Contact the Catholic Church in your town, tell the secretary what you just told us and ask to meet with the Priest. And attend mass there as soon as you can, certainly this Sunday and every Sunday from now on. Arrive early, stay late and talk with folks.
Well, you’ve gotten different answers because it will depend on how exactly your parish goes about doing things.
You’ll get the best quality catechesis if you can find an F.S.S.P. or TLM parish in your area to learn at.
Please go here for a better explanation of Catholicism and others with your same background. I think you’ll find it very uplifting.
I was a baptised Methodist and I went through the RCIA program prior to converting. Because the Church recognised my baptism as valid I was not baptised again but was formally accepted into the Catholic Church while those in my RCIA group who were not baptised were baptised as a Catholic.
Hi,
The Church of Christ considers itself to not be a denomination and the actual Church Christ left that went under when the “heresy” of Catholicism grew, pushing them underground. I assume you are a member of the congregational structured “churches of Christ” that Alexander Campbell “restored” in the 19th century. Well, it was probably a better model than some modern day churches but still doesn’t quite reach the mark that I discovered some time back. Those of us from that background recognize that it isn’t even close to Mormon or other and is like slapping them in the face. It’s simply “Christian” bible only structured and interestingly parallels Catholicism in many ways just from reading the bible. But the obviously do not have what Catholics consider apostolic succession. Coming from a huge family of Christians I know that their baptisms are valid. They consider anything other than the scripture based baptism to be invalid. It MUST be done in water, full body submersion, and in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit formula. I found a Church of Christ baptism if you’d like to wittiness it in action.
As Thistle mentioned in post #8 on this thread, whether or not you’ll need to be re-baptized depends on the formula used in your original baptism. If it was the same formula used by the Catholic Church, you won’t need to be re-baptized, but you’ll still need to go through RCIA, since thorough instruction as to the Catholic faith is very necessary, as well as accepting all that the Church teaches. When you contact a parish to find out about converting, just tell them your situation. An investigation will have to be done, possibly by the priest or someone he appoints, regarding your former baptism. You may be asked to help with the process. To my knowledge, this doesn’t have to be done before you start RCIA, since the classes last for about six to eight months.
Hi
