Congratulations on your daughter's marriage. I hope that she and your family are very happy. I can't imagine what it is like to have a child, much less to watch a child start a family of her own. You must be so excited.
Your aside about mormon weddings got me googling - so that explains why friends of her family couldn't go to her siblings' weddings. That sounds really isolating and sad - to not have friends or other members of the family there for a wedding, even if they love you and you love them.

never under estimate a 10 year old. That's how old I was when that story happened. I am now 57

I was raised Mormon by TBM parents, although I grew up and went to schools where I was usually the only mormon kid in the class. My pals were Catholics,Anglican, Buddists and others....and I got along with and liked them all...because that's the way my folks raised us. They had church friends, for sure but they were also very involved in the local rural community associations...not the single focus church and nothing else like so many I read about here, or that I know from Catholic kids (like my wife) who were raised in MORG hell holes like Stirling, Raymond, Magrath and Cardston, Alberta, where if ya weren't MORG you were shit....

When I told my parents I was leaving the Mormon church and I wanted to be catholic my dad could have killed me I think. They knew I hadn't been to church in months but it wasn't so much that I was leaving that bothered him. He just wanted to know what I saw in the catholic church, after all they worship idols. (Insert rolling of eyes.) Personally I love the feeling I get in mass but the Mormon church has left me scarred and I'm still trying to heal from it.

As for losing friends.. well I became best friends with a girl when we were in 7th grade she was not Mormon. And never did I try to het her to convert. Never. But our senior year I was dating my husband (catholic) and my bff decided she wanted to be mormon. It changed who she was. When I got pregnant I ran away, and she let the Mormon community know I was pregnant. I don't blame her she had been programmed. I cut her out of my life at that time. Fortunately she found her way out and she is back to the girl I know and love.

...was the church of the devil, and that Catholic scribes had deliberately altered the Bible to remove "plain and precious truths", necessitating a "restoration" and a corroborating book of sripture (the Book of Mormon) to fix the mess. The Nicene Creed was openly mocked in Mormon conferences and literature until the 1980's, as were other specific catholic doctrines...medicine the mormons can't take themselves.

Since then, the mormon church has backed off that rhetoric and now they are friendly to Catholics (too friendly maybe, it was reportedly the Catholic Archbishop in San Francisco that persuaded the president of the Mormon church to throw in with Prop H8).

I've heard older mormons say old-school things about Catholics, which like I said was commonplace until the 1980's or 90s. However, Mormon culture has turned against that and MOST mormons would find it offensive to single out Catholics for criticism now. Mormons are VERY sensitive about tolerance these days, having been burned by racism so bad, and still under the weight of official sexism and homophobia, they often try to compensate with increased tolerance wherever they can.

Ironically, the most recent mormon anti-catholic comment I heard was in 2009, by a younger man, unknowingly in the presence of another person who converted to mormonism from catholicism as a teenager...Silence from the group. He think he sensed it was a faux-pas.

Toning down the anti-Catholic sentiment in the mormon church is an integral part of the LDS legitimization process ("We're just plain old Christian folks like yourself and go to a church just like yours.") and helps grease the skids of mormon Presidential candidates.

Three mormon boy-men "priests" (returned missionaries) didn't quite get with the program back in 2008:

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/mormon_missionaries_accused_of_beheading_statue_at_catholic_shrine/
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_8529733
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080310154302AA1P9Yf

taught the Catholics were the great and abominable church of satan.

I remember as a very young girl that a 2-year-old in the neighborhood drowned in the creek and his family was Catholic and being told they believed in "dust to dust" and the family wouldn't ever see the child again. I was just sick about it.

Then when they opened a Catholic High School in SLC (this was late 1980s or early 1990s), the wealthier mormons all wanted to send their children there (since Utah had very few private schools), but were upset that their children were taught Catholic doctrine.

+1

Mormonism is exclusive. You are a member or not a member. You're one of us or one of them. You are one of the chosen or one of the fallen, maybe even one of the cursed. You are a good Mormon or a bad influence. You have the Truth® and they have a pile of lies. You are worthy and they are not. But those poor inferior people can become acceptable by becoming one of us.

I was in Serbia 3 years ago, where the population is mostly RC or Eastern Orthodox. Those "Catholics" are very spiritual people and had their faith and not much more to hang on to during decades of persecution, torture and genocide at the hands of the communists. THEY know firsthand what faith really is and what it stands for...I submit most TBM's haven't a F***ing clue!!

If you ask my mother about the Mormons, she will probably saying that they were nothing but wonderful to her, her siblings, and her parents. She says life in Utah was one of the best times in her life. But, that could be because my mom, my grandparents, etc. made gestures towards conversion. They were baptized and my grandparents were married in the Mormon Church. When the family arrived in Utah, my grandparents had been co-habitating for years, and had three children at that point, but a Catholic wedding would have required that my grandma get an annulment of her first marriage, and for some reason they hadn't bothered with a civil wedding.

My mom's side of the family are/were Mexican-American, very Catholic, migrant farm workers. If the family was living in and working in a region of the country without a strong Catholic community, my grandmother gravitated towards any Christianish community so that the family could fit in better and get some religion. I suppose the Mormons felt they had gained several converts, but as soon as the family was working in a more Catholic area, they resumed going to Mass and practicing Catholicism.

Grandma has passed away though, the family members are not working in the fields anymore, and we live in a very Latino and Catholic community in California. Today basically Christmas has begun for the locals because today is the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mormons are among those who stick out like a sore thumb here.

Mormons hate everything that isn't them. Took me a long time to realize that everyone else was not evil. Fucking Cult!!

I can't speak for these people, cause it's clear they had a bad experience about the LDS teachings towards Catholics.

In MY EXPERIENCE between interaction between LDS people and Catholics, and again keep in mind this is MY EXPERIENCE, our branch did nothing but respect the Catholics, even if. One Article of Faith I can honestly say, my former branch honored.

I invited her to attend Christmas Eve service at my home church last year (Episcopalian). She came, but the entire time had this funny expression and kept saying, "oh isn't that nice". She thought she was being polite, but the superior mormon mindset was obvious.

She can keep her superiority. I have a church that doesn't claim to be "the only true church" and doesn't condemn GLBT people.

In Utah the rule is;"You are either a member of the Mormon church then you are the enemy. You are either a member or you are obviously against us."

I was taught EMPHATICAlly in seminary in the 60"s that the Catholic church was the Great and Abominable Whore of all the Earth. We were a 100% mormon school and when one catholic kid moved in he was considered an alien. No one mistreated him, but when everyone is looking at you that way, well, you know...

That teaching is one of the things that disgusts me most about the church today, but what disgusts me even more is the way the mormon church cleverly distances them selves and to hear them talk now, they and the catholics and every other church are BFF's.

The Mormon church constantly morphs and subliminally denies. It sickens me that people are buying it.

I do remember my Bishop Dad working with a terrific Catholic man and they liked/respected each other (at work).

But I wasn't allowed to date Catholics.........so I had a secret Catholic Hispanic boyfriend.

More recently when I told my Dad that I was going to a local church......he expressed his fear that it was Catholic. It wasn't but I told him my kids (3 of them) had married Catholics. That quieted him.......Everyone was just inactive in his mind.......

K

I love Catholics. All my ancestors are Catholic. My GF was about to be ordained a jesuit Priest when he met my GM amd listened to his appendage - sometimes you have to use the "other" brain. The Catolics I know are wonderful people. I never let members (mormons) talk bad about Catholics in a Church setting.