1/2 Catholic & 1/2 Pagan

[shirleyz]

I belong to a Yahoo Women’s group. These women are from all over the world…we share, we celebrate, we mourn, we support…all in all a very nice group. However, the other day someone left a post saying she was half Catholic and half pagan. It has left me speechless…it doesn’t make any sense and I haven’t a clue how to respond to her without sounding righteous. Any suggestions?

 

[ralphinal]

I belong to a Yahoo Women’s group. These women are from all over the world…we share, we celebrate, we mourn, we support…all in all a very nice group. However, the other day someone left a post saying she was half Catholic and half pagan. It has left me speechless…it doesn’t make any sense and I haven’t a clue how to respond to her without sounding righteous. Any suggestions?

Ask her what she means. Get an understanding. That is always the first thing. Do not go beyond that. DO not try to respond at all other than asking about the statement itself. If you do not try to understand where she is coming from, how will you find out where she is going?

 

[Ravyn_Guiliani]

this is not unusual. I know atleast two large yahoo groups for Christo-pagans, and one for specifically Catholic-Craft and another for Traditional Stregheria which can include Italian Roman Catholicism. There are many native cults that combine Catholicism with paganism, Santeria, Bruheria, Vodoun to name a few.

Did this woman ask for advice on how to change? Or just mention her beliefs in passing? Before you can intelligently respond to anything you need to find out more about where she is coming from.

 

[Ignatius]

I belong to a Yahoo Women’s group. These women are from all over the world…we share, we celebrate, we mourn, we support…all in all a very nice group. However, the other day someone left a post saying she was half Catholic and half pagan. It has left me speechless…it doesn’t make any sense and I haven’t a clue how to respond to her without sounding righteous. Any suggestions?

And what’s wrong with righteousness? Besides, it’s probably a fundamentalist trying to show that the Catholic Church isn’t Christian. The central theme of their attacks is always that we have incorporated pagan themes into our worship.

Just tell her the truth, that it’s impossible be a faithful Catholic if you practice paganism.

 

[cheddarsox]

This is really common. I’ve been part of the pagan community for 15 years. There are many former Catholics, and many who straddle the line.

I know it is a touchy subject, but there are so many similarities between Catholic practice and structure and many forms of pagan religion practice and structure that it is a very easy slide for people to make from one to the other, and easy for many people to practice both at once.

Also, from the pagan side, there isn’t a strong teaching that you can’t hold Catholic beliefs, or Catholic practices, so if they identify more with paganism, they just overlook the fact that Catholicism totally condemns it. And that is easy to do when so many practices are so similar.

Also, many feel that both religions are part of their heritage and that they have ties to both, and a right to enjoy the benefits and traditions of both.

This is one of the main reasons that many Protestant denominations make such a point of not doing things in a Catholic/pagan manner, because it they can and are so easily confused and merged by people.

They set themselves far apart in an effort to not fall into the grey zone.

This is a real issue that I have found it difficult to discuss with Catholics, because they don’t want to have to face it, or they just want to wave it away like only stupid people would fall for that, but the number of former Catholics in the pagan community,and the number of straddlers is really rather large.

I am not suggesting that Catholicism needs to change it’s structure or practice, but by pretending the issue is no big deal, it leaves many people open to the switch. The Catholic church probably needs to make more of a point in explaining it’s doctrines and practices and making sure it’s members are clear about how they differ from pagan doctrine and practices.

Pagan faiths are becoming more prevalent, and mainstream and many people just don’t see the difference and make the switch, and don’t even feel like it is much of a switch in practice.

 

[LDNCatholic]

Cool. I’m a Mormon chaos magician and paradigm pirate who just recently became a Catholic catechumen at Advent, and hopefully will be baptized and confirmed come Easter. We could use more pagans.

Have you got any intention of quitting the mormon/pagan stuff? If not, with all due respect you’re only going through the motions, you aren’t a Catholic.

In relation to the OP, it doesn’t surprise me. A lot of my friends say silly things like that. However they are from India, where ethnicity and religion seem to be one and the same to some people. They say they’re ‘‘half hindu, half sikh’’ ‘‘half indian, half muslim’’ and so on. One girl from Sri Lanka identifies herself as ‘‘half Hindu, half evangelical Christian’’

 

[shirleyz]

Isn’t this a form of Polytheism? How can someone call themselves Catholic who does not acknowledge the one true God and also practices idolatry. She is into the nature thing being opposed to the abuse of nature. She explained it this ay: "abuse of the land is abuse of their mother. Mother earth provides and cares for them; to harm her is to harm self.

I asked her why she feels the need to acknowledge several gods since the one true God made our world and already provides everything for us If we harm our planet we not only hurt ourselves, but we fail to accept the responsibility God has given to all us to love and respect one of the numerous gifts provided by Him. She said that ultimately, all gods are one god. That the various
images of the one God allow us to find truth in our own way whether it be through God, a god or goddess.

I don’t know, maybe I live in my own sheltered little world, but this
just does not make any sense to me. Catholicism is such a beautiful faith and I just do not understand why someone would take away from our Lord all the respect, love and obedience that He deserves. The first commandment is: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other god before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them. It is written: “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

Why can’t people just let God be God.

 

[shirleyz]

Cool. I’m a Mormon chaos magician and paradigm pirate who just recently became a Catholic catechumen at Advent, and hopefully will be baptized and confirmed come Easter. We could use more pagans.

I am going to suggest you buy a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and read Section 2, Article 1 entitled The First Commandment and start with #2110. It covers superstition, idolatry, divination and magic. Do your RCIA catechists know that you hold such beliefs???

 

[cheddarsox]

Isn’t this a form of Polytheism? How can someone call themselves Catholic who does not acknowledge the one true God and also practices idolatry. She is into the nature thing being opposed to the abuse of nature. She explained it this ay: "abuse of the land is abuse of their mother. Mother earth provides and cares for them; to harm her is to harm self.

I asked her why she feels the need to acknowledge several gods since the one true God made our world and already provides everything for us If we harm our planet we not only hurt ourselves, but we fail to accept the responsibility God has given to all us to love and respect one of the numerous gifts provided by Him. She said that ultimately, all gods are one god. That the various
images of the one God allow us to find truth in our own way whether it be through God, a god or goddess.

I don’t know, maybe I live in my own sheltered little world, but this
just does not make any sense to me. Catholicism is such a beautiful faith and I just do not understand why someone would take away from our Lord all the respect, love and obedience that He deserves. The first commandment is: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other god before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them. It is written: “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

Why can’t people just let God be God.

Here is an explanation for some of the above…The Trinity…God in Three persons…so, why can’t God be in more than Three persons? If they don’t understand the trinity, and no one does, even the Church itself says it is a mystery that must be accepted, but cannot fully be understood…then they don’t see why God doesn’t just have other forms and faces for other people.

And many treat the various gods and goddesses the same way they thought of the saints. Shrines, statues, offerings…it looks the same, and feels the same. If they didn’t fully understand the Catholic doctrine behind these practices, they truly don’t understand there being any difference at all.

Reread your last paragraph. Slowly. Think about it. If that is the truth, then how does one explain the trinity, if no images are allowed, how does one explain the statues? It feels to many as if the Catholic church has already “paganized” the one true God, already made allowances for practices that are forbidden, etc. If one sees it that way, then there is no difference (to them) to keep on going.

That is why so many Protestant groups have done away with smells, bells, images, etc, because many people cannot discern the fine line of differences explained by theology and doctrine. They know what they feel and do and act on that.

The only answer I can think of for the situation is to really hammer home the doctrine, because people really don’t get it. They actually do not perceive the difference.

If it is OK to pray to a saint who is the patron of something, they do not understand why it is not alright to pray to something they understand and experience as a face of the Divine for the same thing.

The Catholic church has answers to these issues. Find them and share them with your friend, and see what happens.

 

[KarenNC]

Isn’t this a form of Polytheism? …She said that ultimately, all gods are one god. That the various
images of the one God allow us to find truth in our own way whether it be through God, a god or goddess.

There is a difference in this view (all Gods are ultimately just facets of the same God) which is monistic and the hard polytheistic understanding that there are in actuality multiple distinct Gods.

 

[LDNCatholic]

Do I have any kind of time frame? Mormonism and occultism are what inspired me to become Catholic, and I’m not about to abandon them now.

Well until you do, you won’t be a Catholic. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings I’m just telling it to you exactly how it is.

 

[LDNCatholic]

What does baptism and confirmation do, then?

If it was as simple as that, I’d team up with a bishop, buy a hosepipe and convert the whole world in no time. There has to be intention. An intention to renounce evil, and follow Jesus in His Church. As you may know there are certain promises you will have to make come Easter time.

 

[LDNCatholic]

And I intend to do that. But when the Church actually defines the things it labels as evil, I find that they don’t apply to anything I’m into (or much in real life, for that matter), so I don’t fret.

You cannot be a Mormon, and a Catholic, simple as. You cannot practice any occultism and remain Catholic, simple as. It might disappoint some but rather they be disappointed than they hold misconceptions about the Church.

 

[Ravyn_Guiliani]

… She said that ultimately, all gods are one god. That the various
images of the one God allow us to find truth in our own way whether it be through God, a god or goddess.

… I just do not understand why someone would take away from our Lord all the respect, love and obedience that He deserves. The first commandment is: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, …"

Why can’t people just let God be God.

I can tell you from my own experience of being strega that this is the reason people seek other faces of God—the one they are presented does not look like themselves! I am 1/4 Sicilian and 3/4 Celtic. I had a very hard time identifying with a Jewish Middle Eastern God of the OT who started out as a Tribal God of Nomadic people. He didn’t LOOK like me, or ACT like I would have. The culture clash was more than I could handle. Paganism lets you see God from the history and culture of your people. This is exactly the deal with the Mormons! The Catholic Church in the Middle Ages and times past even portrayed Jesus as a blonde blue-eyed Euro! The OT God is a capricious, jealous, chauvinistic schizo to the uneducated! And He is Jewish! I am not Jewish. (this is in no way intended to be anti-Semitic, I am just not Jewish.) He can SAY He is the God of everyone, but not everyone can identify, understand and accept his inate and inherent culture and ethnicity as their own. I personally LIKE my heritage and believe it contributes to who I am as a Child of God.

Maybe this is not the right attitutde, but from my own experience I would not be any kind of Christian today if it were not for my previous pagan beliefs. Paganism brought me to the Church. And I don’t regret that.

 

[Ravyn_Guiliani]

If it was as simple as that, I’d team up with a bishop, buy a hosepipe and convert the whole world in no time. There has to be intention. An intention to renounce evil, and follow Jesus in His Church. As you may know there are certain promises you will have to make come Easter time.

one thing I learned when I was a missionary for the JWs a long long time ago…you don’t go ripping the rugs out from under peoples’ belief systems until you got a nice solid mat to put back under them.

You need to tap into the needs that paganism is filling for the person and then explain how Catholicism fulfills them even better.

Tsuzuki needs to be able to explain and somewhat control his world, hence the Mormonism and Chaos Magick. Show how Catholic Faith does this too in a deeper richer more authentic way. (Because it does.)

For the OP, ask the woman about her beliefs and with every explanation take it and relate your personal experience how Catholicism fills the bill in the same way or better for you.

But threatening and scaring people off won’t work. That is only a reactive response to your own fear and inadequacies in apologetics. Ask, listen, learn, share, then pray. All YOU can do.

 

[Ravyn_Guiliani]

This is a real issue that I have found it difficult to discuss with Catholics, because they don’t want to have to face it, or they just want to wave it away like only stupid people would fall for that, but the number of former Catholics in the pagan community,and the number of straddlers is really rather large.

I am not suggesting that Catholicism needs to change it’s structure or practice, but by pretending the issue is no big deal, it leaves many people open to the switch. The Catholic church probably needs to make more of a point in explaining it’s doctrines and practices and making sure it’s members are clear about how they differ from pagan doctrine and practices.

Pagan faiths are becoming more prevalent, and mainstream and many people just don’t see the difference and make the switch, and don’t even feel like it is much of a switch in practice.

this is exactly right. This is why I believe RCIA needs major reform. I would have come into the Church YEARS before I did if I had been properly catechized!

When you dismiss another’s sincere and earnest belief system as “silly” or “ridiculous” you have soul-murdered that whole group. You also look like arrogant ignorant fundamentalists and extremists.

I knew I would NEVER become a Christian if my choice was Protestantism only. Catholicism is very open and free to variety (not talking about unchangeable stuff, just about the unimportant everyday personal stuff that you would not realize as a Catholic and take for granted unless you were ever, say, raised as a Jehovah’s Witness like me!) You are not told how to wear your hair or what Saint to use for intercession–that sort of thing. Catholics have no clue what it is like living with the rules of “Christian” fundamentalism! What glorious freedom we have!

And this is the same appeal of paganism. Freedom. So it would be wrong to immediately start out by curtailing freedom and expressing your disdain and disapproval of everything that attracts people to paganism in the first place. Atleast it would be ineffective.

I will be honest here and tell you that I miss the social contacts I had as a pagan. I have been sick (and husband too) for 6 weeks with a horrible cold–first in my head then my chest–here it is 2 days before Christmas and not one person from my Cenacle group or who I know from Mass has even called to see why we have not been there. Not one Christmas card. Not even an email and I did email a couple of people and tell them I was sick! When I can I make Confession every two weeks and take Communion every week, sometimes more than once a week, but Fr. has not once asked the office to give us a call or check on us. OK he is a busy man, but it does no make me feel any better that I could just stop going to Church tomorrow and no one would even notice or care. It was not like that among my witch friends. If I was sick there was a candle lit, prayers said, herbal tea and a pot of chicken soup brought over. (And I do make the phone calls and check up on people myself from Church.)

For me, being homebound because of a disability most of the time, Catholicism is lonely. If it were not for my faith in God and my relationship with Mary and the Saints it would not be any different from my being a solitary witch.

So take paganism and witchcraft seriously because the people who practice them do. And don’t go around with a knee-jerk reaction to it either. Educate yourself then educate others properly about the Church. Branch out of your comfy little box. Make friends, real friends. Give a witch a reason to want to be exclusively Catholic.

 

[ralphinal]

Back to the origional post,

There are several things that we must consider.

1. The person may be a genuine person of faith but unsure of where her faith is taking her. She may want to hold to things that are comforting to her while ignoring things that challenge her views or lifestyle. She wants to find something but is unable to step off into the deep end.
2. The person may have only a nominal view of Catholicism and/or paganism and may therefore think that they can co-exist. I find it intellecutally disenginuous to think that you can be a monotheist and a polytheist at the same time. If she emmersed herself in either study, she should find herself one or the other.
3. She wants to have her cake and eat it too. The God of Christianity describes Himself as Father. Sorry, there is not a goddess involved. If this is insulting to someones idea of equality, that is too bad. She may want to see the world in a certain way, and Catholic teachings will not let her. So, she creates a hybrid religion. To me, this is also seen in the many facits/One god philosophy. It is the ultimate in cafeteria religion.
4. She put it up there to start a conflict. She wants to show Catholics how pagan they are or to show pagans why they should be catholic. I really think that this is not likely the case. This type of poster is generally more overt in thier attack.

Honestly, I have no personal issue with polytheists. My faith tells me that it is wrong, and I agree with that. But, I am not willing to judge any one. I do not know what lead them to that system of faith. I would like to find out, but not on this thread.

 

[LDNCatholic]

So I won’t call what I do “Mormonism” or “occultism” when I’m around Catholics with faulty definitions. Problem solved.

Yeah if you say so. Good luck joining the church though (that wasn’t sarcasm I wish you all the best and hope you can leave behind those things).

God Bless

Peter

 

[LDNCatholic]

Completely leaving behind Mormonism and occultism would require me to also leave behind Catholicism, as the three have been united in my heart and mind for a long time, and the first two are the reason for the third.

But to keep the beliefs from those two systems would hinder you from following Catholicism in it’s entirety. I am glad they led you to the Truth, but they were the vehicle, not the destination.

 

[shirleyz]

Honestly, I have no personal issue with polytheists. My faith tells me that it is wrong, and I agree with that. But, I am not willing to judge any one. I do not know what lead them to that system of faith. I would like to find out, but not on this thread.

I agree with you. My intent was not to judge her or anyone else. I am just curious on what leads some people to go in that direction.

Thank you everyone for your kind responses and have a very Blessed and Merry Christmas.