B
BornAgain2010
Guest
How should I approach the situation when it arises?
Oaky, this is gonna be long, but well worth it so just try and stick with me.
Okay, my whole family is Cradle-Catholic. That said, my sister isn’t Catholic anymore…but the rest of us are. She’s 27 by the way. She started dating and all and majority of her boyfriends were these Fellowship types. At first, we thought she was going to the Fellowship Churches just so she could be with her boyfriend. Then she splits completely. That was a shock as she would always read theology and apologetics, was active in the Church with the Children’s Liturgy, she would go on retreats, etc. So when she told us…well, she never told us, she just went off and did it. She hasn’t set foot in a Catholic Church for around 5 or 6 years now. She still refuses to. She ended up marrying this guy who is confined to a wheel-chair and is paralyzed from the neck down, but can still move his hands a little. Now he is an incredibly nice guy, nothing held against him. But my sister is rather ill-equipped to manage a situation like that. Anyway, he is Fellowship as well. So my sister became Fellowship, and then she married a Fellowship a few years later. They already got married, so there’s really nothing we can do about it.
As a Catholic, she has a rather long list now. She rejected (and still rejects) Catholicism and since we were brought up as Catholic, this is also going against the Commandment to honor thy mother and father. She got “Baptized” in the Fellowship which is also a heretical act, as “we believe in one Baptism”. She entered into an invalid marriage. Since she technically is still Catholic in the eyes of the Magisterium, by her marrying a Protestant Fellowship it is an invalid marriage. Again, nothing against the guy, but it is what it is.
We’ve tried and tried to bring her back but nothing happens. We’ve tried apologetics; we’ve talked and reasoned with her til we were blue in the face and still nothing. When I joined the Knights of Columbus, I had a mini-reconversion experience. So in light of that, Ive started taking interest in theology. When I told my sister she said, “oh, that’s cool. Now you can learn why we do what we do and you can decide for yourself if you really need to do it or not.” When she said that I thought, “wait…what!!?!” So that is as close as a reason I’ll ever get for her reason for leaving. I guess she felt stifled or something. I get what she means though, to an extent. For example, you don’t HAVE to say the Rosary daily, but it is encouraged. I get that part of it. But there are things that really are “no if’s, and’s, or but’s”. The whole thing is a big mess. In all honesty the only thing to do is hope and pray. It really is in His hands now.
Anyway, I told y’all that in order to tell y’all this:
As is common when people get married (properly or otherwise), you gain another family. You have the other family over for dinner, they have you over to parties, it becomes a sense of unity. The guy’s parents are Protestants as well. Nothing against them, they are really nice, well-educated, very smart and strong in their faith (even if it is Protestant faith), but they are good people. However, Protestants are still Protestants. So even though I want to show them courtesy and respect as we should do for anyone regardless of creed…I still can’t help but think that by doing so for them, Im doing the same for all heretics. In other words if the Inquisition were still around, both of our families would be in hot water.
What Im trying to say is, even though they are good people, do I still need to show caution and maybe rejection even at the risk of alienating them?
Or do I show them courtesy and respect as we are called to do, and still treat them as friends of the family in light of the situation, (though complex and unsettling as the situation may be)?
Do I run from them like the plagues? Or do I welcome them with open arms?
^
these last two questions also go fro any Protestant in general, not just the guy’s parents.
Oaky, this is gonna be long, but well worth it so just try and stick with me.
Okay, my whole family is Cradle-Catholic. That said, my sister isn’t Catholic anymore…but the rest of us are. She’s 27 by the way. She started dating and all and majority of her boyfriends were these Fellowship types. At first, we thought she was going to the Fellowship Churches just so she could be with her boyfriend. Then she splits completely. That was a shock as she would always read theology and apologetics, was active in the Church with the Children’s Liturgy, she would go on retreats, etc. So when she told us…well, she never told us, she just went off and did it. She hasn’t set foot in a Catholic Church for around 5 or 6 years now. She still refuses to. She ended up marrying this guy who is confined to a wheel-chair and is paralyzed from the neck down, but can still move his hands a little. Now he is an incredibly nice guy, nothing held against him. But my sister is rather ill-equipped to manage a situation like that. Anyway, he is Fellowship as well. So my sister became Fellowship, and then she married a Fellowship a few years later. They already got married, so there’s really nothing we can do about it.
As a Catholic, she has a rather long list now. She rejected (and still rejects) Catholicism and since we were brought up as Catholic, this is also going against the Commandment to honor thy mother and father. She got “Baptized” in the Fellowship which is also a heretical act, as “we believe in one Baptism”. She entered into an invalid marriage. Since she technically is still Catholic in the eyes of the Magisterium, by her marrying a Protestant Fellowship it is an invalid marriage. Again, nothing against the guy, but it is what it is.
We’ve tried and tried to bring her back but nothing happens. We’ve tried apologetics; we’ve talked and reasoned with her til we were blue in the face and still nothing. When I joined the Knights of Columbus, I had a mini-reconversion experience. So in light of that, Ive started taking interest in theology. When I told my sister she said, “oh, that’s cool. Now you can learn why we do what we do and you can decide for yourself if you really need to do it or not.” When she said that I thought, “wait…what!!?!” So that is as close as a reason I’ll ever get for her reason for leaving. I guess she felt stifled or something. I get what she means though, to an extent. For example, you don’t HAVE to say the Rosary daily, but it is encouraged. I get that part of it. But there are things that really are “no if’s, and’s, or but’s”. The whole thing is a big mess. In all honesty the only thing to do is hope and pray. It really is in His hands now.
Anyway, I told y’all that in order to tell y’all this:
As is common when people get married (properly or otherwise), you gain another family. You have the other family over for dinner, they have you over to parties, it becomes a sense of unity. The guy’s parents are Protestants as well. Nothing against them, they are really nice, well-educated, very smart and strong in their faith (even if it is Protestant faith), but they are good people. However, Protestants are still Protestants. So even though I want to show them courtesy and respect as we should do for anyone regardless of creed…I still can’t help but think that by doing so for them, Im doing the same for all heretics. In other words if the Inquisition were still around, both of our families would be in hot water.
What Im trying to say is, even though they are good people, do I still need to show caution and maybe rejection even at the risk of alienating them?
Or do I show them courtesy and respect as we are called to do, and still treat them as friends of the family in light of the situation, (though complex and unsettling as the situation may be)?
Do I run from them like the plagues? Or do I welcome them with open arms?
^
these last two questions also go fro any Protestant in general, not just the guy’s parents.
