A highly debatable topic as to who has the final say as to what "Word of God" means.
He means sola scriptura - the Bible alone. Something that Catholics cannot abide.
Well, my experience with "former Catholics" is that they become anti-Catholics.
No, they become anti-error. They realize Catholic doctrine is false and is leading people to hell. It's not hate speech to have the desire to warn others, because the Bible and Catholic theology are in direct contradiction. They cannot both be right.
I myself, at one point, was a member of a cult - The Worldwide Church of God. Once I got out, I would try to get others out. They are a cult that discourages personal Bible study without running it through the filter of it's founder, Herbert W. Armstrong. Only he, and the "higher ups" had the "authority" to interpret scripture. To question them was heresy. I discovered the truth when I was challenged to simply read the Bible for myself.
And it's the same thing with the Roman Catholic Church. Only the"higher ups" (Pope, magisterium, priests, etc.) can interpret scripture. Personal Bible study apart from the church's "filters" is discouraged as well.
I live in a very Polish Catholic town. I talk to Catholics every single day at work. They never carry a Bible to Church, nor do they read it much. I've been told time and time again, that they can't understand it without being told what it means. And just like dcontroversial pointed out, every one of them that I talk to has a overwhelming fear of death. When I ask them why, they tell me, to the last, that they really don't know if they're going to "make it" because they don't know if they've "done enough" to satisfy divine justice. Their hope is Purgatory, but they also have a horrible dread about that place as well. They dread the fires and sufferings of that place.
I am not exaggerating at all, epostle. They are worn out, unhappy, have anxiety, and have an anger boiling just below the surface. I have a man I talk to very regularly, who has revealed to me that he resents the fact that he has to do so much to get to heaven. He has told me he takes some comfort in speaking to me, and that he wished that what I keep telling him is true, that salvation is a free gift if one would just accept it by faith alone. But he is terrified that if he does that, and it's wrong, all that he has accomplished will be wiped out, and he will be damned. Do you see the pattern? Catholics work, work, work, in the hopes that they've done just enough to "get there". I've seen this man so sick (he's rather old) that he should be in a hospital bed, but he drags himself to church every day, without fail, because of the FEAR he has inside.
Does that sound like "good news" to you?
No. It's not the gospel. It's a heavy yoke. A yoke of the same repetitive prayers and choreographed movements, candle lighting, bead counting, adoration of Mary, sacrificing Christ afresh on the alter every day.
It's not freedom in Christ - it's slavery to a corrupted system.
Hate speech is out of control
It's not hateful to warn someone of impending disaster. It's loving. If we didn't care about you, or your fellow Catholics, we would happily watch you walk off that proverbial cliff into a Christ-less eternity.