Non-Believers who Identify as Catholic, and their effect

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It’s his choice to notice hypocrisy in a man named Rico. There is no duty to notice it.

Why do you put reason in quotations? There is nothing presumptive about reason or logic. It’s a good thing.
 
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Lara said:
It’s his choice to notice hypocrisy in a man named Rico.
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There is a huge difference between calling someone a hypocrite, and deciding and declaring whether they are a Catholic or not, Even the Church has never said that Hitler was not a Catholic.
 
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Hitler was not a practicing Catholic. There is nothing presumptuous in saying so. Basically, it’s okay to call somebody out for disagreeing with a Church teaching or many Church teachings. I was asked by my sister to be a godparent to one of her children. But she believes in reincarnation and does not believe in papal infallibility as the Church teaches it. So there was no meeting ground. How can you support somebody in being educators of their children if they don’t support themselves? Now, would you then say I was egregiously presumptuous, when any assessment of the situation would lead to this conclusion?
 
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Lara said:
Hitler was not a practicing Catholic. There is nothing presumptive in saying so.
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That’s true. But he was still a Catholic. And even if he had been officially excommunicated, he would have still been a Catholic in the eyes of the Church.
 
Lara said:
Now, would you then say I was egregiously presumptuous, when any assessment of the situation would lead to this conclusion?
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You would indeed be presumptuous if you were to decide and declare that she was not a Catholic.
 
In practice, a dissenting Catholic is actually a Protestant. Hence, the priest guiding me was correct to say I could not be the godparent. Would your logic not result in me automatically being able to be the godparent?

My sister ended up choosing my brother, a fallen-away Catholic attending the United Church, to be the godparent with the aid of a presumably unaware or lax priest.
 
Lara said:
In practice, a dissenting Catholic is actually a Protestant.
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No. That is patently false, and not supported by any teaching of the Church.
Lara said:
Would your logic not result in me automatically being able to be the godparent?
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No, of course not. No Catholic is “automatically” qualified to be a godparent. The requirements are:

“Only one godparent is necessary. The godparent must be a fully initiated Catholic
(Baptized, Confirmed, received Eucharist), at least 16 years old, and must be leading a
sacramental life in harmony with the church. (Cf. CIC, can. 874) The godparent should be
willing to accept the responsibility of assisting the parents in developing the faith life of
the child.”

As for your brother’s case, an error was indeed made if he did not conform to those specifications. But whether he did or not is not for you and me to decide. In any case, that does not affect the validity of the sacrament, though.

Furthermore, you or I would not have any standing to challenge the priests decision. That would be a matter for a court of canon law.
 
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But I was not qualified because my sister herself cannot support the faith life of her child, as the priest accurately pointed out.

A look at the history of Protestantism will show that Protestants basically protest against one or more tenets of the Church. That’s why we call them our separated brethren.

Remember, I wrote “in practice,” which you declined to register. Obviously if you look at the very narrow definition of a Catholic as one who has been baptized into the Church, you are correct. But I’m saying that definition doesn’t give us much leeway as to how to interact with fallen away Catholics.
 
Lara said:
A look at the history of Protestantism will show that Protestants basically protest against one or more tenets of the Church.
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Yes, but not everybody who disagrees with one or more tenets of the Church is a Protestant, even “practically”.
Lara said:
But I’m saying that definition doesn’t give us much leeway as to how to interact with fallen away Catholics.
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Fallen away Catholics are still Catholics in the eyes of the Church, no less than you, I, Martin Luther or even Adolf Hitler. I have no idea what kind of “leeway” you are talking about.
 
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Lara said:
As I navigate the world, I treat fallen away Catholics as Protestants.
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That is contrary to Church teachings. You have no right to do that.
Lara said:
Hence, do not marry them.
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You have no obligation to marry anybody, for any reason. If you do not want to marry a non-practicing Catholic, fine. But the Church does allow Catholics to marry non-Catholics. My own late wife was a Buddhist.
Lara said:
Do not trust them. Do not be their partner in business. Those sorts of things. They tend to behave in very predictable ways.
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That is uncharitable and unreasonable, and contrary to Jesus’s specific teaching in the parable of the Good Samaritan.
 
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Lara said:
As I navigate the world,
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Before you navigate any further, I think you should take some time to reread the Gospels, because, based on what you wrote, I think you have completely missed the point.
 
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It is a very odd situation. The Church regards pretty much any baptised person as “Catholic “, since the chain of baptism necessarily goes back to a Catholic baptism. This is regardless of whether the baptised agree with the Catholic faith.

And yet the Church seems to have no difficulty referring to Orthodox or Protestants as if they were not Catholic.
 
Lara said:
Hitler was not a practicing Catholic. There is nothing presumptuous in saying so.
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There’s a difference between saying someone is “not a PRACTICING Catholic” and saying they’re “not a Catholic” or “not a real Catholic”.

There are plenty of “non practicing Catholics”, “fallen away Catholics”, “Catholics not in communion with the Church” etc.
They are still Catholics however.
We don’t get to say they aren’t.
 
Maximian said:
The Church regards pretty much any baptised person as “Catholic “, since the chain of baptism necessarily goes back to a Catholic baptism. This is regardless of whether the baptised agree with the Catholic faith.

And yet the Church seems to have no difficulty referring to Orthodox or Protestants as if they were not Catholic.
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It’s not odd because Orthodox and Protestant baptisms were not given with the intent of making the person part of the Catholic Church. In the case of Protestants, a large number of such baptisms might not even be valid Christian baptisms if they didn’t follow the Trinitarian formula prescribed by the Church. There’s a pretty long list of Protestant denominations for which the Church does not accept the baptism, even before the recent “we baptize” business.
 
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Ok but if mainstream Protestants were originally baptised Catholic, then they are Catholic, right?

So if they baptise more people, those people are also receiving Catholic baptism, no? And so on down the generations (ignoring those who start using incorrect formulae, as by definition those are not baptisms)
 
Catholic baptism doesn’t depend on the religion of the person giving it. Technically, even a non-Christian or an atheist can baptize if they have the right intent and use the right formula, and in the case of baptizing an adult, the person getting baptized would need to freely desire baptism and accept the teachings in the Profession of Faith.

And no, mainline Protestants do not automatically become Catholics by being baptized with a Trinitarian formula in their Protestant church. My husband was baptized Presbyterian as a baby. His baptism was accepted by the Church as being Christian, because Presbyterians use Trinitarian baptism. So we could have a sacramental marriage with a Mass and the priest even gave him Communion (one time only, this is allowed). He was “in communion with the Catholic Church” via his Baptism. But he still wasn’t a Catholic and if he decided to become one, would have had to go through RCIA and convert although he would not have been re-baptized or conditionally baptized.

If the mainline Protestant was baptized Catholic originally, with the intent of his being Catholic, and he leaves the Church later, then he’s Catholic and remains Catholic.
 
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Jbrady said:
Even with “reason”, it is simply not the OP’s job, or right, or “duty”, to personally declare who is a “real Catholic”, and who is not.
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So then we must acknowledge that Jack Chick was a Catholic? After all, he was validly baptised. What about Hitler? He was Catholic as well?

No. Charity demands correction, most especially of the conceit that one can remake the idea of “being Catholic” in one’s own image, so that everyone must publicly concede that it is permissible for a Catholic to reject every teaching and moral principle of the Church and yet still claim that his manifestly non-Catholic views are something they are not.
 
neophyte said:
So then we must acknowledge that Jack Chick was a Catholic? After all, he was validly baptised. What about Hitler? He was Catholic as well?
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If they were validly baptized into the Catholic Church then they were Catholics.
Full stop.

(I didn’t know that about Jack, interesting if true.)
 
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