Fights go better when you can tell your allies from your enemies. For this reason, St. Patrick’s Day is a wonderful day for animosity between Catholics and Protestants. Catholics, at least the Irish ones, are wearing green and all the Protestants that are jerks are wearing orange. Battle lines have been drawn!

Unfortunately, the fight has a high cost. Many that wear green on St. Patrick’s Day are neither Irish nor Catholic, but that’s not going to save them¹. Similarly, some people that wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day aren’t Protestants; they are just jerks. It pains me to see these people dragged into a fight they have nothing to do with, and the only solution I can see is to stop the fight, altogether.

There are many ways to stops fights. You can start a bigger fight. You can beat up all the fighters so that they can’t fight any more. Both of these are valid methods, but they involve me causing or performing more violence than the violence I hope to end. Therefore, instead of using these methods, I am going to end the fighting by helping Catholics and Protestants understand each other. For my efforts, I expect a Nobel Peace Prize, and wouldn’t mind being canonized.

Helping Catholics and Protestants Understand Each Other By Addressing Frequently Asked Questions:

How do Protestants feel about the phrase “the Holy Catholic Church” in the Apostle’s Creed?

If you ask Protestants, they will say that they are cool with it. They will say that when they say catholic they don’t mean the Roman Catholic church, and rather they mean universal. Liars. They are totally not cool with it. The reason you can tell that they are not cool with it is that if you ever hear a Protestant recite the creed, ridiculously heavy emphasis will be placed on the word “holy.” If you don’t believe me, go find some Protestants and check it out. They will say the word “holy” with such heavy emphasis you will think they are being sarcastic, and they might even have frowns on their faces when they say “catholic.”

Is the Vatican trying to take over the world?

The Vatican had their chance at taking over the world when John F. Kennedy was president, and they didn’t do it. We had a deal with him where if he gave the United States to the Vatican, we’d never trust Catholics again, and if he didn’t, we would lay off the conspiracy theories. He didn’t, and some Protestants need to learn to honor their side of the bargain.

Can the ash crosses Catholics get on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday serve as targets to aim at during Protestant vs. Catholic battles?

Even though my aim is to prevent Protestant vs. Catholic fighting, I’m not going to lie to you. Yes, they can.

How do Catholics and Protestants differ in their stance on Buddhism?

They don’t. Everybody loves Buddhism.

Finally, is there any really effective comparison between the Bible and DVDs that informs me on how I should treat books of the Bible that other churches consider canon but my church does not?

Why, yes, there is! The books that other churches consider part of the canon that your church does not are just like the deleted scenes section of a DVD. If you really liked the movie, you would probably enjoy watching them, but if you find anything you don’t like, you can just disregard it and figure there must have been some good reason it was cut. This is exactly like how you would treat books outside of your church’s canon².

I'll send you back to the essence.

Footnotes

1. Not being Catholic, if they were looking to be saved, they would probably be using salvation by grace.

2. Q: What did the Protestant call it when he took the Apocrypha and crumpled it up into a projectile?

A: A non-canon ball.