Nominal Catholic vs Prayerful protestant

[Suz21]

Question for Catholics…
I’m sure it’s been covered before… but do you think it is better to be a nominal catholic or a prayerful protestant? I guess my question is… is there ever an acceptable reason to leave the Church?

 

[LilyM]

A nominal Catholic can and should become a prayerful Catholic. It’s not hard at all, after all I did it. No need to join a Protestant denomination to grow in prayerfulness or grow out of lukewarmness

By the way, a prayerful Protestant should also become a prayerful Catholic - and many do

So in short no, there’s no acceptable reason to leave the Catholic Church - it is His body after all, why would you want to?

 

[Tietjen]

Question for Catholics…
I’m sure it’s been covered before… but do you think it is better to be a nominal catholic or a prayerful protestant?

By “nominal” do you mean a “cafeteria-style” Catholic… one who picks and chooses the dogmas he/she wishes to believe in and disregards the rest? If so, they are one in the same.

I guess my question is… is there ever an acceptable reason to leave the Church?

Yes, if you want to separate yourself from God or you think that you are worthy of individually presenting yourself to God on your terms rather than His. Other than that, I can think of no reason to ever leave His Church.

 

[abucs]

i guess we have to agree on what being Catholic means.

Then we would have to agree on what being a nominal Catholic means.

Since you compare a “prayerful” Protestant with a “nominal” Catholic i guess subconsciously we are saying a nominal Catholic is a non prayerful Catholic.

Since we pray when we are at mass, when we go to confession, when we say the rosary, when we read the bible, when we are thankful to God and when we live our lives in our helpful actions and humble spirit, then how would a nominal (non prayerful) Catholic be distinguished from a non prayerful anything ?

Can someone be a Catholic and not do ANY of the above ?

i guess i am asking what you mean by nominal and why you are contrasting that with being prayerful ?

I’m not sure you can be non prayerful and Catholic.
If you are non prayerful then i would urge you to be become Catholic - in the real sense.

 

[Suz21]

i guess we have to agree on what being Catholic means.

Then we would have to agree on what being a nominal Catholic means.

Since you compare a “prayerful” Protestant with a “nominal” Catholic i guess subconsciously we are saying a nominal Catholic is a non prayerful Catholic.

Since we pray when we are at mass, when we go to confession, when we say the rosary, when we read the bible, when we are thankful to God and when we live our lives in our helpful actions and humble spirit, then how would a nominal (non prayerful) Catholic be distinguished from a non prayerful anything ?

Can someone be a Catholic and not do ANY of the above ?

i guess i am asking what you mean by nominal and why you are contrasting that with being prayerful ?

I’m talking about people who call themselves Catholic, but have no understanding of Catholicism- they attend mass, but only as a social obligation. They miss Sunday mass sometimes, without thinking it’s a sin because ‘it can’t be a big deal to God if I miss Mass once in a while’. Their lives do not show that they are followers of Christ at all. I guess that’s the same as cafateria Catholics?

 

[abucs]

I would say the most important thing is to be close to God.

But like all simple sentences you can write a whole book on what that might mean and what it might not necessarily mean.

 

[LilyM]

I’m talking about people who call themselves Catholic, but have no understanding of Catholicism- they attend mass, but only as a social obligation. They miss Sunday mass sometimes, without thinking it’s a sin because ‘it can’t be a big deal to God if I miss Mass once in a while’. Their lives do not show that they are followers of Christ at all. I guess that’s the same as cafateria Catholics?

Sounds like it - and like I said the answer is for those nominal Catholics to become prayerful or observant Catholics rather than Protestants of any stripe.

Reality is if they moved to Protestantism they’d most likely be similarly nominal Protestants, which is worse because the main rule of Protestantism seems to be there really aren’t any rules.

 

[Suz21]

By “nominal” do you mean a “cafeteria-style” Catholic… one who picks and chooses the dogmas he/she wishes to believe in and disregards the rest? If so, they are one in the same.

Yes, if you want to separate yourself from God or you think that you are worthy of individually presenting yourself to God on your terms rather than His. Other than that, I can think of no reason to ever leave His Church.

I’m thinking more of people who do not know or realize or have ever been told that the Catholic Church is THE Church of Christ. They have never experienced or understood the relationship with Jesus that we are all called to… they see the Church as a collection of meaningless rituals. Should I be more concerned for such a person if they are within the Church, receiving the sacraments, but without any kind of real belief or committment to Christ… or if they leave the Church and have accepted Jesus as a friend and saviour?

 

[LilyM]

I’m thinking more of people who do not know or realize or have ever been told that the Catholic Church is THE Church of Christ. They have never experienced or understood the relationship with Jesus that we are all called to… they see the Church as a collection of meaningless rituals. Should I be more concerned for such a person if they are within the Church, receiving the sacraments, but without any kind of real belief or committment to Christ… or if they leave the Church and have accepted Jesus as a friend and saviour?

Those sacraments, even if received in a lukewarm spirit, are far more likely than anything Protestantism offers to give them the grace to meaningfully accept Jesus (rather than simply feel warm and fuzzy about Him and pay lipservice to His idea as too many people do).

 

[Suz21]

Those sacraments, even if received in a lukewarm spirit, are far more likely than anything Protestantism offers to give them the grace to meaningfully accept Jesus (rather than simply feel warm and fuzzy about Him and pay lipservice to His idea as too many people do).

What about receiving the the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin- after missing several Sunday masses, etc. I don’t suppose the sacraments are giving them grace in that case. I know a LOT of people like that.

 

[abucs]

I’m thinking more of people who do not know or realize or have ever been told that the Catholic Church is THE Church of Christ. They have never experienced or understood the relationship with Jesus that we are all called to… they see the Church as a collection of meaningless rituals. Should I be more concerned for such a person if they are within the Church, receiving the sacraments, but without any kind of real belief or committment to Christ… or if they leave the Church and have accepted Jesus as a friend and saviour?

That is a very good question Suzie.
I would say love them either way. On the first instance i would say we should try and expand the knowledge of what Catholicism is with regards to ‘abiding in Christ’ and accepting the ‘spirit of God’.

In the second instance, respecting their views and show in our own lives that being Catholic is also being ‘close to God’.

If there is a perspective that Catholicism is all about empty rituals then the only way to combat that is to show in our own lives that it is not.

If all are ‘abiding in Christ’ then that’s great and that spirit will lead people back to the church.

Having the idea that some group is anti-God is very powerful but people are generally clever and our witness will make a difference to their thinking.

 

[Danuska]

I also like your question Suz, and it is easy to say that we (Catholics) are the true Church and so on and so forth, but I come from a coutry where vast majority is Catholic (Poland), and I knew one group of Protestants, most of them have left the Catholic Church. The sad truth was that they were far more devout, more knowledable and devoted to their faith than many of my Catholic friends. They prayed, fasted, they formed prayer groups, they took part in Evangelisation missions in Russia, etc. I would risk a statement that in that case, it is better to be a ‘prayerful Protestant’. As the Bible says in the Revelation, there is nothing worse for God than our indfference.

And I do not think Suz meant to present this as a reason to leave the Catholic Church. The question is rather an occasion for us to look at ourselves in truth, and realize that oftentimes (some) Protestants do put us to shame. And all we can do is not to put them down to make ourselves feel better (for that, read Romans 14), but to seek God with all our heart, rediscover the beauty of our faith and become truly prayerful, devout Catholics. Remember, the Bible says that the more we recieved the more we will be asked of. Since we have the fullness of the faith, God might also ask for more faithfulness of us…

 

[Tietjen]

I would risk a statement that in that case, it is better to be a ‘prayerful Protestant’. As the Bible says in the Revelation, there is nothing worse for God than our indfference.

Really? You, being Catholic, believe that it is better for a Catholic who rejects certain Church dogma to turn his back on the Church and become Protestant? We ALL are responsible for learning our faith. WE ARE RESPONSIBLE. We have the means to do that, therefore if we chose not to learn our faith then WE will individually be held accountable. A Catholic who was poorly instructed in Catholicism is a sad situation. However, that Catholic can not go through life rejecting the Church because he/she doesn’t understand something. He/she must seek to understand what the Church teaches. It’s no excuse for an adult to leave the Church because as a child they had a bad CCD teacher. Sorry, not buying it.

 

[LilyM]

What about receiving the the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin- after missing several Sunday masses, etc. I don’t suppose the sacraments are giving them grace in that case. I know a LOT of people like that.

Its only mortal sin if they KNOW it’s mortal sin - in the vast majority of cases those who receive after missing Mass etc will be doing so out of ignorance rather than with understanding of the wrong they’re doing, so they may well still receive some graces.

Remember also that there’s far more to the Eucharist than personal reception of Communion. The Mass itself is the Eucharist. And we’re commanded to attend Mass every week, whether or not we’re in a state of mortal sin and whether or not we receive Communion.

Obviously this would seem to be because Mass, even without communion, even without us being in a state of grace, will spiritually help us in some way.

Perhaps it’s only helping by providing us the grace that we need in such cases to recognise our sins and repent from them. And no, we don’t always need to be conscious of what we’re doing to receive God’s grace. It’s not like St Paul was seeking Christ and in a state of grace when He touched him on the road to Damascus, after all.

 

[Danuska]

Really? You, being Catholic, believe that it is better for a Catholic who rejects certain Church dogma to turn his back on the Church and become Protestant? We ALL are responsible for learning our faith. WE ARE RESPONSIBLE. We have the means to do that, therefore if we chose not to learn our faith then WE will individually be held accountable. A Catholic who was poorly instructed in Catholicism is a sad situation. However, that Catholic can not go through life rejecting the Church because he/she doesn’t understand something. He/she must seek to understand what the Church teaches. It’s no excuse for an adult to leave the Church because as a child they had a bad CCD teacher. Sorry, not buying it.

I guess you have not read my post carefully.

I said that the behaviour of our fellow Catholics whose faith has run dry is never an excuse for to leave the Church.

But the author of the thread never talked about leaving the Church, he/she just asked what was better… And I would again risk saying that it is better to be a devout Protestant than a lukewarm Catholic. Strangely, I sometimes got sneers from Catholic friends because I believe that Satan really exists, because I think it is wrong to engage in occultic practices (Hey, it is just Tarot, it is just a game!), or that because I agree with the Church’s teaching on contraception (a friend of mine gives marriage preparation courses, she told me how many young poeple do not take that stuff seriuosly, and they are open about it).

And those Catholics, wo are poorly instructed or just not taking their faith seriuosly are oftentimes quite comforable with their faith, I noticed. Hey, I make an effort and go to Mass every Sunday (well, for some Easter and Christmas will be enough), I do not steal, I do not kill, I am fine in the eyes of God - I see that attitude very often. And I repeat, that in such case, it is better to be a prayerful Protestant,but that is just my opinion.

In that case,

 

[Cinette]

Question for Catholics…
I’m sure it’s been covered before… but do you think it is better to be a nominal catholic or a prayerful protestant? I guess my question is… is there ever an acceptable reason to leave the Church?

**What a question!! A prayerful person of course - whatever religion.

Sometimes it takes courage to convert especially when family and friends frown on your decision. Look at the many Protestant/Evangelical Ministers who have converted to the CC. How they have enriched the Church. How courageous they are.

I know some people prefer to stay where they are because of comfort. Can you imagine what it must be like for a Muslim to convert? They risk their lives!

Going back to your question - a prayerful person is closer to the Lord. I am Catholic but I do not think we are better than people of other religions. I believe we are richer in resources.



**

 

[Cinette]

Really? You, being Catholic, believe that it is better for a Catholic who rejects certain Church dogma to turn his back on the Church and become Protestant? We ALL are responsible for learning our faith. WE ARE RESPONSIBLE. We have the means to do that, therefore if we chose not to learn our faith then WE will individually be held accountable. A Catholic who was poorly instructed in Catholicism is a sad situation. However, that Catholic can not go through life rejecting the Church because he/she doesn’t understand something. He/she must seek to understand what the Church teaches. It’s no excuse for an adult to leave the Church because as a child they had a bad CCD teacher. Sorry, not buying it.

**I do admire and agree with your non-compromising stand. You are absolutely correct. There is no excuse. We have a duty to learn about our faith. It does help to have had a good teacher and mentor.

:yup: **