How has Catholic Answers Forum helped you?

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It’s great that you’ve come home. As far as defining a cafeteria Catholic it’s when a person says they are Catholic but instead of accepting ALL of the teachings of the Church they’ll pick and choose what they like and don’t like. For example, I do believe it’s truly Christ in the Eucharist but I believe abortion is ok for all cases. (Totally random issues btw).

Saint Augustine said “If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.”

I think this applies to cafeteria Catholics. While a lot of Catholics do indeed struggle with various stances we pray that those issues get resolved. Catholic Answers Live have episodes that addresses exactly those issues. Usually titled what teachings do you disagree with.

The beauty about the Catholic Church that varies from other Christian denominations is that we are no filter. It’s the complete truth set by Jesus Christ Himself.

I’d probably type more but I have a screaming baby needing my attention. 😆

God Bless
 
Knight said:
As far as defining a cafeteria Catholic it’s when a person says they are Catholic but instead of accepting ALL of the teachings of the Church they’ll pick and choose what they like and don’t like. For example, I do believe it’s truly Christ in the Eucharist but I believe abortion is ok for all cases. (Totally random issues btw).
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Knight gave a really clear example of “Cafeteria Catholic” but I would note that a lot of people like to use the term also for areas that are not so clear. For example, the Church says gay marriage is wrong and won’t marry two same-sex people to each other. So, as a Catholic I know that I can’t have sex with a person of my same gender, and I can’t marry a person of my same gender, or else I’m committing a sin. But people differ over whether a Catholic could or should go to a gay wedding as a guest. If I said, “I’ll go to the gay wedding,” or “I’ll go if it’s my family member or close friend,” some people will call me a Cafeteria Catholic because they think I have some duty to refuse to go or to try to talk the gay people out of being gay.

Overall, it’s not a helpful term and just makes whoever is calling another person that name sound holier-than-thou.
 
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CAF has supplied a place where there is a confluence of Catholics willing to talk about Catholic topics. I can hear what it is like to be Catholic on the other side of the planet. I even have some control of the dose. I can’t handle a 3 day weekend retreat, so CAF is a much smaller dose of interaction with other Catholics.

Plus there are people willing to talk about what stuff means. Before I only had myself to figure out the CCC with. Nobody else cared. Here some people care. Though there are fewer than before.
 
It has improved my prayer life seeing a lot of people here pray and attend church so often. It also helped me open up to an online community since FB simply did not work out for me. The best part were their games and when I got tired of those I simply left for good.
CAF allowed me to ask honest questions about certain aspects of faith without being judged right away.
I also saw many life situations discussed here, about real families with real struggles and this enriched my life perspective.
I also got closer to God because of the promises to pray done here.
Other Christian forums are tighter on censorship and thus stricter to faith issues but they also lack the energy of online interaction that would be quick, honest and thus …faulty some times.
 
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When I was coming into the Catholic Church ten years ago, CA taught me so much about the Catholic Faith. For several years I thought it was THE authority on Catholicism, lol. Now as I’m preparing to make my exit, I suppose it is helping me have clarity about why I’m making that choice as well. But coming or going, CA has been instrumental in whatever formation took place.
 
Thank you @Knight for your explanation. The term sounded a little ripe to me but now I know what is meant by it.
This again might sound naive but I have always thought that obedience was a really important attitude in Catholicism.

It’ll be best if I address my questions in private to my priest.
 
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The people are so supportive, it is overwhelming. People offer prayers and one on one discussions. I am moved by the people who have helped me when no one else could. It is also all anonymous. Thankyou CA
 
I think anonymity helps a great deal. I know I can attest to that. Another case that shows anonymous helps is when Trent Horn released a podcast (which is called the counsel of Trent…I recommend it) episode that talks about what is and isn’t ok for married couples to do sexually. Since the CA Live show is family friendly he can’t say certain things. In the podcast he warns that it’s meant for a mature audience since it gets frank and no censors. When he was trying to determine if there was a want for this kind of episode he got a lot of ‘views’ on that question but not a lot of comments. Since making a comment would expose the individual. So it was clear people were interested but didn’t want their names attached. Haha.

It was a great episode. My wife and I listened to it together and learned a lot.

God Bless
 
Knight said:
Straight forward question: How has this forum helped you?
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  1. This place has given me a better understanding of The Wife’s faith without feeling like I’m interrogating her.
  2. You guys have dispelled a few misconceptions I had.
 
CAF was an instrument that helped convert me to the faith.

I binge-read through a boatload of their articles/questions like a bag of potato chips.

Was asking a priest about RCIA less than a month later.

It was Mass hysteria drops the mic
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
If I said, “I’ll go to the gay wedding,” or “I’ll go if it’s my family member or close friend,” some people will call me a Cafeteria Catholic because they think I have some duty to refuse to go or to try to talk the gay people out of being gay.

Overall, it’s not a helpful term and just makes whoever is calling another person that name sound holier-than-thou.
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You do have a duty to refuse to go, or to try to talk them out of it. But, let’s examine this last comment, which I took to be a veiled personal attack. It IS absolutely essential to call out hypocrisy. Jesus did this all the time, and we don’t call him “holier than thou.” It would be a grave hypocrisy to receive Holy Eucharist while believing abortion is okay, when it is a direct violation of the Sixth commandment “Thou shall not kill,” for instance.
 
I gave an example to illustrate my point. I’m not going to go off track and derail the thread about “how CAF has helped you” by engaging with you on this or any other moral topic.

We already have a thread on whether to attend a gay wedding, so if you actually want to discuss that topic, I’d suggest posting there.

God bless
 
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Cafeteria Catholic is a very useful term. It suggests a dissonance.
 
Please accept my apology for misunderstanding the term, it’s literally a case of ignorance.
Peace.
 
Catholic Answers is very likely responsible for me being Catholic today. I remember trying in late 2015/early 2016 to make an account, but kept being denied access (they’d put a halt on new membership for some reason). I was attending a Catholic college and had just accepted Jesus after leaving the Church in my teens, but didn’t know what to believe. I figured, “I used to be Catholic, so I’ll start there”. I had been poorly catechized and didn’t know that Jesus is God, let alone that He is present in the Eucharist, and I didn’t know how to find out about Catholic beliefs until I came across CA. I was finally able to make an account, have some questions answered, and was given direction to various resources that have made me fairly knowledgeable about the faith today.
 
With each passing year on CAF, I appreciate the fellowship. This forum is like an online parish, and in many cases I feel more familiar with some of the regulars here than I do with members of my real-life parish, since in real life we often come and go without a lot of interaction.

I also encounter many people here who do not share my point of view, be it in politics or in how we interpret and practice the Faith, and that is good for me. It challenges me.
 
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About 12 years ago, I randomly typed “catholic.com” into my browser late one boring night just out of sheer bored curiosity. I was hooked right away. Not long after joining the forum, I encountered a thread in which someone made the following point:

Either you believe that Christ is God and that he founded a Church that he imbued with his authority, or you don’t. If you do, that requires you to believe what that Church teaches. So what do you believe?

I was floored. I had NEVER had the truth presented to me so plainly before — and I was in Catholic schools from first grade through college.

Thus began my journey to learn more about and to practice the faith in which I’d been raised but about which I knew very little.

Peace,
Dante
 
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