“Never trust a Catholic!” My Lutheran minister friend eyed me from across the room and slung that imperative toward me as we sat with three other pastors in our weekly get-together in Panama City, Florida, where I happened to be the local Catholic vicar.
Over several years, he and I had become close friends but, his mother’s warning and a few other anti-Catholic attitudes occasionally slipped out. ” For example, he always referred to the members of my Church as Roman Catholics, with an accent on the “Roman,” which I took as a papal slur. Sometimes, he roughly called us “RC.s”
I was raised with my own prejudices against Lutherans. As a child, my best friends were Lutherans and we often played together in the lot next to St. Timothy’s Lutheran Church just down the street. I remember squatting down once to look through the basement window of St. Timothy’s trying to see if I could catch a glimpse of the golden calf that Sister had told us that non-Catholics worshipped. Never saw it.
Turns out that my best friends over the years have been Lutheran ministers. We hold so much in common. The Lutheran worship service has the greeting, confession, scripture readings, sermon and sometimes the communion service just like Catholics do. We also share pastoral troubles like the latest blow-ups during pastoral board meetings.
I thank God that wherever I have been stationed, especially in small towns, the Lutheran minister and I would become friends. “John” still calls me from time to time. He belongs to a more liberal Lutheran church –the one that developed out of the St. Louis, Missouri division from the Missouri Synod. You couldn’t find a more genial guy than John. Bright, involved with his church and always willing to listen to my stories, he’s been a fine pastor wherever he has served. Then, there is “Al,” a Missouri Synod pastor now retired. Al and his wife have been great examples of practical Christianity and over the years fostered a dozen children, and raised them in a loving family. He and his wife have been friends of mine for over fifty years. LastI can’t forget “Gene,” another Lutheran pastor was the most fiery of them all. He died a few years ago. I miss his strong devotion to his Lutheran community and his warm acceptance of me as a co-servant of the Lord.
No, I didn’t convert any of them to the Catholic Church nor did they get me to convert to the Lutheran Church. What we did do for each other was to let the old prejudices melt away and gracefully, I think, serve the flocks assigned to us.