A
aimee
Guest
It seems like something isn’t quite right
you have a point.
- Status
you have a point.
A
awfulthings9
Guest
It’s interesting that you write this. My wife and I just came home from a movie, and I was telling her about the thread. I made the same observation. I could be wrong, but it seems a little too contrived.
T
Toni
Guest
Yes I must agree with this also. Sounds like another Kennedy Catholic to me.
K
Kendy
Guest
I don’t think that’s fair. There are plenty of people in the catholic church who feel this way about the church. I was one of them and I know a few of them now. At the age of 16, I used these same complaints to bring my whole my family out of the catholic church. Obviously, my parents didn’t know any better than me.
In fact, being poorly catechized seems to be the norm. I left the church ten years ago, and now that I am returning I am daily amazed by how little I understood. And I am not the exception, I constantly run into ignorant catholics in my new parish.
One of these days, try going up to 10 randomly selected people in your parish and ask them the difference between the virgin birth and the immaculate conception, and see how many of them give you the right answer.
You know I didn’t even realize that there was a difference between protestant and catholic communion until after I left the church, but the parish deacon recommended me (then a fifteen year-old) to teach the confirmation class. The whole year was a disaster. I was convinced that we should just read the bible and interpret it on our own, which is what I did all year with this class of students who were just one year younger than me. I assure you that my ignorance led a lot of young people astray.
But the real culprits were the adults around me who allowed probably because of their own ignorance.
Kendy
M
malachi_a_serva
Guest
His complaints are that of someone who does not know the church at all, and he has made accusations against the church that are standard fare amongst Protestants.
I had that same accusation, and it was not true. Looking at this website, reading the various posts…I for one know for a fact it is not representative of Catholics. The select few that are here as Apologists or experts (and no disrespect intended) are not representative of the Catholics I know. And yes, I have heard, well my experience is not valid or fact or whatever, but it is what it is. I am here becasue I still want to explore from expert Catholics questions I have. But Austins’ accounts sound like mine, I can relate and when I go to the Catholic Living board, I find it there more representative of a normal Catholic.
M
malachi_a_serva
Guest
I had mentioned I never heard this expression before…I now see it as “the norm” of the Catholics I have incountered in my life time. If that is the reason or not I do not know, but from my observation, the outward appearance would say so. (if that makes sense).
T
Tonks40
Guest
No, this really isn’t a ‘normal’ Catholic board - it’s Catholic Answers - it’ll will naturally attract Catholics who are well-catecized and understand the Faith more, and have the answers to questions about Catholicism.
T
teajay
Guest
Austin83
If this is your choice, I say good on you! It is great that you are listening for God’s will and following the path you believe he has created for you. I have known many people who have left the Catholic Church and many of them have shown far more devotion outside the Church than they showed in it. Of course, from my perspective they are merely showing great devotion for a destructive heresy, but I could be wrong and do not want to judge them by my own subjective standards. I merely speak what I believe to be true and so do they.
There are a few points that I would like to make though.
Anyway, I wish you good luck and hope that you will maintain a love for the Truth. This may be a mere step in a long path that leads you back to Christ’s Church, or you may have found your destination.
If this is your choice, I say good on you! It is great that you are listening for God’s will and following the path you believe he has created for you. I have known many people who have left the Catholic Church and many of them have shown far more devotion outside the Church than they showed in it. Of course, from my perspective they are merely showing great devotion for a destructive heresy, but I could be wrong and do not want to judge them by my own subjective standards. I merely speak what I believe to be true and so do they.
There are a few points that I would like to make though.
What do you mean by that? I hear many evangelicals say that, but how do you know it is God talking to you? I have plenty of thoughts that have led me to make wise decisions but I do not externalize them to God. Doesn’t this practice carry with it a dangerous possibility of mistakenly equating a personal cognition with the “voice of God” and thus bypass the scrutiny which any critically minded individual subjects his own thoughts to? Why would God communicate with people in such a dangerously unreliable way?
Part of the Catholic Mass involves remembering the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This was an event involving intense agony and other suffering. Do you expect people to jump up and start dancing, shout out ‘amen’, smile and sing over such an event? Perhaps a funeral like atmosphere is most appropriate for remembering Christ’s suffering and sacrifice? Keep the party atmosphere for a youth event?
Are you sure that God speaks directly through the Bible to you? So when your pastor preaches you learn nothing new? Surely he is ‘assisting’ you in your interpretation though each sermon. And I’m afraid that you have a little more than faith in the Bible alone. You have faith in (1) the publisher that supplied you with your copy (2) the translator(s) that translated it (3) the scholars whose consensus determined the appropriate manuscripts to rely upon (4) the individuals that copied the original manuscripts (5) the early Church that determined which books were historical and orthodox and (6) the individuals that recorded the original events or relayed what was communicated to them. It’s a little more complex that you make it out to be, isn’t it?
Anyway, I wish you good luck and hope that you will maintain a love for the Truth. This may be a mere step in a long path that leads you back to Christ’s Church, or you may have found your destination.
A
AugustineFL
Guest
Austin83…I feel this Evangel non-denominational Christian church that I now attend are the beliefs I truly want in my religion. [/QUOTE said:
A
awfulthings9
Guest
For those who disagree with Thal59’s assessment, you may be right, but in my mind, I keep coming back to what Austin wrote in his earlier post:
Austin83:
In addition, the fact that he sums up the Sunday Mass as “just saying some prayers from memory” makes me wonder how many times he has actually been to a Mass. Even if he doesn’t appreciate the mystery of the Eucharist or even if his priest’s homily is less energetic than his new preacher’s, surely even the most disenchanted Catholic notices that there are other things going on besides rote recitation. (Incidentally, I don’t really understand this complaint. The vast majority of Protestant services I’ve been to include singing several songs and passively listening to a 40 minute sermon. Perhaps, on the right Sunday, they drink some juice and each a piece of bread, but where’s the spontaneity in that).
Austin83:
Maybe I’m wrong, but I still think this is a set-up.
I challenged him to do some study of Scripture and comparison to what the Church actually teaches by going to a site such as www.scripturecatholic.com. His response was that he never claimed to be an “expert” in church history or Scriptural support. Yet, in the above quote, he states so matter of factly that there are many inaccuracies between what the scripture teaches us and what the Catholic church teaches us. For him to make this assertion means that he claims to have seen an intellectual reason for leaving the faith, but he is outright resisting to take that intellectual lead deeper.
In addition, the fact that he sums up the Sunday Mass as “just saying some prayers from memory” makes me wonder how many times he has actually been to a Mass. Even if he doesn’t appreciate the mystery of the Eucharist or even if his priest’s homily is less energetic than his new preacher’s, surely even the most disenchanted Catholic notices that there are other things going on besides rote recitation. (Incidentally, I don’t really understand this complaint. The vast majority of Protestant services I’ve been to include singing several songs and passively listening to a 40 minute sermon. Perhaps, on the right Sunday, they drink some juice and each a piece of bread, but where’s the spontaneity in that).
Likewise, this is an interesting comment since Austin admits that his friends and most of his family will be okay with him leaving. Who are these “most Catholics” he refers to? Can’t be his parents since he hasn’t told them yet. Sounds like a steretype, especially given the number of scare tactic proposals I’ve had from non-Catholics. It happens on both ends, but this statement seems like a set-up in anticipation of anyone on this board who tries to make a claim that he is leaving the Church that Christ established. Notice how later on, when that argument arises, he responds that its unreasonable for us to make the “we were here first” argument, implying that everyone else will “go to Hell”. Nobody on the board made that argument, but Austin is trying to put those words in our mouths.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I still think this is a set-up.
S
StCsDavid
Guest
Hey Austin,
You story sounds sooooo much like my own. I, too, grew up Catholic, but really didn’t feel I got anything out of it; so I left the faith when I was 20. I came home about five years ago. One day the Holy Spirit may guide you back home. I know right now your heart is set on leaving, and little I say is going to make you change your mind. Because of your age and inexperience, you cannot fully appreciate the heartache you are about to cause your family. I don’t mean that pejoratively. I’ve been 22. I’ve been 32. Now I’m (egad) 42. The one thing in my life I regret the most was ever leaving the faith…simply because I wasted a good amount of time looking for something to satisfy me versus living as Christ intended. Like Voltaire’s Candide, I embarked on a journey seeking to find the best of all possible worlds; only to discover that it was in my own backyard all along.
Do as I say, not as I did. Be compassionate with your parents. Respect them above all things. They are going to enter into a kind of Hell as they worry about their son. Listen. Try not to argue. Try not to say anything hurtful. Don’t try to prove your position in the new faith that you are going to. You’re not going to convert them; so don’t try. That will only hurt them even more.
I challenge you to list five things that the church teaches that are not the truth. I don’t believe you can. Not because I doubt your intelligence, but because your decision to leave is rooted in feelings versus reason…another hazard of being 22.
Learn about the faith you are about to leave before you leave it. There still may be time for another response to your emotions.
You are in my prayers, today.
David
K
Kendy
Guest
Yes, I think you are very wrong, but perhaps, that’s only because I can relate to Austin’s story. And because I have seen it so often. After spending 16 years in the catholic church, having gone to catholic schools, I was convinced that the church offered nothing more than silly rituals, canned prayers, and unbiblical teachings. Because I understood none of these things, they all seemed outside of God’s will to me. And clearly, the rest of my family who were easily led out of the church they were raised in and had attended all their lives. Keep in mind, we were not twice a year catholics.
I am only stressing this because I think it’s such a pervasive problem and denying it will not help it go away. We all need to think about about we can do to address this our parishes.
And I want to say to Austin, I know exactly how you feel, but if you dig a little deeper you will be surprised by how much truth there is in the church. It’s easy to be disappointed by lukewarm catholics and dazzled by the awesome choir and preaching in an evangelical church, but ultimately, you will be giving up on truth.
Kendy
K
Kendy
Guest
I used to be on the outreach team at a baptist church and we spent a great deal of time thinking about the music that we played. We were particularly interested in getting teenagers and young adults so getting stuff they liked is very important. It may just seem like music but it’s music that people enjoy; it makes them feel like church is less boring.
As for forty minute sermons, very few evangelical pastors can get away with being dull for forty minutes. People will leave and go to listen to someone else preach. Being a good preacher is very important to being a protestant pastor and it’s skill they work hard to cultivate. Honestly, I am sometimes tempted to go back to the Vineyard just to hear the pastor preach.
Furthermore, keep in mind that a good percentage of every evangelical church includes former catholics. Getting catholics and mainline protestants out of their churches is how one experiences “church growth.”
So, I would avoid minimizing the allure of music, snacks during service, starting one’s sermon with a good joke; protestant churches have a lot of really shiny toys.
Kendy
A
Alfie
Guest
I know you are on the right path. The holy spirit has spoken to you through the word of God. If God was truly present in the mass wouldn’t his presense be so over whelming that no one, not even the most wicked person on earth wouldn’t feel it? I mean that is supposed to be God!!! Catholics want to dismiss your conversion as being merely based on emotion but isn’t that what the mass is based on…emotion?
O
OhioBob
Guest
This tends to validate a theory I have. It seems that evangelical churches are more about a cult of personality - the personality of the preacher and the personality of the service (attractive music, exciting environment, etc.). The Mass does not concern itself with such things. It is about worshiping God and representing the sacrifice of Christ.
If Catholics relied upon the homiletic charisma of the priest to keep them juiced, there wouldn’t be many Catholics left.
M
montanaman
Guest
Nope. You’ve been around these parts long enough to know that, too.
M
Mike_O
Guest
You are so grossly misinformed it is impossible to know where to begin.
A message to the original poster: I am struck by the recent frequent appearance of these “I’m leaving the Church and here’s why” threads.
If you were as comfortable with your decision as you made out, you wouldn’t seek gratification on Catholic message forums.
You are making, not only the biggest mistake of your life, but the biggest mistake of your afterlife. Your comment about finding the things that “you” want in your religion is also striking.
It needn’t be said that there are a number of people praying for you and others bent on self-destruction and on fatally embracing apostasy.
S
Superstar905
Guest
Ok, Austin, I have to tell you, that I have read this entire thread now, and you have been asked, many questions.
I ask you, to respectfully answer them, and if you can’t answer them, then you should at least stall your departure from the faith.
Is that fair?
post #76
I ask you, to respectfully answer them, and if you can’t answer them, then you should at least stall your departure from the faith.
Is that fair?
post #76
C
Church_Militant
Guest
Hold on here! You guys make it sound like all the people in your churches are all on the same page and all this good stuff, but this is nothing more than hype. I was a Sunday School teacher and a deacon in various churches and quite frankly the knowledge of the Bible and general practice of their faiths was easily as deplorable as anything that I have ever seen in the Catholic Church.
Again and again I found that people were terribly lacking in proper catechesis to the point that they couldn’t give a decent answer to a Jehovah’s Witness challenge to the diety of Christ or the Trinity, and when I asked my young adult students why they believed these things they almost to a man replied with “because the pastor says so” & had no answer to “How do we know that the pastor is teaching us right?” This was not acceptable at all.
The FACT is that the vast majority of non-Catholics are actually no better catechised than Catholics, and know about as much about the Word of God as the average Catholic. (And abysmally less still about Christian history!) I’ve had n-Cs jump my case about Catholicism and in the course of the discussion prove to know pitifully little about the Bible and what it says or even where to find things in it. What I find is that they respond to anti-Catholic rhetoric from their pulpits (which according Austin’s posts so far are blessedly absent from Evangel’s preaching, though I suspect that he would not recognize targeted preaching and proof texts if he heard them at this point.) and then think they are equiped to bring down the “apostate Catholic Church” by jumping the first Catholic that they run accross. (I sincerely hope that it’s me!)
I don’t care what anyone says, I find that the vast majority of Christians, of all denominations, (Yeah and the non-denoms as well) are about as messed up as the average Catholic, and I rejoice for this forum where we all can both learn more about our most holy faith and where the Holy Spirit can use us to help others to better know the faith and put it into practice. The fact that we are apologetic in nature simply means that we are deeply into the whys and wherefors of what we believe.
As to whether Austin’s posts and story is authentic or not, there is no way to know. I choose to think that they are authentic because they are not the articulate anti-Catholic arguments of a fraud. Moreover, anyone who would fraudulantly post this stuff would by now have recognized that it has backfired and that (over all) the responses have been charitable and informative. I feel sure that any “lurkers” who may be in the same sort of situation and have both an open heart and common sense will see the reasonings and information that we all have offered and (God Willing!) find the answers that they needed to remain faithful Catholics and (better still) to begin to really dig into the faith and live it.
This is just another reason that I repeatedly urge all of you to be sure that you are active in your parish’s faith formation programs and that you do whatever you can to build the faith of your families, friends and all those lost souls in the world.
The easy part is sittin’ at these keyboards…
Pax vobiscum,
A
AquinasXVI
Guest
Alfie:
The Mass is based on the command of Jesus: Do this in memory of me. And to accuse the Mass being based on emotions is the complete opposite of what it is usually accused of which is ritualistic and lacks emotion. Which one is it? If you watch people in daily Mass you will see that emotions are indeed running and they run very deep in the heart that it is called passion. Just because we don’t see the person in the pew waving hands and clapping doesn’t mean absence of reverence and awe.
Secondly, If Jesus is True God, why did the Pharisees, Saducees, the Romans did not overwhelmingly appreciate this when they crucified him? Your assumption that every Catholic should be in complete awe and ecstacy during Mass is a tad unrealistic.
Again you are criticizing your perceptions of the Catholic Church as opposed to what the Church really is. Have you read the Catechism already? If not, I urge you again, for you are shadowboxing with a church that only exist in your own mind.
in XT.
The Mass is based on the command of Jesus: Do this in memory of me. And to accuse the Mass being based on emotions is the complete opposite of what it is usually accused of which is ritualistic and lacks emotion. Which one is it? If you watch people in daily Mass you will see that emotions are indeed running and they run very deep in the heart that it is called passion. Just because we don’t see the person in the pew waving hands and clapping doesn’t mean absence of reverence and awe.
Secondly, If Jesus is True God, why did the Pharisees, Saducees, the Romans did not overwhelmingly appreciate this when they crucified him? Your assumption that every Catholic should be in complete awe and ecstacy during Mass is a tad unrealistic.
Again you are criticizing your perceptions of the Catholic Church as opposed to what the Church really is. Have you read the Catechism already? If not, I urge you again, for you are shadowboxing with a church that only exist in your own mind.
in XT.
- Status