Please remember that you’re criticizing apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Just the opposite was my experience…my Catholic friends could do what they wanted…go where they wanted…speak like the wanted…date whom they wanted…drink…smoke…dance…have premarital sex…and all they had to do was go to confession to be Catholic…
How do you know they went to Confession?
Ummm…they said they did?
This is what you said:Ummm…they said they did?
None but the last is a sin, but thats neither here nor there.
No friend, what they suggested is I become Catholic…“becasue you can do what you want and all you have to do is go to confession”…a sentiment my Cathlolic relatives share as well…my aunt bacame Catholic because according to her…“It’s a whole lot easier…you just have to to to confession.” I didn’t ask them…or her to enumerate their “sins”…they volunteered the information and were quite happy their faith let them live as they wished as long as they “went to confession”.
I have NEVER met anyone who goes to confession for that reason, ever. The Catholics who sin willfully, I can guarentee never darken a confessional booth let alone a Church.
It was not meant to be “insulting”…just anecdotal in response to the other poster’s comment concerning the ease her/his Protestant friends seemed to have concerning their faith not being “proof” of anything.
You are fortunate indeed friend.
Obviously I was slow on the edit.
.I do not doubt Publisher’s experience. But I wanted to make it clear to him that:
I have no idea where people got this silly idea that confession somehow makes it easier to sin? Confession makes it very, very hard to keep doing the same horrible things over and over again that you must admit to every time you go to confession.
Confession makes you “think” about this thing called “sin” and how you did it, and WHY you did it, and how many times and circumstances in which you did it, and whether or not you’re TRULY willing in your heart NOT to do it again (because if not, then the confession “fails” and you walk back out with all your sins intact) and if you’re willing to avoid even circumstances that will make it easier for you to do it again.
Confession is not an exercise in self-deception that many people engage in to avoid accepting responsibility (even when they pray directly to God sometimes). You don’t get to decide right and wrong, or how grave- It’s already determined. You just must determine- Did I do it? Did I know it was wrong? Why Did I do it? How to make sure NOT to do it. It forces you to face your own evil shadow (as psychologists would call the part of ourselves that we hide from our own consciousness due to its evil nature or ‘badness’- Basically where we all store our unconfessed and undealt with offences). Not only must you confront your sins, you must ADMIT them- WITHOUT excuse- TO ANOTHER- And listen to the direction.
NOTHING forms the conscience better than confession- And conscience is what keeps you from doing the things you avoid and in the confessional queue every week for those you did not avoid but are sure to completely quit in the coming years.
Advice: If you want to quit a really bad habit- start frequenting confession. If you want to hold on to your vices and hide from them and never change- STay as far away as you can from the confessional booth
:bowdown2: I totally agree with you. For the Orthodox, you confess in front of an icon of Christ with the priest standing next to you. So the priest knows exactly who is confessing the sins being confessed. Confession really makes you examine your life and see what things need to be confessed and repented of. It also shows you what sins have become habits (or passions as the Orthodox call them) and need to be fought against and eradicated. Confession also gives you accountability. As Fr. Thomas Hopko likes to say, confessing to God in the secret of your own room doesn’t really help you all that much to overcome them–as Fr. Hopko says, God already knows. However, when you are willing to admit them to another person, then you are ready to do something about them, and there’s accountability (not to mention that your priest is going to do what he can to help you overcome them). There have been times that I absolutely dreaded going to confession but have come out of it feeling like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Your priest knows the real you but loves you and accepts you anyway and that is very liberating.
I have no idea where people got this silly idea that confession somehow makes it easier to sin? Confession makes it very, very hard to keep doing the same horrible things over and over again that you must admit to every time you go to confession.
Confession makes you “think” about this thing called “sin” and how you did it, and WHY you did it, and how many times and circumstances in which you did it, and whether or not you’re TRULY willing in your heart NOT to do it again (because if not, then the confession “fails” and you walk back out with all your sins intact) and if you’re willing to avoid even circumstances that will make it easier for you to do it again.
Confession is not an exercise in self-deception that many people engage in to avoid accepting responsibility (even when they pray directly to God sometimes). You don’t get to decide right and wrong, or how grave- It’s already determined. You just must determine- Did I do it? Did I know it was wrong? Why Did I do it? How to make sure NOT to do it. It forces you to face your own evil shadow (as psychologists would call the part of ourselves that we hide from our own consciousness due to its evil nature or ‘badness’- Basically where we all store our unconfessed and undealt with offences). Not only must you confront your sins, you must ADMIT them- WITHOUT excuse- TO ANOTHER- And listen to the direction.
NOTHING forms the conscience better than confession- And conscience is what keeps you from doing the things you avoid and in the confessional queue every week for those you did not avoid but are sure to completely quit in the coming years.
Advice: If you want to quit a really bad habit- start frequenting confession. If you want to hold on to your vices and hide from them and never change- STay as far away as you can from the confessional booth
Stand firm, my friend. On the HHS mandate issue, at least the LCMS stands with the Catholic Chrch on the issue. Let’s hope the Supreme Court takes the same stand as it did in protecting religious liberty in the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran School case.After thinking more about it - I think today it can be more difficult to be Catholic - but not for some of the reasons mentioned here. (I guess some people think it’s o.k. to sin as much as they want and that confession will “take care of it all” - boy do they not know their faith! - Talk about being under-catechised!)…
Anyways…I think the Catholic faith gets more negative media attention than almost any other Christian denomination. People have alot of false ideas out there about what the Church really teaches and false ideas because of what the media presents - which they take as being gospel truth
I find myself being almost backed into a corner on alot of things**…For example - with this HHS mandate…at work - people - Christians and even one Catholic co-worker seem to have a problem with my view (which is that the Catholics bishops are right and Obama is wrong in this matter). It makes me somewhat of an outcast here in some respects**…
I’d say it is easier being Catholic, but everyones take on that will be different.I’ve been both. For the first 47 years of my life, I was an active and faithful member of various evangelical Protestant churches. In 2004, my husband and I converted to Catholicism, and we’ve been active and faithful Catholics.
So which is easier?
I don’t want to post my opinion yet (mainly because I have to go to work now!). Also, I am interested in reading what others have to say.
On the surface, it seems that Protestantism is the “easier” path. No obligations, no sacraments. For many Protestants, no fear of ever losing heaven. Great music, friendly people, lots of activities for children and teenagers. Lots of activities for all ages, actually.
Catholics have obligations, including the Sunday Mass obligation. Catholics have sacraments. Catholics must avoid “mortal sin” or they will not go to heaven. Catholic music is often bearable, but seldom great. Many Catholic parishes are hard to make friends in. Often there are very limited activities for Catholics–maybe a Bible study, and maybe not. Probably not a weekly kids’ club–instead, the kids get “religious education”–no campfires or craft projects or sing-alongs in CCD! And youth groups–often they are pretty small, because all the Catholic teens are over at the Assemblies of God weekly youth meeting along with hundreds of other teens! Or the Catholic teens have stopped attending Church entirely, to the dismay of their parents.
But is Protestantism really easier? Hmmm…
I encourage anyone to think about and answer this question. Obviously converts to Catholicism have personal experience with both forms of Christianity, but I know a lot of Catholics who have knowledge of Protestant life and practices, too.
