Can a Catholic sing at a Protestant service?

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This weekend, I’m going with my immediate family to visit my grandmother in another state. My family members are are all Evangelical Protestant. This will be my first visit to my grandmother’s house since becoming a Catholic. In the past, we have always attended my grandma’s church while there. I love the people at that church and have known them ever since I can remember. For that reason, I am planning on attending the Sunday morning service with my family so that I can see some of our old friends at that church. (I do plan on making sure that I also attend a Sunday Mass at some point while I’m there, probably on Saturday evening.)

The problem is this: The service at my Grandma’s church this Sunday will be all music, since they don’t have a pastor right now. Our family has been asked to sing a “special music” number in the service. I always sang with my family in the past, but now I wonder if this is okay, since I am a Catholic now. What do you think? I hate “rocking the boat” with my family, but I also want to do what is right.
 
EnglishTeacher said:
This weekend, I’m going with my immediate family to visit my grandmother in another state. My family members are are all Evangelical Protestant. This will be my first visit to my grandmother’s house since becoming a Catholic. In the past, we have always attended my grandma’s church while there. I love the people at that church and have known them ever since I can remember. For that reason, I am planning on attending the Sunday morning service with my family so that I can see some of our old friends at that church. (I do plan on making sure that I also attend a Sunday Mass at some point while I’m there, probably on Saturday evening.)

The problem is this: The service at my Grandma’s church this Sunday will be all music, since they don’t have a pastor right now. Our family has been asked to sing a “special music” number in the service. I always sang with my family in the past, but now I wonder if this is okay, since I am a Catholic now. What do you think? I hate “rocking the boat” with my family, but I also want to do what is right.
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Well, if it is not okay, then I am in trouble, because I have no intention of leaving the awesome Protestant choir I sing with once a month.
 
There are lots of Catholic musicians who sing in Protestant churches for pay. And a good Catholic friend of mine was the president of the chapel choir at our Anglican college. Her priest said it was fine as long as she didn’t receive communion and got to Mass as well.

Actually, that’s where she learned to appreciate serious religious music.🙂
 
EnglishTeacher said:
This weekend, I’m going with my immediate family to visit my grandmother in another state. My family members are are all Evangelical Protestant. This will be my first visit to my grandmother’s house since becoming a Catholic. In the past, we have always attended my grandma’s church while there. I love the people at that church and have known them ever since I can remember. For that reason, I am planning on attending the Sunday morning service with my family so that I can see some of our old friends at that church. (I do plan on making sure that I also attend a Sunday Mass at some point while I’m there, probably on Saturday evening.)

The problem is this: The service at my Grandma’s church this Sunday will be all music, since they don’t have a pastor right now. Our family has been asked to sing a “special music” number in the service. I always sang with my family in the past, but now I wonder if this is okay, since I am a Catholic now. What do you think? I hate “rocking the boat” with my family, but I also want to do what is right.
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Protestant services are essentially prayer services, prayer is always good. The only thing you are restricted from is participating in any sort of communion service they might have. They are not allowed to receive Holy Communion in a RC church and we are not allowed to participate in their “Lord’s Supper” or however that denomination refers to it - if they have one. The only non-Catholic Eucharist/Holy Communion you may participate in is an Orthodox service (with the permission of both bishops)
 
Dear Friend,

We are all praising and worship our God. God also need us to praise Him. Look like there isn’t a Catholic Church nearby that area.
😉
EnglishTeacher said:
This weekend, I’m going with my immediate family to visit my grandmother in another state. My family members are are all Evangelical Protestant. This will be my first visit to my grandmother’s house since becoming a Catholic. In the past, we have always attended my grandma’s church while there. I love the people at that church and have known them ever since I can remember. For that reason, I am planning on attending the Sunday morning service with my family so that I can see some of our old friends at that church. (I do plan on making sure that I also attend a Sunday Mass at some point while I’m there, probably on Saturday evening.)

The problem is this: The service at my Grandma’s church this Sunday will be all music, since they don’t have a pastor right now. Our family has been asked to sing a “special music” number in the service. I always sang with my family in the past, but now I wonder if this is okay, since I am a Catholic now. What do you think? I hate “rocking the boat” with my family, but I also want to do what is right.
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I sing at my husband’s church when I attend w/ him. I love singing! Praising God is praising God.
 
Thanks for the replies; I feel better about it now. I’ll just sing with them at the service, and make sure to go to Mass also sometime that weekend.
 
And what if you are asked to sing something heretical? What if your song selection extols the virtues of sola fide, sola scriptura, or ‘once saved, always saved’?

Will you refuse to sing? Go along with it and make a confession later? Not worry about it, because you’re only mouthing the words?
 
Elizium23 said:
And what if you are asked to sing something heretical? What if your song selection extols the virtues of sola fide, sola scriptura, or ‘once saved, always saved’?

Will you refuse to sing? Go along with it and make a confession later? Not worry about it, because you’re only mouthing the words?
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I haven’t seen any situation where I would need to mouth words or confess (if I were Catholic).

Do you have an example of a song?
 
Bluegoat said:
How about “Gather Us In”? Or maybe “Sing A New Church”?
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Aren’t those Catholic hymns? 😃

In our choir we sing everything from Latin polyphonic music to beautiful Protestant hymns.

I haven’t yet sung anything I could not sing because it would be considered heresy.
 
Oh my goodness. I just heard “Sing a New Church” for the first time.

I’ve heard this music, but sung to “Come Thou Fount of Ever Blessing”, which is set to the folk tune, Nettleton.

I would sing “Come Thou Fount” with no guilt.
Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.
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  1. Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
    hither by thy help I’m come;
    and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
    safely to arrive at home.
    Jesus sought me when a stranger,
    wandering from the fold of God;
    he, to rescue me from danger,
    interposed his precious blood.
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  1. O to grace how great a debtor
    daily I’m constrained to be!
    Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
    bind my wandering heart to thee.
    Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
    prone to leave the God I love;
    here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
    seal it for thy courts above.
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The Lutheran/Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification by Robert Sungenis
Thus, it is very clear that the Catholic Church does not believe in justification by “faith alone.” The Council of Trent understands “faith alone” very literally, that is, it means that “nothing else” is understood to be added to faith for justification. So what would make someone like Brother Gros think that the Catholic Church does believe in “faith alone”? Well, besides any hidden agendas that may be active, unfortunately, one of the major reasons is the ambiguity in the Joint Declaration itself. For example, in paragraph 2C, the Annex to the Joint Declaration says: “Justification takes place '‘by grace alone’ (JD 15 and 16), by faith alone, the person is justified ‘’‘apart from works’ (Rom 3:28, cf. JD 25).” But in paragraph 2 the Annex says: “Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit…” Likewise, in paragraph 2A it says: “’‘Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God’ (Rom 5:1).” Obviously, the Annex has given us two versions of this very crucial issue: one version specifying “faith alone,” the other version specifying “faith” without any qualifier. One can only conclude that the ambiguity created in the Annex is deliberate (for surely no one is going to believe that it happened by accident).
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where are the great saints of ages past that would rather face beheading than step one foot in a heretical church, unless of course he or she was there to convert the lost sheep?
 
Califman831 said:
where are the great saints of ages past that would rather face beheading than step one foot in a heretical church, unless of course he or she was there to convert the lost sheep?
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They have grown in understanding.
 
Califman831 said:
where are the great saints of ages past that would rather face beheading than step one foot in a heretical church, unless of course he or she was there to convert the lost sheep?
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Amem. Then one wonder what happened to the Catholics.

The concept that it doesnt matter where you are as long as you are good a person.
 
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