Gene Fadness, ex-Mormon, on Catholic Answers

[dianaiad]

Every prospective Catholic is given a bible and a Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). They study them in RCIA and are encouraged to read every page. The CCC tells you everything about the Catholic faith in no uncertain terms. You cannot read the CCC without understanding everything about Catholicism. Nothing is hidden, nothing is occult.

No? Is there something in the catechism about Mary not going through labor, but simply being pregnant one instant, then having the Christ child in her arms the next?

Hey, don’t blame me–I got THAT one right here in this forum. There isn’t anything in the catachism that tells you about this one.

Unlike Mormonism, there are no teachings that are hidden until you have been a member for a year. It is all out there in public for everyone to know and understand.

The bible says that God wants everyone to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Paul
l

Paul, Temple preparation classes do a very good job of preparing people for the Temple. Those who attend these classes (and yes, the manuals for them are on lds.org, and are fully searchable) explain exactly what covenants and promises are made, and emphasize the symbolic nature of everything that is done. Those who teach these classes are very clear that going to the Temple will be a very different experience for those who have never been, and whose only exposure to Mormonism is what happens on Sundays and during the week.

Anybody who walks into the Temple NOT expecting a highly ritualized, deeply symbolic event simply hasn’t been paying attention.

 

[dianaiad]

Chances are, he also wouldn’t know who told him. Confessions can be anonymous. If someone was confessing to murder, chances are they would choose that option.

And again, I see a big difference between a secret between two people and a secret between EVERYONE in the religion. Especially if that secret is also kept from people considering joining the religion.

Except, of course, that we make no attempt to keep anything secret.

Unless you know of a lawsuit or so that I don’t, attempting to keep Temple scripts off the internet? Or perhaps you can reconcile the idea that we are keeping secrets when WE are the folks who put the script in the flippin CONGRESSIONAL RECORD?

 

[maryjk]

Except, of course, that we make no attempt to keep anything secret.

Unless you know of a lawsuit or so that I don’t, attempting to keep Temple scripts off the internet? Or perhaps you can reconcile the idea that we are keeping secrets when WE are the folks who put the script in the flippin CONGRESSIONAL RECORD?

And yet you have a problem with Fadness talking about what is said in the Temple.

Either it is all out there and it doesn’t matter who talks about it, or it is secret and you want to keep it secret.

 

[dianaiad]

And yet you have a problem with Fadness talking about what is said in the Temple.

Indeed…because he made the promise.

Either it is all out there and it doesn’t matter who talks about it, or it is secret and you want to keep it secret.

No, Mary…

Lets’ say that you promise to give up something for Lent…say, you decide to stop smoking, or to volunteer at a homeless shelter four times a week, or to give up listening to your i-pod (so that you are better able to hear God) or give up your facebook page, or to make a true attempt to be charitable to a person who is habitually a pain in your posterior…whatever, it is your promise.

Say it’s your i-pod. About the second week in, you are doing some mindless household chore that you ordinarly have your i-pod plugged into your ears for; it distracts you from the boredom of the job, perhaps, or takes you to another ‘place’ so that the task is easier and faster. Does the fact that almost nobody else in the world would be commiting a sin, or breaking a promise if THEY listened to their i-pod mean that you aren’t breaking one if you do?

I don’t drink coffee, either. I promised not to. YOU can drink coffee all you want to; you did not promise to abstain; it’s not a sin, there’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing wrong with coffee, either (I love the smell of it…) but because I promised not to, if I DID drink it, I would be doing something very, very wrong. I would be breaking a covenant I made with God.

The promise is sacred. What we experience when we attend the Temple is sacred to us. We made the promises. In all honor, we keep them.

You have not promised. Until you do promise, there is no problem with you discussing Temple matters, or looking the script up, or checking out the Congressional Record, or whatever. There IS a problem if I do.

I think that’s simple enough.

 

[Jea9]

No? Is there something in the catechism about Mary not going through labor, but simply being pregnant one instant, then having the Christ child in her arms the next?

Hey, don’t blame me–I got THAT one right here in this forum. There isn’t anything in the catachism that tells you about this one.

Well, that is because this isn’t Dogma. We are required to believe that Mary was Immaculately Conceived, and that she was a perpetual virgin, but Catholics are free to believe that either Mary had pain during labor or that she did not. You WILL find references to all Dogmas of the Faith in the Catechism.

 

[Jea9]

Indeed…because he made the promise.

No, Mary…

Lets’ say that you promise to give up something for Lent…say, you decide to stop smoking, or to volunteer at a homeless shelter four times a week, or to give up listening to your i-pod (so that you are better able to hear God) or give up your facebook page, or to make a true attempt to be charitable to a person who is habitually a pain in your posterior…whatever, it is your promise.

Say it’s your i-pod. About the second week in, you are doing some mindless household chore that you ordinarly have your i-pod plugged into your ears for; it distracts you from the boredom of the job, perhaps, or takes you to another ‘place’ so that the task is easier and faster. Does the fact that almost nobody else in the world would be commiting a sin, or breaking a promise if THEY listened to their i-pod mean that you aren’t breaking one if you do?

I don’t drink coffee, either. I promised not to. YOU can drink coffee all you want to; you did not promise to abstain; it’s not a sin, there’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing wrong with coffee, either (I love the smell of it…) but because I promised not to, if I DID drink it, I would be doing something very, very wrong. I would be breaking a covenant I made with God.

The promise is sacred. What we experience when we attend the Temple is sacred to us. We made the promises. In all honor, we keep them.

You have not promised. Until you do promise, there is no problem with you discussing Temple matters, or looking the script up, or checking out the Congressional Record, or whatever. There IS a problem if I do.

I think that’s simple enough.

A Catholic is not in danger of sinning if he or she slips during Lent and partakes of whatever he or she gave up.

I think the point that’s being made is that there shouldn’t be such secrets regarding your faith, especially among your own members. There shouldn’t be something that you HAVE to do in order to reach the celestial kingdom, but you don’t get to know what it is until somebody decides you are worthy.

As I stated earlier, I’m an ex-Mormon, I was a convert to that as well and was only in the church just over a year. I am not angry, but I do think I was led astray. In fact, I can tell you right off that I was blatantly, in my face lied to when I was taking the lessons from the missionaries. Some friends I had that weren’t Mormon told me “do you know they believe {x}?” and when I asked, despite it being something that IS believed, I was told by my “friends” that introduced me to the missionaries that these people were wrong and they didn’t believe ANYTHING of the sort. Things shouldn’t be hidden at all, but especially to this degree. I think that’s one of the reasons people have such a negative view of LDS.

 

[maryjk]

The promise is sacred. What we experience when we attend the Temple is sacred to us. We made the promises. In all honor, we keep them.

You have not promised. Until you do promise, there is no problem with you discussing Temple matters, or looking the script up, or checking out the Congressional Record, or whatever. There IS a problem if I do.

I think that’s simple enough.

Okay, let’s say there is a new religion, called “Jones.” As part of this new religion, you promise to pray in secret to the religion’s 3 Gods. Pray to them everyday.

Later you realize that there is One True Church and One God. You leave the Jones religion.

Does that mean you should still pray to Jones’ three gods? Does that mean you shouldn’t warn others that the Jones religion asks you to pray to fake gods?

This is what is happening with Gene Fadness. He has left what he sees as a false religion. And he is trying to save others from falling for their “secrets.” And I see it as simple as that.

 

[PaulDupre]

No? Is there something in the catechism about Mary not going through labor, but simply being pregnant one instant, then having the Christ child in her arms the next?

Hey, don’t blame me–I got THAT one right here in this forum. There isn’t anything in the catachism that tells you about this one.

That is not a Catholic doctrine. I don’t know where someone would get an idea like that, but there is no Catholic teaching to that effect.

Paul, Temple preparation classes do a very good job of preparing people for the Temple. Those who attend these classes (and yes, the manuals for them are on lds.org, and are fully searchable) explain exactly what covenants and promises are made, and emphasize the symbolic nature of everything that is done. Those who teach these classes are very clear that going to the Temple will be a very different experience for those who have never been, and whose only exposure to Mormonism is what happens on Sundays and during the week.

Anybody who walks into the Temple NOT expecting a highly ritualized, deeply symbolic event simply hasn’t been paying attention.

You know very well that when I went through the temple in 1977 (and you if you went through in your youth) there was no “temple prep” class. I took out my endowment when I was in the LTM (now called the MTC) preparing for my mission. During the third week in the LTM, we were interviewed by the LTM president, then went to the temple and took out our endowments. I and my fellow missionaries knew nothing about what to expect.

I already knew about freemasonic rituals and was shocked and dismayed to find that the endowment was a pastiche of the masonic rituals for 1st through 3rd degree masons. And the costumes were extremely silly. After the build-up I had received as to how “spiritual” and “revelatory” the endowment was to be, I was extremely disappointed, and so were most of my fellow elders.

The temple endowment is the most effective way to turn people away from Mormonism. Maybe that’s why about half of the endowment has been simply dropped from the ritual. A ceremony that used to take nearly two hours now takes about 45 minutes.

 

[PaulDupre]

Except, of course, that we make no attempt to keep anything secret.

Unless you know of a lawsuit or so that I don’t, attempting to keep Temple scripts off the internet? Or perhaps you can reconcile the idea that we are keeping secrets when WE are the folks who put the script in the flippin CONGRESSIONAL RECORD?

The endowment is in the congressional record because it was subpoenaed by congress during the Reed Smoot hearings. The LDS church never volunteered to place the endowment in the record, and in fact fought it tooth and nail in the courts, but lost.

The LDS church is all about secrets and deception. Forewarned is forearmed.

 

[TheosisM]

No? Is there something in the catechism about Mary not going through labor, but simply being pregnant one instant, then having the Christ child in her arms the next?

Hey, don’t blame me–I got THAT one right here in this forum. There isn’t anything in the catachism that tells you about this one.

This is not Catholic doctrine. I’ve been Catholic forever, and have never heard this. I also taught religious education classes as well. Mary was pregnant with Jesus Christ like any other baby (except of course the whole virgin birth deal) and gave birth to Him.

 

[Pug]

That is not a Catholic doctrine. I don’t know where someone would get an idea like that, but there is no Catholic teaching to that effect.

Emphasis added. There is a reason someone would bring it up. It isn’t made up out of whole cloth. Here is a cut from the Catechism of the Council of Trent:

The Nativity Of Christ Transcends The Order Of Nature

But as the Conception itself transcends the order of nature, so also the birth of our Lord presents to our contemplation nothing but what is divine.
Besides, what is admirable beyond the power of thoughts or words to express, He is born of His Mother without any diminution of her maternal virginity, just as He afterwards went forth from the sepulchre while it was closed and sealed, and entered the room in which His disciples were assembled, the doors being shut; or, not to depart from every day examples, just as the rays of the sun penetrate without breaking or injuring in the least the solid substance of glass, so after a like but more exalted manner did Jesus Christ come forth from His mother’s womb without injury to her maternal virginity. This immaculate and perpetual virginity forms, therefore, the just theme of our eulogy. Such was the work of the Holy Ghost, who at the Conception and birth of the Son so favoured the Virgin Mother as to impart to her fecundity while preserving inviolate her perpetual virginity.

There are other places to look for traces of why someone would bring this up. Aquinas is another place to look. I recall he mentions there being no pains on account of the passage not opening or something. That does not make a defined dogma, of course. With comparisons around to how Jesus walked through closed doors, I don’t fault someone if the idea of springing forth rather miraculously comes to mind.

 

[Arandur]

Emphasis added. There is a reason someone would bring it up. It isn’t made up out of whole cloth. Here is a cut from the Catechism of the Council of Trent:

There are other places to look for traces of why someone would bring this up. Aquinas is another place to look. I recall he mentions there being no pains on account of the passage not opening or something. That does not make a defined dogma, of course. With comparisons around to how Jesus walked through closed doors, I don’t fault someone if the idea of springing forth rather miraculously comes to mind.

I saw it as a corollary belief to the idea of the New Creation in Christ, where the first Eve was subjected to the pains of childbirth due to sin. It would seem fitting, then, that the second Eve in the new and pure Creation that succeeded, into which we can all join through Christ, would not be subject to the same. A corollary following valid logic, but not a dogma by any means, and thus not to be included in the Catechism.

 

[PaulDupre]

As I said, it is not a Catholic teaching. A pious speculation by some people perhaps, but not Catholic doctrine. It is Catholic teaching that the Blesed Virgin remained a virgin before, during and after the birth of Our Lord, but that’s as far as the teaching goes.

 

[why_me]

A Catholic is not in danger of sinning if he or she slips during Lent and partakes of whatever he or she gave up.

I think the point that’s being made is that there shouldn’t be such secrets regarding your faith, especially among your own members. There shouldn’t be something that you HAVE to do in order to reach the celestial kingdom, but you don’t get to know what it is until somebody decides you are worthy.

I think that if one slips up during lent, he or she may go to confession to speak with a priest. And there may be some guilt involved in the slip up. In mormonism the temple ceremonies are not secret since they are on the internet. If a member wishes to look them up, they they can do so but they are encouraged not to since the ceremonies are considered to be sacred. As Dianaid stated, there are temple preparation classes to help people with what goes on in the temple. But these classes are done by faithful lds who handled all sacred ‘things’ well.

Every faith has its own identity. What is sacred should be respected whether it is hinduism or islam or any other form of religion. For a muslim, burning the koran is extremely sinful. For christians, it isn’t. Would you burn a koran in a muslim country? The koran is a sacred book to muslims but to christians, it is not. Out of respect, the koran should not be burned.

Let the mormons have what they consider to be sacred, sacred. Too bad that you didn’t take a temple preparation class. You might have found it useful.

 

[why_me]

As I said, it is not a Catholic teaching. A pious speculation by some people perhaps, but not Catholic doctrine. It is Catholic teaching that the Blesed Virgin remained a virgin before, during and after the birth of Our Lord, but that’s as far as the teaching goes.

In my neck of the woods, there are no catechism classes for adults. I have no idea how one learns about the catholic faith if there are no classes to attend. No catechism. Many catholics do not know their faith. Many catholics do not attend church. It is that simple. Now in the RCIA classes not everything is covered. No time for all to be covered. But the essentials are. Is the RCIA a history class? I don’t think so. Much catholic history is unknown by most catholics. Is it a secret? No. But it is not taught in catechism or in RCIA. But some points of doctrine are.

As you know, the lds church has a temple preparation class where the temple is handled with respect and dignity. Members can get a good understanding by attending that class. But what goes on in the temple is not discussed in public to those who have not attended the temple and among those who have been to the temple, much is not discussed outside the temple either.

That is the way it is. You don’t need to like it but…such is the way it is.

 

[why_me]

The endowment is in the congressional record because it was subpoenaed by congress during the Reed Smoot hearings. The LDS church never volunteered to place the endowment in the record, and in fact fought it tooth and nail in the courts, but lost.

The LDS church is all about secrets and deception. Forewarned is forearmed.

Well, lets see, if the jewish faith had something sacred, say something that goes on in the Jewish temple, should government have the right to have the ceremony listed in the congressional record for all to see? I don’t think so. And I know that the Jewish people would fight to have what they consider to be sacred, kept out of public domain.

And they would have the right to do so. Why would the lds church wish to have what they consider sacred to put in a congressional record for all to see? It wouldn’t make sense at all.

And what is secret about the temple ceremonies. If one goes to the temple, it is no longer a secret. You just don’t make any sense. Mormons are told that the temple is sacred and what happens in there is sacred and not to be discussed outside the temple. But when they go through the temple, it is no longer a ‘secret’, right?

You need to become more balanced in your antimormonism.

 

[why_me]

When I became a Catholic, these people demanded that I resign my membership or be excommunicated. At the time I became Catholic the Mormon Church said that converting to another church was not grounds for excommunication, but then they changed the rules. My oath in the temple was invalid as soon as they broke the contract.

That is strange. When I became mormon, no one said that I needed to resign my membership in the catholic church. And now that I attend Mass again, no mormon is saying that I need to be excommunicated from the lds church. I find them to be pretty tolerant. You must have had a crazy lds bishop. I have heard of no one required to give up their previous church membership to become lds.

 

[Catholic20064]

That is strange. When I became mormon, no one said that I needed to resign my membership in the catholic church. And now that I attend Mass again, no mormon is saying that I need to be excommunicated from the lds church. I find them to be pretty tolerant. You must have had a crazy lds bishop. I have heard of no one required to give up their previous church membership to become lds.

I know of several. The Bishop was acting on orders from the Stake President.

 

[Jea9]

Well, lets see, if the jewish faith had something sacred, say something that goes on in the Jewish temple, should government have the right to have the ceremony listed in the congressional record for all to see? I don’t think so. And I know that the Jewish people would fight to have what they consider to be sacred, kept out of public domain.

And they would have the right to do so. Why would the lds church wish to have what they consider sacred to put in a congressional record for all to see? It wouldn’t make sense at all.

And what is secret about the temple ceremonies. If one goes to the temple, it is no longer a secret. You just don’t make any sense. Mormons are told that the temple is sacred and what happens in there is sacred and not to be discussed outside the temple. But when they go through the temple, it is no longer a ‘secret’, right?

You need to become more balanced in your antimormonism.

First, there is no Jewish temple anymore because it was destroyed and there can no longer be those “sacred” ceremonies, so your point is moot.

It doesn’t make sense for you to say “once they do it, it isn’t a secret anymore”. It’s still a secret for those who aren’t “worthy”. That is the point…that a faith should feel comfortable with revealing things to their members. ESPECIALLY if you NEED to do something in order to get salvation…or the highest level of heaven anyway.

When I left the Mormon church I wasn’t excommunicated either. I was told something along the lines of “you can’t get rid of us, once you’re Mormon we have you”. In fact I was just recently contacted by the woman who had me on her visiting teaching list. I told her to send me the form to have me formally removed from the list, and I still haven’t received it.

 

[Catholic20064]

First, there is no Jewish temple anymore because it was destroyed and there can no longer be those “sacred” ceremonies, so your point is moot.

It doesn’t make sense for you to say “once they do it, it isn’t a secret anymore”. It’s still a secret for those who aren’t “worthy”. That is the point…that a faith should feel comfortable with revealing things to their members. ESPECIALLY if you NEED to do something in order to get salvation…or the highest level of heaven anyway.

When I left the Mormon church I wasn’t excommunicated either. I was told something along the lines of “you can’t get rid of us, once you’re Mormon we have you”. In fact I was just recently contacted by the woman who had me on her visiting teaching list. I told her to send me the form to have me formally removed from the list, and I still haven’t received it.

There is no form. You might want to read this:

home.teleport.com/~packham/leaving.htm

You can resign from the Mormon Church, but it’s not easy. I sent registered letters to the Church Membership dept., the stake president and the Bishop.