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I grew up in an anti-Catholic world. The first thing I remember hearing about Catholics in the small town in which I was raised was not just negative, it was extremely so. Everyone I knew was distrustful, suspicious, or hateful toward Catholics. When I joined the LDS Church at age ten, I heard more anti-Catholic sentiment, including the branding of the Catholic Church as "the Whore of Babylon," and "the great and abominable church" or "church of the devil," based on a biased reading of the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 13:6, 14:9). The first edition of Apostle Bruce R. McConkie's controversial Mormon Doctrine published in 1958 instructed readers to "see Church of the Devil" under the heading of "Catholicism," and there it described the Church as "singled out, set apart, described, and designated as being 'most abominable above all other churches.'"1 As a missionary laboring in a densely Catholic part of Illinois, I heard even more vicious slurs against the Catholics, some of it from fellow-missionaries.2
Anti-Catholic sentiment continues at least to some degree among Saints today as is evident in a comment by Elder Russell M. Ballard at a 2014 fireside in Buenos Aires, where he said, "Most people don't know where they came from. They don't know why they're here, and they don't know where they're going. And if they have a Catholic background, they don't know who God is. They don't know who the Savior is; nor do they know who the Holy Ghost is."3 On her blog at the Religion News Service, Jana Riess called Elder Ballard's comments "a regrettable step backwards in Mormon attitudes toward other faiths."4
Like most childhood prejudices, it took a concerted effort for me to shed negative attitudes toward Catholicism. Four things helped: 1) my personal friendship with a number of Catholics; 2) my involvement in interfaith work that has included not only friendship and fellowship, but opportunities to work closely with Catholic believers; 3) my study of the important role Catholicism has played in the unfolding of Christianity; and, especially, 4) my deeper understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the commandment to love others as myself. Also helpful has been the privilege I have had for the past five years of...