I can't stop comparing my Catholic friends to my LDS frinds

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The LDS have an extreme focus on maintaining their community. It creates the environment you describe but members can also feel alienated if they are not fully ‘in-synch’ with the community.

When I was young the Catholic church had a much stronger community among it’s members. The loss of it is a concern to me, and to the future of the Church.
 
Inbetweener said:
With Catholics it’s all about the mass, other churches don’t have this so will have to make up with coffee, good music, YouTube videos , friendly preaching etc. Maybe you could join a Charismatic Catholic prayer group or go to a renewal conference and you see the love.
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Sadly I think you’ve identified a key failing by many Catholics.
Being a Catholic should be all about how you live your daily life
 
I’m so glad your little boy was OK! Please remember that Mormon Bishops are not in any way related to Catholic Bishops. Bishops in the LDS are lay people with no MA or PhD in theology or counseling. A Mormon bishop could be a person with no education whatsoever. They are bishops for a period of time and during that time they continue to keep their normal employment. I do admire Mormons for their community building and especially for their weekly family evenings where the family plays games or works on church activities. Pretty much the rest of LDS theology and Joseph Smith’s pedophilla is not of interest in any manner…
 
While I think it’s good to be cognizant of Catholic principles in daily life, the Mass is THE center of Catholicism and the thing that differentiates us from every other Christian church with a general mission of promoting Jesus and the Word. It’s right and proper that it be the main event.

As for daily life, the OP’'s situation with her son doesn’t reflect any Catholic failing to live his faith in daily life. The Vincentian was living his faith by going to help someone in need. The OP didn’t communicate the seriousness of her situation to any Catholics, or ask for a priest. So Catholics didn’t flub a chance to help - they just didn’t know.

Many of us may be busy trying to live our faith in daily life in between our family and work commitments. This keeps a lot of people, including myself, from being available for many organized activities. The reason retirees do more of that stuff is quite simply, they have time. However, I still have ways to live my faith through prayer and contributing to charity and general mindset.
 
funny, I always thought Christ was the center of Catholicism, not the ceremony of Mass
 
I was a Mormon for 57 years. Don’t let the smiles and friendships fool you. Study what they are about. Learn their history. Find out about the REAL Joseph Smith. Ask a lot of questions. Don’t buy into their lies.
 
Mormons have an excellent social community. And there it ends . . .
 
Christ is at the center of the mass (remember, the bread and wine turn into Christ); so essentially Christ is at the center of Catholicism.
 
I am LDS and am happy that your LDS friend had the LDS bishop come to you in your moments with your son. Your Catholic friends should have done the same thing ---- Jesus served without regard to time or convenience, making him the example to follow. Your LDS friend took time for you in your moment and that is what matters.
 
Jesus came when asked. As the OP said, no Catholic was ever asked.

Proselytizing is against forum rules.
 
To the OP: I think you have to ask why doctrine doesn’t matter as much to you as human connection, empathy, etc… There may be a lesson in all of this. As a woman, it may be more natural for you to fall into this pattern of desiring a feeling of being spiritually fed, or feeling important, loved etc… But God may require a bit more from you to train your son in the Church’s teaching because your son may need more intellectual fortification of his faith. He will one day have to lead a family, and he will need both your “softer” Catholic values, and “harder” intellectual knowledge to defend the faith.

You might find me to be one of the ferociously Catholic who go on about abortion, same-sex marriage etc… But that’s because those issues are very important and very few Catholics are working on those things. So many are very comfortable. But major things are happening which threaten the Catholic faith, and the common good. Check Lifesitenews.com for many of these issues.

It might just be you need to strengthen your ability to defend the faith.
 
RebeccaJ said:
Jesus came when asked. As the OP said, no Catholic was ever asked.
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Are you saying Catholics should only help a neighbor or community member when asked??

My experience and Catholic upbringing was the opposite,
I was taught to be like the Samaritan rather than the Levite or Priest who walked by.
Many people in need are not willing or capable of asking for help
 
Virgo, I can certainly understand the appeal of such a community. But let me explain something to you about LDS that I’ve learned over time from personal experience. Yes, they are by and large wonderful people, and they do community very well. But I can tell you that pretty much all Mormons see people differently than you or I. They see all people first and foremost as MEMBERS and NONMEMBERS. That is their world view. When they meet someone new, that is the first thing they think about. They are constantly taught to be on the lookout for potential converts, and when they find one like you, they go bananas surrounding you with friendship. Believe me, they are discussing amongst themselves how badly they want you to convert. The only way to know whether or not they are your real friends would be to tell them that you are not interested in becoming Mormon. Only then will you know if they love you for who you are or if they were really just interested in converting you. There are probably both in this group of friends.

Many people convert to the LDS faith based mostly on social and community reasons. I have a friend who converted to Mormonism because he was in love with a girl and wanted to follow her to BYU. Decades later they are now divorced, and he is on the roles of a church he never really believed in. My point is this-- if you think you might want to become Mormon, take the time to learn the doctrine and the history and the whole enchilada. Don’t go in with incomplete information as most do. The LDS missionaries and members will not disclose a lot of very crucial information to you about the church, partly because they don’t want you to see anything bad about the church, and partly because so many of them are ignorant of it. They will tell you a very rosy, romanticized version of the truth. But it won’t remotely be the whole truth.

The bottom line is that it’s a terrible idea to join any church because you are looking for community. There are many ways to find community if you are not finding it where you are right now. What really matters is the doctrine. Either it’s true or it’s not, and that is the only real reason to join a church or not to join and church. If it’s true, then ultimately it doesn’t really matter whether you have a lot of friends in it or you are alone. Jesus never said, “The community will set you free.”

I have been married to a Mormon for decades, so I’ve been around this community for a long time and have some good friends in it. For years she put her questions “on the shelf” (a term all Mormons are familiar with). After diving deep into the history and doctrine of the church, my wife has come to the conclusion that the entire thing is a fraud and is no longer active in the church. You can’t imagine how painful it is for LDS who put their entire lives into their religion to eventually find out the whole thing is a big lie. There are many thousands of LDS who are going through the same thing, and it’s growing all the time. This has been a painful journey for my wife and is ongoing. So you see, great community doesn’t make up for the fact that Mormonism is simply not true.
 
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If you need some resources to check out I can recommend many. A good place to start might be mormonstories.org. John Dehlin was a faithful Mormon with a great career and community who eventually left the church. He tried to make it work for years, but eventually left over these types of issues. He now helps others who are going through the same faith crisis he went through. His site has hundreds of podcasts of interviews of both LDS who have left and LDS who stayed in. I would recommend you start listening to them to get the other side you will most definitely not get from your LDS friends. And I wouldn’t be surprised if within their group there are some who are secretly going through a similar crisis. When Mormons go through a faith crisis, they tend to keep it secret because there is no room for that in their church. They are taught to “doubt their doubts.” They will tell you that questions are encouraged, but it’s really not true. The tough questions are not discussed, because they don’t want to be seen within their community as a doubter. For them, there is only one way and if you do not fit exactly into their system, you are going to have problems.
 
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Chris-Wa1 said:
Believe me, they are discussing amongst themselves how badly they want you to convert. The only way to know whether or not they are your real friends would be to tell them that you are not interested in becoming Mormon.
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And one way to find out after you have had a good conversation about faith is to say, “I love how we can share so openly about faith and yet I’m not trying to convert you and you’re not trying to convert me.” I wouldn’t say I lost a friend but after I said that to an evangelical friend she stopped reaching out to me and was busy when I did. I genuinely thought she appreciated our friendship the way that I did. She isn’t unkind, she doesn’t ignore me (she returned phone calls, texts, etc.) and I know she is busy, 5 kids, 3 homeschooled but that hadn’t been a problem before. She even invited me to a holiday meal after my mom died and I know she was sincere, I declined but she said to let her know if I changed my mind. She also mentioned an older family member who was anti-Catholic (she didn’t say anti-Catholic) and that the conversation could get interesting if certain subjects came up. I also knew that her husband was wary of me. I talked freely about God and faith and the Catholic part eventually slips in so even if I wasn’t trying to convert anyone they didn’t want to hear it, or have their kids hear it. Since the OP has kids that is something to keep in mind.
 
No I didn’t say that. If you read the OP there is a specific scenario. One solution doesn’t apply to all scenarios.
 
Hi there:) I haven’t read all the responses so I don’t know if someone already brought this up. I can relate to your struggle because I am a Protestant convert and at times found it difficult to find a good community. I head once that “the Catholic Church is not a museum for saints, it’s a hospital for sinners” which for me helped tremendously when I would reflect on the lack of support I would sometimes feel. I talked to a priest about it and he said that sometimes God will allow us those “lonely” moments because a) it’s a true test of faith and endurance and b) he often times needs to peel back comfort and distraction in order to talk to us and actually get through. I have found this to be true ever single time I struggle in the ways you describe. Every time you struggle, cling to Jesus for support! Also, when you feel like splitting, remember the power of the True Presence. Jesus is really there in the Eucharist and it’s absolutely necessary to have that in our life. It’s how we are truly fed. And who knows, maybe you’re called to be the one to reignite people spiritual fire in those Catholic Churches! Pray on that:) I’m sure a lot of this stuff you already know but, from my experience, it helps to be reminded:) I’ll keep you in my prayers too!
 
I agree with your well stated point. I had been in the same situation with a Mormon friend of mine whose friendship was because we had kids in school in the same grade. After a few attempts to invite me over to her Church which I said I would do if she came to Church with me once. She said she could not attend a Catholic Church. The friendship cooled off substantially after that.

I invited her to my house because I missed her company and she said "Sorry I can’t come to your house because you are Catholic~: I was surprised but then realized that she knew I was Catholic to begin with and I felt vulnerable at the time because I was divorced and she used that to befriend me.

Once she realized that I wasn’t going to convert that was the end of it. Converting me was her motive sadly to me.

Not to say that is all Mormons but you would know if their friendship is based on trying to convert you by now. The Bishop stopping by was nice though unless he came with literature from Mormon publishing or talking about converting.

Enjoy your Mormon friends but we are in the Church Jesus founded and we have the Eucharist which is the source and summit of our Faith. Don’t give that up. I pray you will find some Catholic friends that will help supply you with your need for friendship and fellowship

God Bless.
 
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I go to a little tiny (but historical) church in South Carolina. My parish family is quite close knit. You don’t need to be Mormon to have friends. Yes, sometimes Catholics do a bad job of fellowship, and I admit that. But, I think this is one of those reasons I myself prefer smaller churches. Since there are not a lot of Catholics in South Carolina (but substantially more than there were), they (the small churches) are much easier to find.
 
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