I agree. There’s a prayer (I can’t remember which one - - maybe the Confiteor) where it appears the priest has the option of “brothers and sisters” or “brethren”. At the conservative parish, the priest says “brethren”. At my parish, we don’t even do the Confiteor (we just say or sing Lord haver mercy/Kyrie).
I was somewhat catechized at RCIA but I had done a lot of self-study over the years so I definitely knew what I needed to know and believe to become Catholic. The reason a liberal priest is shaking my faith in the Church is complex and I don’t have the answer. I keep trying to figure this out. Part of the reason seems to be that I’m disheartened to see that the Bishop and the majority of parishoners don’t seem to care about orthodoxy. Another reason is that there’s a small part of me that wonders if the priest may be half right - - maybe there are too many rules (like the Pharisees) and maybe he is trying to make Jesus more accessible to people. If that is right, then it shakes my entire foundation because if one can disagree with the Church, then how can one be Catholic.
It’s a pretty common phenomenon. I have avoided it by never actually converting, but it’s happened to me a number of times in the course of attempting to convert or thinking about converting. In other words, I understand psychologically what you are talking about–it’s just that I’ve never actually been in full communion with the Catholic Church.
If you become Catholic because of a conviction of the Church’s authority and a desire for an authoritative voice on doctrinal issues, then the actual situation within the Catholic Church can be extremely confusing. Again, this happened to me too, but in RCIA. My “liberalization” happened mostly after dropping out of RCIA and returning to the Episcopal Church. I’m not that liberal (by Episcopal standards, I’m very conservative), but fairly liberal by the standards of this forum. And yet, I continue to be drawn to orthodox Catholicism.
So the question is: does this negate the Catholic claim to have the fullness of the Faith?
Yes. Anecdotally, based both on these forums and on my experience in the “real world,” it happens quite often.
We do either/or in my parish. And come to think of it, we say "brothers and sister. Oh yay!
I am sorry to hear about your difficulties.Hi,
Here’s my problem in a nutshell: I’m a convert from Evangelical Protestantism. I was a strong Christian my entire life. I was drawn to Catholicism over a number of years and then had a sudden pull to it 3 years ago at the same time that I discovered EWTN. I immersed myself in reading and discerning things and came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church was the one true Church founded by Jesus. I went through RCIA and became Catholic 2 years ago. I was excited and thankful for the grace of finding the Church. I truly believed everything the Chuch teaches. I was excited about the Eucharist. I started contemplating religious life and/or working for the Church as a teacher or lay minister sometime in the future. The desires of my heart changed for the better and I became a much more peaceful and forgiving person.
Fast forward to today. I feel like I’ve lost my Catholic faith. I feel like I don’t believe much of the Church’s teachings now. I am not doubting God or Christianity in general, just whether or not I should’ve stayed Protestant. I tell you, I truly am shocked at this turn of events. If someone had told me this was going to happen, I would not have believed it could because I know how I felt and I know what I believed up until a couple of months ago. I would’ve staked my life on the Church and its teachings.
I need to figure things out fast because I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t know what the exact cause of this is. I think most of it stems from two things: I have a very liberal priest. He came the parish after I became Catholic. He preaches things contrary to the Church’s teachings. I was enraged when this happened and I planned to find a better parish but then some other conservative people begged me to stay. I stayed. After awhile, I started to try and see things from the liberal priest’s perspective, and then I started to think liberal (by liberal, I probably should say “heretical”). Some of the things he taught were: women are denied equality in the Church, God can be called “mother”, God wants us in heaven so we’re all going to end up there. Stuff like that. Anyway, after flirting with liberalism myself because I didn’t fit in with some of the extremely conservative Catholics (the more Catholic than the Pope types), I came back to my senses and was enraged again that I didn’t quit this parish when I had the chance. Now I am involved in it too much to quit (I teach catechism and I don’t think I can quit it since it’s my duty to keep my word and it’s hard to find teachers).
A friend of mine wrote to the priest to address his heretical ideas but got no response. My friend then wrote to the Bishop and got no response. I think I started to get bitter and doubtful about the faith after seeing that the Bishop doesn’t seem care.
The second thing that may be causing my doubts is that when I see that the majority of the other parishoners are not bothered by my priest’s liberalism. I’ve started to wonder if anyone knows their faith or even cares (I’m generalizing, I know). And then adding further confusion, I joined a group of supposedly conservative Catholics who meet to discuss doctrine and I’m taken aback by some of the things they do and say and it confuses me because I know Protestants that are more clean living than them.
So I guess in a nutshell, I see lots of spiritual fruit from some Protestants and a lot of Evangelical Protestants know the Lord and know their Bible and love the Lord with their whole hearts and they are bearing much fruit despite the fact that they don’t have the Eucharist. Then I see other Catholics that have the Eucharist (which at this point, is the only thing I’m clinging to) and they don’t know anything about the Bible or Church teachings.
I’ve rambled some and I don’t intend any disrespect to anyone here. I’m baring my heart in the hopes that I can get some advice because I’m heart broken about the way my thoughts and beliefs are messed up.
I don’t know who I can talk to about this because I’m ashamed that I feel like this. I alluded to some of this during Confession with a conservative priest but he basically said it’s no wonder I’m mixed up based on the liberal priest stuff. But that Confession was a month ago and I initially felt better after it and now in the past week, I feel worse.
Thanks for listening.
And does this happen much? Do Catholic converts ever revert back to Protestantism???
The Church does not “create” sins. God does, as you have correctly noted. However, the Church defines sins by providing authoritative guidance as to the circumstances under which one can commit a sin. Here is a biblical situation in which voting was a sin:
Regarding the sin of eating meat in Friday during lent: This is a Church discipline that we follow out of obedience in the same way a child obeys her parents. There is nothing inherently wrong with eating meat on Friday. It is the “house rule,” as it were. My parents had a rule against running in the house. There is nothing objectively wrong with running in a house, but it would have been sin for me to disobey their rule. My parents did not create the sinful gravity of disobedience; it would have been a violation of the commandment to honor them. That commandment actually applies to all authority: parents, government, Magesterium (
I don’t even like most meats, so it hasn’t been a hardship for me to follow this rule, but as I was reading my Bible last week and St. Paul was talking about the Law and foods and how Christians are not bound by the Law then I am now having trouble in discerning the logic of submitting to a rule that wasn’t an issue for the apostles. Again, I can’t explain it – I would have gladly defended the fasting and abstinence rules up until a couple of weeks ago.
I hear you on the powerpoint and Starbucks - - those were reasons that I left the Evangelical movement. However, when I think of the lost souls and wonder about how they will hear the Gospel, it seems the Evangelicals are doing a better job at preaching the Gospel than the Catholic Church. I’m generalizing and there are exceptions, I realize. But that’s not my reason for having doubts in the Church, per se. I’m just hard-pressed to explain the fruits and the obvious signs of regeneration that I see in some Evangelicals if the Catholic Church is the one, true Church alone.
Many converts to Catholicism struggle with the concept of veneration of Mary and other Saints. We are not required to follow any particular devotion, outside the Sacraments and the Mass. On Marcus Grodi’s program, “The Journey Home,” I heard a caller ask one convert how he came to accept devotion to Mary. He responded that he didn’t. His reasons for conversion were completely independent of devotions.
I agree that the Catholic laity has been failing to preach the Gospel. Very much so. But the Church has gone through quite a storm over the past century (or few). The Enlightenment and Reformation rocked it a few centuries ago, and now the New Atheism, a revival of relativism, the Sexual Revolution, Secular Humanism, and all sorts of evils are appearing as Satan rallies his forces against God’s Church. But you must remember, first, that dark times have come over the Church before, and still She survived and thrived. And second, you must know that it is a new Springtime in the Church, when the faithful rally against evil, and evangelize the world.
. I just emailed you again.Well, if it’s just a question of who is right in terms of Scripture, that’s very easy to answer. To be a Protestant you must either (1) believe that Jesus allowed the “Christian Church” to apostasize and become Catholic, leaving everyone without knowledge of the truth until Luther came along a thousand years later–or (2) you must be ignorant of what the Catholic Church is. Position (2) is quite common and a person who is ignorant is not guilty of being a schismatic or a heretic or anything… but position (1) is simply ridiculous because God has promised:
Well, what do you mean by “preach the Gospel?” Actually, those Evangelicals generally don’t even baptize; instead they have the Sinner’s Prayer. But where is the Sinner’s Prayer in the Bible? It isn’t there. They say “you Catholics earn your salvation by works” but then they demand that everybody do a work (read the Bible, say the Sinner’s Prayer, accept Jesus etc.) in order to earn their salvation… So sure, they preach a gospel, but is that gospel Biblical? Didn’t Jesus do all the work? So why does He only save people who have a correct belief system and who do certain things? What about babies? Are they saved? Evangelicals say yes, but where does it say in the Bible that they need to be saved again by saying the Sinner’s Prayer once they hit a certain age? (It doesn’t!)… **There is no coherence whatsoever to the Evangelical method of salvation. ** I did a thorough writeup on this whole issue over here. Or you could just read 1 Peter 3:21… it says very plainly that Baptism saves you.
If God is your Father, then Jesus is your Brother. Then Who is your Mother? So no, you weren’t “turned off at the core of your being” because at “the core of your being” you are a child of Mary. That force that made you afraid was something external to the core of your being–maybe even demonic. After all, only the devil deals in fear.
You need to (1) stop being afraid; (2) pray; and (3) study the Bible. Use my Quick Answers to help you get started. It’s all in there: salvation, the Sacraments, Mary, everything. In fact, here are the ones you need:
Thank you for the links. I will check them out in due time. You suggest that I read the Bible and pray. I’ve been faithfully doing that my entire life so I will continue to do that while I struggle with discerning the Truth.
