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

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One of the interesting traits of many human beings is that the more they are denied something, the more they want it.

I believe it was Edgar Allen Poe who wrote the story of “The Imp of the Perverse” which explored this very trait.

My husband and I used this principle in an interesting way when we were raising our daughters. When they were rowdy and in danger of getting into a fight (verbal), we would “punish” them by forcing them to sit down and watch television–a cartoon or something appropriate for their age.

They HATED it! They begged to be able to stop watching TV and go back to what they were doing (squabbling).

I think that a Catholic who is told, “You cannot attend your wife’s church,” will possibly find himself WANTING to attend, and eventually, his desire may turn to rebellion and he will say with clenched fists, “They can’t stop me! I’m going to whatever church I want!!”

But if the same man is told, "You are free to attend your wife’s church as long as you don’t receive communion, He will say, “Ok, whatever.”

In other words, I believe Holy Mother Church is wise to relax and trust that Catholics will not want to leave their Church rather than assuming that the first expose to Gospel music and “hug-your-neck” friendliness" will make them flee Rome forever.
 
It is sad that you have experienced such cold, unfriendly parishes.

Someday you may travel and happen upon a friendly parish.

There are many, many of them!
 
Peeps said:
I attend Protestant churches because I play piano/organ (for pay) and I enjoy the music and the fellowship.

But from the time I recognized Jesus, Our Lord, in the Blessed Sacrament, I would never abandon Him for music and fellowship.

Receiving Jesus Christ, Truly Present Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity has been the highlight of my life for the last 15 years (my husband and I were received into the Catholic Church in 2004!).

The LORD is my light and my salvation, not “the joyful noise!”

I do feel badly that we Catholics so often offer non-joyful noise to the Lord through our failure to join in with the hymns with a whole heart and voice (in the OF of the Mass). I also feel lonely for human “fellowship” in the Catholic Church–it’s very hard to find friends who want to spend time together outside of the church doors since everyone in the parish seems to have their “group” already.

But again, as George Beverly Shea (Billy Grahsm’s soloist) always sang, “I’d rather have Jesus.”
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That describes much of my experience of the Catholic church as a convert of forty years, and also as a lover of music, albeit not at your level of accomplishment.

But, like you I’d rather have Jesus. Or, as Peter said: “Lord, to whom would we turn?”.
 
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billsannie said:
I have a real problem with my mind wandering during the homily. I’ve tried very hard to listen, but sometimes my mind wandered without my even realizing it. (Maybe it’s a family thing. My mother nearly always feel asleep during the homily.)

But once my efforts to listen wound up costing me dearly. I’ve suffered from acute depression all my life. The story is too long to go into detail, but at this time I was facing the loss of my parents, the only support system I had. My depression was off the rails and my spiritual condition was very delicate. As it happened, the priest, likely having spiritual problems of his own, gave a homily which seemed to say that God would not always listen to our prayers and would sometimes arbitrarily refuse us. I knew better, but between my depression, despair, and my Catholic sense that “the priest knows right” I was precipitated into a spiritual crisis that lasted for years, and left scars on my soul that still trouble me. Maybe always paying attention during Mass isn’t always such a good idea!
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Rosaries and masses ascending for you and your intentions.

AND​

Even if one can’t focus at mass for whatever reason, Jesus still gives Himself, body blood soul and Divinity in the Eucharist to us. So…Even when we can’t give Him our all, He gives us His All in the Eucharist…
 
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Our parish is friendly.

It’s just not a good place for us to make friends. Everyone already has a group.

Someone told us that one of the reasons we’re having trouble finding friends is that we are 60+, and that’s an awkward age. Many 60+ people have grandchildren and enjoy spending a lot of time with them–I don’t blame them. And many younger people have kids of various ages and want to spend time with them, or they’re working hard to pay all the college bills.

We don’t have grandchildren yet, and there’s a good possibility that unless the Lord opens my younger daughter’s womb, she won’t be able to have any children. So that frees up a lot of our time that many people our age spend on their grandchildren.

We’re kind of like old young people!

I just wish I had a woman friend that would go shopping with me, or antiquing, or to chick movies like “Poms.” I do have a woman friend who lives in a shelter for people with mental illness, and we go out once a week and she’s been a dear friend since we were in college. But she can’t go to a lot of regular activities because of her limitations.

And my husband wishes he a had a buddy who would hang out with him in the garage staring at his car engine and grunting, or would talk about the comic book movies that he really likes (and I don’t like at all).

And we both wish we had friends that we could see in church and say, “Hey, you wanna go out after Mass? Get some dinner? Or go to the concert downtown?” We’ve asked a few times, but everyone always has something else to do.

When we were Protestant, we had all of these kinds of friends. (Do I sound like the children of Israel yet–“When we lived in Egypt, we had plenty to eat!”)

Oh, well. It’s been a bad day so far. Worked 11 hours straight with just a 20 minute lunch break. So tired. Waiting for my husband to get home so I can go eat with him. Sooo hungry!
 
Well, that is not what I’d call a friendly parish, to exclude you and your husband. Prayers that something changes! God meant us to live in community, and our parish needs to be part of our community.
 
The only Protestant service I’ve ever kinda wanted to go to would be an old fashioned revival with a preacher. I was considering going to one but it’s hard to find one to go to, and meanwhile Fr. Blount, who is very popular around here and is is a convert from some Evangelical background, has been preaching a lot in this area and his style is very close to a revivalist, with a lot of “Let me hear ya say AMEN” and such. Last year they even had a Catholic “tent meeting” but it was the same day as the National Rosary Rally in DC so I had to miss the tent meeting. If they have it again this year I might go.
 
That sound so awesome! Enjoy!

We have a deacon in our parish who is a convert from Presbyterianism (back before it got “liberal”), and he preaches like the pastors I grew up with.
 
That kind of surprises me. The Presbyterian ministers I have heard are very low-key speakers. Some of them are good in a Scott Hahn type of way, others are just stuffy and awful.

My Baptist-raised in-laws (they’ve since gone non-denominational) had a Baptist minister speak at one of the family funerals (this was because the Presbyterian minister they had gotten for the last family funeral was particularly awful and they didn’t want to use him again), and he also came to my husband’s funeral though he didn’t preach as I had gotten a priest in. He was a decent preacher though he used the words “Father God” about 30 times in a 10 minute talk. I didn’t mind but it was noticeable.

My favorite Protestant preacher is Gayle D. Erwin. I remember being stuck in traffic trying to get to a big Mass in DC and he was on the radio explaining the gospel story about the Apostles wanting to burn some guy to death who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name. The way he was telling the story he had me laughing so hard I almost couldn’t stop. I heard another of his programs at some point where he was talking about how when he was being trained to preach the instructor would send the students out to the graveyard to preach to the tombstones. One of these days I’m going to download his books so I can listen to him more as I cannot get him on the radio regularly.
 
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I think you are harking back to earlier times when the Church had more of a tendency to treat Catholics like children who lacked sufficient abilities of critical thinking to be able to be exposed to something with which the Church does not entirely agree and to decide which parts of it to accept or reject. Likewise, the Church no longer maintains the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which attempted to prevent Catholics from engaging with, among other things, the works of many of the most important French and British philosophers and historians from the Renaissance down to the middle of the twentieth century. To my mind, saying that Catholics may not attend Protestant services for the reasons you state is no different to saying that Catholics may not read Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or the works of the British Empiricists. As you yourself acknowledge later in the thread, you are stretching the interpretation of a specific clause of canon law to try to justify a now obsolete prohibition that was indeed at one time more general.

Experience tells me that the present reality is very different to the situation that you depict. Catholic churches that I know hold regular ecumenical events with local Protestant churches. Catholic clergy are frequently represented at Church of England services, especially as it is the established religion in England and therefore often the focus of national and civic events. I have heard Catholics (ordained and lay) preach in Anglican churches. I used to know a Catholic who sang in the choir of an Anglican cathedral and so always attended Catholic Mass on a Sunday as well as Anglican Holy Communion and Evensong (and also Anglican services during the week). I also know one Catholic who will often attend an Anglican church when travelling in rural England where Catholic churches often simply don’t exist, but where the Anglican parish church is often still central to village life. For most people it would be impractical to sustain regular attendance at two different churches, but I think that the Church no longer regards us as incapable of understanding what we are doing.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I would also hope that if your wife decided she did not want to come to your Protestant services any more, that would be okay and would not precipitate a major family crisis
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Probably not, but I know that’s not how she rolls either. If that were to happen my family probably wouldn’t go to church with her than either.
Tis_Bearself said:
Like I said, I solved it by just not going to my spouse’s Protestant church ever.
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That probably would have been a deal breaker for us, but it wasn’t (isn’t) ever a worry. I don’t foresee her every saying she wouldn’t go to church with my family.
 
Then I guess those previous posters who disagree with your post and have indicated it is now more widely acceptable for Catholics to attend NC services must be wrong.

Like I’ve always said since I started reading this forum…I’m really glad my wife didn’t come here looking for marriage advice… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
 
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