Baptism/Confirmation before marriage

[RoseMary131]

I would love to wake up one day and be OK with the idea of being 100% Catholic.

You might be interested in reading books by Scott Hahn. He was a Protestant preacher who became Catholic.

The **Surprised by Truth **books are wonderful. They are writings of those who joined the Church and what it was that drew them to the Church. What drew them to the Church may have actually been a stumbling block to them before they understood “WHY” the Church teaches as she does.

Understanding “WHY” the Church teaches as She does, is a lifting of veils and we see more clearly the Truths of God.

You and your dear boyfriend are in my prayers. You are a very special couple.

Always pray for guidance of the Holy Spirit as you take steps on this journey to Baptism and Matrimony.

 

[RoseMary131]

God has been preparing you for Baptism your entire Life.

You now seem to have a Desire for Baptism. You profess yourself as a Christian.

God is walking with you on this Journey towards Baptism.

God is preparing your heart, mind, and soul for this great gift.

Maybe you will receive this Sacrament in the Holy Catholic Church. Maybe you will receive the gift of Baptism through a non-Catholic church.

Have peace in your soul knowing at the moment you can be experiencing a Baptism of Desire.

Once a person desires Baptism, they sometimes have a fear - what if I should die before receiving Baptism - the Church teaches that the Baptism of Desire has an effect on the soul.

Right now, you are not ready to enter the Sacrament of Initiation with the Catholic Church through the Sacrament of Baptism. Nor are you in a connected belief with a non-Catholic church.

I write this to make sure you feel Peace, knowing you are on a journey and Baptism is not an emergency situation for you today.

(However, if you were to find yourself in an emergency situation, you may want to be prepared to know if you would want to ask for Baptism at that moment.)

We prepare for Baptism one step at a time. I’m very happy for you for this desire you have for Baptism.

 

[jmcrae]

Thank you for understanding, McMcMe. I would love to wake up one day and be OK with the idea of being 100% Catholic.

It doesn’t happen overnight. In my own case, it took 17 years for me to “unlearn” the ways of the world, and accept the teachings of the Church.

One of the pivotal moments for me was the discovery or the realization that the Catholic Church’s founder is Jesus. No other religion or denomination (except, in a spiritual sense, Judaism) can make that claim.

It would make a lot of things a lot easier. But I know at the one confirmation rite I attended that the converts had to publicly proclaim that they believed everything the Catholic Church believes – and I don’t think that’s something I could do.

Not yet. But keep an open mind - it could happen some day.

It’s kind of funny, really, because I actually really like our church and the priest there. I just don’t agree with The Church (with a big C)

Another kind of “aha” moment in my own spiritual journey was the realization that I didn’t want my church to agree with me - I wanted it to agree with God - especially on things I didn’t understand very well. I realized at a certain age that I needed a Church that could guide me out of the wilderness and back to civilization, rather than a Church that would keep me company in the wilderness, and nod its head every time I came up with an idea.

 

[1ke]

But I know at the one confirmation rite I attended that the converts had to publicly proclaim that they believed everything the Catholic Church believes – and I don’t think that’s something I could do.

That is what you will have to do if you are baptized as an adult into the Catholic Church.

It’s kind of funny, really, because I actually really like our church and the priest there. I just don’t agree with The Church (with a big C)

I suggest you go talk to the priest and discuss these issues.

You cannot be baptized into the Church without intending to practice the faith. And as an adult you canot receive “only” baptism. You will receive confirmation and eucharist too. But not if you do not profess and believe all that the Church teaches. That is the point of being baptized, to live the Catholic Faith.

BTW, all baptized Christians are baptized into the Catholic church, but they are imperfectly joined to Her. However, due to schism and separation, they lack the fullness of grace found within the Catholic sacramental system established by Christ. The Church also does not consider them canonically Catholic until and unless they make the profession of faith you mention above. The Church’s goal is to bring the separated brethern fully back into the Church.

Christ established the Catholic Church, the Church and Christ are one. If you do not believe that, you cannot and should not join Her. If you do believe that, you must join without reservation.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

I may be wrong, since I don’t have the actual text in front of me, but I believe the baptismal vows ask if you believe in the holy catholic church (little c – same as it is in the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed: vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/credo.htm ) while the confirmation vows say that you believe everything believed by the Catholic church (big C).

The catholic church (little C) means the universal church (i.e. all of Christianity). The Catholic church (big C) is the one run by the Vatican. (Protestant churches use the Nicene Creed, and it would be very odd for them to be saying they support the Catholic church when they obviously don’t)

 

[jmcrae]

I may be wrong, since I don’t have the actual text in front of me, but I believe the baptismal vows ask if you believe in the holy catholic church (little c – same as it is in the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed: vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/credo.htm ) while the confirmation vows say that you believe everything believed by the Catholic church (big C).

The catholic church (little C) means the universal church (i.e. all of Christianity). The Catholic church (big C) is the one run by the Vatican. (Protestant churches use the Nicene Creed, and it would be very odd for them to be saying they support the Catholic church when they obviously don’t)

Actually, in the original Greek, they don’t have “little c” or “big c” but it is the same word in both cases.

Also, there were no other churches back then, other than the Catholic Church, so to believe in “the catholic church” is exactly the same thing as to “Believe all that the Catholic Church teaches and professes.”

I don’t know where this myth of “little c catholic includes non-Catholic Christians” because the original writers of both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed were Catholics and had no concept of “non-Catholic Christians” - they didn’t exist, yet.

 

[quiet52]

Dear OP,

Since you do not want to be in full communion with the Catholic Church at this time, then the Catholic Church cannot baptize you. I suggest that you either learn more about the teachings which you disagree with and then discern again, or that you be baptized in another faith tradition. If you are baptized elsewhere, and are led to full communion, you can prepare to be received into the Catholic Church, confirmed, and receive first Eucharist (Holy Communion)
May the peace of Christ be with you.

CELEBRATION OF RECEPTION

(The Priest invites the candidates for reception, along with their sponsors, to come into the sanctuary and before the community to make a profession of faith)

N., of your own free will you have asked to be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church. You have made your decision after careful thought under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I now invite you to come forward with your sponsor in the presence of this community to profess the Catholic faith. In this faith you will be one with us for the first time at the eucharistic table of the Lord Jesus, the sign of the Church’s unity.

When the candidates and their sponsors have taken their places, the Priest asks the candidates to make the following profession of faith.

I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God.

Then the candidates with their sponsors go individually to the Priest, who says to each candidate

N., the Lord receives you into the Catholic Church.
His loving kindness has led you here,
so that in the unity of the Holy Spirit
you may have full communion with us
in the faith that you have professed in the presence of his family.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

Well, you need some way to differentiate between the two. Protestants didn’t leave because they disagreed with original church teachings – they left because they were protesting the widespread corruption and greed that had seeped into the Roman Catholic church’s leadership.

So we still consider ourselves part of the catholic church that existed in the beginning. Just not part of the Catholic church that exists now.

 

[jmcrae]

Well, you need some way to differentiate between the two. Protestants didn’t leave because they disagreed with original church teachings – they left because they were protesting the widespread corruption and greed that had seeped into the Roman Catholic church’s leadership.

So we still consider ourselves part of the catholic church that existed in the beginning. Just not part of the Catholic church that exists now.

The Catholic Church that exists now is the same Catholic Church that has existed ever since Christ poured out blood and water from His Sacred Heart on to the earth to redeem it from Original Sin, and “gave birth” to the Sacraments from His side, just as Adam gave birth to Eve from his side.

What the original Protestants separated from was the Church that Christ established on earth, and died for on the Cross.

If the real reason they left was because they were protesting the widespread corruption and greed that had seeped into the Roman Catholic church’s leadership, then they should have been reunited with the Church after the Council of Trent, which cracked down on all of those abuses, and purified the Church from all those things that were not from the Apostles.

 

[quiet52]

Well, you need some way to differentiate between the two. Protestants didn’t leave because they disagreed with original church teachings …
.

Yes, they did. You need to become better educated on Church history.

It’s not your fault that you were misinformed. I once talked with a young man from an evangelical faith tradition who has loved Jesus intently for a long time. He was investigating Catholic beliefs, because he questioned some of the teachings in his faith tradition. One of the false beliefs he had been taught, and still believed when we first met, was that the Catholic Church as we know it today was started by Emperor Constantine in the third century. Many Protestants have been misinformed about a great many things Catholic.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

What the original Protestants separated from was a church that had begun to “sell” salvation to the rich to line the coffers of corrupt bishops. I’m pretty sure that’s not what Jesus had in mind when he drove the merchants from the Temple. Much as the Republican and Democratic parties have stayed the same in name for years, but have actually switched positions politically over the years ( livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parties-switch-platforms.html ) the Catholic church has existed in name since the beginning but its leadership had clearly swerved off course by the time Martin Luther (who was himself a Catholic priest) wrote the “95 Theses” in the 1500s. He was later excommunicated for, among other things, questioning why the Pope was demanding money from the poor for a vanity project: “Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?”[Thesis 86]

Between that, the earlier blood bath that was the crusades and the inquisition, and some of the more recent scandals, I think it’s safe to say there were several hundred years when the Roman Catholic Church wasn’t actually preserving Jesus’ legacy of love,mercy and charity appropriately. (Then again, the protestants were busy executing witches in the 1600s … so no one’s perfect. Which is sort of why I refuse to align myself with a particular church …)

 

[jmcrae]

What the original Protestants separated from was a church that had begun to “sell” salvation to the rich to line the coffers of corrupt bishops.

Okay. Do you ever look at pictures of the Sistine Chapel and think, “That’s so inspiring!”

Have you ever noticed that even non-Catholic Christians use images from the Sistine Chapel and other major art works in their evangelistic efforts?

That’s what the money was for. (Artists also have to pay rent and pay for groceries - they don’t get to live for free just because nobody will pay them for their “vain works”.)

That’s what the money was for, and nobody was ever asking the poor to give money for this. What was happening was that the Pope was offering Indulgences to rich people (those who could afford it) to give donations of money to the work of the Sistine Chapel and other artworks that are still considered inspiring even today.

And yes, in retrospect, that’s probably not the best way to go about fundraising for church projects.

Today, it is not allowed to give Indulgences for anything financial, and indeed, most Catholics consider it a sin to ask for money, even if you are desperate.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what Jesus had in mind when he drove the merchants from the Temple. Much as the Republican and Democratic parties have stayed the same in name for years, but have actually switched positions politically over the years ( livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parties-switch-platforms.html ) the Catholic church has existed in name since the beginning but its leadership had clearly swerved off course by the time Martin Luther (who was himself a Catholic priest) wrote the “95 Theses” in the 1500s. He was later excommunicated for, among other things, questioning why the Pope was demanding money from the poor for a vanity project: “Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?”[Thesis 86]

Again - nobody was asking the poor for this money.

Between that, the earlier blood bath that was the crusades and the inquisition, and some of the more recent scandals, I think it’s safe to say there were several hundred years when the Roman Catholic Church wasn’t actually preserving Jesus’ legacy of love,mercy and charity appropriately. (Then again, the protestants were busy executing witches in the 1600s … so no one’s perfect. Which is sort of why I refuse to align myself with a particular church …)

Without the Crusades and the Inquisition, we would all be speaking Farsi today; there would be no Christians on earth, and no dilemma of which Church to join.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

What the original Protestants separated from was a church that had begun to “sell” salvation to the rich to line the coffers of corrupt bishops. I’m pretty sure that’s not what Jesus had in mind when he drove the merchants from the Temple. Much as the Republican and Democratic parties have stayed the same in name for years, but have actually switched positions politically over the years ( livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parties-switch-platforms.html ) the Catholic church has existed in name since the beginning but its leadership had clearly swerved off course by the time Martin Luther (who was himself a Catholic priest) wrote the “95 Theses” in the 1500s. He was later excommunicated for, among other things, questioning why the Pope was demanding money from the poor for a vanity project: “Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?”[Thesis 86]

Between that, the earlier blood bath that was the crusades and the inquisition, and some of the more recent scandals, I think it’s safe to say there were several hundred years when the Roman Catholic Church wasn’t actually preserving Jesus’ legacy of love,mercy and charity appropriately. (Then again, the protestants were busy executing witches in the 1600s … so no one’s perfect. Which is sort of why I refuse to align myself with a particular church …)

Dear QuasiCatholic,

May I respectfully point out that coming to a Catholic forum, with many people who could qualify as Catholic apologists, and attempting to teach us our own Church’s history, could be construed as pretty arrogant?

As for your baptism, the others have explained the sacrament. In baptism, we Catholics also believe that you are entering the communion of saints, which means that although we cannot see them, the saints in heaven are standing with you as you become a Catholic. You are truly entering into a very large community and not just becoming a Christian.

In fact, any denomination will expect you to become a member of their community when you are baptized as well. I suppose many Protestants just float free of any church, but I doubt that is what the denominations prefer.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

Dear QuasiCatholic,

May I respectfully point out that coming to a Catholic forum, with many people who could qualify as Catholic apologists, and attempting to teach us our own Church’s history, could be construed as pretty arrogant?

I’m not trying to teach you your church’s history, I’m trying to explain the roots of the Protestant movement in response to one of the earlier comments.

 

[jmcrae]

I’m not trying to teach you your church’s history, I’m trying to explain the roots of the Protestant movement in response to one of the earlier comments.

We are perfectly well aware of the Protestant Rebellion.

 

[RoseMary131]

I’m not trying to teach you your church’s history, I’m trying to explain the roots of the Protestant movement in response to one of the earlier comments.

If you had to pick your biggest area that you disagree with the Catholic Church - what would that be?

Realizing that asking to receive the First Sacrament of Initiation (Baptism) means you are asking to be Baptized into the Faith of the Church - the entire teaching of the Holy Catholic Church.

That is why the Church will not Baptize someone who does not believe in the teachings of the Church. It means the person being Baptized believes in all seven Sacraments and all that the Church holds as True.

See if this link provides a clearer understanding of being baptized into the Faith.

grigaitis.net/weekly/2007/2007-08-31.html

In the Protestant churches you will not find the Body and Blood of Christ, you will not find the apostolic succession of the Holy Priesthood.

There is only one Church that is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. That is the Church we profess our faith in…One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

If you had to pick your biggest area that you disagree with the Catholic Church - what would that be?

There are several, but the big ones all sort of fall under the heading of “I don’t like middlemen.”

To wit:

• I don’t believe in the need to confess to a priest when I can confess directly to God
• I don’t understand the whole idea of saints or Mary interceding on someone’s behalf. If God is all knowing, all powerful and beneficent, he should know what is best for us and want to do it anyway, especially if we are already asking for it ourselves. My personal relationship with God is just that, personal. It isn’t a popularity contest; we should not need to ask a saint to ask him for help on our behalf, just as I wouldn’t ask my uncle to ask my father for something for me.
• No amount of reading the accounts of the Last Supper will ever convince me that “this is my body” is meant as a literal statement. And I secretly suspect that the idea that it is a literal statement was created as a way of creating additional dependence on the Church, as it gave the Church a) a good reason to require church attendance (how else could you get communion?) and b) a convenient way of keeping people in line (you’d better behave, or we won’t let you take communion even if you show up)

 

[RoseMary131]

There are several, but the big ones all sort of fall under the heading of “I don’t like middlemen.”

To wit:

• I don’t believe in the need to confess to a priest when I can confess directly to God
• I don’t understand the whole idea of saints or Mary interceding on someone’s behalf. If God is all knowing, all powerful and beneficent, he should know what is best for us and want to do it anyway, especially if we are already asking for it ourselves. My personal relationship with God is just that, personal. It isn’t a popularity contest; we should not need to ask a saint to ask him for help on our behalf, just as I wouldn’t ask my uncle to ask my father for something for me.
• No amount of reading the accounts of the Last Supper will ever convince me that “this is my body” is meant as a literal statement. And I secretly suspect that the idea that it is a literal statement was created as a way of creating additional dependence on the Church, as it gave the Church a) a good reason to require church attendance (how else could you get communion?) and b) a convenient way of keeping people in line (you’d better behave, or we won’t let you take communion even if you show up)

You would ask your Uncle to pray for you to God - or would you? Most of us have no problem asking a living friend to pray to God for us. The Saints are our friends, our brothers and sisters, who no longer live on Earth but are alive in Christ in Heaven, so we ask them to pray for us as well. This is the Communion of Saints in which we believe and profess our faith in the Creed. The Saints and Angels are all at Mass with us as well.

The early Church truly believed in the Body and Blood of Christ - Jesus even told the people that they would need to Eat His Body and Drink His Blood - and many of them left. He even asked Peter if he too would leave because Jesus knew it was hard for them to hear - to eat - to gnaw. (This was prior to His Last Supper.)

Graces flow to us when we receive the actual Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Dear Lord through His gift of The Eucharist, Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament.

The priest does not sit as Fr. Bob in Confession. The priest sits in The Person of Christ. It is through the apostolic succession of the Holy Priesthood that he can sit in The Person of Christ and absolve the faithful of their sins. It brings the most beautiful peace to our soul. Graces flow from the Sacrament of Confession - as graces come with all seven of the Sacraments.

Once more, your beliefs are why you would not be Baptized into the faith of the Church. A person is professing belief in Christ and His Church when they receive Baptism in the Catholic Church.

 

[1ke]

Well, you need some way to differentiate between the two. Protestants didn’t leave because they disagreed with original church teachings – they left because they were protesting the widespread corruption and greed that had seeped into the Roman Catholic church’s leadership.

So we still consider ourselves part of the catholic church that existed in the beginning. Just not part of the Catholic church that exists now.

I would suggest the book Dissent From The Creed. It will give you a better perspective on the above. “Protesting widespread corruption and greed” is not the root of the reformation, or any other heresy or schism.

 

[RoseMary131]

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/christ-in-the-eucharist

Maybe this will help you understand more on the Eucharist. It goes beyond explaining the events of Jesus’ Last Supper.

Peace.