Catholics?

Question

I just wanted to add this into here. I know I question your beliefs a lot on here. I do not agree with all of them. However I do believe many of you are Christians. I say many because I doubt any church truly has 100% of it's members saved, including mine. I do not seek to attack you. I just seek a dialog and a give and take. I will always try to keep my questions as polite as possible. So I ask if I have offended you to forgive me? But I also ask will you bear with me when I question? It is not done from hate. I consider you my brothers and sister in Christ and do not wish to offend my family. I see things that you believe that I feel are not necessarily true. So I question them. However I try my best to be polite when doing it. So can we still love each other in Christ even when I am questioning you?

I felt the need to put this on here because some have accused me of attacking Catholics and this is not my goal.

copper o - I was getting too many violations when my questions were public.

JC - I care what my Christian brothers and sisters think. I have no desire to offend them.

Yogini Evolibations! - I really do not intend to offend with my questions. At least not to Catholics. I will admit to likely having crossed that line a few times with JW's and mormons.

tur b - You don't understand and I am not sure how to explain it to you. Let me try. To me it appears the Catholic church has so many traditions. So many things that they must do. Many of these to me and many others do not appear to be supported Biblically. Believe it or not I come from a Catholic family. They have done all the various sacraments and such and thus think they are fine and are on their way to Heaven. Yet they never attend church. They do not read their Bibles. The only time I have known my grandma to pray is over the thanksgiving turkey. Because of the teachings of the Catholic church they think they are fine. When the evidence of their lives says they are not. This is why I question the Catholic church and its traditions. I think it would greatly benefit the Catholic church to step away from tradition. To call upon their people to read the Word. To move away from tradition and into a relationship with Christ.

cont. from above.

Not all Catholics are this way but many are. I think the Catholic church needs to forget the pomp and circumstance and get back to Jesus. I probably have not been very clear here and offended you further. But it is not my intent.

tur b - I was never a practicing Catholic. My extent of being a Catholic was being baptized as a baby. I grew up pentecostal. I tried to make it clear I do not think all Catholics are like that. But I guess it seems many are. One of my friends in College was a devout Catholic. He attended church frequently and even went on missionary trips. Yet he did not know the book of Romans was in the Bible. I know Catholics disagree with sola scriptura but it just seems like so many Catholics don't read at all.

Maybe I have just been exposed to the worst parts of Catholicism. I truly hope that is the case.

Let me add on a side note I have been very tempted to visit a catholic church for a mass lately. Not with any desire to convert but more to see how the spirit feels there.

In the above Spirit should have been capitalized as I meant the Holy Spirit.

MaH - There is a very specific reason why I ask here rather than just reading links. I like to see what the people in a denomination say and believe. Not just what official doctrine says. There can be a difference. I often read the links. I just like the personal answers from the specific denominations.

MaH - Let me add to the above. Sometimes when one reads a website It is not totally clear. Sometimes different denominations give slightly different meaning to words. And thus confusion arises. When talking to a person who puts it in their own words a clearer understanding is sometimes gained.

Answer 1

Edge, thank you.

Many of those who do attack us, and the Church, don't recognize us as brothers and sisters in Christ but brainwashed cult members. This is painful, but as their minds are granite-hard in this respect there is nothing resembling dialogue going on with them -- only defense of our faith, mainly to counter their bigotry (that's exactly what it is) for the sake of others who may assume their accusations are true if we do not respond.

Your questions have evolved a bit over the past few months. At first you, yourself, were rather confrontational and accusatory. This may be the history that some are remembering. You have moved gradually beyond seeing us as faceless members of a monolithic institution to individuals who love and serve Christ. I find your questions thought-provoking and honest, and if they're impassioned at times that's understandable. If I have occasionally taken offense (not lately, though) it was mostly frustration with the larger body of "why do Catholics do this?" questions and seeing one more -- and it was one too many that day!

If you lived near me, Edge, I would be honored if you accompanied me to Mass. Many of us here would. The great thing is that if, when and where you ever do so, we'll be there with you regardless.

Answer 2

oh yeah, right, you don't mean to offend, you just want all Catholics to agree with you. isn't that it? that's the reason why you keep asking very unoriginal questions over and over despite of so many good answers that were provided to you by so many Catholics. you see, it's not that you can't comprehend the Catholic doctrines, but rather you refuse to comprehend it.

you see, the problem when you used to be a Catholic is you were exposed to non-practicing Catholics. I don't mean to offend your family, but I come from a Catholic family too, and they go to Church, pray a lot, don't engage in any gossiping whatsoever, we do our very best to better our lives, and try to become worthy of the Eucharist at Mass. now, whatever made you leave the Catholic Church is not the Church's fault, but the Catholic people you were exposed to. you assume that Catholics don't have a personal relationship with Jesus because when you were a Catholic, you used to not know Jesus, am I right? what you failed to realize is that Traditions (take note of the capital T), dogmas, and the Bible, are the things that bring us, Catholics, closer to God. if only you studied Catholicism with all your heart and soul instead of listening to biases and bigotry from non-Catholics, you wouldn't end up confused.


well then, I think the bottomline of your problem is you keep looking at people, their attitude, and what they do. if you have never been a practicing Catholic, then you have no right to criticize Catholicism.

Answer 3

Edge, I appreciate these words of reconciliation.

Your personal history points out a very different Catholicism in those who do not worship every weekend and those who do. The Catholic Church requires us to come to the table of Christ to witness his transformation in the Eucharist and to revise our behavior to more closely approximate the life of Christ.

Those who imagine themselves Catholic, but who do not have the time to spend an hour a week in worship may think Catholicism is some sort of ethnicity, some cultural relic, certainly not something that demands our total commitment in faith.

Imagine if a man claimed to be engaged to a woman, but didn't feel any particular need to spend even an hour with her on weekends. Not much of a relationship, eh?

Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 4

This is what this forum is SUPPOSED to be about - questioning people of different beliefs and faiths.

Sadly, most of the questions are reduced to feuds between the different groups - Atheists attacking Christians, Catholics attacking Muslims, and so on...

I am an Atheist/Agnostic (which side I see things on depends on how I'm feeling about the world in general) - and I have no problem agreeing (or disagreeing) with a REASONABLE question or debate. But with most questions coming off as attacks, I tend not to answer as much as I used to...

Answer 5

There is nothing wrong with questioning the beliefs of others. As a whole the human race is very diversified not only in religion but politics, economy, Our stand on War.. Isn't asking questions the way to learn? Some people get very defensive when it comes to Religion. I was raised a Catholic but as an adult I question many issues pertaining to Catholicism.

Answer 6

OK. I'll take you at your word.

But I do feel compelled to also say that instead of coming here to ask your questions, that you study some of the links you have been given in responses, so that your questions have a little more depth to them.

Quite honestly, sometimes it feels as if your questions are baiting because they have been asked so many times before. It feels like "piling on." There are so many resources available to answer your questions that it can feel as if you are asking questions in this kind of forum to get the approbation of those with an axe to grind about the Church and its teaching.

I'm not saying that is your motivation, but how it feels to keep seeing the same questions over and over and over again in the face of authoritative sources being so readily available.

Answer 7

Sometimes you have attacked but you frankly remind me of myself when I started on my journey of discovery of the beliefs of the Catholic Church. I never thought it would lead to my conversion but to know the Catholic Church is to know the truth the Church contains.

The Church has endured 2000 years of questions such as yours as well as the attacks of heretics and false teachers. Christ promised that the Church will endure until the end of the age when He comes again at the Parousia. It is only His Church that have this promise and it is the goal of His Church to fulfill His prayer that we will all be one. May the Lord bless you abundantly.

In Christ
Fr. Joseph

Steve,

The Catholic Church will never surrender to heresy such as Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide. Both of these heretical doctrines are against the plain meaning of Scripture as taught by St. Paul and St. James, respectfully. Instead, I would suggest that the Protestants reject such doctrines of men and return to Christ's Church where the Scriptures say that the Church is "the bulwark and ground of the truth."

Answer 8

Well, I am Catholic, and I believe in God. Catholicism is just another branch of Christianity which has been around for many 1000's of years, the Catholic religion is harsher though, pretty much everything we do is a sin. I havnt gone to church in years, but I worship God here at my house, and I am still Catholic. So, yeah I hope this has helped you.

Answer 9

We can't know the subjective states of the souls of manifest heretics, and we can't know how God might or might not illumine the the souls of the invincibly ignorant. But we can and do know what He has revealed about Himself, and we must tell others this Gospel. We can and do know what He told us about His Church, and we must bring people to it. We can and do know what He told us to do, and we must do it. And we must do these things with firmness, boldness, prudence, and great charity, all while begging mercy for sinners, including ourselves.

We are saved by grace alone, through a saving faith and as a fruit of Christ's having suffered and shed His blood for us. Christianity is both a "head religion" and a "heart religion"; we intellectually assent to the Truths given to us by the Church through Her Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and these Truths affirm that we must give our hearts to Jesus. In other words, we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).

To be saved:
believe and trust in Jesus, repent of your sins, be baptized, receive the Eucharist, and obey the will of God as taught to us in the Bible and the constant teachings of the Church. Love God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.


Ecclesiastical tradition is the body of disciplines and practices which Christ's Church has ordained to be the manner in which our Faith is lived out and expressed.

Answer 10

okay im a catholic. there are many things i dont understand about the church, like why theyre against gays and masturbating, gossip and everything in the world, but i do believe that there is a god and hes calling to everyone--even when they dont know it. when they do something good, theyre doing it for God. and even if people dont "believe," if they have any conscience at all- that would be God right there pretty much guiding you through life.