I was baptized Greek Orthodox as an infant and attended that church for a number of years in my childhood before switching to a few non-denominational churches for another period of my childhood. Now, I am at a period of having to choose a faith for my adult life. I am considering everything, and of course no search for a denomination can exclude the largest and most historically important denomination of all. My father grew up as a Catholic, as did my grandfather, who is the most devout Christian I have ever met and who had a vision of Jesus a few years back. Furthermore, I greatly respect more Catholics than can be named, i.e. St. Aquinas, St. Francis, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Francis who I believe is giving the papacy an insurgence of humility. Who can deny these mens’ contributions to Christianity or the Catholic Church’s work for the poor and missionary work throughout the world? For these reasons, I greatly respect this denomination of Christianity. However, I feel that I honestly identify much more with Orthodox theology, and am greatly troubled by some Catholic teachings. I feel that Purgatory is unsupported biblically and against Christ’s teaching of forgiveness and eternal life for believing in him; I feel that the Immaculate Conception of Mary goes deeply against the core of Christianity that only Jesus is perfect as she is only human; I do not agree with the classification of certain sins as “moral” or “venial” because such a classification is non-biblical; I do not believe that Catholics are right in preventing priests from marriage, as the first Pope, Saint Peter; and I do not believe that any human is infallible, including the Pope, just as I earlier mentioned that no human can be perfect. I also think that, while the Catholic Church’s history of egregious corruption (see Pope Alexander VI) is not applicable today, the Orthodox Church’s theological purity and absence of such corruption add up to make it more of a “true church” than anything else. As I read in an Orthodox pamphlet, the Catholics added to the true faith, and the Protestants subtracted from it. Having said all of this, which is truly not meant to be incendiary but only informative about my views, am I not suited for Catholicism because of these differences, or is there a way for me to overcome them? I want to make sure that I give the Catholic Church an even platform with the other denominations, and I hope that these responses will giver me a wider perspective. Thanks!
