Is it a sin to pray with Protestants?

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Well, they don’t have the ability to actually consecrate the host…very sad.

Anyway…you have shown me the light of day and for this I truly thank you. I have a new outlook on our brothers and sisters that have chosen to follow one of the many paths to salvation. We should all worship together just as Edwin demands…let us break the walls that divide us!
 
Contarini said:
Can you support this claim? If both parties believe in the one Triune God, surely they share the same faith. They may have different views on the implications of that faith, but that’s a different matter.

Well, it that were true the only answer would be to stop worshiping God altogether:mad:

I’m missing any kind of official Church teaching (post-Vatican-II- backing up these highly sweeping claims of yours.

The official Vatican norms for ecumenism do not seem to distinguish between prayer and worship as you do and do not indicate that “worshiping” with non-Catholics is in any way problematic. They do not suggest, as you and others have, that fellowship with family or friends is the only reason to attend a non-Catholic worship service.

Is there some other source you can offer that supersedes this document or corrects my interpretation?

I have asked this on another thread and gotten no response beyond “it just is the way we say it is and you’re not a Catholic so you have no right to an opinion.”

Edwin
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This may help you understand the logic behind this position.

google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBoQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-4qyL4pR0Rk&ei=-ubBTsepMfOIsALogd3iBA&usg=AFQjCNGzMuqmXltJgl-bf3bqNwkDYRvvtg

For more information you may want to ask the question in Ask An Apologist or send a PM to Fr. Vincent Serpa, OP, right here on CAF.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
Morgan_Hiver said:
Anyway…you have shown me the light of day and for this I truly thank you. I have a new outlook on our brothers and sisters that have chosen to follow one of the many paths to salvation. We should all worship together just as Edwin demands…let us break the walls that divide us!
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I don’t think Edwin was demanding any such thing. The purpose of this thread was to discuss whether it’s a sin to pray with Protestants. Most people have said they think it is not; a few people have said it is, and what Edwin has been asking is where is it set out in the Church’s official documents or teaching. The answer of course, is that it isn’t because there is no problem.

If Pope Benedict can attend Anglican Evensong, and pray with the Archbishop of Canterbury as part of a public service, if Archbishop Vincent Nichol can attend a Sung Eucharist in Anglican Church, if the choir of Westminster cathedral can join with the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral in a joint service of prayer and reconciliation to give just 3 recent examples, then I am struggling to see what the problem is.
 
Morgan_Hiver said:
Edwin, if it bothers you so much that we are not allowed to worship with you then just convert.
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It bothers me that according to many of you if I did convert I would have to abandon the fellowship of Christians with whom I am now united. That seems like a pretty counter-productive way of healing the appalling and atrocious schism called the Reformation.
Leave your biases behind and contact a priest to get started. You’ll be able to celebrate a mass everyday of the week and you’ll actually receive the body and blood of Christ…no more doing as a “symbolic” act.
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Morgan, one of the principal difficulties I have with converting is that I am far from convinced that what I now experience is a purely “symbolic” act. Indeed, I think that possibly even Baptists, who don’t believe in the Real Presence, are wrong about what they are doing.

Now how about answering my arguments instead of engaging in ad hominem exhortations? Or are you simply unable to come up with a substantive response?

Edwin
 
JReducation said:
This may help you understand the logic behind this position.

google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBoQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-4qyL4pR0Rk&ei=-ubBTsepMfOIsALogd3iBA&usg=AFQjCNGzMuqmXltJgl-bf3bqNwkDYRvvtg

For more information you may want to ask the question in Ask An Apologist or send a PM to Fr. Vincent Serpa, OP, right here on CAF.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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I’ve seen the video before. I understand that Cardinal Arinze’s views command great respect, but I don’t follow the logic. I suspect that Cardinal Arinze has a limited understanding of just how Protestants–especially ecumenical, sacramental Protestants like Anglicans–view Catholics. He does not seem to realize that the policy he advocates creates the impression that Catholics do not believe Protestants are Christians at all. So creating a “false impression” is a bad reason.

I also note that he simply calls such a practice “inadvisable.” That is not the same thing as saying that there is an official Church teaching forbidding it. I continue to ask to be shown such a teaching–my pleas have so far been disregarded, or indeed answered by a document that actually seems to encourage worship with Protestants (though I grant that it doesn’t speak of the possible frequency of such worship one way or the other).
 
Morgan_Hiver said:
I wasn’t taking slaps at his protestant beliefs…I was just simply stating what they believe…a non-flesh cracker to be consumed with the thought of Jesus in mind.
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Since this is not what I believe or what Anglicans in general believe, you are embarrassing yourself and perhaps should avoid pontificating about what your separated brethren believe when you have not bothered to inform yourself on the subject.

Edwin
 
I appreciate your fairness, although personally I don’t mind being proselytized.

Edwin
 
Morgan_Hiver said:
It’s spelled “proselytizing” and I wasn’t engaging in such a practice. I was being sarcastic since he feels that Catholics need to adjust our laws to fit protestant beliefs.
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Not in the least. I am pointing out that the evidence for such a “law” has so far been conspicuous by its absence. (It is agreed that the pre-Vatican-II regulations have been loosened, on the one hand, and that intercommunion is not allowed, on the other. I have pointed to a document which speaks quite broadly of participation in Protestant worship as legitimate, though certainly it does not explicitly allow for–or forbid–regular participation as opposed to occasional.)

Furthermore, the belief to which I am appealing is not Protestant but Catholic–the belief that Protestants have a real though imperfect union with the Church and that many elements of grace and salvation are found among us.

So your description is false: I am asking Catholics to point out where in their laws they find support for a widely held opinion which appears to me to contradict explicit Catholic belief as set forth in the documents of Vatican II, in the Catechism, and in recent papal statements.

Edwin
 
Morgan_Hiver said:
Well, they don’t have the ability to actually consecrate the host…very sad.

Anyway…you have shown me the light of day and for this I truly thank you. I have a new outlook on our brothers and sisters that have chosen to follow one of the many paths to salvation. We should all worship together just as Edwin demands…let us break the walls that divide us!
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There are not many paths to salvation. There is one path, which no human beings understand fully, but which the Catholic Church claims (reasonably, in my opinion) to be set forth without actual error in its official teachings and practices. You are caricaturing and misrepresenting what I am saying. I would like to have a real conversation with you, but you seem to prefer talking to the stereotype of a Protestant that exists in your own head.

Edwin
 
Contarini said:
I’ve seen the video before. I understand that Cardinal Arinze’s views command great respect, but I don’t follow the logic. I suspect that Cardinal Arinze has a limited understanding of just how Protestants–especially ecumenical, sacramental Protestants like Anglicans–view Catholics. He does not seem to realize that the policy he advocates creates the impression that Catholics do not believe Protestants are Christians at all. So creating a “false impression” is a bad reason.

I also note that he simply calls such a practice “inadvisable.” That is not the same thing as saying that there is an official Church teaching forbidding it. I continue to ask to be shown such a teaching–my pleas have so far been disregarded, or indeed answered by a document that actually seems to encourage worship with Protestants (though I grant that it doesn’t speak of the possible frequency of such worship one way or the other).
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A trad sent me that video because I sing with Protestants once a month.

Oh well. Pray for me.

What I didn’t say is that Cardinal Arinze also has a video where he doesn’t speak too highly of the TLM.

What is confusing is pre-conciliar documents versus post Vat II documents.

I would like to see a more clear statement as well.

I can see where a Catholic attending a Protestant service once a month can be confusing, but it wouldn’t be confusing for someone like me, who came from that environment.
 
Edwin, the head of the Church of England felt the same exact way about Protestants that the Catholic church feels up until he wanted annulment after annulment. This is why man must be humble…
 
Yes, a series of very complex events…ie they broke away because King Henry VIII put his personal pleasures ahead of God and then the rest of the family followed suit and now the CoE is virtually unrecognizable from its original “Catholic church without a Pope” form. Very complex indeed! Odd how modernism really distorts Catholic teaching and continues to bend and twist it, even though its really unchangeable.
 
Morgan_Hiver said:
Yes, a series of very complex events…ie they broke away because King Henry VIII put his personal pleasures ahead of God and then the rest of the family followed suit and now the CoE is virtually unrecognizable from its original “Catholic church without a Pope” form. Very complex indeed! Odd how modernism really distorts Catholic teaching and continues to bend and twist it, even though its really unchangeable.
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You really have no idea at all about the English reformation, so I would suggest you read up on it before embarassing yourself any further. And if you think the CofE is unrecognisable from the Catholic Church then you really should attend a high Anglican Eucharist where many Catholic visitors from oversees think they are actually attending a a very solemn Catholic mass.
 
I am very well informed on the English reformation. I simy gave a basic summary as to what happened. I am not embarrassed at all. However, you should be embarrassed as you have not defended the one true faith and have decided to instead take up arms against a fellow believer on what is labelled a Traditional Catholic forum.
 
Morgan_Hiver said:
I am very well informed on the English reformation. I simy gave a basic summary as to what happened. I am not embarrassed at all. However, you should be embarrassed as you have not defended the one true faith and have decided to instead take up arms against a fellow believer on what is labelled a Traditional Catholic forum.
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Oh thank you so much for yet another helpful comment. I am really, really embarrassed.:rolleyes:
 
liturgyluver said:
Oh thank you so much for yet another helpful comment. I am really, really embarrassed.:rolleyes:
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You are most welcome. I am definitely here to be helpful! Admitting to your embarrassment is a very courageous act. Just try not to dwell on the negativity and sense of shame that accompanies such feelings. See it as a positive learning experience!
 
Why would you want to pray with prodestants paxvobus?Depending if it was in a church or not.If in a church well,you are catholic so maybe you shouldnt,then again do as your heart tells you because god is present in your heart!!
 
This is a very long thread and I have not read all of it, but I have to say some of the posts are a little scary in that they are defending worship with those who do not believe as Catholics do. First of all, I can’t understand why you would want to worship on any kind of regular basis in a place that does not have the Blessed Sacrament. The most perfect worship in the world is the Mass, why would you want to go anywhere else.

Fr. Serpa addressed this question a few years ago. Take a look at his answer:

*In the first place a Catholic has no business attending Protestant church services even occasionally. To participate in a heretical worship service and especially a communion service can be sinful for a Catholic because such an act is an affirmation of what we believe to be untrue. To attend an ecumenical service or a wedding or baptism is allowed, but Catholics are not allowed to attend such churches for the main reason of worship. Now if there are no Catholic churches in the vicinity on a Sunday, Catholics are allowed to participate in the Liturgy of Churches whose clergy are validly ordained such as the Eastern Orthodox Churches—including the reception of the Eucharist. Although we consider them to be in schism (not in union with the Pope) with the Catholic Church, such Churches are not heretical and share our basic beliefs.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P. *

I think that pretty much covers it, although I know there will be those who will deny it. Someone mentioned the video by Cardinal Arinze and then it was pretty much dismissed. I can only think of the verse in Proverbs 14:12 - “There is a way that seems right to a man but the ends thereof are the ways of death.”

One other point. I’ve been on a few threads on this forum debating whether Protestant beliefs are heretical. Fr. Serpa seems to have answered that question in this post as well.

If you attend Protestant services, think about the message you are sending to the Protestants. As Cardinal Arinze said, you are basically telling them that their worship is equal to Catholic worship. I fear some here are justifying themselves into very dangerous territories. The fullness of the truth can only be found in the Catholic Church. Why in the world would you want to go anywhere else??? :confused:
 
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