Catholic teaching on heresy and damnation

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but it doesn’t speak to the Church teaching (threat) that if I can’t accept a teaching as true, then that’s tough, because if indeed I am a baptized Catholic, I will be damned.
That isn’t what the Church teaches.

And all that nonsense told to you by nuns or whoever regarding your grandmother, you being a heretic, etc, is simply UNTRUE.
 
“As I have come around to learn more, I realize that the little disagreements and misunderstandings that I may have with the Church do not necessarily put me in opposition to the Church.”*
Thanks for your blessing.
I see your post as an encouraging one. I wish that I could come to feel that he Church is not in opposition to me! I would like to be able to be at peace about doing the best I can.

Nevertheless, as Peter asked Christ, “Lord, where would we go”? I will never abandon the Church. I live with the hope that God will not condemn me, even if His Church does.
 
I’m sorry you have angst over this.

I don’t view the Pope and Magisterium as “sole conduit of God’s mind”, I see it more like a big organization needs a leader and this is what has been set up.

I also firmly believe that if there are issues and problems in an organization, you stay in it and work for change from within. You don’ t leave (unless maybe you are in danger of death, which today, nobody is). I don’t bail on my Church any more than I bail on my country. If I had been born into a different faith I might very well feel the same way towards the faith I’d been born into, but I do not know for sure as that didn’t happen.

I do not think all Protestants are heretics going to hell (I would have to damn my own beloved husband and my nice in-laws if that were the case) but nor do I think going off and forming hundreds of splinter churches was a good idea. They took their gifts away from the Church, which could have used them. They created disunity. Maybe back in the Luther era there were good reasons for doing so; however, times have changed, and I see these churches now struggling with numbers because they themselves are hugely disunified. When I look up the “Dutch Reformed Church” and see that there are 15 or 18 different ones, I think what is the point of people having a church in that circumstance - you might as well just stay home with your Bible.

I am in this Catholic Church for Jesus Christ…I like Pope Francis, but ultimately, the person who is my Pope or my bishop doesn’t matter all that much to me. When I go before Jesus Christ it will be me and him, not me, him and a Pope. The Magisterium won’t be there. I’m happy with my choice. And I would never be an Anglican because their whole faith was founded not on conscience, but on the misplaced ego of some historic king who did not live any sort of admirable life and spent much of his time destroying things that had historical, not just religious, value, for his own gain. Not to be harsh but that’s how I feel (plus I’m Irish Catholic in background so if I were picking Protestant churches to join, Anglicans would be dead last on the list, sorry, I’m biased because of what happened to my grands and great grands).

I hope someday we can all heal our differences and again be as one. I would rather be one church with some people complaining and fussing and rebelling, than dozens of splinters. It reminds me of Ben Franklin when he talked about all the US colonies needing to be as one, saying, “If we do not hang together, we will most certainly hang separately.”

God bless
 
Thanks, Bear. I agree with everything you posted.

I won’t bother with going into my study of Henry VIII, about whom you are correct ( He was a beast), or Anglicanism vs. Episcopalianism. But in short, Henry’s daughter "Bloody " Queen Mary reconstituted the Catholic Church and commenced to seeking out and burning Protestants. Queen Elizabeth reconstituted the Protestant church, did her share of retaliation, then ruled that freedom of religion and conscience was the law of the land. She desired a healing of the differences, but the Pope would have none of that.

The Book of Common Prayer resulted. There’s much more, but it’s off topic.

As you say, “complaining and fussing about dozens of splinters” can do nothing for the glory of God. I’m going to try to stop engaging in “How many angles can dance on the head of a pin”?

Blessings.
 
I’m familiar with the history involved. I have a professional certification in the UK, have a number of friends in England, and go there about once a year.

The fact that Mary committed sins and atrocities (likely spurred by the fact that she grew up in a pretty dysfunctional family environment and witnessed her mother’s suffering due to her father’s actions) does not justify or excuse what Henry did. In fact, if he had behaved, then maybe Mary’s atrocities wouldn’t have happened. The sins of the father were visited on the daughter.

Apart from that situation, I’ve noticed that Protestants like to justify themselves by pointing to the bad things done by Catholics. I do not excuse the sins committed by Catholics, but it is kindergarten stuff to justify a sin by pointing to someone else’s sin and saying “welll you did this so don’t point fingers at me!” Everyone has a responsibility to stop sinning and to take responsibility for what they themselves did and not play a blame game or say “He/ she started it!” We are not babies.

The initial schisms of the Church, to me, were not great leaps of wonderful stuff based on conscience. They were sins. The fact that Catholics also committed sins which led to schisms doesn’t make the schismatics un-sinful.

Does that mean that everybody involved in the initial situation went to Hell, or that those on one side went while those on the other side didn’t? This is up to God who judges each individual. So we cannot make a blanket statement. We are not God and it is not our place to judge others in that way. We simply do not know. I myself am not going to presume. I simply thank God daily I was not living then because it seems like a very terrible time for everyone.

However, I still think the Catholic Church is the one holy and apostolic true church and I do not approve of the Protestant schisms or any modern schisms or any other schisms. This does not mean I think all Protestants are bad or going to Hell, as my own husband is still a Protestant as I write this, but I do not accept justifications or explanations as to why this rot occurred in the first place, and if some Protestant wants to think his church is the true one or correct one, I am sorry but with all due respect, he is wrong.

God bless
 
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I visited the site you recommended (Don Ruggero) . Excellent. Thanks for
the tip. I’ve just been reading the writings of Pope Francis, and I am
amazed to note that so many on the boards are very unhappy with the mutual
outreach between the Catholic and Lutheran denominations.

But Francis is, after all, a serious scholar. My Anglican-christened, and
Jesuit-educated children do to. One of my sons recently said: “Mom, did
you read what Pope Francis replied to a reporter who asked him how he sees
himself now that he’s the leader of the CC. He replied, ‘I am a sinner.’ I
love this guy”!

I do too.
 
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