Can I still be Catholic if I don’t necessarily believe in everything the church teaches?

[Shasta-Rose]

One still has to be received into full Communion with the Catholic Church and formally vetted/received as such. This usually involves making a public profession of the Catholic Creed and prior Confession with a Catholic Priest.

Yes, it’s called going through RCIA and getting confirmed. I’m confirmed. I’m a Catholic. What part of that is so hard to understand?

 

[JulianN]

Canon Law would say otherwise.

 

[StPio9]

There are basics precepts of the church that you must follow in order to be a Catholic. You can find it here. Short Read. The Precepts of the Catholic Church

This is considered to be the minimal requirements. Hopefully we strive for more as we learn the faith.

 

[Vico]

A Catholic who has fallen away is not Catholic in the true sense of the word, for they do not possess the universal faith. They are still sacramentally linked to Christ’s body through Baptism, but they are not Catholic. What about validity Baptized non-Catholics? Are they Catholic as well? I think not.

Catechism

816 “The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter’s pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in ( subsistit in ) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him.”

1267 Baptism makes us members of the Body of Christ: "Therefore . . . we are members one of another."72 Baptism incorporates us into the Church . From the baptismal fonts is born the one People of God of the New Covenant, which transcends all the natural or human limits of nations, cultures, races, and sexes: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”

 

[Start]

Actually the OP doesn’t have a choice at this point.

 

[Sophie111]

You may have forgotten your original statement which i attempted to clarify:

"It’s a misnomer to say, “baptized Catholic.”

You may not fully understand what this phrase (which is more a shorthand title and not the pure description you seem to see it as) means to born and bred Catholics when they use it.

A “baptised Catholic” customarily refers to someone born into a Catholic family who is then formally baptised (usually as a baby). i.e. their baptism at the same time enrolled them into the Catholic Church.

It does not usually refer to adult baptised Protestants later received into full Communion with the Roman catholic Church. “Baptised Protestant” or generic “baptised Christian” are labels that are not fully fungible with “baptised Catholic” I humbly suggest.

It adds the additional nuance of suggesting which historical Communion the person is related to even before baptism.

In short a baptismal ceremony is also a matter of “enrollment” for the previously unbaptised into a specific earthly church. Which is why being baptised Catholic or baptised Presbyterian can add meaningful information to the respective personal situations which makes them different.

That might sound strange to you, but lots of Catholics likely think this way.
I don’t think its erroneous myself.

 

[on_the_hill]

The title basically says it all. I have been a cradle Catholic my entire life and have always been very active in the church. However, I thought it was ok if I didn’t 100% agree with the Church in some regards as long as I still followed the majority of it.

There are rules, regulations, and requirements that I don’t agree with and probably never will. I follow along with them anyway (usually). And I do not consider myself a less worthy Catholic than the next guy.

 

[Shasta-Rose]

So you’re saying that although I am Catholic, you are more Catholic than I?

I think I remember reading something like that. It was called Animal Farm. “All Catholics are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

 

[jtwp5]

I find it odd how the church’s teaching on sex is the one most people seem to disagree with. I sure hope there is a purgatory. Wouldn’t want it to be a straight heaven or hell decision.

 

[yankeesouth]

Why would you want to be Catholic if you don’t believe all that Jesus teaches?

It’s a lot easier for dissent to roll off the lips when you separate Jesus from His Church.

 

[Sophie111]

So you’re saying that although I am Catholic, you are more Catholic than I?

I think it clear there is a difference between a baptised Catholic and a baptised Presbyterian which you cannot yet see.
A baptised Catholic is one who was also enrolled into Communion with the Roman Catholic Church when they first became Christian. The Presbyterian not.

I am sorry you find it difficult to accept you may be mistaken on this point of customary understanding.

 

[Shasta-Rose]

Finished with this conversation.

 

[Gorgias]

Personally I believe the Church teaches we do have the freedom to seemingly act contrary to alleged Church teaching in the privacy of our own lives if we have taken long and reasonable means to inform our consciences and yet our conscience is still sincerely resolute that our own judgement is what God calls us to.

All of this is true, but it still misses one important point: when you do act in such a way, you are still committing a sin. (Potentially mortal sin, if you know what the Church teaches and choose to commit the act nevertheless.)

So, “the Church teaches we have freedom” is not the same thing as saying “the Church says that all uses of freedom are virtuous.”

 

[Sophie111]

when you do act in such a way, you are still committing a sin.

I believe the word you are looking for is “disorder”. Not all intentional acts of disorder are sins…and they may still be an act of grace for specific persons.

 

[Gorgias]

I believe the word you are looking for is “disorder”.

That’s the word you use for “acting contrary to Church teaching”? Umm… ok.

Still means “sin”, though, regardless what you call it.

 

[Sophie111]

When you can come back with a clear authoritative quote on your unusual definition of “sin” perhaps we can progress that somewhat neo OT view.

 

[Gorgias]

When you can come back with a clear authoritative quote on your unusual definition of “sin”

By “unusual”, I’m guessing you mean “according to the catechism.” Here you go, then, with an authoritative quote:

1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as "an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law

1857 For a sin to be mortal , three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”

1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: “Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother.” The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.

1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent . It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

Hope that helps.

 

[Sophie111]

So where here is the person who has done their best to well form their conscience before God and act accordingly committed personal sin and failed in genuine love of God?

 

[Ender]

So where here is the person who has done their best to well form their conscience before God and act accordingly committed personal sin and failed in genuine love of God?

Doing what we sincerely believe to be right does not necessarily excuse us if what we think is right is in fact wrong.

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility.

One such example is when we decide that we are right and the church is wrong.

1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

 

[Sophie111]

does not necessarily excuse us

Agreed. There are cases when “doing (objective) wrong” is not personally sinful but in fact may require heroic virtue.
The objective act is of course still disordered.
However that is not properly called a personal sin.