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TheosisM
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It applies to him if he believed that “the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ”, and still refused to remain in it.
Conversion into The Catholic Faith!!! Tell me your stories!!! All Are welcome!!!
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hosemonkey
Guest
hosemonkey;6543375:
Please note that the citation at the bottom does not say “hosemonkey,” it says “Lumen Gentium.” Argue with the Second Vatican Council. He asked me to back up my assertion. And it does not seem to be “bordering” at all.This appears to be bordering on telling Rev Kevin he is not going to reach heaven. I thought only God can determine that.
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hosemonkey
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Get the cite right:
Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it" (Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, 14).
The presumption is, that having been a “cradle Catholic” as he claims, he would have known this fact.
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TheosisM
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Sorry, this is still illogical. Being a cradle Catholic, he may have known the claim that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, but the real question is whether he “knew” that for himself. This “knowledge” is not just knowing a claim, but knowing and accepting that it is a real truth/fact.
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jmcrae
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So, if one happens to disagree with a fact taught in school, at Church and at home, one may still claim to be invincibly ignorant?
I believe that God will not be mocked, come the Judgment Day.
To be “invincibly ignorant” one must not possess the means of knowledge, whatsoever.
Examples: the person is both blind and deaf, with low intelligence, and is absolutely unable to communicate; the person has profoundly severe learning disabilities from birth; the person lives in a region of the world as yet undiscovered by modern communications nor by any Christian missionaries at any time in these past 2,000 years; the person dies before reaching the age of reason.
If one has the means of knowledge, but doesn’t make use of it, this is “sloth” and is not a means for entering into Heaven.
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TheosisM
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Exactly. The point here is that being a cradle Catholic does not automatically imply that one had the means of knowledge, nor is Lumen Gentium’s reference to “knowing” the Catholic Church was founded by God through Christ as simple knowing of a claim, but that a person actually knows that this claim is truth Apologist Jimmy Akin reflects both points of what I am talking about here:
"A special case is the application of vincible and invincible ignorance to salvation. Failure to embrace the Christian faith (infidelity), total repudiation of the Christian faith (apostasy), and the post-baptismal obstinate denial or willful doubt of particular teachings of the Catholic faith (heresy) are objectively grave sins against the virtue of faith. Like any other grave sins, if they are committed with adequate knowledge and deliberate consent, they become mortal sins and will deprive one of salvation.
…
"Third, those who have accepted the Catholic faith are in a special position concerning innocent ignorance. Vatican I taught that God gives special grace to those who have embraced the true faith so that they may persevere in it, “not deserting if he [God] be not deserted.” As a result of this special grace, “those who have received the faith under the teaching authority of the Church can never have a just reason to change this same faith or to reject it” (Dei Filius 3; ND 124, D 1794, DS 3014). It then infallibly condemned the proposition that “the condition of the faithful and of those who have not yet attained to the only true faith is the same, so that Catholics could have a just reason for suspending their judgment and calling into question the faith that they have already received under the teaching authority of the Church, until they have completed a scientific demonstration of the credibility and truth of their faith” (ibid., canon 3:6; ND 130, cf. D 1815, DS 3036). This applies, of course, to those who have genuinely accepted the Catholic faith under the influence of the Magisterium, not those who-though baptized or received into the Church-never actually accepted the Catholic faith due to absent or grossly defective catechesis."
catholic.com/thisrock/1999/9907chap.asp
So, going back to my original point, one does not automatically fall under the condemnation found in Lumen Gentium because they were a cradle Catholic, since, at least according to Jimmy Akin’s Catholic Answers article, this is a grave/mortal matter (which carries with it the usual requirements to be a grave sin), and one has to “genuinely [accept] the Catholic faith under the influence of the Magisterium, not those who-though baptized or received into the Church-never actually accepted the Catholic faith due to absent or grossly defective catechesis”.
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jmcrae
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My mother, who has never stepped foot in a Catholic Church in her entire life, and certainly has never attended a single Catechism class in her entire life, seems to know more about Church teaching than some Catholics; the difference is, her lifestyle isn’t threatened by these teachings (because they don’t apply to her) - so again, I doubt that the ignorance resulting from poor catechesis is actually invincible - I think some of it may even be deliberate - people who do in fact have access to the same newspapers that my mother reads are saying to themselves, “Well, Sister Mary Sunshine never mentioned it back in the second grade, so I won’t believe it.”
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TheosisM
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I completely agree.
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hosemonkey
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So is my assertion completely illogical then? You seem to be agreeing with the premise that “invincible” ignorance can sometimes be willful and therefore places those who have the learned the Truths of Catholicism and then deliberately rejected them, fall under this cite from Lumen Gentium? I am thinking that these folks had better have a very good advocate (like our Blessed Mother) speaking for them when they reach the Judgement seat.I completely agree.
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starlight101
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Hi Grace, At the moment I attend a C of E church which is quite high church. My parents were not happy for me to go to mass as they are very wary of the Roman Catholic Church, so this is a “meet in the middle” arrangement. I miss the services a little although they are very similar. I often say my heart is in the RC church and my head is in the C of E
I pray the rosary and personal prayers every day and I read the Bible.
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starlight101
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Hi Eucharisteo! At the moment no. I think I disagree with too much of the RC’s teaching to be RC, but I agree with too much of it not to be! My current church is Anglo-Catholic and I love it there. I am also at an awkward age to convert- too old for RCIC and too young for RCIA. I think I would like to do a bit more thinking about it before I decide for sure- this time last year I was considering writing to my baptisimal church to tell them I was no longer a member! I am considering it but I think if I do convert it won’t be for a while yet.what a beautiful story. I argued, gently, with priests who refused to help me. My dad was still very misguided. My grandparents kept to themselves no matter what. My aunts were even more confused than my dad and my mom hated Catholics and the Catholic Church. In fact, my mom’s entire family is very anti-Catholic and rarely speak to me and that’s just fine with me now.
I’m curious, are you now considering converting over with the remainder of the Anglican’s to the “Roman” or Latin rite Catholic Church? Tonight we’re headed to one of the Anglican rite parishes that is now fully Catholic in communion with the Bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict. Fr. H___ is a grandfather, so we call him Paw Paw H__, for our kids sake. Both of their grandfathers and one of the grandmothers is diseased. This is the closest to a paw paw they have now. Our regular parish is run by the Franciscan Friars of the Sacred Heart Province from Loretta, PA.
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JRKH
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It’s too bad that this thread has been so severly hijackled.
A wonderful title asking for conversion stories.
Eight pages of posts and better than 4 of those pages, are arguing - and arguing the same things that have been argued countless times before.
I guess I’ll be unsubscribing to this thread.
Peace
James
A wonderful title asking for conversion stories.
Eight pages of posts and better than 4 of those pages, are arguing - and arguing the same things that have been argued countless times before.
I guess I’ll be unsubscribing to this thread.
Peace
James
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crazzeto
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I’m so sorry to hear that your wife had to make this choice, but you’re right that’s very inspirational and frankly I think what I need to read right now with some of my own on-going struggles. Thanks so mucy for sharing this Roman Catholic, God bless you!Couldn’t let it go could ya Rev.? Just let people share their stories of conversion. Does it really bother you that much that people want to share their conversion stories that you felt you needed to explain the reasons why you are not Catholic? In a thread asking people to share their conversion stories? Are you trying to convince us, or yourself about your conversion?
As far as conversion stories go, mine isn’t anything too great but my wife’s, I think, is rather inspiring. She was a non-denominational christian who wanted to look into the Catholic Church after hearing about my uber-Catholic grandmother (whom she never met). She originally started for purely informational reason so she would better understand the faith of the family she was marrying into (even though I was not Catholic myself there are a few practicing Catholics in my family) but after about a year of studying the CC with the Scriptures she became convinced that this is where God wanted her.
The next step was telling her anti-Catholic fundamentalist father who did not take the news lightly. Long story short he made her chose between the CC and a relationship with him. She chose Christ and His Church.
God bless
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crazzeto
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This is a very good write up TheosisM, and you make many very valid points. However I would warn against using this as a “fire suite” as it were… That is to say it might be the case that someone could break away in a way which God may consider non-grave, this is true. But, the problem as I see it is only God knows these conditions, and you put your self at grave long term risk by doing so.
If you are a cradle Catholic then the chances you wouldn’t have an adiquate knowlege base to not be personally fully liable are deminished. I do recongnize there are house holds out there (I wouldn’t be supprised at any number of them) where they are technically Catholic but the formation of the childeren was so dreadful that they couldn’t be held liable for not knowing. So there maybe you have some debate, if you grew up in a house hold where you never even went to Church.
But… If you grew up in a practicing house hold, then decided you didn’t agree with the contraception issue or something, so you switched churchs that way you don’t have to feel guilty about it… Which is something we see quite a bit of, take your pick of moral issues on this one… I have my troubles reconciling “well I didn’t know any better”…
At least in my own life, whenever I look at grave matter, my own personal policy is to just assume it was mortal. I’d rather prepare for the worst with my own soul.
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eucharisteo
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In my youth conversion it wasn’t that I didn’t seek truth, it was that the so called truth was not consistent and seeing and experiencing some of the harsh responses without true Church teaching to back it up really through me into a whorl wind. Though I was a seminarian, I experienced all kinds of heresies and the fact that some seminarians and some priests stepped over the line in ways of abusive behavior broke my faith in the validity of the Church being the Church. The ecclesial community I broke off to was guilty of proselytizing me in my youth. They planted their seed of truth that they were the church and so the Catholic Church’s teaching had a very difficult time competing with what I had assumed to be true already.
My first communion was only when I was 14. My confirmation preparation was so pathetic that I only had maybe 2 classes. I was very embarrassed because of my age, 17 compared to most of the other kids being much younger in my mind. The seminary assumed I knew certain things and why not? No one can blame the seminary for what I didn’t know. My formation was extremely poor. My Catholic father was never around and what he taught me was also not consistent with Catholic teaching, not to mention he didn’t seem to follow moral teaching. All I saw was hypocrisy and a system that really didn’t work.
All of this lack of being brought up in a practicing Christian home, much less Catholic, really hurt my faith. I begged God to help me find the truth. Up until I met my wife’s family I had to inclination to jump ship. But her church claimed to be the real church and that the Catholic Church hijacked the one true church, which is what many Protestant faiths perpetuate. Though I believed this to be true I held onto certain beliefs I knew to be true.
Some of these things I thought were true, however, were really misguided. For one I believed that if a Church was real it had to be fruitful and that the leadership must truly be holy. In my thinking, because of my experiences, how could a leadership be holy if it swept cases of abuse under the carpet. Further, accepting that they have to be pastoral not only to the abused but also the abuser, how could they be holy if then they did not offer pastoral help to the abused, but rather seemed to be trying to simply cover it up.
It took 9 years from the time I was abused to the time my faith in the Catholic Church broke. At that point I begged God to help me find the real Church if any really existed. It was not mere pride, though it did have something to do with it, but rather my brothers, by sisters, my fathers, my family all caused me to stumble. Growing up in a predominantly anti-Catholic home along with dissenting Catholics did not help my case.
I was the only practicing faithful Catholic in the family other than my grandparents, who did not express much in helping me. I believe they lived holy lives. Except I know my grandpa was abusive when he was younger and my grandmother held a grudge against her father for abandoning her mom and them. I later discovered more about her situation that I sort of understood why the man left her mom. No one wants to live with a bitter woman that slams you all the time.
Anyway, Being the only practicing Catholic struggling to avoid what my heart told me was right and wrong because no one seemed to want to help me at that time I made decisions that ultimately led to misunderstandings. People were lying about the Church changing its position on various issues. My thoughts were who gives any man the right to change what Christ had given us. Thought Peter may have been the first among equals [note: the emphasis on equals here] then no one, including the man called the pope has the authority to change it.
Since this thinking I’ve learned much and now understand which part of this is true and which isn’t. So to continue, most of my life was spent in the midst, living with, anti-Catholic teaching, some was even on the Catholics. Thus maybe invincible ignorance was in my favor.
THANK GOD!!! I kept seeking truth in spite the fact I defected to the churches of Christ, who proselytized me in my youth. They have very similar beliefs as Catholics on several important points. Weekly communion, works, baptism, divorce, claim to be the one true church founded by Christ, etc. Their slant on historical facts seemed to jibe with what they claimed. However, it took me years of bible study that kept producing deeper and deeper questions that finally made evident that their claim was no more or less than the Catholic Church and that they also had example issue problems, leaders failing to be holy.
So then where do I go from here. At this time my wife, convalidated later, was very anti-Catholic and I thought that maybe the Orthodox Church might be the true Church.
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eucharisteo
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cont’d
Long story short I believe that all baptized Christians, defined as baptism in the proper form, are part of the Lord’s Church with the exception that they are not in complete communion with the bishop of Rome and thus are not attached within the Catholic Church established by Christ. Think of it as a vile with a huge bubble called Catholic Church and several other bibles representing the protestant communities. My theory is that when those in communion with the one true Church begin to enter heaven the momentum will be so great, determined by massive praying for the lost, that it pulls the others along with it. Just an analogy I made up for getting a point across. I believe that it is very possible. if not probable. that my father in law is in heaven or at least being purified because I saw that he tried to be a holy man. He was an elder [bishop/pastor].
Only God knows a mans heart and the Church has the authority to bind and loose. It is the Holy Father in communion with the bishops in communion with him in the one true church that Christ established that has valid authority to bind and loose. That is why they are protected from heresy on the matters of faith and morals. It is the only thing that they can claim and actually do. But be warned they must allow the Holy Spirit to guide and be careful not to circumvent Him…I doubt that they could circumvent and to this day, praise God, I am able to submit to the Holy Catholic Church, the Church of Christ, that Jesus founded because I know, not suspect, that it is the actual institution that Jesus passed onto the Apostles who in turn passed it on through the Catholic bishops all these years, nearly 2000 years now.
In a nutshell, pertaining to my conversion experience, which is reflective of a true Catholic conversion by definition - a daily conversion leading us closer to God in the fullness of time - I actually became Catholic not only in name by my baptism but by never giving up and constantly seeking truth. That’s partly why I’m on this forum. And this is the brief elaboration of my conversion. I’m still going through it.
Long story short I believe that all baptized Christians, defined as baptism in the proper form, are part of the Lord’s Church with the exception that they are not in complete communion with the bishop of Rome and thus are not attached within the Catholic Church established by Christ. Think of it as a vile with a huge bubble called Catholic Church and several other bibles representing the protestant communities. My theory is that when those in communion with the one true Church begin to enter heaven the momentum will be so great, determined by massive praying for the lost, that it pulls the others along with it. Just an analogy I made up for getting a point across. I believe that it is very possible. if not probable. that my father in law is in heaven or at least being purified because I saw that he tried to be a holy man. He was an elder [bishop/pastor].
Only God knows a mans heart and the Church has the authority to bind and loose. It is the Holy Father in communion with the bishops in communion with him in the one true church that Christ established that has valid authority to bind and loose. That is why they are protected from heresy on the matters of faith and morals. It is the only thing that they can claim and actually do. But be warned they must allow the Holy Spirit to guide and be careful not to circumvent Him…I doubt that they could circumvent and to this day, praise God, I am able to submit to the Holy Catholic Church, the Church of Christ, that Jesus founded because I know, not suspect, that it is the actual institution that Jesus passed onto the Apostles who in turn passed it on through the Catholic bishops all these years, nearly 2000 years now.
In a nutshell, pertaining to my conversion experience, which is reflective of a true Catholic conversion by definition - a daily conversion leading us closer to God in the fullness of time - I actually became Catholic not only in name by my baptism but by never giving up and constantly seeking truth. That’s partly why I’m on this forum. And this is the brief elaboration of my conversion. I’m still going through it.
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SpiritusSanctus
Guest
Maybe everything is in both Bibles but both Bibles say different things. The Catholic Bible says that Christ speaks of His literal body and blood. Look in a Catholic Bible on-line. Or would you rather me just post the verse?
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crazzeto
Guest
@rev kevin,
The KJV bible says it’s really his blood as well:
The KJV bible says it’s really his blood as well:
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eucharisteo
Guest
that’s because the king also believed in real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and didn’t feel the need to change scripture. That came much later.
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CHESTERTONRULES
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Jesus said ‘this is my body’.
Paul said that we should recognize this:
1 Cor 11
27Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. 29For anyone who eats and drinks **without recognizing the body of the Lord **eats and drinks judgment on himself.
Also, not a single early Christian denied the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Of course it is a remembrance, but that doesn’t change the nature of the remembrance.
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