Attending a Protestant service when visiting family in lieu of mass?

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Question from a non-Catholic here—as far as I’ve heard, attending Mass as a Catholic is a requirement (unless there’s extenuating circumstances). Maybe I have that wrong and this whole question is void; however, if that’s the case and I were to convert, I wouldn’t want to visit my Protestant family and then go to Mass by myself on Sundays—that would feel like I was alienating myself further from them and possibly strain our relationships. Would attending a Protestant service while visiting family be okay? Or is mass still an obligation then?
 
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As a Catholic you have a Sunday obligation to attend Mass. It would be a sin to miss Mass voluntarily. If you do convert, you can go with your family to their Protestant church in the morning and then go to evening Mass.
 
Salibi said:
you can go with your family to their Protestant church in the morning and then go to evening Mass.
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Or in the afternoon in the early morning. Many places they even celebrate an anticipated Sunday Mass, that is a Sunday Mass on Saturday evening. All are valid options. I can tell you that you’ll quickly get used to going to Mass by yourself. It’s not terrible at all, Jesus is there. 🙏
Prayers for you.
 
As a Catholic I go to mass Sunday at 9:00am. And then in order to spend some weekend time with my family and in order to pursue ecumenical dialogue I go to my wife’s evangelical baptist church at 11:00am on the strict instruction that they do not try to convert me. I am not home there, I am at home in my Catholic faith.
 
My family has learnt and accepted that I go to Mass while they don’t do anything “religious” except for baptisms, weddings and funerals. I let them know ahead of time that I come at Y time or have to leave at X time and I will leave at that time even if we haven’t finished dinner. Mom has figured out, now that I have been a Catholic for 5 years, that Easter Sunday evening is better than Easter Saturday evening. Family gatherings on Good Friday she doesn’t even suggest anymore. Others might meet but it is accepted that I don’t “have to be there”. Sometimes it is easier for them to accept that I won’t come due to major construction work on the public transportation systems than it is for me to be Catholic.

Sometime my parents surprise me like when they offered to pay for the travel costs when the pope came to visit my country. I was a student at the time with a limited budget. They also came to the Easter vigil when I was received into the Catholic Church. To be honest, I think they were more impressed with some of the “people you see on TV” being Catholic than the liturgy.

All your family and friends want for you is for you to be happy. When they see you happy being Catholic they will accept that you leave for a couple of hours. You can always ask them to join you for Mass. They might like to come and check it out.
 
Kiliann said:
Question from a non-Catholic here—as far as I’ve heard, attending Mass as a Catholic is a requirement (unless there’s extenuating circumstances). Maybe I have that wrong and this whole question is void; however, if that’s the case and I were to convert, I wouldn’t want to visit my Protestant family and then go to Mass by myself on Sundays—that would feel like I was alienating myself further from them and possibly strain our relationships. Would attending a Protestant service while visiting family be okay? Or is mass still an obligation then?
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You could speak to your Priest and see if a dispensation is possible.
 
Another thing to consider is that by attending mass, even if it is by yourself, you are telling the whole world about the importance of the Holy Mass in your life as a Catholic.
 
As stated above by others, going to a Protestant service does not replace going to Mass. I would add two things, however. First, if your family live somewhere extremely remote where there is no Catholic church that you could feasibly get to, you are not obliged to go to Mass. Secondly, some of the more conservative people on this site will tell you that you should not attend Protestant services under any circumstances except for things like weddings and funerals. As far as I know, this is not the actual teaching of the Church and you are perfectly welcome to continue to attend Protestant services as and when the occasion comes up.
 
Kiliann said:
f that’s the case and I were to convert, I wouldn’t want to visit my Protestant family and then go to Mass by myself on Sundays—that would feel like I was alienating myself further from them and possibly strain our relationships
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Almost my entire family is Protestant including my husband. When they want to go to church, and if I am around, I would go to a Saturday vigil mass or an early morning Sunday mass and then go to church with them.

So, we would still be together as a family and I would still fulfill my Sunday obligation.
 
Elf01 said:
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Kiliann:
Question from a non-Catholic here—as far as I’ve heard, attending Mass as a Catholic is a requirement (unless there’s extenuating circumstances). Maybe I have that wrong and this whole question is void; however, if that’s the case and I were to convert, I wouldn’t want to visit my Protestant family and then go to Mass by myself on Sundays—that would feel like I was alienating myself further from them and possibly strain our relationships. Would attending a Protestant service while visiting family be okay? Or is mass still an obligation then?
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You could speak to your Priest and see if a dispensation is possible.
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As the consensus of the replies here say, attending a Protestant service does not fulfill ones Sunday Obligation as a Catholic. However, a priest can dispense you from the obligation for a specific reason. I don’t know how likely a priest would regard your situation as justifying such a dispensation, for occasional Sundays. Honestly, I just don’t know and wouldn’t pre-empt either a positive or negative response.

This can be a thorny situation with relatives if they resent you either not attending their service, or attending their service and also going to Mass. I had exactly this problem with my ex-wife and her family. It may be a time to put your faith first, or a priest may decide that some extenuation is permitted.

If you were to become a Catholic it is definitely something to take up in instruction, to get a better feeling for how the request is likely to go.
 
Attending a Protestant service on Sunday is not a replacement for going to Mass and does not fulfill your Sunday Mass obligation.

In a situation where your Protestant family expected you to go to their church with them, you could go to their church in order to be part of the family activity as long as you didn’t partake of Communion or other “sacraments” there. But you would also be obligated to attend a Catholic Mass if you could reasonably get there (in other words, if there was a Catholic church nearby, it had a Mass scheduled, and you had transportation, and there were no seriously extenuating circumstances such as you became ill).

As CajunJoy noted, this is a common situation for people who are the only Catholic in their family or who marry into a family of Protestants. We get used to going to Mass alone and the family is either okay with it or just has to learn to deal with the fact that their relative attends Mass.
 
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A Protestant service does not fulfill your Sunday obligation. Show your dedication to the Church and attend Mass, keeping these words of Our Lord in mind;
“Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household.” -MT 12:34-36
 
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Kiliann said:
Question from a non-Catholic here—as far as I’ve heard, attending Mass as a Catholic is a requirement (unless there’s extenuating circumstances). Maybe I have that wrong and this whole question is void; however, if that’s the case and I were to convert, I wouldn’t want to visit my Protestant family and then go to Mass by myself on Sundays—that would feel like I was alienating myself further from them and possibly strain our relationships. Would attending a Protestant service while visiting family be okay? Or is mass still an obligation then?
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As a Catholic participation in the Mass on Sundays is an obligation (can be fulfilled by Mass attendance on Saturday evening).
As for a Catholic attending a Protestant Church we may do so for baptisms, weddings and funerals.
We may not attend for the purpose of worship and we may not participate in receiving Communion.
 
http://www.ewtn.com/v/experts/showmessage.asp?number=441348
Catholics MAY attend Protestant services and may sing, pray, etc. but they CANNOT and SHOULD NOT ever receive communion in a non-Catholic church. That is considered COMMUNICATIO IN SACRIS and is still forbidden by canon law (#1365). However, one can still be very devout, loyal, obedient and an orthodox Roman Catholic and at the same time be ecumenical. Attending non-Catholic prayer services is not forbidden. Receiving any sacrament or alleged sacrament in a non-Catholic church is forbidden. Catholics cannot consider a Protestant worship service as fulfilling their Sunday obligation, however, and must still attend a Catholic Mass. Only absolute necessity can a Catholic go to an Eastern Orthodox church for their Sunday obligation when there is no Catholic Church (Latin or Byzantine) in a reasonable distance
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thistle said:
As for a Catholic attending a Protestant Church we may do so for baptisms, weddings and funerals.
We may not attend for the purpose of worship and we may not participate in receiving Communion.
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You are correct that if a Catholic attends a Protestant church, the Catholic can’t receive Communion and shouldn’t be part of the actual service, like as a reader or someone with a visible role in whatever is going on.

However, the rules for Catholics going to Protestant services have been relaxed somewhat and it is now generally understood that with the above noted limitations (no Communion and don’t be part of the Protestant service), a Catholic can occasionally go to Protestant services with Protestant family.

Patrick Madrid has addressed this:


It used to be the case, as you describe, that a Catholic was expected to stay out of the Protestant Church except for a baptism, wedding or funeral and even then there might be some limitation, like if your Catholic relative decided to marry a Protestant in the Protestant Church then the Church disapproved of the wedding and good Catholics were not to attend the wedding.

I myself have always gone by the old rule because it’s how I was brought up, and also it’s just easier than putting myself in any position of Protestant family thinking they’re going to sway me over to their church. I have only attended Protestant weddings a couple of times and funerals a couple of times. Other than that I avoid. But that is my choice, not the current rule.
 
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You are still obligated to go to Mass. You may find that if you are traveling home on Sunday after spending the day with protestant family, you can find a Sunday evening mass to attend and they won’t even be aware that you did this. Or you could go to Saturday vigil mass before meeting everyone for dinner. Depending on where you life, what the mass times are, you should have plenty of options.
 
When I visit my non-Catholic family, if possible I slip out to Mass on Saturday evening, or very early/very late Sunday. There are times when I ask for a dispensation from my pastor, they have always been granted.
 
thistle said:
We may not attend for the purpose of worship
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Given that Pope Benedict XVI attended Westminster Abbey for the purpose of worship, I don’t think that this is true. In fact, as others have stated above, it is not true.
 
You could go to the Vigil Mass on Saturday evening (which fulfills the Sunday obligation) and go with your relatives to their church on Sunday.
 
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