Ok For Catholics to go to Other Religious Services?

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benjohnson said:
My practical advice (keep in mind I’m Lutheran)
  1. Only go once you fully understand your own faith. If you can see the differences and understand the reason for the difference, you won’t be libel to get caught up in the emotion and do something you later regret. You will also have a renewed appreciation for your own faith, and can bring back virtues you found.
  2. Have good reason to go. I went to Catholic Mass before the pro-life march here with the group of good Catholic who allowed me on their bus, and I think that was appropriate as I know we have a lot in common. I won’t set foot in a prosperity-gospel church as it would only be for curiosity sake and that’s not reason enough.
  3. If you do go - be sincere. Only reserve doing the things would bring scandal (like receiving communion) - but fully participate in the common things like prayer, singing, sharing the peace and hearing the word proclaimed.
  4. Prepare to be have the Holy Spirit give you comfort. When you have to reserve your participation in the religious service and you do it without calling attention to yourself, I find that the Holy Spirit does give you comfort in such difficult situations.
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I go to LDS services to keep a commitment I made to my spouse decades ago. I don’t take the sacrament or sing songs that have a non-Christian flavor about them. When they sing “Faith of Our Fathers” or “Lead Kindly Light” or “All Creatures of Our God and King”, I’m all in.
 
JamesCollins said:
Is there something in the catechism that says Catholics shouldn’t attend other church services?
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The default position is that Catholics cannot attend services that are not Catholic.

This is from Fr Vincent Serpa , a CAF Catholic apologist.
Hi,
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In the first place a Catholic has no business attending Protestant church services even occasionally. To participate in a heretical worship service and especially a communion service can be sinful for a Catholic because such an act is an affirmation of what we believe to be untrue.
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**To attend an ecumenical service or a wedding or baptism is allowed, but Catholics are not allowed to attend such churches for the main reason of worship. **
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Now if there are no Catholic churches in the vicinity on a Sunday, Catholics are allowed to participate in the Liturgy of Churches whose clergy are validly ordained such as the Eastern Orthodox Churches—including the reception of the Eucharist.
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Although we consider them to be in schism (not in union with the Pope) with the Catholic Church, such Churches are not heretical and share our basic beliefs.
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Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.
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If you are going along to a non-Catholic service to worship, then you are taking part in something that is heretical. You will also be giving the impression that Catholics and non-Catholics, through worship, are part of the one spiritual community.

There is an exception made with regards to ecumenical services
vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_25031993_principles-and-norms-on-ecumenism_en.html
 
Brendan_64 said:
The default position is that Catholics cannot attend services that are not Catholic.

This is from Fr Vincent Serpa , a CAF Catholic apologist.

If you are going along to a non-Catholic service to worship, then you are taking part in something that is heretical. You will also be giving the impression that Catholics and non-Catholics, through worship, are part of the one spiritual community.

There is an exception made with regards to ecumenical services
vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_25031993_principles-and-norms-on-ecumenism_en.html
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I don’t say amen at the end of the prayers or talks, participate in what I would consider non-Christian hymns, or consider what I am doing worship. I worship at the Catholic Church. When you are involved in a situation in which you have divided your family by resigning from the LDS Church and converting to Catholicism, you can begin to throw stones. With all due respect to Father Serpa, I saw nothing in that link you provided that would say someone shouldn’t be allowed to merely attend another religion’s church service as long as they don’t participate in their sacraments. Quite frankly, after resigning from the LDS Church I’m not allowed to participate in their church’s sacraments anyway.
 
JamesCollins said:
I don’t say amen at the end of the prayers or talks, participate in what I would consider non-Christian hymns, or consider what I am doing worship. I worship at the Catholic Church. When you are involved in a situation in which you have divided your family by resigning from the LDS Church and converting to Catholicism, you can begin to throw stones. .
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Who’s throwing stones? I’m just stating what a respected Catholic apologist states the Church’s position is.
JamesCollins said:
With all due respect to Father Serpa, I saw nothing in that link you provided that would say someone shouldn’t be allowed to merely attend another religion’s church service as long as they don’t participate in their sacraments. Quite frankly, after resigning from the LDS Church I’m not allowed to participate in their church’s sacraments anyway.
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He didn’t just say not to participate in the sacraments, he said not to worship.
 
And not to derail the thread, but what actually constitutes worship in the Catholic view? Lutherans have some difficulties with drawing lines around various activities (and this is a fairly major point of contention between several Lutheran synods).
 
JamesCollins said:
So should I quit participating in family prayers with my Mormon family?
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I’m not telling you what you should so at all, that 's up to you. Your circumstances are different to mine, and yes it must be challenging for you balancing things.

But that doesn’t mean that I should refrain from answering honestly, for fear that it might upset you. Stilldreamn asked me what was the Catholic view of what constitutes worship and I gave him my opinion that worship was praying to God. What is praying to God if it is not worship? What is praying to God with others, if not communal worship?
 
Mind you, a fair few of them believe that the Pope is the anti-Christ, and refer to the Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon (certainly not our Lutheran and Anglican brethren, I must add).
 
Thank you both for your level-headed comments. I just want to add that when we Lutherans speak of ‘anti-Christ,’ we do not mean what the dispensationalists mean. In fact, there is some debate in Lutheranism about whether we need to find a new term to describe the papacy, since the term ‘antichrist’ has been commandeered by the pop-culture of the last 150 years or so. It’s also important to note that Lutherans only consider the office of the papacy to be anti-Christ insofar as it obscures the Gospel by requiring submission to his authority for salvation; the good and Christian men who hold the office are themselves wonderful examples of Christian living for all of His church.
 
adawgj said:
Is it ok to attend other religious services? Like I will definitely go to Mass, but I might want to visit a synagogue or mosque, or temple.
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Of course it’s ok. I always think it’s good to broaden one’s understanding of other faith traditions by attending their services. I’ve been to several myself. Go for it.
 
steido01 said:
Thank you both for your level-headed comments. I just want to add that when we Lutherans speak of ‘anti-Christ,’ we do not mean what the dispensationalists mean. In fact, there is some debate in Lutheranism about whether we need to find a new term to describe the papacy, since the term ‘antichrist’ has been commandeered by the pop-culture of the last 150 years or so. It’s also important to note that Lutherans only consider the office of the papacy to be anti-Christ insofar as it obscures the Gospel by requiring submission to his authority for salvation; the good and Christian men who hold the office are themselves wonderful examples of Christian living for all of His church.
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Steido–I believe I understand the distinction you’re making in the latter part of your post. Earlier in your post, though, I want to point out that the Catholic objection to “anti-Christ” in regards to the papacy seems to be because of the Catholic understanding of the term (as seen in the online Catholic Encyclopedia entry for “Anti-Christ”), not the dispensationalist one. IOW, I think it can be shown that the Catholic objection comes from Catholic understanding of the word (which differs from Lutheran understanding of the term ), not dispensationalist influence on Catholics.
 
AbideWithMe said:
Steido–I believe I understand the distinction you’re making in the latter part of your post. Earlier in your post, though, I want to point out that the Catholic objection to “anti-Christ” in regards to the papacy seems to be because of the Catholic understanding of the term (as seen in the online Catholic Encyclopedia entry for “Anti-Christ”), not the dispensationalist one. IOW, I think it can be shown that the Catholic objection comes from Catholic understanding of the word (which differs from Lutheran understanding of the term ), not dispensationalist influence on Catholics.
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Oh, certainly! I did not intend to minimize the very real objection that Roman Catholicism raises to the Lutheran use of the term - only to point out to the casual reader that the popular buzzwords don’t fit on this topic. 🙂

Bringing this back to the OP, when one takes the actual definitions into account, they can understand why Lutherans generally do not have an issue praying with our fellow Christians from across the Tiber. 😃
 
steido01 said:
Oh, certainly! I did not intend to minimize the very real objection that Roman Catholicism raises to the Lutheran use of the term - only to point out to the casual reader that the popular buzzwords don’t fit on this topic. 🙂

Bringing this back to the OP, when one takes the actual definitions into account, they can understand why Lutherans generally do not have an issue praying with our fellow Christians from across the Tiber. 😃
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That makes sense, Steido.

I think from the end of your previous post I’m getting a better sense of the Lutheran use of “anti-Christ”; I trust that the Lutherans here are explaining the Lutheran distinction correctly, instead of just trying to put a spin on what seems (to be blunt on my part) from the outside to be an outdated bit of name-calling. Still, whether from Catholic or pop culture associations, I do think finding another term to explain the Lutheran stance would help to minimize confusion and offense, because I doubt most non-Lutherans will have the chance to receive a good explanation.
 
AbideWithMe said:
That makes sense, Steido.

I think from the end of your previous post I’m getting a better sense of the Lutheran use of “anti-Christ”; I trust that the Lutherans here are explaining the Lutheran distinction correctly, instead of just trying to put a spin on what seems (to be blunt on my part) from the outside to be an outdated bit of name-calling. Still, whether from Catholic or pop culture associations, I do think finding another term to explain the Lutheran stance would help to minimize confusion and offense, because I doubt most non-Lutherans will have the chance to receive a good explanation.
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Indeed. It’s a problem we have. The easiest way to know what a Lutheran believes is, as it has always been, to simply check the Lutheran Confessions. We have three reasons for holding our beliefs regarding the office of the papacy: bookofconcord.org/treatise.php

Even though we are not yet at a place where we can share our pulpits or altars, we still pray together. Pope Benedict XVI even greeted our little Synod specifically a few years ago when we all prayed together at an Ecumenical Meeting: blogs.lcms.org/2008/lcms-leaders-attend-ecumenical-meeting-with-pope
 
Marys_lamb said:
I agree with Fr. We have the One True Faith. Protestantism is a heresy. Outside of the reasons provided by Fr., going to other services is mocking Catholic worship
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by replacing it with false one. If we don’t worship the One True God,** we are worshipping demons**.I don’t know where you get that from ML because there is nothing in our Bible or in the catechism that even infers such a thing.

Also, that is not what Fr. Serpa is saying at all.

The real issues are exposure to errant Biblical interpretations, and possibly giving scandal by being seen as believing something that we do not.

To me, going to n-C services is like going to a well known restaurant and discovering that there is nothing on my plate, because without the Eucharist it would be empty for me. 🤷
Stilldreamn said:
It’s a pretty big leap between having less than the fullness of truth to worshipping demons.
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Exactly! ML went way beyond authentic Catholic teaching.
 
Look, it’s actually pretty simple. So far as Lutherans are concerned, the problem is one of communion. You are taught that the presence is symbolic, as do many n-Cs, but Catholics hold that miraculous transubstantiation takes place and even though Lutheran liturgy is very similar to ours…there is no Eucharist as we have it. So to give the impression that we accept what you believe by our actions would be very wrong for us.

Like I said though…there’s few reasons to attend any n-C service when you can find videos of them online and on TV. 🤷
 
Marys_lamb said:
I agree with Fr. We have the One True Faith. Protestantism is a heresy. Outside of the reasons provided by Fr., going to other services is mocking Catholic worship by replacing it with false one. If we don’t worship the One True God, we are worshipping demons.
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I think I may understand what you are trying to say. While I hope you can agree that protestants are not worshiping demons we do have to take into account how satan would like us to believe that all religions are equal and any old worship service will do in place of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
 
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