Possibly Leaving the Church. Help Would Be Much Appreciated

[Cadbery]

Hello friends. This has been a difficult time for me and I feel that this is a good time to seek assistance. I am facing a realization that I may have to leave the church soon.

I have been a semi-Catholic (though technically fully Catholic by baptism) all of my life, I say “semi” because my dad was sort of Catholic (we might go to church here and there) and my mom was sort of Presbyterian (as in God is probably a thing). RCIA was a joke (for my program at least), but I started to take Catholicism and Christianity as a whole much more seriously in college with the assistance of some very good friends. These friends, however, were both Catholic AND Protestant so once again I was learning two sides of the coin all at once (I still attended Catholic services the whole time). I developed what I would like to believe is a reverent faith in God, yet some blunt people on both sides were telling me that I was going to hell for one reason or another due the influences the other side was having on me. After a relationship that blew up because I felt guilty about not being “Catholic enough” to date a very spiritually endowed Catholic women, I decided to go full force into studying and learning the Catholic faith.

The crux of the problem is that it has been a year since then; a year filled with prayer, consultation, and study of doctrine (on top of the years I have already spent on the subject). Yet, I still find myself questioning/doubting doctrines such as the Immaculate conception, Papal infallibility, praying to saints, relics, and so on. I have persisted with the understanding that unlike a “cafeteria Catholic,” I was not rejecting any of these doctrines, but that I was just questioning them (reasonable enough). Yet it has been years of this back and forth and, low and behold, my doubts remain. These doubts are not of the “I don’t want to have to do that…” kind. I agree with all moral/social teachings of the Church. These doubts, rather, are in respect and in great fear for what is true. As I try to pray the rosary, I cannot keep away the whispering, and sometimes yelling voice, telling me that what I am engaging is wrong and even possibly hell-binding, as some I know would tell me. It’s very scary and depressing.

At the end of the day I could spend decades on some of the doctrines and not understand them. I realize that ultimately I need to declare/decide that the Catholic church has the historical/divine God-given AUTHORITY to teach whatever, for whatever reason so that I must believe it no matter how much it makes me cringe or how much I do not understand it. Either I believe this authority…or at the end of the day I will reject (whether directly or indirectly) the Church’s teachings and must leave the Church. After much contemplation, I do not see the basis for this extreme level of authority given to fallible men. I’ve read the books and have done what research I have. I will continue prayers, but I would appreciate help before making my inevitable decision. Either I will leave the Church or I will bow my head to the Church’s authority and be free from all this doubt. All I want is to the follow the truth…

 

[superblue]

no one said one has to be happy , while being Catholic, or be 100% in step in thinking with the Church of every day and all their life.

nothing wrong with being a " cafeteria catholic " either.

You can only do so much, an as long as you are trying, that is all that can really be expected. No one here can judge you or say one way or the other about how faitfhful or not , you are.

 

[LoyalViews]

We’re glad you’re here, because you are not alone.

First of all: by all means, for all reasons, and for the love of God, please avoid labelling yourself. Semi-, quasi-, what have you - cafeteria - etc… You’re searching, you’re trying, you’re learning and doing. You’re a Catholic. And you have all the means to keep searching and trying and doing, but I guarantee you one thing: you will find truths elsewhere. They will come like feathers in the wind. Some will hit you, but the others fly forth to their final destination. All Christian communities contain some truths that we share, but my friend, you will only find then fulness, the wholesomeness, the apostolic faith of the first Christians in the Catholic Church.

It is okay to doubt, to challenge, and to find hard acceptance with Church teaching. But know this: there is one God, and He alone created you. He alone has left us one deposit of faith, and He will lead you home to it. Keep praying. Keep asking God to show you, show you, lead you, for He is a kindly light and a loving father.

Worry less about what your friends are saying, and take their advice but at the end of the day, bring all you’ve heard and studied, read and learnt, bring all that to the altar in your heart where Christ will meet you at your need.

Spend some time before the Blessed Sacrament, praying in a church. Keep praying the Rosary, because I assure you that the Blessed Mother is eager to drape her mantle around you, because you are her child too!

Accept that God is the greatest mystery, and that His Church is part of it. There is freedom in being a Catholic, the freedom to do what you ought to do, and know it is right.

 

[ChurchSoldier]

Good for you for continuing to question and learn. By your comments I would suggest that maybe you need to do some more in-depth Research into the topics you mentioned. The answers are in scripture if you take the time to read about them. There is nothing you can find outside the Catholic faith that you can’t also find in side if you have a desire to and look for it. Good luck on your continued Journey.

 

[Trishie]

Hi Cadbery,
it might be helpful to make separate threads for some of your doubts and questions.
Kind wishes, and God bless you

 

[misstherese]

It can be hard to grasp or have faith in doctrines that seem strange or confusing. What, may I ask, concerns or confuses you about the Immaculate Conception?

Remember that the Catholic Church was the first Church after the death of Jesus, all other Churches are breakaway Christian churches from the Catholic Church. They relied on the authority of man when they broke away, yet criticize the authority of man in the Catholic Church! We must have some sort of authority in the Church otherwise we could not and would not be united in faith and understanding. The sheep must have a shepherd. The pope has only been infallible twice this century, reaffirming already pretty much known Catholic doctrine.

Praying to the saints is like asking a friend on earth to pray to them. Prayer is just communication. There are certain Latin words (that I can’t recall at the time) for the three different kinds of honor we give to those in Heaven. God is given the highest; he is worshiped. Mary is second, she is simply given a good amount of honor and respect. The saints are on the third tier; they are given less honor than Mary.

Think of blessed items, that are blessed by a priest. Technically it isn’t the priest blessing them, it is Christ through the priest. So it is God blessing them. Many saints could actually tell the difference between blessed and non-blessed items. Some early martyrs lived such holy lives that people would keep their items with them, kind of like mementos. Nothing else. They aren’t magical objects, just a remembrance of the lives of such holy people. You can read more here:
http://legatus.org/what-are-relics-and-why-are-they-important/

Please do as much research as you can before you make your decision. Maybe visit a Latin mass, too.

God bless you and I’ll keep you in my prayers

 

[petra22]

That’s the best thing you can want–the truth! I wandered away too and was ready to try anything that my DH would land on. He was raised Presbyterian and not very strong in his faith. But he didn’t want to do anything so one Christmas he gave me a present… we would read the bible together… (He did it to poke holes in the Catholic Church and show me where it was wrong… It worked out backwards. I had such a feeling that Jesus was real, that it was all real and Jesus was coming back. In a sincere prayer I told Jesus I wasn’t ready for him to come back just yet, could he please wait for me… DH is still a non believer but it has been wonderful coming back. (We did get our marriage blessed by the Catholic Church!) So many times God has touched my life and DH’s too but he’s too stubborn to admit it… I can see him softening in these days but it’s been a long journey for him.
Another thing I discovered in those early days…after reading the NT, why would I go anywhere else since the Catholic church has it all???

 

[JamalChristophr]

Why don’t you go do a holy hour in front of the tabernacle or at a Eucharistic adoration chapel? You might find it very enlightening.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I agree with both the advice to not label yourself and the advice to make separate threads to discuss each area where you are having trouble. The impression I am getting from you is that you very much want to be Catholic but have some doubts about certain things. So did Mother Theresa, so you’re in good company.

Please try to ignore anyone who is pulling the “you’re going to hell” card to try to force your belief. This is really not helpful. It’s a power play. I also find it doubtful that anyone who cared enough about his relationship with God to have angst over a struggle with doubt would ultimately end up rejecting God enough to be hell bound.

As you can see just on this board alone, many people struggle with one or more aspects of Catholic teaching or with something that a Pope, current or former, said or did. We stay in the Church because we believe that even with our doubts and with the Church’s possible flaws, it is still the original Church that goes back to the original Jesus Christ. It is not some breakaway sect founded hundreds or thousands of years later at the behest of some man who decided he knew better than the Church or was out to get power for himself.

I will pray for you. God bless.

 

[ontheway1]

You and I and probably a vast number of Catholics of all stripes face the same challenge. How to explain every aspect of our religion which sprang from a single source, but developed and grew over the centuries.

Understanding all of it at once, is a little like understanding the tax code. All of it. Not possible.

Instead of getting bogged down with so many intricate details, and many of those are thrown at us by the “our protestant brothers”, perhaps we need to concentrate on the prize. Who is Jesus, do you believe that he is your Savior, do you believe that He established our church? This is what’s important.

We can argue with the protestants over the question of infallibility of the pope for all eternity and not agree. What you need to ask is what is their faith base on. if they say “the bible”, then you know it is not true. Much of what they profess contradicts the bible. They just ignore those parts.

Getting back to you and me. I too read way more about Catholicism than I practice or preach. And it gets me nowhere. Mainly because something we believe is accepted by faith.

Just like all the astrophysics we read about in popular science. You and I can’t see it, prove it or understand it. We just accept it on the authority of the scientists. (who, by the way, change their minds about almost everything every few years) So if we can believe those scientist, who are wrong so often, why is it so difficult for us to accept the truth contained in deposit of faith in the church?

 

[ontheway1]

Ooops. I just sent my previous reply to “the Bear”. Sorry. The answer should have been sent to the original post.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

That’s okay. I knew who you meant

 

[jcrichton]

Hi!

You seem to be ahead of many (both Catholics and non-Catholics) as you realize that there is an Authority and a Body of Christ.

So let’s start with the basic compounding issue: Truth. What does Scriptures tell us?:

14:6 Jesus said: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me. (St. John)

So Jesus is the Truth, right?

What else does Scriptures tell us about the Truth?:

3:15 but in case I should be delayed, I wanted you to know how people ought to behave in God’s family – that is, in the Church of the living God, which upholds the truth and keeps it safe. 3:16 Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is very deep indeed: He was made visible in the flesh, attested by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed to the pagans, believed in by the world, taken up in glory. (1 Timothy)

So Jesus, the Truth, is found in His Church.

Did you noticed the Unity in St. John 14:6? Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and Life–Jesus is the Only Way, the Only Truth, the Only Life… and Only Through Him can we have Access to the Father… then we are given another Unity: Jesus, the Truth, is Found in His Church.

This theme of Unity is also a theme of Singularity:

4:3 Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together. 4:4 There is one Body, one Spirit, just as you were all called into one and the same hope when you were called. 4:5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 4:6 and one God who is Father of all, over all, through all and within all. (Ephesians)

The Unity, which is also a Singularity is Found in God (Triune God) and Jesus’ Followers who must preserve the Unity of the Spirit, in the One Body, who are Called in One Hope, by the One Lord, to the One Faith, in the One Baptism, Decreed by the One God and Father:

4:12 so that the saints together make a unity in the work of service, building up the body of Christ. 4:13 In this way we are all to come to unity in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God, until we become the perfect Man, fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself. 4:14 Then we shall not be children any longer, or tossed one way and another and carried along by every wind of doctrine, at the mercy of all the tricks men play and their cleverness in practising deceit. 4:15 If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ, who is the head 4:16 by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to its function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love. (Ephesians)

And why the Apostolic urgency to the Unity of the Body?:

17:20 I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me. 17:21 May they all be one. Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me. (St. John)

After you assimilate the info I’ve presented, let’s tackle your concerns about the Church, one topic at the time.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[2towers]

OP, with all due respect and with no sarcasm or ill intent, I think you have been looking in the wrong places. Instead of researching so much on apologetics, why not read material from the Saints? They have so much wisdom to offer, and for lack of a better metaphor, they were at the top of their “class” so to speak.

Armed with all that, prayer and yes a bit of faith and TRUST in our Lord, you only have to look within for the truth.
Choose Love.
Best wishes.

 

[joeybaggz]

Suggest you go to Mass on a Sunday and listen very attentively to the Creed. That common statement of faith that all say after the homily and before the Offertory Rite. It was once explained to me that that is what we must believe. It is a simple statement of belief. One thing to notice about it for instance is the complete statement of Catholic belief concerning the Virgin Mary. The only reference is “born of the Virgin Mary and became man.” Yes, there are other things we believe, but in a sense they are secondary. They are devotions, aspects of the Mother of God that we believe. No one, protestant or Catholic is going to be denied heaven because he/she had trouble believing the Immaculate Conception. It is a wonderful belief, but not necessary for salvation. Listen with your heart to the creed. If you have no problem accepting it, welcome home.

 

[hymin]

St. Bonaventure taught the Church a “four-fold way” in seeking “divine truth”, vis. “meditation in leisure, reading in eagerness, learning in meekness and judgment in certitude” (Com on Lk)

Be open in your meditation for an event with the fruit of “a new horizon and a decisive direction”. (Cf. Deus Caritas Est, 1)

And when you read spiritual books listen in silence, Pope Francis says this prevents hardening of the heart.

Let’s walk together in the mystical body of Christ with this plan!

 

[shelton]

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[d] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

Many Disciples Desert Jesus

Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[e] and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

 

[De_Maria]

Hello friends.

Hi, and welcome. I don’t want to step on anything anyone else said, well, except that you should not be a “cafeteria” Catholic. No.

But, what I want to say, is that your doubts and voices are from the Enemy.

As I try to pray the rosary, I cannot keep away the whispering, and sometimes yelling voice, telling me that what I am engaging is wrong and even possibly hell-binding, as some I know would tell me. It’s very scary and depressing.

He doesn’t want you to keep praying the Rosary. He doesn’t want you to become Catholic. He doesn’t want you to be saved.

Your response should be to double down and pray even more. And study Catholic Doctrine even more. And, in that regard, I’ll post the link to a quick read. It is very short and very well laid out.

Confession of a Roman Catholic

I hope you like it. I hope it helps.

 

[yankeesouth]

Do you believe in the Real Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist? The gift He gave us to recieve His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity by itself should quell all anxiety.

After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. John 6:66

Jesus did not run after them telling them it was all a mistake. Yes you will have to make a choice. The teachings of Jesus are not going to change. It is you that will have to be transformed.

 

[shelton]

You might find this interesting - especially about the Sacraments!