For All the Protestants That Care to Answer . . .

[mrs_abbott]

I was just wondering that if the CC dropped their Traditions of honoring Mary and the saints, the sacrament of Confession to a priest and the papal infallibility doctrine, would Protestants become Catholic?
The reason I listed these is because these seem to be the main ones Protestants have issues with.
Also, if your reason is not listed in the ones I mentioned, feel free to share.
Protestants that converted to Catholicism can also share the reason why they converted, if they’d like.

 

[Blue_Serenity]

I was just wondering that if the CC dropped their Traditions of honoring Mary and the saints, the sacrament of Confession to a priest and the papal infallibility doctrine, would Protestants become Catholic?
The reason I listed these is because these seem to be the main ones Protestants have issues with.
Also, if your reason is not listed in the ones I mentioned, feel free to share.
Protestants that converted to Catholicism can also share the reason why they converted, if they’d like.

This is a VERY interesting question, as I’ve been contemplating Catholicism alot lately. I guess the one I have the biggest issue with is honoring Mary and the saints when Christ Himself said that “anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”. Who better to go to than God Himself with your prayers?

 

[Guardian]

I was just wondering that if the CC dropped their Traditions of honoring Mary and the saints, the sacrament of Confession to a priest and the papal infallibility doctrine, would Protestants become Catholic?
The reason I listed these is because these seem to be the main ones Protestants have issues with.
Also, if your reason is not listed in the ones I mentioned, feel free to share.
Protestants that converted to Catholicism can also share the reason why they converted, if they’d like.

I don’t know if Protestants would turn Catholic if the CC did that, but this Catholic would turn Protestant if the CC did that. Two-faced inconsistency would show it was a fraud and not containing the truth.

 

[JimO]

My guess is that rather than become Catholic, many Protestants would say that now the Catholic Church has become acceptable to them.

 

[Della]

This is a VERY interesting question, as I’ve been contemplating Catholicism alot lately. I guess the one I have the biggest issue with is honoring Mary and the saints when Christ Himself said that “anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”. Who better to go to than God Himself with your prayers?

Actually, no Christian goes just to God with his prayers. All Christians believe in asking for others to pray for them. What you really are having problem with is believing in the Communion of Saints, those who are in heaven, that is. Yes?

As Jesus himself stated:

Matt.22
[32] `I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living."

Mark.12
[27] He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong."

Luke.20
[38] Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to him."

Those who are with Christ in glory can hear our prayers and intercede for us just as you and I can. Only, they are completely in agreement with God’s will, are not constrained by space and time (through the power of the Holy Spirit), and can only have the purest intentions.

God honored, and still honors and exults, whom he pleases. He did it all through the Bible and still does. He glories in his people and all they do through his grace. That is how it works–for no one can do anything for God apart from God.

As for Protestants becoming Catholic if the Catholic Church gave up certain teachings, just the opposite often happens. Many a Protestant, including yours truly, became Catholic only after learning what the Church truly teaches about these things and more. It is ignorance that largely keeps people out of the Catholic Church, unintended as well as willful.

 

[Jabronie]

I don’t know if Protestants would turn Catholic if the CC did that, but this Catholic would turn Protestant if the CC did that. Two-faced inconsistency would show it was a fraud and not containing the truth.

I would join the Eastern Orthodox.

 

[RNRobert]

This is a VERY interesting question, as I’ve been contemplating Catholicism alot lately. I guess the one I have the biggest issue with is honoring Mary and the saints when Christ Himself said that “anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”. Who better to go to than God Himself with your prayers?

Do you ask your friends, family, and fellow churchmembers to pray for you, do you not? We believe we do not stop belonging to the Body of Christ when we die (for God is the God of the living). Mary and the Saints are our family, fellow Christians who have gone before us and who are present with God.

 

[RNRobert]

I was just wondering that if the CC dropped their Traditions of honoring Mary and the saints, the sacrament of Confession to a priest and the papal infallibility doctrine, would Protestants become Catholic?
The reason I listed these is because these seem to be the main ones Protestants have issues with.
Also, if your reason is not listed in the ones I mentioned, feel free to share.
Protestants that converted to Catholicism can also share the reason why they converted, if they’d like.

The problem is, once you start dropping things, where do you stop? Protestants cannot even agree among themselves, and some of the more liberal denoms have so watered down the faith as to be almost meaningless.

I am a convert. When I first became a Christian, I believed in my heart of hearts that the Church Jesus started in the first century must still be around somewhere today. After a lot of searching and going down some blind alleys, I found the Catholic Church to be THE Church, not just a denom founded by man.

 

[rtconstant]

I think the OP asks an interesting question too. As a convert from the Southern Baptist Church to the Catholic Church I’d be disturbed by such a move. Confession and Intercessory prayer are some of the things I liked about Catholicism. I will admit that the biggest thing I had a hard time getting past was some of the Marian doctrines. Not because I saw it as worship and anything I just had some theological issues with some of it. However, I got passed that because I believe that I have benefitted from the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and as things turned out I think that she ended up being key to my conversion. Ironic how things turn out sometimes.

Anyway, I think that we probably would see more protestants enter the Catholic Church with those doctrines. To be honest I think that rhetoric and history are the biggest obsticles between us now. Let’s face it the Counter Reformation addressed most of pressing issues of the early reformers. Yet I think pride kept the rift from being healed. A lot of hurtful and violent things happened on both sides during those early years and that sort of thing can be hard to get over.

Today though the seperation has much less basis. So now I think it’s the anti-catholic propaganda machine that’s primarily responsible for the continued gulf that exists between us.

 

[Contarini]

I was just wondering that if the CC dropped their Traditions of honoring Mary and the saints, the sacrament of Confession to a priest and the papal infallibility doctrine, would Protestants become Catholic?
The reason I listed these is because these seem to be the main ones Protestants have issues with.

I would not want the CC to drop the traditions of honoring the saints, but I question whether all the Marian dogmas really needed to be defined as such, rather than remaining pious beliefs. I believe in sacramental Confession but I question the High Medieval shift from a view of the priest as doctor (still seen in Peter Lombard) to a view of the priest as judge, which resulted in a legal understanding of confession. And I don’t believe in papal infallibility, though of course there are various ways of defining it and it’s possible that some agreement might be reached, if the RCC was sufficiently clear about the decision-making role of the whole Church.

Let me underline, though, that at this point Marian piety per se is definitely an attraction rather than the reverse. As an Episcopalian I have access to the Eucharist at least every week and sometimes more often (let’s not debate the validity of our Eucharists, please–I know the arguments!), so while I’d like the opportunity to receive daily, that’s not the big deal for me. But I when I listen to medieval Christmas carols honoring Mary (as I have been doing this past Advent and Christmas), I feel great sorrow and anger at the way Protestants swept away this rich Incarnational piety as idolatrous. This is one of the biggest things I think I miss by not being Catholic–though of course nothing prevents me from stopping by Catholic churches and paying my respects to the BVM, and I do do that from time to time.

Edwin

 

[rr1213]

I was just wondering that if the CC dropped their Traditions of honoring Mary and the saints, the sacrament of Confession to a priest and the papal infallibility doctrine, would Protestants become Catholic?
The reason I listed these is because these seem to be the main ones Protestants have issues with.
Also, if your reason is not listed in the ones I mentioned, feel free to share.
Protestants that converted to Catholicism can also share the reason why they converted, if they’d like.

A totally speculative question because we know that none of this is going to happen, albeit an interesting question.

So, continuing the speculation, IF the Catholic Church backed away from insisting that Mary was without sin, this would be a significant matter to me personally. I’ve known for many years of the Immaculate Conception, yet I did not realize that it went beyond the concept that Mary was conceived without original sin. Only last year, when researching the Catholic Church while looking for a church home, did I realize that the Church also taught that Mary was without sin. I still remember that moment, I was stunned, literally stunned, and haven’t recovered yet. There are other teachings of the Catholic Church that I do not accept, but this is probably the one that has had the single most significant impact on me.

 

[Blue_Serenity]

Do you ask your friends, family, and fellow churchmembers to pray for you, do you not? We believe we do not stop belonging to the Body of Christ when we die (for God is the God of the living). Mary and the Saints are our family, fellow Christians who have gone before us and who are present with God.

In light of not derailing this thread, pm me if you want the answer to that.

 

[Mannyfit75]

I would join the Eastern Orthodox.

I would probably become Eastern Orthodox as well. My problems with Protestantism is Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura, two core doctrines of Protestantism. I could not see myself to believe in those erroneous doctrines.

 

[mrs_abbott]

The problem is, once you start dropping things, where do you stop? Protestants cannot even agree among themselves, and some of the more liberal denoms have so watered down the faith as to be almost meaningless.

I am a convert. When I first became a Christian, I believed in my heart of hearts that the Church Jesus started in the first century must still be around somewhere today. After a lot of searching and going down some blind alleys, I found the Catholic Church to be THE Church, not just a denom founded by man.

This question is meant to be purely speculative and I know that it honestly wouldn’t happen. I’m asking Protestants out of curiosity if they’d join up to be Catholic if something they questioned about the Church was dropped.
Pigs have a better chance of flying than changes such as the ones I mentioned have of happening.

 

[Melchior]

I was just wondering that if the CC dropped their Traditions of honoring Mary and the saints, the sacrament of Confession to a priest and the papal infallibility doctrine, would Protestants become Catholic?
The reason I listed these is because these seem to be the main ones Protestants have issues with.
Also, if your reason is not listed in the ones I mentioned, feel free to share.
Protestants that converted to Catholicism can also share the reason why they converted, if they’d like.

Just get rid of the “relevent” hippy masses. You know trashing the liturgy with music that was lame by 1975, ugly new churches, modern translations of the Mass, and using the NAB for the readings instead of the RSV. Undo the baby-boomers damage to the Mass and I will be back. I could care less if it is in latin. Just go to a good Anglo-Catholic parish to remind you how it should be done.

Reverence. It’s all about reverence. This is one of the real reasons Protestants that can’t decide between Orthodoxy and Catholicism go Orthodox. If you are on the fence you have already decided for liturgy over “worship service” so why would you choose the one that has adopted a lamer version of 1970’s seeker sensitive protestant churches vs. something reverent and beautiful?

Without the stuff on your list Catholicism would just be single guys in white walled churches singing songs at a lecturne that sound like they were written by Peter, Paul and Mary (tune) and Dr. Seuss (lyrics).

 

[Damascus]

Indeed. Pigs flying is what I say.

Consider this senario for a second, and be as honest with yourself as you can.
There is no right or wrong answer here. No score is given.

You are 17. You are dating. You go out with a guy who is the quarterback of the football team, smart too, handsome and funny. Life is good.

After a while he quits the team, drops out of school(reformation) and gets tatts(divisions in the body - mutilating the body) and drinks poison.(half truths, errors are poison)
Would you still want to date him? NO.

I would not. What you just described in your opening post is how I would view the Church if it had been strippped of the value that I find in it. Dumpable.

And in any case, what you just described was a Protestant Chruch anyway for the most part. There are plenty of them all over why do they need ours too?

They already messed up that quarterback. What more do they want?

 

[mrs_abbott]

Indeed. Pigs flying is what I say.

Consider this senario for a second, and be as honest with yourself as you can.
There is no right or wrong answer here. No score is given.

You are 17. You are dating. You go out with a guy who is the quarterback of the football team, smart too, handsome and funny. Life is good.

After a while he quits the team, drops out of school(reformation) and gets tatts(divisions in the body - mutilating the body) and drinks poison.(half truths, errors are poison)
Would you still want to date him? NO.

I would not. What you just described in your opening post is how I would view the Church if it had been strippped of the value that I find in it. Dumpable.

And in any case, what you just described was a Protestant Chruch anyway for the most part. There are plenty of them all over why do they need ours too?

They already messed up that quarterback. What more do they want?

It would destroy everything that Protestants have come to find in Catholicism, speaking strictly of converts, and maybe even destroy the respect that folks have for Catholicism, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

 

[Blue_Serenity]

It would destroy everything that Protestants have come to find in Catholicism, speaking strictly of converts, and maybe even destroy the respect that folks have for Catholicism, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

It’s a touchy subject really, if you seriously look at it. I know this is meant to be a “what if” scenario but you can’t help but look at what it would really mean if it DID happen, in one area or another.
I see the Catholic church as a stable entity, for now. If it doesn’t cave into any worldy trends, like contraception, I might look into RCIA. I’m giving it another 5 years and seeing what happens.
I support the Catholic stance on NFP 100%!!!

 

[Damascus]

It’s a touchy subject really, if you seriously look at it. I know this is meant to be a “what if” scenario but you can’t help but look at what it would really mean if it DID happen, in one area or another.
I see the Catholic church as a stable entity, for now. ** If it doesn’t cave into any worldy trends, like contraception, I might look into RCIA. I’m giving it another 5 years and seeing what happens.
I support the Catholic stance on NFP 100%!!! **

Good news! Well, let me be the first to welcome you to the Catholic Church.

IT WILL NEVER BE APPROVED.

NEVER!

 

[RNRobert]

J

Reverence. It’s all about reverence. This is one of the real reasons Protestants that can’t decide between Orthodoxy and Catholicism go Orthodox. If you are on the fence you have already decided for liturgy over “worship service” so why would you choose the one that has adopted a lamer version of 1970’s seeker sensitive protestant churches vs. something reverent and beautiful?

I would have to agree. I read Frank Schaeffer’s (son of Protestant theologian Francis Schaeffer) Dancing Alone and he converted to the Orthodox Church as he found the Catholic Church too Americanized.

I don’t know if we have to go back to the Tridentine Mass (although that might not be a bad idea), but I agree that there are problems. At my parish, the pianist played like she was at a rock concert, and sounded like Jerry Lee Lewis during the Alleluia.