Am I still Catholic?

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I have been Catholic for almost 3 years after being Protestant for 40 years. I now do not accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The lack of Scriptural references and considering how long it took for the dogma to form have me unconvinced that it is true. Now I wonder if I can still consider myself a Catholic.
 
t68ware said:
I have been Catholic for almost 3 years after being Protestant for 40 years. I now do not accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The lack of Scriptural references and considering how long it took for the dogma to form have me unconvinced that it is true. Now I wonder if I can still consider myself a Catholic.
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You are categorized as basically a cafeteria Catholic unless you follow the doctrine. But I prefer we disagree here then being pro choice like so many Catholics.
 
Strictly speaking, no. But I have no idea why you became Catholic if you still believe in sola scriptora. Maybe a look at this would help: catholic.com/tracts/immaculate-conception-and-assumption

Basically, the Immaculate Conception is proven by the angel’s words “full of grace” that can only be taken to mean that there is literally no sin in Mary. I have no idea why you see the length of time it took for it to become dogma as proof it is untrue, most people believed in it before that anyway. If the whole world believed in a flat world, that wouldn’t make it true…oh wait, they did that…
 
I am considering conversion and this is a doctrine I do not see a problem with at all. It is logical if I am understanding it correctly. If Jesus was sinless, he could not have inherited original sin, so therefore Mary would have had to be free from original sin during the time of conception so that it would not be passed onto him.

This is one of those things that can reasoned and doesn’t necessarily have to be spelled out in Scripture.

We reason a great deal of truths about God because he is the ultimate reality–if we reason correctly (which we of course do not always do) we cannot reason apart from him.

Also, Mary’s being “full of grace” implies that God imparted this immaculate state on her as a gift–why is that hard to believe? Is it not the very basis of Christianity?
 
The problem here is that then you are also saying that the church was not infallible on this piece of doctrine. This means that there could be a lot more wrong that isn’t explicitly stated in scriptures. Who is to say that there is a purgatory or that unconfessed mortal sins lead people to Hell if the Church is not infallible on these doctrines.
 
Faith and religion is a tree of life that grows in your heart… Your decision! 😉
 
I just want to point out two paragraphs from the tract listed for the OP.

"
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was officially defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854. When Fundamentalists claim that the doctrine was “invented” at this time, they misunderstand both the history of dogmas and what prompts the Church to issue, from time to time, definitive pronouncements regarding faith or morals. They are under the impression that no doctrine is believed until the pope or an ecumenical council issues a formal statement about it.
Actually, doctrines are defined formally only when there is a controversy that needs to be cleared up or when the magisterium (the Church in its office as teacher; cf. Matt. 28:18–20; 1 Tim. 3:15, 4:11) thinks the faithful can be helped by particular emphasis being drawn to some already-existing belief. The definition of the Immaculate Conception was prompted by the latter motive; it did not come about because there were widespread doubts about the doctrine. In fact, the Vatican was deluged with requests from people desiring the doctrine to be officially proclaimed. Pope Pius IX, who was highly devoted to the Blessed Virgin, hoped the definition would inspire others in their devotion to her. "
 
Personally, I think you need to reexamine exactly how long you think the doctrine took to form. It has been understood from the beginning of Christianity. And how odd that it is the Immaculate Conception that is where you draw the line. I couldn’t imagine walking away from the Real Presence and that, my friend, is only in the Catholic Church. I would suggest you speaking to your priest and maybe he can guide you through your questions. I also wonder what exactly could you have a problem with the concept of an immaculate conception. Would God enter the world in an imperfect vessel? Can you limit God in such a way to exclude the possibility of redeeming Mary at the moment of her conception? The Immaculate Conception seems only reasonable to me, so I am confused by your objections. Hope you find some answers!
 
Short answer yes, you are a still a Catholic.

Be it the Immaculate Conception or any other Doctrine of the Cathiolic Church always remember to be humble and in obedience. Do you not totally understand? Who of us can totally understand a mystery? It is one thing to question and wonder but do so in the attitude of being open to the wisdom of the Church. Pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit.Pray to Our BlessedMother.
As for the date of the proclamation of the doctrine one thing to keep in mind that the Catholic Church,particularly in the West, found it necessary to proclaim dogma about certain things that had been believed for centuries because of heresies and challenges to the faith from Protestent reformers. The dogmas were proclaimed to solidify the teaching on matters of faith the Church had always taught and to uphold the faith to the laity.
One last suggestion that I think you might find very helpful. There is a discussion in the Eastern Catholic subforum about the Immaculate Conception which is very informitive and interesting. Many of your questions/objections will be addressed much better than I have done here and you will read different viewpoints regarding the Immaculate Conception.
 
t68ware said:
I have been Catholic for almost 3 years after being Protestant for 40 years. I now do not accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The lack of Scriptural references and considering how long it took for the dogma to form have me unconvinced that it is true. Now I wonder if I can still consider myself a Catholic.
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The question of whether you can call yourself Catholic will depend on whether you REJECT the teaching…

Many wish to categorize things as either accept or reject, but this is too simplistic in my view.
One can understand and agree and embrace a teaching.
One can not understand but accept a teaching because they trust the Church
One can not understand and reject a teaching because they do NOT trust the Church.

Now - you sort of say two different things above…first you say that you do not accept - which sounds like you are rejecting the teaching, but then you say that you are “unconvinced” which simply says that you do not understand the teaching…
(but you seem to be approaching it from the view that it ain’t true until the 2000 year old church proves it to you…🤷

So - I would ask you - where are you really…Outright rejection or just confused and having doubts…

Peace
James
 
t68ware said:
I have been Catholic for almost 3 years after being Protestant for 40 years. I now do not accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The lack of Scriptural references and considering how long it took for the dogma to form have me unconvinced that it is true. Now I wonder if I can still consider myself a Catholic.
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Also a convert. First, we have to keep remembering that Christianity precedes Scripture. That is, the Church was around for quite a while before the New Testament was in place. We’re so used to going to the Bible for answers, and we do use Scripture so much as Catholics, we can find it hard to go with the teaching and Tradition. So, I get the difficulty we converts can have as moderns. But I also recall that for 1500 years, every Christian on earth did not have this problem. That it was only in the last few hundred years that there were Bibles around for Christians to read and enough literacy to be possible.

Personally, I think we lead ourselves astray and thank You, Lord for a 2000 year-old retention of the Truth. So, on to Mary’s Immaculate Conception. I’ll tell you how I understand it, maybe someone will say I have it wrong, but here’s what makes sense to me.

“Immaculate Conception” means created without Original Sin. The effect of Original Sin is separation from God’s will. We want to have our own will be in charge. So, after that doesn’t work a lot, we freely must consent to submit to God. Not a good scenario for the Mother of God.

God is going to Incarnate as a human. Fully human. That means starting as a completely helpless zygote and infant. For Jesus to be really be fully human, He would have to be able to be subject to the same junk all kids get from imperfect parenting. So He needed a perfect parent who always knew and acted in conformity with His Father’s will in order to become both the human savior as well as our Saving God. That is, God as infant, like all infants unaware of His own nature and identity, had to be able to be His own Parent, through a woman who perfectly acted in His Will.

I really don’t see any other way for God to have effected His Incarnation. There must be, I suppose, as my understanding is nothing compared to God’s power, but this seems to me, to really be the only way it could have worked.

Now, the Assumption is another matter. Though, I suppose if Elijah went that way… 😛
 
t68ware said:
I have been Catholic for almost 3 years after being Protestant for 40 years. I now do not accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The lack of Scriptural references and considering how long it took for the dogma to form have me unconvinced that it is true. Now I wonder if I can still consider myself a Catholic.
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Well, why do you not accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception? We believe that Mary was concieved without original sin. She was sinless. The Immaculate Conception of Mary does not mean that Mary doesn’t need a Savior. Mary herself said:
“And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” (Luke 1:47) Douay-Rheims Bible

Jesus is Mary’s savior. She was prevented from falling into original sin by the grace of God. The rest of us are born with original sin and therefore we need Jesus in order to save us from our sinning ways. Mary was saved from God before sinning.
 
Hey, even the original Protestants, Luther and Zwingli, believed in the Immaculate Conception…

youtube.com/watch?v=6j5GSVL0nSo

I’m a former Protestant, and I gotta tell ya- I have trouble with this too. But not for the same reasons. I just can’t wrap my head around it exactly in a manner which is easily conveyed. I also have an ingrained aversion to the idea of Mary due to the sweeping away of “Catholic” doctrine in Protestantism, specifically Baptist and Methodist. It’s a learning process growing in faith and study. It’s not always easy, but the revelation of an understanding is well worth the struggle there. And it is fought for all the more. I find myself leaning towards extreme distaste for all things Protestant because I understand its horrible implications all the more having learned the truthful doctrines, and having once understood the false doctrines and twisting of true doctrine of Protestant doctrine.
 
Laudate_Dominum said:
Our Lady’s honour should not be taken lightly.
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Amen to that. There is no “well at least you aren’t rejecting X”. It all comes from God, it is all divinely revealed, it is all truth and all truth is of God and God is truth. Reject one and you reject it all. That is the reality of it.

To the OP I will address only one point since there were many great answers here:

You say that you have a problem because the dogma"took so long to be formed". This is false, but I can understand it because even on this website it isn’t made clear what the truth of the matter is. The truth is that a pope does not make up dogma or doctrine. He doesn’t just decide on a whim to say “x is now our belief”. As Catholics we believe that the deposit of faith ended with the last Apostle; it is now our duty (and the duty of the Pope) to protect that faith. Which means that in some cases the Pope exercises his authority once a particular truth that has always been held as true comes into question. He then exercises his charism of infallibility and proclaims as dogmatic that “x is to believed because x has always been believed and held as true”. In other words, the dogma didn’t take so long to be formed - it took long for the Pope to definitively make sure everybody who is authentically Christian understands that the dogma is true and that it has always been held as true in authentic Catholic teaching.

Think of it in terms of getting results from an exam - this makes it easier for me to understand. When I write exams in October it takes 3 months before my professor releases my results. Is it correct to then say I passed my exam only 3 months later? No! When he releases the results he is proclaiming that back in October I passed my exam. In other words, since the day I wrote, I passed. That doesn’t mean it took him long to decide whether or not I passed. Rather, it took him a while to release the information that the state of objective reality (my passing) is in fact to be believed by all. It’s imperfect but hopefully it makes sense.

That is all I wanted to add here. May God bless you and keep you; and may Mary lead you to to the Truth.
 
t68ware said:
I have been Catholic for almost 3 years after being Protestant for 40 years. I now do not accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The lack of Scriptural references and considering how long it took for the dogma to form have me unconvinced that it is true. Now I wonder if I can still consider myself a Catholic.
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Regarding the bolded, look no further than Revelations 12. The woman (Mary) on the moon (which brings light into darkness, but only due to the light of the sun), clothed with the sun (the sun being the Son), with a crown of twelve stars (twelve being the Biblical number for government or many people. The Twelve Tribes, The Twelve Apostles. Even the 144,000, which is 12x12x1000). She gave birth to a male Child, destined to rule with an Iron Rod (I wonder who this could be). A great dragon appeared who showed up to devour the child (the Devil wants to attack them both), but the woman was given the wings of the great eagle and was sent to a place prepared for her.

The woman having the “safe place” where she was protected from the dragon is mentioned twice. You’re probably wondering why this is important? Well, Satan already tried to beat Jesus, and he lost. That’s how he got sent into Hell in the first place. So with Jesus on the way to Earth, he has no choice left; he needs to take out the “weak” link. If you have lived a few thousand years, and you know in advance someone is goign to be born that you have no chance of beating, how do you defeat him?

You try to prevent his ancestors from having children. One way or another.

That’s why you see even within the line of David people screwing up. You see people like David and Solomon falling. They were attacked spiritually. Hell of a thing is, Satan can’t attack Jesus’ dad. He tried that and lost, remember? (Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, after all).

He can’t take out the dad. So it’s time to go after the mother.

Good thing she had those wings of the eagle and a safe place set aside.
 
Here is a link to an interesting article by none other than Pope John Paul II:

catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=5646

In it, His Holiness says this:

Finally in 1854, with the Bull Ineffabilis, Pius IX solemnly proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception: “… We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which asserts that the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from every stain of original sin is a doctrine revealed by God and, for this reason, must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful” (DS 2803).

And later:

This solemnly proclaimed doctrine is expressly termed a “doctrine revealed by God”. Pope Pius IX adds that it must be “firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful”. Consequently, whoever does not make this doctrine his own, or maintains an opinion contrary to it, “is shipwrecked in faith” and "separates himself from Catholic unity".

Before anyone jumps on me, those are the words of Pope John Paul II, not my words.
 
According to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, you are a heretic.

“Can. 751 Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.”
 
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