I can no longer in good conscience identify as Catholic. It's been fun

[Tis_Bearself]

He professed it for quite a long time before leaving the Church, so he met the criteria.
The Baptism also can’t be undone, and if he were originally ordained a Catholic priest, that can’t be undone either.

A Catholic who was ever a Catholic in good faith can’t just up and leave; they remain in communion with the Church to some degree. The Church is not a membership club where you can terminate membership.

 

[ATraveller]

Even though I’m not Catholic myself, I’m saddened to hear this.
I’ve enjoyed your posts that I’ve come across. I hope you decide to stay.

 

[StudentMI]

Thank you all for the replies. I’m taking a break from CAF for a while.

 

[Montrose]

Yikes. Sounds like an argument not to be baptized at all. What state(s) can non-Catholics be in?

The immortal soul of a non-Catholic could be in danger but the immortal soul of a Catholic who rejects Church teachings and walks away is definitely in danger.

I notice another poster talked about baptism being a technicality. It is not. Baptism leaves an indelible mark on the soul and can never be removed.

 

[redcatholic]

I have to tell you I understand. Between the scandals, the pope, the way the church has handled the pandemic, politics, and a slew of other things, I understand. One thing I’ll suggest is that you break from these forums, go inward, read scripture and Church teaching. Then move from there. I find these forums detrimental to people forming faith. Not CA in general but the forums. It’s disappointing. I pray your journey leads to Truth and fulfillment of God’s will in your life. I have followed your postings a little and have always enjoyed your posts. That being said there is a change in your tone lately. Good luck and Godspeed!

 

[AlNg]

He professed it for quite a long time before leaving the Church, so he met the criteria.

I read that the criteria is that he profess the faith. i don’t see where the criteria is that he professed the faith.

 

[christofirst]

Thank you all for the replies. I’m taking a break from CAF for a while.

I’m praying for you and looking forward to your return (to the forums? to the Church? Both!). Stay well and God bless you!

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Well, you have been told the Catholic teaching by a number of people, so if you insist on taking one sentence by one Pope out of context and insisting the Pope somehow spoke against the teaching of his own Church, then I don’t know what else to say to you.

 

[Ridgerunner]

However, I assure other posters here that insisting that someone has no agency to determine their own religious identity is frankly a turn off to non-Catholic observers like mysel

I would think so, religious self-identification being the very essence of Protestantism. Catholicism is different, as the Church purports to have teaching authority.

Regrettably the same wrongs were committed by first world countries - though mainly quite some time in the past.

Sure, which demonstrates that it can be remediated. I pay some attention to the publications of the agricultural departments of some of the southern plains universities. They know more about sustainability, CO2 sequestration and climate that all of the erstwhile “climate scientists” who get all the MSM articles.

 

[Crusader13]

Suffice it to say I don’t believe in the Catholic faith anymore.

That’s unfortunate. In many of your posts you seemed so sure and grounded in your beliefs and arguments. I wish I knew what it was that broke the proverbial, camel’s back, and caused you to leave the Church.

Since you’ve never been one to mince words, I feel it is important to be equally direct with you. Regardless of what some comments on here have suggested, being “Catholic” doesn’t mean you can just up leave and still be secure in your salvation.

There are two kingdoms on earth; The Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of satan. There is no hold over spot for those seeking to take a sabbatical.

I will pray that whatever led you astray does not remain a stumbling block for you and that you return to the Church, sooner rather than later.

Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day. For his wrath shall come on a sudden, and in the time of vengeance he will destroy thee.
> Ecclesiasticus 5:8-9

 

[Rau]

Sure, which demonstrates that it can be remediated.

No - it demonstrates we were not better in days past than certain developing countries nowadays.

 

[QContinuum]

would think so, religious self-identification being the very essence of Protestantism. Catholicism is different, as the Church purports to have teaching authority

Not a Protestant either. Atheist will do. I had an interest in converting to Catholicism years ago. Thus, why I came to CAF. Your comment confirms one reason I will remain non-Catholic.

 

[TK421]

Why is this thread being used as fodder for yet another banal argument about what prescribed mixture of practice or profession makes a Catholic?

Is this supposed to be a meaningful attempt to persuade Student that, actually, his decision to disavow Catholicism is irrelevant? Oh, I can see how that might endear him to the faith. /S

Respectfully, the discussion on proper branding is belated and tangential.

The technicality is pointed out in order to get a thunderous applause from the regulars at the expense of the vulnerable person.

 

[Crusader13]

Is this supposed to be a meaningful attempt to persuade Student that, actually, his decision to disavow Catholicism is irrelevant?

I agree that disavowing the Catholic Faith is hardly irrelevant. It’s matter of salvation and no technicality is going to address that issue. There are believers and unbelievers, the wheat and the tares.

Whatever conclusions he comes to, I should hope he would have the respect of being recognized as whatever he, himself, ascribes to. Be it wandering Catholic, unbeliever, atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, pagan, Jedi, or whatever.

He can chose to become whatever he wishes. It’s a question of Salvation. But none of the choices you listed are salvific. Therein lies the problem.

As a Catholic it’s a matter of salvation for each individual’s soul. The lines get blurred when people start talking about the individual versus the religion or belief system.

I disagree with any attempt to minimize or suggest that when a person leaves the faith, we should pat them on the back and wish them well.

There have been many faithful who have left the Church, for various reasons. So when I come across individuals like @StudentMI, I’m reminded of the passages in John 6, where many of the disciples left Jesus and no longer followed him.

Did He go after them and tell them, “don’t worry you’re still technically my disciples” and “feel free to come back when you’re ready, I’ll leave the light on for you”.

No, Jesus let them go and turned to the twelve and asked them, “Will you also go away?”

As Catholics we must to be like the twelve!

 

[Tommy999]

… The Baptism also can’t be undone,

Question of curiosity…

In the case of a Protestant who has never been Catholic but was baptized as a child in the Trinitarian form (as a Presbyterian) like I was as a little tyke, would I have an indelible mark on my soul as well or does it exist only for someone who was baptized Catholic or otherwise converted to Catholicism at some point in time?

 

[QContinuum]

He can chose to become whatever he wishes. It’s a question of Salvation. But none of the choices you listed are salvific. Therein lies the problem.

No, sir. As an atheist, the question of “salvation” is not one I concern myself with. My disbelief, in this case, had to do with the laser focus on how StudentMI identifies himself rather than on his reasons, timing, coping mechanisms, etc.

I don’t regard such deconversions lightly. In cases where a person has devoted years and much energy, including observing strict behavioral and belief codes, walking away from that is never flippant. And it never, in my experience, leaves a man unscathed or unshaken in confidence. Student has come far enough in his searching to publicly renounce his faith. At this point, quoting chapters of scripture and citing authority from an organization he’s already apparently found lacking or defective, does not seem fruitful.

Of course, this is CAF and posters are free to continue in this vein. I don’t see the point though if the goal is to get StudentMI to listen. He’s already gone.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Assuming your Protestant baptism was in proper Trinitarian form, as Presbyterian baptisms usually are (“sprinkling” asperges might make it not licit, because the Church only does pour or dunk, but it’s still valid), you’re considered to be “in communion with” the Catholic Church through that baptism, and considered a Christian by the Catholic Church. That baptism can’t be undone, and if you converted the Church would likely not see you as needing to be baptized again. (They might do a conditional baptism if there was some possibility your original baptism wasnt properly done.) You could also marry a Catholic in the Catholic Church in a sacramental marriage and not need a dispensation.

You are not considered a Catholic though because your baptism wasn’t Catholic. Additionally, as an adult you’d need to make a profession of Catholic faith and receive the other sacraments of initiation. It’s my understanding the OP here received all the sacraments of initiation, going so far as to be baptized and confirmed twice due to his Protestant baptism having been initially accepted by the Church only to find out later it wasn’t valid (which also invalidated his first confirmation).

My husband was Presbyterian and stubbornly wouldn’t convert, so I take comfort in the fact he was in communion with the Catholic Church through three sacraments: his Presbyterian baptism, his marrying me in the Church, and his being allowed to receive Holy Communion one time (one time only and not his or my idea, our pastor’s). Catholics believe that some sort of communion with the Church is necessary to reach Heaven. If husband chose to convert then he would have had to go through RCIA and receive his first Catholic communion (preceded by confession) and be confirmed. Then he would have been Catholic.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Respectfully, the OP was so anxious to be Catholic that he not only received all the sacraments of initiation once, but TWICE after he found out the first go-round was not valid. And that was just within the last couple weeks. It’s like someone who gets married, found out later the marriage wasn’t valid, instead of walking away gets another license and gets married again, and then the next week wants a divorce.

As for you not liking the substance of the discussion, as someone pointed out the Catholic Church is more authoritarian than Protestants are used to, and we’re also not in the business if appeasing Protestants, or making our threads in a Catholic forum some kind of appealing marketing. In my experience, people who need to be catered to in that way to get them to join the Church are likely to just quit the first time they get told no, you can’t do something, or no, the priest/ bishop/ Pope has the final say here, so it’s a waste of effort trying to appeal to Protestants like yourself. I also think the adjectives you use in your post are disrespectful to the Church and to other posters.

 

[Vouthon]

However, I assure other posters here that insisting that someone has no agency to determine their own religious identity is frankly a turn off to non-Catholic observers like myself.

I’m in agreement with you and think that this technical side-discussion is singularly unhelpful , since it moves the centre of focus away from the “person” here (his reasons, intuitions, coping through this time of transition) to dry semantics.

As @AINg has rightly said, though, those stressing this baptism point are also sincerely in error, doctrinally speaking (which compounds the issue).

The definition which has become classical in Catholic theology was stated by St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church in his De Ecclesia Militante:

"… this one and true Church is the assembly of men gathered together in the profession of the same Christian faith and in the communion of the same sacraments under the rule of legitimate pastors, and particularly of the Roman Pontiff, the one Vicar of Christ on earth…

in order that someone be said to be absolutely a part of the true Church spoken of in the Scriptures, we do not think that any internal virtue whatsoever is required, but only the external profession of faith and the sensibly perceived communion of the sacraments."

He refers, by way of explanation, to those “of the body but not of the soul, as those who have no internal virtue, but who still profess the faith and communicate in the sacraments”. They are still ‘Catholics’ because they profess the faith and practise it through the sacramental life, just bad ones. Catechumens, by contrast, have not yet been ‘baptized’ yet profess the faith and so belong to the “soul” of the Church: “some are of the soul and not of the body, as catechumens or excommunicated persons, if they possess faith and charity as they very well may”.

All water baptism does, in the Catholic understanding, is permanently cleanse the soul - in some mysterious way - from the effects of original sin (the irrevocable element) and admit someone into the Church (the Mystical Body of Christ). The former leaves a permanent spiritual impression, while the latter is not ‘irrevocable’ but contingent upon ‘preserving in the faith’ of which baptism is merely the entry-sacrament (the beginning).

A person can be ‘of the faith’ before baptism by already professing it - just like that priest in the example from Innocent III who died without water baptism. He was a Christian, an unbaptized Christian and saved by his ‘perseverance in the faith of the church’.

If a person ceases to proclaim the faith, then he ceases to be a Catholic (of the ‘body’ of the church). That does not nullify the sacramental character of his baptism (should he choose to be re-admitted to communion with the church, he would not need to be re-baptised because his original baptism is valid) but it does render him no longer ’ a Christian ’ in faith.

(continued…)

 

[Vouthon]

Thus, St. Robert Bellarmine concludes:

"Therefore, it must in the proper order be proved that the following do not pertain to the Church: the unbaptized, heretics, apostates, excommunicates and schismatics.

Likewise, 1 John II says, ‘They went out from us, but they were not from among us,’ in other words, they went out from us because they were with us in the same Church but they were not from us according to divine election, as St. Augustine explains.

2.) This is proved from the 18th and 19th chapter of the Council of Nicaea, where heretics are said to be able to be received in the Church if they wish to return to it, although under certain conditions. In like manner, from the chapter Firmiter of the Lateran Council, on the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith, where the Church is called the congregation of the faithful. It is certain that heretics are not in any manner among the faithful.

3.) From the Fathers, Irenaeus says that Polycarp converted many heretics to the Church, whence it follows that beforehand they had gone out from the Church…

Lastly, it happens that when the Church was a united multitude (for a certain people are either a kingdom, or one body) and this particular union consists in the profession of the one faith, the observance of the same laws and rights; no reason permits that we might say they are of the body of the Church who have altogether no union with it.”

— (Bellarmine and Grant. 2017. PP. 243-244)

That is the reason why at every Mass we recite the Nicene creed and every Easter reiterate our baptismal vows. It is a constant commitment of will and our friend @StudentMI no longer professes this faith but has renounced it publicly. As such, he should be respectfully recognised as whatever he now identifies himself as being (should he profess some other belief system now), the irrevocable spiritual imprint of his baptism notwithstanding (because that does not maintain him as a ‘member’ of the church or ‘of the faith’).