Practising non-believer, sacraments?

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glasgowgirl

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Hello I’m new to the forum! And I just accidentally posted this in the meet and greet forum by mistake.

I have a question about your opinion of what I should do and about the sacraments.

I’m 23 years old, from Scotland. I am joining the forum because I’ve some figuring out to do about my religion.

I’ve been raised Catholic and the church is very important to me. I go to mass every Sunday and I certainly believe in God. But, much of the rules of the Catholic church I simply don’t believe in. I am liberal. I support gay marriage, contraception. I don’t think it’s wrong to miss mass and still take communion, or to go to another church. I have thought about these things very deeply and prayed for help. My perspective hasn’t changed.

I tried going to other churches which are more liberal. They were very welcoming of me but I am certain it is not right. I am Catholic, and the Catholic church is the only place I want to go to mass.

This bothers me because I don’t want to be dishonest or a hypocrite. Lots of my friends from Catholic school no longer believe in stuff but still go with their family and take communion without a second thought. I feel uncomfortable about taking communion because of what other people might thing. But I still feel that from God’s perspective it is the right thing.

What should I do? Do you know other people like me? Do you despise me? Do you support me? Do you think I am not a Catholic?
 
Well, as long as you are not in mortal sin there is no impediment to communion. I suggest you talk to a priest and ask him what he thinks about your dilemma.

The rules are there for a reason. I suggest you do some serious reding about it in order to understand why the rules are there. The church does not make stuff up as it goes along and it does not follow current ideological trends. That is a good thing although it takes a while to adjust to that worldview.The whole praying about it and feeling whether something is right is a protestant thing and a very convenient way to invent one’s own form of Christianity. By the way, there is no ‘liberal’ Catholicism. There is orthodox and heterodox. I genuinely hope that you will grow and mature in your faith and opt for orthodoxy. God bless.
 
I would not be so sure about what other people are doing “without a second thought.” I’m guessing that relatively few have told you that, and even they may be holding cards close to their vest that they aren’t willing to open up to you. Bluster is a common cover for uncertainty. Let go of what you assume is in the hearts of others. Even if you could know them fully, none would be an excuse for or an indictment against what is in yours. Let them be, then. If you can accept no other teaching of the Church, accept that only judging actions belongs to our duty, and not even that as often as people pretend. Judging hearts belongs to God.

In my experience, when one disagrees with the Church, I have found that prayer is only a start. Prayer alone does not teach. It is important to learn more about why the Church teaches what it does. A humble attitude that does not put too much stock in one’s own limited understanding is an irreplaceable asset, as well. After all, you don’t imagine that God put you here an orphan, needing to re-invent moral law for yourself? Be careful not to act as if he did.

It is not hypocritical to be a Catholic who can’t pretend to understand everything the Church teaches. I think if you work your way through all the teachings of the Church, from social justice through marriage and family life and medical ethics and so on, you’ll find that you are not the only one whose personal opinions do not all naturally run in the same direction as Christ’s.

Is it not arrogant, though, to simply assume that if you can’t understand it, it must be wrong, because your current view of things must be right? Be sensible, and do not trust your own judgment where you are new to the subject. People do it all of the time, not just in religion, but in politics and childrearing and nearly everything else. They barge into a course of study and demand why things are the way they are, and they rashly think their elders would be wise to listen to them. As long as the elders have hung on to virtue, that is almost never the wisest course. Learn, then, not from your own limited vision, but from those who have fought the good fight throughout the ages. The battles have taught them something, and not things that one wants to learn the hard way. In the realm of faith and morals, there is no surer source than the Catholic Church.

Be willing to be taught, to let go of your own sense of things and the current fashion of thinking in favor of the teachings of the Apostles. Also, be careful not to confuse the opinions of more conservative or more liberal rank-and-file Catholics with what the Church teaches. These are not always the same thing! Get your teaching from the Magesterium, not from the best-selling Catholic authors. Again: Not the same thing.

Most of all, do not despair if the teachings of the Church cause you to struggle in your mind. That is OK, and in no way hypocritical. It is good to want to understand the “why” behind moral law. In the meantime, you do not have to become a legal scholar before you know enough act like a good citizen! Be willing to do right, even when your understanding lags, and to do what the Church teaches, even before you fully understand the teaching, but go ahead and ask questions. That is totally OK.
 
glasgowgirl said:
What should I do?
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Learn about your faith my dear one. None of what you mentioned are rules. They are doctrine - teachings from God passed on through His Church. To be Catholic is to follow the doctrines that God gave us.

All of us have at one time or another “disagreed” with a Church teaching but you know what? The reasons we did not agree were that either (a) we did not fully understand the teaching or (b) we did not want to give up something we liked to conform with God’s way. The deeper you learn why the Church teaches what She does and the more you mature the clearer the decisions should become.
glasgowgirl said:
Do you know other people like me?
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Yes. Myself. My siblings. My friends. Probably nearly everyone on these forums at one time or another in their faith journey.
glasgowgirl said:
Do you despise me?
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I don’t know you well enough to despise you but I probably would not since I’m Catholic.
glasgowgirl said:
Do you support me?
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It depends. I can’t support you as you present yourself in your post, however I can support you researching the Chruch’s teaching and trying to understand them so as to align yourself to the will of God.
glasgowgirl said:
Do you think I am not a Catholic?
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Nope. I think that you are a young Catholic who, like so many other young Catholics, are confused and questioning their faith, trying to discern where God is in their lives.
 
I have often seen a piece of very good advice in the Ask An Apologist forum here, and that is to change your perspective. Most of the time, when a Catholic disagrees with doctrine (or doesn’t understand it), they are starting with themselves.

You can check to see if you’re doing this by stating your objections. Any sentence that starts with or includes “I” (Contraception is not wrong, because I think…; or I think it’s okay to miss Mass because…), indicates that you are starting with yourself.

You’ll notice that while it’s possible to state them without an “I” it is difficult, and if you look carefully at such constructions, they often assume a fact where none exists. For example: “It’s okay to miss Mass because the Bible doesn’t say you have to go to Mass every Sunday.” This assumes the “fact” that the Bible is the complete guide to Christianity, when there are several places that Scripture states it is not complete.

If you start with God, rather than yourself, the doctrine often falls right into place. For example: “God is the author of life; only He has the right to create or destroy human life.” This is a fact about God, and explains the Church’s doctrine against IVF. If you accept as true that only God has the right to create human life, then it logically follows that we do not have the right, except in cooperation with Him. IVF leaves no room for cooperation with God. The life is created, regardless of whether or not the fetus implants.

As others have said, research will help too. If you want to believe in the Church, then let God know that when you pray, and do the research with an open mind. God will give you the gift of faith.
 
Since you asked,

If you are not in the state of grace – and only you and God know – you should not receive Communion.

You should learn what the Church teaches and why she teaches it. The Church speaks for Christ. “He who hears you hears me” Luke 10:16.

God be with you.
 
glasgowgirl said:
. . . I’ve been raised Catholic and the church is very important to me. I go to mass every Sunday and I certainly believe in God. But, much of the rules of the Catholic church I simply don’t believe in. I am liberal. I support gay marriage, contraception. I don’t think it’s wrong to miss mass and still take communion, or to go to another church. I have thought about these things very deeply and prayed for help. My perspective hasn’t changed
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If you understood why the Church teaches what it does on any particular subject, would that help?

Quite a lot of what the Church teaches is rational and can be supported with a reasoned argument. Why, for instance, do you support “gay marriage?” There is a rational, reasoned argument for defining marriage as the Church does. Would hearing it help you?
 
Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply to me. I really appreciate it.

Also I must be quick to say that I didn’t mean to sound dismissive of my friends. They have told me that they don’t agree with some church doctrine but I know I can’t say for definite that’s what they really mean.

To say a bit more, I have spent quite a lot of time reading about these issues… and also I know that the church needs obedience… and personally I am happy to follow the doctrine (I am not gay, I don’t miss mass, etc). But I just can’t believe that for example a gay couple shouldn’t be allowed to get married, or that a gay person is definitely sinning or going to hill. I don’t think this is what God wants, painful as it is that the church says otherwise… I hope that the church changes its position.

I will follow your advices and read more into the church doctrines and talk to my parish priest… but my worry is, what if I still cannot accept this with good conscience. What is better… I don’t mean to be arrogant. I know that my understanding is limited… but it seems hypocritical to go against my conscience.

What should I do? Do you think then I should stop just pretend I don’t have these disagreements? or stop taking communion until maybe one day my opinion changes? Or would it be better for the church if I leave altogether?
 
I would encourage you to spend some time reading and praying with the Bible, especially the New Testament. Just think of how much time we spend exposed to secular influence…TV, rasdio, music, fashion, movies, langaue, etc. To really discern the hard questions you raise, we must immerse ourselves in Scripture and prayer sufficient to let the Holy Spirit guide is in the world.
 
Please don’t leave the Church!

Since you mentioned gay marriage and the teaching on homosexuality again, I want to go through it from God’s perspective. Please forgive me if this is not what you need.

God created a man and a woman. He didn’t create a man and a man or a woman and a woman. These are facts we know from the Bible. So, there must be a reason for man and woman to be together, and not man and man or woman and woman. Not only did He create man and woman, but He created woman for andfrom man. That is not anti-feminist, it’s just the Truth.

We don’t necessarily have to know the reason man and woman are meant for each other, as opposed to man and man or woman and woman, but we can infer that there is a reason (otherwise, there probably would have been an Adam and Eve, a John and John, and a Jane and Jane). Because that reason would be God’s reason, we should take it on faith that it’s a good reason. If we don’t, then we are actually questioning what and who God is - and that is a path that is very dangerous.

Also, the Church does not dismiss homosexuality as made up or “automatically” condemn homosexuals to hell (actually, the Church does not condemn anyone to hell). There are groups that support those with same-sex attraction, and help them to live holy, chaste lives. The fact is, having same-sex attraction is not a sin. Acting on it is. I don’t have any references, but I remember reading a blog post where a man who struggles with SSA and chose to live chastely actually found more acceptance in the Church than in either Protestant ecclesial communities or in the “Gay” culture.

As I started this post, please don’t leave the Church. Having been born into a Catholic family (even a lukewarm Catholic family/community) is a wonderful gift. Don’t throw it away! I seriously encourage you to talk to an orthodox priest and pray consistently to ask for understanding and faith (rather than asking God how you should feel about a particular issue). Feelings are changeable, faith is not.
 
glasgowgirl said:
Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply to me. I really appreciate it.

Also I must be quick to say that I didn’t mean to sound dismissive of my friends. They have told me that they don’t agree with some church doctrine but I know I can’t say for definite that’s what they really mean.

To say a bit more, I have spent quite a lot of time reading about these issues… and also I know that the church needs obedience… and personally I am happy to follow the doctrine (I am not gay, I don’t miss mass, etc). But I just can’t believe that for example a gay couple shouldn’t be allowed to get married, or that a gay person is definitely sinning or going to hill. I don’t think this is what God wants, painful as it is that the church says otherwise… I hope that the church changes its position.

I will follow your advices and read more into the church doctrines and talk to my parish priest… but my worry is, what if I still cannot accept this with good conscience. What is better… I don’t mean to be arrogant. I know that my understanding is limited… but it seems hypocritical to go against my conscience.

What should I do? Do you think then I should stop just pretend I don’t have these disagreements? or stop taking communion until maybe one day my opinion changes? Or would it be better for the church if I leave altogether?
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The Church isn’t going to change her positions, but you will be relieved to hear that the Church does not teach that gays are all sinning or all going to hell. The Church teaches that homosexual activity is objectively a grave sin and is a mortal sin when the act is commited without repentance and with full free consent and awareness of the gravity of the sin. That isn’t a blanket condemnation of homosexuals. It is a warning about the nature of homosexual acts.

The truth is, if it turns out that the gays who succeeded in remaining chaste did so by more heroic obedience to the grace of God, they may be honored more greatly than saints whose lives were lived with lesser crosses and lesser reliance on grace. The gays whose failure to follow moral law entirely unmitigated by compelling biological factors may be a huge minority. We don’t know that. We don’t need to know that. All we need to know is a) the difference between right and wrong and b) that God will be the Judge at the Last Judgement, not any of us.

For argument’s sake: even if 95%, or 99%, or 99.9% of all people of every orientation were to turn out to be carrying the cross of a sexual impulse beyond their biological strength to resist entirely, the Church would still have an obligation to teach what is right and what is wrong, just as it has an obligation that drunkenness is a sin, knowing that sometimes addiction mitigates the culpability of the sinner. If the Church could only teach that moral law that people could be expected to always observe without falling, after all, what could she teach?

The soul that can do better must be taught to desire it, or the Church will have failed that soul and failed God.
 
glasgowgirl said:
To say a bit more, I have spent quite a lot of time reading about these issues… and also I know that the church needs obedience… and personally I am happy to follow the doctrine (I am not gay, I don’t miss mass, etc). But I just can’t believe that for example a gay couple shouldn’t be allowed to get married, or that a gay person is definitely sinning or going to hill. I don’t think this is what God wants, painful as it is that the church says otherwise… I hope that the church changes its position.
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I deeply sympathize. In choosing the Church, I had to accept the fact that I would never be confirmed and that I would never take communion. I understand your pain.

But for me, there was no choice. I spent many years wandering around the religious landscape, looking for the Truth. That I found it too late to ever enter into full communion is painful, but at the end of the day, that was preferable to choosing a religion because it catered to my desires, fears, ignorance, or worst of all, my sins. Having investigated everything from Buddhism to Islam, I found that, quite simply, the Church has the words of Truth.

Others have addressed the nuanced difference between believing oneself homosexual, vs. knowingly choosing to perform homosexual acts. I will not add to that, but I will point out that marriage is not an arbitrary definition, one that can be changed at whim to include any kind of relationship is currently in vogue.

One of the strengths and proofs of the Church is that its teachings are rational and supportable by reasoned argument. Marriage is a sacrament through which a man and a woman, two halves of a whole, are forever joined together to become one flesh. Homosexuals can’t be married (in brief) for three simple reasons:
  1. The psychological makeup of men and women are complementary. While two men, or two women can form a deep and lasting bond, a bond of true and lasting friendship, that bond is not the same as the bonding of two complementary parts into a single whole. homosexuals can experience the love of one friend for another, but never true marital love. I have a good friend that I love, deeply. But the love I feel for this friend is different from the love I feel for my wife.
  2. The physical makeup of men and women is also complementary. They fit together beautifully and correctly, as God designed and intended. While two men or two women can sexually interact, this interaction is a mockery, a kind of shallow shadow of the true, real and proper physical complementarity of man and woman.
  3. In children, the truth of the sacrament of marriage takes physical form. A child of a marriage is quite literally the joining of man and woman into one flesh; the flesh of that child. Neither two women, nor two men can create a child, and again, in a homosexual union, the kinds of families that are created are incomplete, a shadow of God’s plan for family.
Please understand that the Church’s resistance to homosexual marriage is like me trying to stop a crazy person, who believes that they can fly, from jumping off a building. They can’t, and letting them try will only hurt them, but it won’t be me that hurts them, it will be Natural Law.

The truth of the Church’s teaching on marriage is firmly grounded in “Natural Law”, and I would suggest that for such concrete teachings, that it may be helpful to learn a little about and perhaps even study Natural Law.

This may not have helped. If not, I apologize. One thing that may help is to remember that Catholicism is a religion of both faith and reason, in equal measure. Before giving up on Catholicism, or rejecting a teaching of the Church, may I recommend learning the reasoning behind a given teaching?

The one generic hint I can give you is that the Truth is holistic. Attempts at reductionist analysis will not give you a true understanding of God’s teachings, nor of his plan for your life. At the end of the day, the arguments in support of homosexual marriage are reductionist, they reduce the union of marriage to little more than a kind of domestic contract and do so by stripping away the truth of Natural Law.
 
The Church teaches faith and morals according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Some may sound like “hard sayings”, but it is for the good of our attaining salvation. With God all things are possible, and He is there for us in all difficulties, if we seek Him.
 
Normally I’m just a lurker here (CAF is what I do when I sit down to eat lol). I feel the need to chime in on this conversation, however. My thoughts on this subject are this:

When we stand during mass and profess our faith we are professing what we believe, what the Church believes, and what she teaches.

We believe in one God…we believe in Jesus Christ…we believe in the Holy Spirit…we believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Nowhere in the profession of faith does it say “we believe abortion is wrong, we believe gay marriage is a sin.” Does the Church teach these things? Of course. But we don’t profess a belief in them during our profession of faith. That means, to me at least, that I can, in good conscience, continue to receive the Eucharist even if I don’t necessarily agree with everything.

That being said, I believe that there is a huge difference between believing what the church teaches about certain issues and being obedient. I am sure that there are MANY Catholics on this forum and elsewhere that ride the fence on certain issues. I’m one of them. Do I believe that contraception is bad? It depends. On one hand I certainly see a use for contraception. I am a father of six daughters. Do I want more kids? Absolutely not! BUT (big but), I am obedient to the Church on the issue. I am Catholic. I MUST be obedient. I may not wholeheartedly agree with the teaching, but I am obedient to it. That’s what matters, IMHO. (And before you guys try to ‘school’ me on why the Church teaches against contraception, I get it. I understand it, and for the most part I agree with it.)
 
DennisBerry said:
When we stand during mass and profess our faith we are professing what we believe, what the Church believes, and what she teaches.

We believe in one God…we believe in Jesus Christ…we believe in the Holy Spirit…we believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Nowhere in the profession of faith does it say “we believe abortion is wrong, we believe gay marriage is a sin.” Does the Church teach these things? Of course. But we don’t profess a belief in them during our profession of faith. That means, to me at least, that I can, in good conscience, continue to receive the Eucharist even if I don’t necessarily agree with everything.
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im sorry, but this is so wrong

frankly, it doesnt matter what you think

do you think you know better than the church, the church that JESUS CHRIST founded and still guides today? if you do, why are you catholic?
 
DennisBerry said:
We believe in one God…we believe in Jesus Christ…we believe in the Holy Spirit…we believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Nowhere in the profession of faith does it say “we believe abortion is wrong, we believe gay marriage is a sin.” Does the Church teach these things? Of course. But we don’t profess a belief in them during our profession of faith.
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With love, and the greatest of respect, we actually are saying that we believe that abortion is a grave mortal sin when we recite the creed. That is what “we believe in one Holy, catholic and Apostolic church” means . . . that we believe in the doctrines and dogma of the Church, which of course include the teaching that abortion, absent an immediate and direct threat to maternal survival, is murder.

To come to the point from a different perspective, most Lutheran churches do not recite the Profession of Christian Faith, precisely because they don’t believe in the dogma and doctrines of the Church and thus cannot, in good conscience, recite said creed.
 
FatHead said:
im sorry, but this is so wrong

frankly, it doesnt matter what you think

do you think you know better than the church, the church that JESUS CHRIST founded and still guides today? if you do, why are you catholic?
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Did I say that I think I know better than the Church? No. In fact if you read what I said you would see that I obey Church teaching. Period. It does NOT mean that I have to agree with it. In fact, my parish priest himself tells us that it is not necessary to agree with everything 100%. What is necessary, however, is to be obedient to the laws and teachings of the church. Do you agree with absolutely everything? I doubt it. And you’re right. It doesn’t matter what I think, just as it matters not one iota what you think, either. I am Catholic because I believe the Catholic Church is the one true church. I am Catholic because I love the Catholic church. That does not mean that I have to blindly agree with everything.

I am also American. I love America. It does not mean that I have to agree with everything the American government says. I am still a member of my personal family, although I don’t necessary agree with everything said and done within my family.
 
Perhaps I should rephrase my statement. When I said that I don’t agree, I did not mean to say that I think the Church’s teaching is wrong on the matter. I most certainly do not. What I meant was that on some things I have a personal issue with because of circumstances. Like I said, I have six children. I definitely do not want or need anymore children. Birth control would seem like a logical choice. However, I do understand the Church’s teaching on the matter and follow it. I do not use birth control because the Church says it’s wrong. I know that the Church has the fullness of truth, so I obey the teaching. Does that make better sense now?

BTW, I do understand that my “personal issue” with something means exactly nothing 🙂
 
DennisBerry said:
Perhaps I should rephrase my statement. When I said that I don’t agree, I did not mean to say that I think the Church’s teaching is wrong on the matter. I most certainly do not. What I meant was that on some things I have a personal issue with because of circumstances. Like I said, I have six children. I definitely do not want or need anymore children. Birth control would seem like a logical choice. However, I do understand the Church’s teaching on the matter and follow it. I do not use birth control because the Church says it’s wrong. I know that the Church has the fullness of truth, so I obey the teaching. Does that make better sense now?

BTW, I do understand that my “personal issue” with something means exactly nothing 🙂
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I understood what you were saying the first time. Thank you for clarifying it for others. Yes, a lot of us struggle with some moral teachings, but we abide by them because we know the Church teaches the wisdom of God for our own good.

God bless!
 
The Church condemns homosexual activity, not the homosexual. God’s will in the matter of human sexuality is clear from the way humans are created. With a man and a woman, the parts fit. With a man and a man or a woman and a woman, the parts don’t fit. Therefore, the “union” – the marriage – can’t ever take place, no matter how many “marriage ceremonies” the homosexual parties may go through.
 
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