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CarolNoel
Guest
What kind of a reception did you receive from the ones you apologized too?
Thanks.
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Thanks.
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TexanKnight
Guest
mostly very positive. I explained my reasons and many left the LDS Church. One was a missionary in Honduras (from Honduras) and left his mission.
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Brandon_Cal
Guest
Quite funny you should say that. I have a twin brother with whom I’d share a room for the first twenty years of my life. I wanted to go to a Spanish speaking country so badly and my more practical brother was just crossing his finger for a nation in the developed world. I have fond memories of us praying before bed that I’d be called to a Latin American nation and that he’d be called to “any country with electricity and running water”.
It seems the Lord has a sense of humor: I was sent to Austria and my brother to Nicaragua.
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TexanKnight
Guest
lolQuite funny you should say that. I have a twin brother with whom I’d share a room for the first twenty years of my life. I wanted to go to a Spanish speaking country so badly and my more practical brother was just crossing his finger for a nation in the developed world. I have fond memories of us praying before bed that I’d be called to a Latin American nation and that he’d be called to “any country with electricity and running water”.
It seems the Lord has a sense of humor: I was sent to Austria and my brother to Nicaragua.
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gracepoole
Guest
Um, sorry to burst anyone’s bubble here, but…
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=1340
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twopekinguys
Guest
I knew I had read that somewhere, I just couldn’t find it.
Being the director off RCIA for our parish, I find it very disheartening.
This could be a whole thread by itself.
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gracepoole
Guest
Agreed. What is happening in catechism classes?!
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twopekinguys
Guest
I don’t want to derail, but I personally think (opinion only), that it is mostly old time cradle Catholics that weren’t really catechized correctly.Agreed. What is happening in catechism classes?!
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Marie5890
Guest
I can understand why this is.
In this day and age, people dont believe in something just because someone or some church “says so”…
We talked a great deal about such doubts in my RCIA class
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Boulder257
Guest
Dissapointing to say the least.
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CarolNoel
Guest
Glad to hear you were well received.
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CarolNoel
Guest
Don’t know who you consider as old time cradle Catholics, but this old timer had nuns Dominican nuns and they taught the faith. I was raised by my German GM, and Bohonk GF and our faith was a major part of our everyday life.
Just wanted to let you know some of us old
geezers get it right.
I
iepuras
Guest
As an ex-Mormon, I can tell you that the reasons I left were accurately addressed in the article and the transcript of the meeting. I had the same questions a problems with the history and doctrine and determined that it was all a fraud. Leaving lifted a great burden from my shoulders, but I have a new cross to bear with maintaining good relationships with my still very Mormon family. I am trying very hard to respect their beliefs while I am on my faith journey that is currently leading me to the Catholic Church.
A couple of posters who commented on the Mattsson interview on mormonstories.com claimed to have attended the meeting in Sweden. They stated that in the days following the meeting, they were personally visited by church leaders and given an ultimatum - resign or be excommunicated for apostacy. These strong arm tactics are disturbing to say the least but not entirely surprising. The Mormon church does work to discourage questioning and they often blame members if they have doubts or questions.
I am new to this forum and I am glad to see this NYT article discussed.
A couple of posters who commented on the Mattsson interview on mormonstories.com claimed to have attended the meeting in Sweden. They stated that in the days following the meeting, they were personally visited by church leaders and given an ultimatum - resign or be excommunicated for apostacy. These strong arm tactics are disturbing to say the least but not entirely surprising. The Mormon church does work to discourage questioning and they often blame members if they have doubts or questions.
I am new to this forum and I am glad to see this NYT article discussed.
M
Marie5890
Guest
Welcome, iepuras.
Several of us are former Mormons and understand what you are dealing with. Praying for you in this new part of your spiritual journey that is something no doubt you ever imagined taking.
God Bless
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SAVINGRACE
Guest
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twopekinguys
Guest
Welcome to CAF.
Your story contains the one common thread we see with most people leaving mormonism. You studied your way out.
It is also interesting how you mentioned the strong arm tactics used by the leadership. We have heard this from other former mormons, but is usually something practicing mormons completely deny. One of the common statements they make is that the person leaves because they want to sin.
I would be interested in knowing your family’s reaction/answers to the contradictions you found, that helped you find your way out.
Hopefully, they will respect you beliefs as much as you are trying to respect theirs.
We will pray for you on your journey home to the Church.
L
LivingWaters7
Guest
The article addresses many of the points that many ex-LDS or doubters think about. For me, out of the short list given in the NYT article, the priesthood restriction on blacks was probably especially troubling, for many reasons, but especially because it just didn’t make sense in light of the New Testament and an understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what He came to do.
A common LDS apologetic on this, one that I used myself, was that God has always chosen who He would give His priesthood to, i.e. during the Old Testament times when it was given only to a certain lineage of people. The problem is that with Jesus Christ, He established His Kingdom for all people, wants all to come unto Him, and wants all nations to receive the Gospel and the blessings associated with it. With the LDS priesthood restriction, they not only had prophets and apostles, including in official statements and General Conferences (an important point), claim that “Negroes” were inherently “different” spiritually from others, perhaps stemming from conduct in the pre-mortal existence, curse of Cain, curse of Ham, etc (to put it mildly), but they denied an ordinance essential to full eternal life in their restored Gospel, the priesthood, to black males, and further denied both black males and black females the necessary temple ordinances for eternal life/exaltation (the Endowment and Sealing). I still don’t understand why they restricted black females from going to the temple at this time, since it had nothing to do with priesthood (or maybe it did, since in the temple, women do perform certain ordinances for other women, though not ordained per se).
Because of all that, the LDS Church during the time of the restriction sent missionaries to all nations, except those with significant black African populations (I first became aware of that when I watched the PBS documentary on The Mormons, which discussed how people in Africa that believed that the LDS Church was true had to start their own, faux-LDS, local congregations, since the actual LDS Church wouldn’t send priesthood authority to establish stakes and wards, since the blacks couldn’t have such authority themselves…). This became especially problematic in Brazil, where they wanted to build a temple, but obviously Brazil has a very large mixed population, so they wouldn’t really know who could hold the priesthood and who couldn’t. Something tells me that this situation was not commanded by God, and Christ certainly wouldn’t have approved of withholding essential, required ordinances for eternal life from some of His children.
What I’ve found is that the LDS Church is certainly attractive on its surface. “Living apostles and prophets”, “Continuing revelation”, “temple worship just like anciently”, “families are forever”, “restoration of the New Testament Church”, “modern scripture”, “prophets and apostles on the earth today”, “the Heavens are open”, etc. These phrases used many times by LDS sound nice, don’t they. But when you go deeper, every single phrase isn’t what it seems, especially with the 15 prophets, seers, and revelators that don’t prophesy, see, nor reveal anything, unless you count lowering the missionary age, more, smaller temples, and reiterating what has already been said as examples of living, modern prophecy and revelation.
Gone are the days of LDS prophets and apostles talking about, and canonizing, visions, Heavenly visitations, angelic ministrations, having an audience with Christ, etc. Indeed, the view is that even if such things happen, we shouldn’t talk about them publicly. The latest edition of the church magazine the Ensign says as much:
**"Visions do happen. Voices are heard from beyond the veil. I know this. But these experiences are exceptional. And when we have a great and exceptional experience, we rarely speak of it publicly because we are instructed not to do so (see D&C 63:64) and because we understand that the channels of revelation will be closed if we show these things before the world.
Most of the revelation that comes to leaders and members of the Church comes by the “still small voice” or by a feeling rather than by a vision or a voice that speaks specific words to our hearing. I testify to the reality of that kind of revelation, which I have come to know as a familiar, even a daily, experience to guide us in the work of the Lord."**
-In His Own Time, in His Own Way, Dallin H. Oaks, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
A common LDS apologetic on this, one that I used myself, was that God has always chosen who He would give His priesthood to, i.e. during the Old Testament times when it was given only to a certain lineage of people. The problem is that with Jesus Christ, He established His Kingdom for all people, wants all to come unto Him, and wants all nations to receive the Gospel and the blessings associated with it. With the LDS priesthood restriction, they not only had prophets and apostles, including in official statements and General Conferences (an important point), claim that “Negroes” were inherently “different” spiritually from others, perhaps stemming from conduct in the pre-mortal existence, curse of Cain, curse of Ham, etc (to put it mildly), but they denied an ordinance essential to full eternal life in their restored Gospel, the priesthood, to black males, and further denied both black males and black females the necessary temple ordinances for eternal life/exaltation (the Endowment and Sealing). I still don’t understand why they restricted black females from going to the temple at this time, since it had nothing to do with priesthood (or maybe it did, since in the temple, women do perform certain ordinances for other women, though not ordained per se).
Because of all that, the LDS Church during the time of the restriction sent missionaries to all nations, except those with significant black African populations (I first became aware of that when I watched the PBS documentary on The Mormons, which discussed how people in Africa that believed that the LDS Church was true had to start their own, faux-LDS, local congregations, since the actual LDS Church wouldn’t send priesthood authority to establish stakes and wards, since the blacks couldn’t have such authority themselves…). This became especially problematic in Brazil, where they wanted to build a temple, but obviously Brazil has a very large mixed population, so they wouldn’t really know who could hold the priesthood and who couldn’t. Something tells me that this situation was not commanded by God, and Christ certainly wouldn’t have approved of withholding essential, required ordinances for eternal life from some of His children.
What I’ve found is that the LDS Church is certainly attractive on its surface. “Living apostles and prophets”, “Continuing revelation”, “temple worship just like anciently”, “families are forever”, “restoration of the New Testament Church”, “modern scripture”, “prophets and apostles on the earth today”, “the Heavens are open”, etc. These phrases used many times by LDS sound nice, don’t they. But when you go deeper, every single phrase isn’t what it seems, especially with the 15 prophets, seers, and revelators that don’t prophesy, see, nor reveal anything, unless you count lowering the missionary age, more, smaller temples, and reiterating what has already been said as examples of living, modern prophecy and revelation.
Gone are the days of LDS prophets and apostles talking about, and canonizing, visions, Heavenly visitations, angelic ministrations, having an audience with Christ, etc. Indeed, the view is that even if such things happen, we shouldn’t talk about them publicly. The latest edition of the church magazine the Ensign says as much:
**"Visions do happen. Voices are heard from beyond the veil. I know this. But these experiences are exceptional. And when we have a great and exceptional experience, we rarely speak of it publicly because we are instructed not to do so (see D&C 63:64) and because we understand that the channels of revelation will be closed if we show these things before the world.
Most of the revelation that comes to leaders and members of the Church comes by the “still small voice” or by a feeling rather than by a vision or a voice that speaks specific words to our hearing. I testify to the reality of that kind of revelation, which I have come to know as a familiar, even a daily, experience to guide us in the work of the Lord."**
-In His Own Time, in His Own Way, Dallin H. Oaks, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
I
iepuras
Guest
Thank you everyone for your kind welcome and prayers. I really do feel at home in the Catholic Church and love how we are encouraged to ask questions in RCIA.
Because my parents live in the same ward as us, we told my parents right away. They were shocked and upset. They actually asked us our reasons for leaving and the just listened. We haven’t talked about it since we left in February. I hope they will think about our reasons and get out too, but at this point I can only have hope. They basically reacted as if we admitted to being serial killers. Apostacy is truly the greatest sin in Mormonism. Our relationship did deteriorate and we are trying to rebuild. We have agreed to simply not discuss our new religious life. I hope that they will become more open and attend my baptism next year. When I told my siblings, they never asked why so I haven’t told them. I desperately want to tell them so they can study their way out but I have to wait until they are ready.
About 6 weeks after we stopped going to church, we got a knock on the door about 10 minutes after we got home from Mass. It was our Elders Quorum President and Stake President. It was a very inconvenient time as we were trying to feed our children before nap time but they insisted on our time. When we started going through our list, the EQP was in shock. I don’t think he had heard a lot of these things before. The SP knew exactly what we were talking about. He told us that the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon was what was important, not whether Joseph Smith was a prophet. I told them that was not true but that Mormonism hinged entirely on whether JS was an actual prophet of God. Even Hinckley said as much when he lead the Mormon church. Of course the BOM contains some religious truths because some of it was copied straight from the Bible! After they left, my husband I looked at each other and agreed that we can never go back. We sent our resignation email that day.
We are still the same people, we just have more beverage choices.
Even then, it took me a couple of months to realize it! I am so happy to be out with my husband and two children who are young enough the won’t remember ever being Mormon. My husband was a convert from Eastern Orthodoxy and is becoming Catholic with me but his process is much easier! Once I told him what I found, he told me he never would have joined if he knew those things. Despite the family difficulties we are incredibly happy. I love feeling spiritually free to find God and have true faith in Him.
Because my parents live in the same ward as us, we told my parents right away. They were shocked and upset. They actually asked us our reasons for leaving and the just listened. We haven’t talked about it since we left in February. I hope they will think about our reasons and get out too, but at this point I can only have hope. They basically reacted as if we admitted to being serial killers. Apostacy is truly the greatest sin in Mormonism. Our relationship did deteriorate and we are trying to rebuild. We have agreed to simply not discuss our new religious life. I hope that they will become more open and attend my baptism next year. When I told my siblings, they never asked why so I haven’t told them. I desperately want to tell them so they can study their way out but I have to wait until they are ready.
About 6 weeks after we stopped going to church, we got a knock on the door about 10 minutes after we got home from Mass. It was our Elders Quorum President and Stake President. It was a very inconvenient time as we were trying to feed our children before nap time but they insisted on our time. When we started going through our list, the EQP was in shock. I don’t think he had heard a lot of these things before. The SP knew exactly what we were talking about. He told us that the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon was what was important, not whether Joseph Smith was a prophet. I told them that was not true but that Mormonism hinged entirely on whether JS was an actual prophet of God. Even Hinckley said as much when he lead the Mormon church. Of course the BOM contains some religious truths because some of it was copied straight from the Bible! After they left, my husband I looked at each other and agreed that we can never go back. We sent our resignation email that day.
We are still the same people, we just have more beverage choices.
Even then, it took me a couple of months to realize it! I am so happy to be out with my husband and two children who are young enough the won’t remember ever being Mormon. My husband was a convert from Eastern Orthodoxy and is becoming Catholic with me but his process is much easier! Once I told him what I found, he told me he never would have joined if he knew those things. Despite the family difficulties we are incredibly happy. I love feeling spiritually free to find God and have true faith in Him.
T
twopekinguys
Guest
All I can say is WOW.Thank you everyone for your kind welcome and prayers. I really do feel at home in the Catholic Church and love how we are encouraged to ask questions in RCIA.
Because my parents live in the same ward as us, we told my parents right away. They were shocked and upset. They actually asked us our reasons for leaving and the just listened. We haven’t talked about it since we left in February. I hope they will think about our reasons and get out too, but at this point I can only have hope. They basically reacted as if we admitted to being serial killers. Apostacy is truly the greatest sin in Mormonism. Our relationship did deteriorate and we are trying to rebuild. We have agreed to simply not discuss our new religious life. I hope that they will become more open and attend my baptism next year. When I told my siblings, they never asked why so I haven’t told them. I desperately want to tell them so they can study their way out but I have to wait until they are ready.
About 6 weeks after we stopped going to church, we got a knock on the door about 10 minutes after we got home from Mass. It was our Elders Quorum President and Stake President. It was a very inconvenient time as we were trying to feed our children before nap time but they insisted on our time. When we started going through our list, the EQP was in shock. I don’t think he had heard a lot of these things before. The SP knew exactly what we were talking about. He told us that the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon was what was important, not whether Joseph Smith was a prophet. I told them that was not true but that Mormonism hinged entirely on whether JS was an actual prophet of God. Even Hinckley said as much when he lead the Mormon church. Of course the BOM contains some religious truths because some of it was copied straight from the Bible! After they left, my husband I looked at each other and agreed that we can never go back. We sent our resignation email that day.
We are still the same people, we just have more beverage choices.
It sounds like you were more prepared for the questions than they thought you might be, and that is impressive, and a blessing.
As the RCIA director for our parish, I echo what you stated about being encouraged to ask questions. We repeat it over and over. “No question is out of bounds. If we don’t have an answer for you right then, we will have one for you by the next session.”
Even though it is difficult with your family, once they see that you are happy, and a good example of your faith, I am sure things will change.
Thanks so much for sharing your journey.
Prayers for you all.
L
LivingWaters7
Guest
That is wonderful!Thank you everyone for your kind welcome and prayers. I really do feel at home in the Catholic Church and love how we are encouraged to ask questions in RCIA.
Because my parents live in the same ward as us, we told my parents right away. They were shocked and upset. They actually asked us our reasons for leaving and the just listened. We haven’t talked about it since we left in February. I hope they will think about our reasons and get out too, but at this point I can only have hope. They basically reacted as if we admitted to being serial killers. Apostacy is truly the greatest sin in Mormonism. Our relationship did deteriorate and we are trying to rebuild. We have agreed to simply not discuss our new religious life. I hope that they will become more open and attend my baptism next year. When I told my siblings, they never asked why so I haven’t told them. I desperately want to tell them so they can study their way out but I have to wait until they are ready.
About 6 weeks after we stopped going to church, we got a knock on the door about 10 minutes after we got home from Mass. It was our Elders Quorum President and Stake President. It was a very inconvenient time as we were trying to feed our children before nap time but they insisted on our time. When we started going through our list, the EQP was in shock. I don’t think he had heard a lot of these things before. The SP knew exactly what we were talking about. He told us that the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon was what was important, not whether Joseph Smith was a prophet. I told them that was not true but that Mormonism hinged entirely on whether JS was an actual prophet of God. Even Hinckley said as much when he lead the Mormon church. Of course the BOM contains some religious truths because some of it was copied straight from the Bible! After they left, my husband I looked at each other and agreed that we can never go back. We sent our resignation email that day.
We are still the same people, we just have more beverage choices.
I think the hardest thing about leaving Mormonism is the cultural/social aspects. Many don’t miss the actual doctrines, but the social aspect is sometimes missed. I enjoyed consistently being around people with similar morals as me, and seemed to be more consistent at practicing, or at least trying to practice, what they preach. It was great being around other young people that not only went to church for 3 hours every Sunday, but also went to other activities throughout the week. FHE every week, Institute classes, “linger longers” after church, religious classes everywhere for adults every week, ward temple trips, etc were definitely nice to have (though the Facebook notifications for the next FHE every week kinda got annoying
).And you were right about Joseph Smith vs Book of Mormon. I don’t know why the SP said what he said, as it doesn’t make any sense. If Joseph Smith wasn’t a prophet, then the Book of Mormon isn’t from God. The whole story about the discovery and translation of the Book of Mormon hinges on whether he was called by God, was guided by angels, and received Divine assistance to translate “reformed Egyptian” into English.
I hope that you continue to have a great experience in RCIA as you prepare to receive the true, full reality of the sacraments, and receive God’s grace through the sacred mysteries, most especially the Eucharist.
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