Ex-Catholics

[gnosisofthomas]

Why do ex-Catholics attack the Church?

I try not to bad mouth the Roman Catholic Church, but I will be honest about my reasons for leaving it – which generally has to do with teachings I find reprehensible, feeling hurt, feeling outright unwelcome. I’d never dream of making extremist claims that are completely untrue.

You see this behavior from former members of any religion though. I think it stems from the anger they feel at having been hurt. It can be especially painful when they still believe in the faith philosophically, but feel ostracized from the institution.

 

[His_helpmeet]

I tend to find that there are two or three reasons people leave the Church or they choose not to join the Church:

1. Poor catechesis. They either don’t understand WHY the Church does certain things, or they claim that the Church doesn’t do certain things, or isn’t certain things, when it actually does or is those things. Some examples I’ve heard: Catholics worship Mary, Catholics worship statues, Catholics don’t believe in the Bible, the Church was corrupted so it’s not good anymore (and God forbid you start bringing up the Scriptures about Peter the Rock - THEN they sometimes go way off the deep end and get really defensive), etc.
2. A desire for “greater fellowship”. “X Protestant church has Bible study, all these get-togethers, all this stuff for the kids, etc.”
3. A desire not to have to answer to ANY authority other than God. “The Catholic Church has no right to say I have to get a declaration of nullity, or that I can’t go to Communion. That’s between ME and GOD.” Fundamentally, I think this boils down to pride. Now, I don’t want to become an avenging angel - goodness knows, I am not perfect. But this sounds to me as if the person isn’t willing to recognize that, you know what, God gave authority to His priests. Most people don’t have the time, or the inclination, to go to school and get degrees in things like theology and canon law. I liken it to, say, a court case. You can’t just walk into court and say, “Well, you have no right to pass sentence on me. What happened is between ME and the people involved.” You’d also get a lawyer to represent you on legal matters, right? Because most people don’t have the time or the inclination to study the finer points of law. (They can get a bit confusing, based on my limited knowledge.) Or, from my perspective, you don’t walk into a pharmacy and say that you want morphine because “it’s between me and my body”. You need a doctor to prescribe it for you because your doctor knows more than you do about health and the human body, again because most people don’t have the time or inclination to learn about those things to the same degree a physician does.

 

[Heart_Foam]

It is only foolhardy if one’s position is untenable.

If one’s position can stand scrutiny, then one ought to welcome the scrutiny.

and then:

Errr, no.

The point of any religious discussion is Truth, at least, it is for those who have an investment in logic and reason, as well as faith.

Thus, if truth is presented that is coherent, logical and well articulated, it ought to be examined by all of us here.

and more

That’s the point of religious discourse here on the CAFs.

It seems futile to come to the CAFs and then propose, “Dialogue here is an ‘exercise in futility’.”

I’m glad a RC said that. The 13th rule for thinking along with the RCC, in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola:

“To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it…”

With Ignatius at least, and he seems to be a good Catholic in this regard, critical thinking is discouraged and implicit faith is encouraged. We Protestants are allowed the use of private judgement (salvation is, after all, personal) but a Catholic must presuppose. In fact, that Catholic attitude toward truth and error is reason enough for a well-catechised cradle Catholic with no bad experiences to question their faith. I’m not trying to be antagonistic, it’s perfectly fair comment that Rome encourages and requires fides implicita.

 

[Lokadottir]

It is only foolhardy if one’s position is untenable.

If one’s position can stand scrutiny, then one ought to welcome the scrutiny.

Scrutiny can be withstood. But if one was trying to convince a physicist of the validity of String Theory and all you received were assertions that particle physics is the absolute truth, no questions asked. You would give up.

 

[PRmerger]

I’m glad a RC said that. The 13th rule for thinking along with the RCC, in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola:

“To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it…”

With Ignatius at least, and he seems to be a good Catholic in this regard, critical thinking is discouraged and implicit faith is encouraged.

No, Heart Foam.

Fideism is rejected by the Catholic Faith, as well as by St. Ignatius.

However, it is true that if Christ says something, even if we perceive it differently, we must conform our views to His.

That is why, even though we may wish to say, “I want to celebrate the second marriage of my best friend after her divorce”, we cannot. We must “so decide” to conform to the Church and say, “I am sorry, but divorce and re-marriage is adultery.”

We Protestants are allowed the use of private judgement (salvation is, after all, personal) but a Catholic must presuppose.

Then it would appear that you must allow all sorts of “private judgments” in your church, Heart Foam?

You would allow a man to preach who states that the Epistles of Paul are satanic in origin, for that is what his private judgment has discerned?

You would permit a woman to preach at your church who states, “My abortion was a sacrament” because her private judgment of the Scriptures professed this to her?

Do you see how treacherous it may be to propose that you can use “private judgement” without any kind of presupposition?

 

[PRmerger]

I’m not trying to be antagonistic, it’s perfectly fair comment that Rome encourages and requires fides implicita.

Source, please?

 

[PRmerger]

Scrutiny can be withstood.

Well, some positions will be withstood under scrutiny. Some positions will not.

But if one was trying to convince a physicist of the validity of String Theory and all you received were assertions that particle physics is the absolute truth, no questions asked. You would give up.

Ok.

Not sure how this applies to religious dialogue though.

 

[MaryT777]

Just speaking from my observations among fundamentalists:
rfournier103;11339719:

Here’s a few reasons I’ve heard:

~Too many rules.
Try the fundamentalist church down the road. The CC will look absolutely liberal.

~I’m spiritual/don’t believe in organized religion.
Ask him to explain “disorganized religion”.

~Too much man-made stuff/doesn’t teach from the Bible.
Like altar calls, revival meetings, dress standards, Bible version standards, and on and on and on…

~It’s a Church of hate.
*Women.
*Gays.
*Won’t let non-Catholics take Communion.
And fundamentalists just loooooove gays, and “women in their place”.

~Because of the sex-abuse scandal they have no moral credibility.
Want a list of phediphile Baptist preachers? The list is long

~Who are they to tell me what I can/can’t do with my body?
Don’t smoke, don’t chew, don’t drink, watch TV…

~I want a divorce and the Church won’t let me.
Divorce is the unforgivable sin in fundamentalist churches.

~The Church is trapped in the past/needs to “get with the times”.
Because the concert arenas/mega-churches are sooo today.

~The Catholic Church always wants money.
At least the CC does not demand a person “tithe” thier income.

~The Church doesn’t want me to read from the Bible.
The average fundamentalist sermon reads one or two Bible verses and the rest of the half hour is filled with the “preacher’s” opinion on what the Bible says.

~The Church doesn’t want me to have a personal relationship with God/Christ.
In actual fact, the average fundamentalist congregation has a “personal relationship” with the preacher.
/QUOTE]

This is fabulous!
Mary,

 

[MaryT777]

This is a big one, to be sure.

Everyone who divorces and wants to re-marry wants the permission of their church. If they can’t get it from the CC, then they seek another church which accepts this.

Church shopping.

Sadly, this is an example of creating a god after one’s own image, rather than conforming one’s views to God’s.

My friend is a Lutheran Pastor and he told me most
Catholics he converted did so due to remarriage issues. They did not want to deal with the annulment issues so they and their new spouse converted to be Lutherans.
I believe a great number of people we lose from the Catholic Church are disillusioned with the divorce remarriage and annulment issues.
Mary.

 

[Isaiah45_9]

My friend is a Lutheran Pastor and he told me most
Catholics he converted did so due to remarriage issues. They did not want to deal with the annulment issues so they and their new spouse converted to be Lutherans.
I believe a great number of people we lose from the Catholic Church are disillusioned with the divorce remarriage and annulment issues.
Mary.

My wife and I are going through the annulment process. It is without a doubt one of the most frustrating and humbling things I have done… I struggle at time with Confession, I mean - what’s the point if I can’t have communion anyway… It feels like being a 2nd class Catholic. But we must persevere and be obedient. Good things come to those who wait. It is really really hard.

But we can do all things through Christ, right?

 

[MaryT777]

My wife and I are going through the annulment process. It is without a doubt one of the most frustrating and humbling things I have done… I struggle at time with Confession, I mean - what’s the point if I can’t have communion anyway… It feels like being a 2nd class Catholic. But we must persevere and be obedient. Good things come to those who wait. It is really really hard.

But we can do all things through Christ, right?

Absolutely!
Prayers for you said.
Mary.

 

[Memaw]

My wife and I are going through the annulment process. It is without a doubt one of the most frustrating and humbling things I have done… I struggle at time with Confession, I mean - what’s the point if I can’t have communion anyway… It feels like being a 2nd class Catholic. But we must persevere and be obedient. Good things come to those who wait. It is really really hard.

But we can do all things through Christ, right?

I understand, my second husband and I went thru it and we had to wait for 2 years as it had to go to Rome then. His papers were signed by Pope Paul VI. I was widowed and he had been married before but never baptized. He received the Pauline Privilege. But it was worth every minute of that wait to have it right. It is much faster today as I have walked thru it with a couple of friends and one was only about 6 weeks and another about 4 months. The Church is a Wise Mother and cares for her children in the right way. Yes we must be patient with Her as She carefully guides us thru life. God Bless, Memaw

 

[Heart_Foam]

Do you see how treacherous it may be to propose that you can use “private judgement” without any kind of presupposition?

Well at least you acknowledge you presuppose Catholicism to be true. And all notions of truth and objectivity go out the window. You realise you are making my point about Catholic attitudes towards truth and error, right? Because if Rome’s claims about itself are false, there is no way you can know that. The problem of being unfalsifiable is that you can’t prove something true either.

Fideism is rejected by the Catholic Faith, as well as by St. Ignatius.

However, it is true that if Christ says something, even if we perceive it differently, we must conform our views to His.

You conflate Christ with Rome. They’re actually quite different, as you’ll see further down. Fideism is rejected by the Catholic faith? Well, does the lip-service match the practice? I suppose that obsequium religiosum isn’t actually a Roman Catholic concept? You are required to submit intellect and will. That’s fideism. As for proof, true, the Catechism does not speak explicitly of implicit faith but the notion seems to be contained in this summary in §182:

We believe all “that which is contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church proposes for belief as divinely revealed.”

Don’t bring up a word-concept fallacy, §182 speaks of implicit faith in the RCC. There’s no room for critical thinking there.

As for your theological concerns, to say you misrepresent private judgement goes without saying, and I’m not going start mud slinging about highly charged topics. But clearly you claim some epistemological advantage in being Catholic - that you have an infallible guide and infallible interpreter which Protestants don’t. The presumption on this thread is that former Catholics leave because of a bad experience or because they are “church shopping” for something that conforms to their too liberal standards. Can’t you allow that some leave because they are looking for truth, and they find that presuming Rome is true because Rome says so doesn’t add up? Surely you have to allow that some have left because they couldn’t find the authority Rome claims. But, lucky me who read this thread, because Catholics have an infallible guide and I don’t and I have the opportunity to find out what it is. Just let me know how that works in reality. Seriously. When, or hypothetically, if you have a burning theological question, who do you go to for guidance? Where is your infallible guide. Catholic Answers isn’t it. Even books stamped imprimatur have had errors on faith and morals. Don’t assert Catholic superiority so confidently and then not back it up. Do you have a tangible Infallible Guide or not? You don’t.

And for what it’s worth, I don’t like divorce. But annulment and re-marriage isn’t Scriptural either. It’s a semantic game the RCC is playing - the translations of Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 in the NAB are in accordance with Catholic doctrine, but one shouldn’t twist Scripture like that. It is an escape from what the Bible defines as marriage. The annulment process is unbiblical in that Jesus allowed for sexual immorality/marital unfaithfulness as the only basis for ending a marriage, and the annulment process allows for many, many reasons - not just the one reason Jesus mentioned. Someone once said, “If Christ says something… we must conform our views to His”.

God Bless
Stephen

 

[PRmerger]

Well at least you acknowledge you presuppose Catholicism to be true.

This is a non-sequitur, Heart Foam.

You have not addressed the issue of “private judgment” leading to all sorts of perverse and heretical views.

In your paradigm, you have no “weapon” in your arsenal to combat these bizarre theologies. You can only say, “Well, you are certainly doing what I have proposed and have come to your own personal judgment about what the Scriptures say.”

 

[PRmerger]

You conflate Christ with Rome.

Yes. Christ only has One Body.

And without Rome, Stephen, you have NO WAY, at all, to know what Christ has said.

It is because of the Church, His Body, that you know anything at all about what Christ revealed.

 

[PRmerger]

And for what it’s worth, I don’t like divorce. But annulment and re-marriage isn’t Scriptural either. It’s a semantic game the RCC is playing - the translations of Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 in the NAB are in accordance with Catholic doctrine, but one shouldn’t twist Scripture like that. It is an escape from what the Bible defines as marriage. The annulment process is unbiblical in that Jesus allowed for sexual immorality/marital unfaithfulness as the only basis for** ending a marriage,** and the annulment process allows for many, many reasons - not just the one reason Jesus mentioned. Someone once said, “If Christ says something… we must conform our views to His”.

God Bless
Stephen

You seem to be operating under a misapprehension that annulments end a marriage.

They do not.

If it was a marriage, it cannot be annulled.

That is the long and short of it, Stephen.

 

[PRmerger]

I suppose that obsequium religiosum isn’t actually a Roman Catholic concept? You are required to submit intellect and will.

As are you, Stephen, as a faithful Christian.

Does your intellect embrace the Trinity? Or do you submit your will to its truth?

Does your intellect embrace the hypostatic union? Or do you submit your will to its truth?

The mantra that Catholics follow, as do you, is: * fides quaerens intellectum*.

That’s fideism. As for proof, true, the Catechism does not speak explicitly of implicit faith but the notion seems to be contained in this summary in §182:

We believe all “that which is contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church proposes for belief as divinely revealed.”

If that is your definition of fideism, then it would appear that you, too, are an adherent of it, yes?

 

[PRmerger]

The presumption on this thread is that former Catholics leave because of a bad experience or because they are “church shopping” for something that conforms to their too liberal standards. Can’t you allow that some leave because they are looking for truth, and they find that presuming Rome is true because Rome says so doesn’t add up? Surely you have to allow that some have left because they couldn’t find the authority Rome claims.

In all my years of dialogue with folks who have left the CC, I have not found one, not a single one, who was able to articulate any apologia for the Catholic faith with any coherence.

Thus, those who leave, leave a Church they did not know. :sad_yes:

 

[Heart_Foam]

And without Rome, Stephen, you have NO WAY, at all, to know what Christ has said.

It is because of the Church, His Body, that you know anything at all about what Christ revealed.

Already falling back to that defense? The philosopher in me would love to chase you down that rabbit hole, but discussing the canon is beyond the scope of the topic of this thread. But I reject your definition of the Church.

This is a non-sequitur, Heart Foam.

You have not addressed the issue of “private judgment” leading to all sorts of perverse and heretical views.

In your paradigm, you have no “weapon” in your arsenal to combat these bizarre theologies. You can only say, “Well, you are certainly doing what I have proposed and have come to your own personal judgment about what the Scriptures say.”

Well, you claim your weapon is an infallible guide. So show it to me. Yes, Catholics love to gaze condescendingly at silly Protestants with private judgement and marvel at the confusion they see. Let’s hypothetically say I grant your point. Yes, we Protestants are all at sea, if only we had an infallible guide to answer our theological questions. At this point you would stop complaining about the (perceived) lack of authority on my side of Tiber and tell me what authority you have on your side that you think grants you an epistemological advantage. I’m not pretending there are no problems in the vast majority of Protestant churches, but that does not equate to undermining the Church, capital C. The unbiblical definition of “the Church” is the doctrine on which the whole system rests. But lets not get distracted: **what infallible guide answers your questions? **

Surely you must know. This cannot be a hard question if Catholicism is true. If you, or someone else won’t tell me what tangible infallible guide you have (and there isn’t one), then grant that some people leave the RCC for no other reason than the conviction that it is false.

If it was a marriage, it cannot be annulled.

Actually, it can be. Jesus said adultery is grounds for divorce. Matthew 19:9:

I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery."

Do you deny that? Catholics *should *allow for divorce for the reason Jesus gave.

 

[PRmerger]

ADo you deny that? Catholics *should *allow for divorce for the reason Jesus gave.

Just so we are clear: your position is that Jesus said that if someone commits adultery then he can divorce his wife (and subsequently remarry with impunity)?