Returning to the Catholic Church after becoming a pagan

[PhilJ]

Hi all, I was raised Roman Catholic, baptised, confirmed and remained in the Church until three years ago. Three years ago I left the church and became a pagan specifically a Druid. During this time I honoured various Gods and Goddesses in prayer and ritual. Recently I have seen the error of my ways and have started reading the Bible and attending mass again although I am not receiving the Eucharist at this time. I have moved house a couple of years ago and am living in a new Parish. I filled out a contact card after mass yesterday and have requested a conversation with the Priest where I want to talk this over with him and find out what I need to do to become in communion with the Church again. Can anyone please advice what this path will likely take? Have I been automatically excommunicated for Apostasy and if so how does one go about re-joining the Church?

Thanks in advance.

 

[mrsdizzyd]

Welcome Home! Be at peace.

You’ll simply talk to Father and he will instruct you. Expect that you will have to make a thorough examination of conscience and confess any sins you have committed.

 

[dconklin]

Welcome home - though it sounds like you never totally left. Your heart/soul/mind is leading you to do the right things.

 

[GiftofMercy]

Go to confession and confess workshipping pagan gods

 

[1ke]

Can anyone please advice what this path will likely take?

You will go to confession with the priest. If anything else is needed he will instruct you.

Have I been automatically excommunicated for Apostasy and if so how does one go about re-joining the Church?

Probably not, this depends greatly on what your knowledge of the situation was at the time you left.

Also, you don’t “re join” the Church, you are always a Catholic. You would need to go to confession, and anything else would be directed by the priest.

 

[PhilJ]

Thank you everyone for your advice. I will speak with Father and see what he says, if I don’t hear from him I’ll make an appointment via the office.

 

[FossilResin]

Hi all, I was raised Roman Catholic, baptised, confirmed and remained in the Church until three years ago. Three years ago I left the church and became a pagan specifically a Druid. During this time I honoured various Gods and Goddesses in prayer and ritual. Recently I have seen the error of my ways and have started reading the Bible and attending mass again although I am not receiving the Eucharist at this time. I have moved house a couple of years ago and am living in a new Parish. I filled out a contact card after mass yesterday and have requested a conversation with the Priest where I want to talk this over with him and find out what I need to do to become in communion with the Church again. Can anyone please advice what this path will likely take? Have I been automatically excommunicated for Apostasy and if so how does one go about re-joining the Church?

Thanks in advance.

We’re so glad you are back! God is even more glad! You are irreplaceably valuable in his eyes. A solid confession will do it, most likely. It is also recommended that you verbally disavow all pagan idolatries still attaching themselves to your sentiments. This helps to sever the bond with demons.

What inspired you to come home?

 

[PhilJ]

What inspired you to come home?

One of my friends joined an Evangelical church and he asked me to attend his Baptism. I went along to support him but I found that the Bible Reading from Timothy 2 really spoke to me. I got home and started reading more of St Paul’s letters and read a bit about not putting your faith in myth and legends but put your faith in the Lord instead. I had been putting my faith in myths and legends by following Druidry as it is heavily based on the Celtic Irish and Welsh myths. So I was really struck by that passage.

Finally I witnessed what I can only describe as a miracle. My Wife was off work for around 7 months last year due to leg ulcers. And she scraped her leg again last month. I was dressing the wound hoping it would heal, but a couple of weeks ago, I removed the old dressing and the smell knocked me sick, the wound had festered. I cleaned and dressed it and advised her to get a doctors appointment ASAP. She went to work but I was worried sick. I prayed to the Lord for the first time in years and I said Lord l have no right to ask anything of you. But I do not ask this for my own account but for my wife. The wound on her leg has festered, she can’t take another prolonged period of suffering. Please Lord if it pleases you, help her leg to heal, but let your will be done.

She got back from work and I inspected the wound and to my amazement it was about 1/3 of the size it had been that morning and the rancid smell had gone. It had virtually healed when I came to dress it the next morning and now it has completely scabbed over. If you had have seen how bad it was you would have taken months and months of treatment. I praised God for what he had done for her and I have been back in Church since.

 

[FossilResin]

What an amazing gift from the Holy and Living God! The true and beautiful God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who is Jesus Christ. Praise be to him. May you and your wife be profoundly blessed and thrive in faith evermore! ray:t2:

 

[steve-b]

Hi all, I was raised Roman Catholic, baptised, confirmed and remained in the Church until three years ago. Three years ago I left the church and became a pagan specifically a Druid. During this time I honoured various Gods and Goddesses in prayer and ritual. Recently I have seen the error of my ways and have started reading the Bible and attending mass again although I am not receiving the Eucharist at this time. I have moved house a couple of years ago and am living in a new Parish. I filled out a contact card after mass yesterday and have requested a conversation with the Priest where I want to talk this over with him and find out what I need to do to become in communion with the Church again. Can anyone please advice what this path will likely take? Have I been automatically excommunicated for Apostasy and if so how does one go about re-joining the Church?

Thanks in advance.

praise God you’re coming back. Prayers ascending for you and your family

If you will allow me to ask,

what happened to turn you away from your faith in the first place?

 

[PhilJ]

praise God you’re coming back. Prayers ascending for you and your family

If you will allow me to ask,

what happened to turn you away from your faith in the first place?

Thank you. It was my own arrogance and unwillingness to accept God’s plan for me. My wife is unable to have children, but I new from the gospel of Luke that Mary’s relative Elizabeth couldn’t have children and was passed her time anyway, but she still conceived John the Baptist because God sows life where no life is possible. So I prayed every week for my wife to conceive and I prayed for years and it didn’t happen so I lost faith and left rather than accept that it wasn’t God’s plan for us.

 

[steve-b]

steve-b:

praise God you’re coming back. Prayers ascending for you and your family

If you will allow me to ask,

what happened to turn you away from your faith in the first place?

Thank you. It was my own arrogance and unwillingness to accept God’s plan for me. My wife is unable to have children, but I new from the gospel of Luke that Mary’s relative Elizabeth couldn’t have children and was passed her time anyway, but she still conceived John the Baptist because God sows life where no life is possible. So I prayed every week for my wife to conceive and I prayed for years and it didn’t happen so I lost faith and left rather than accept that it wasn’t God’s plan for us.

I hear you.

Unanswered prayers are hard to explain, and even harder to live with, when the one praying mightily, isn’t getting the answer(s) they ask for.

On this side of eternity we have the following great virtues to follow, faith hope and love. And as Paul teaches, when it’s all said and done, love is the greatest of these. That’s the one that continues into eternity.

You’re choosing correctly

 

[Frankie65]

II prayed to the Lord for the first time in years and I said Lord l have no right to ask anything of you. But I do not ask this for my own account but for my wife. The wound on her leg has festered, she can’t take another prolonged period of suffering. Please Lord if it pleases you, help her leg to heal, but let your will be done.

Wow
That moved me to tears
The angels must be rejoicing over you my friend

 

[Patri]

Finally I witnessed what I can only describe as a miracle. My Wife was off work for around 7 months last year due to leg ulcers. And she scraped her leg again last month. I was dressing the wound hoping it would heal, but a couple of weeks ago, I removed the old dressing and the smell knocked me sick, the wound had festered. I cleaned and dressed it and advised her to get a doctors appointment ASAP. She went to work but I was worried sick. I prayed to the Lord for the first time in years and I said Lord l have no right to ask anything of you. But I do not ask this for my own account but for my wife. The wound on her leg has festered, she can’t take another prolonged period of suffering. Please Lord if it pleases you, help her leg to heal, but let your will be done.

Welcome back! Your return is another miracle!

 

[OKComputer]

Welcome home my friend. Just go to confession and everything will be fine.

One of the many, many, many blessings about returning to the faith is the moment after you go to confession after a long absence you’ll feel so at peace that you want to cry. Happened to me many times.

 

[Bluebright]

Welcome back. You will just need to go to confession as everyone says. Also you are always a Catholic even if you wander away and worship idols (even the less obvious ones like money and power). If you’ve been reading the Bible you will have noticed the Israelites did that all the time throughout the Old Testament and they did not stop being God’s people, when they were doing such things and requiring his mercy. Your baptism makes you Catholic, nothing can unmake it. God bless you.

 

[Cimachol]

The previous advice about talking to your priest is right on. I suspect receiving absolution through confession will suffice, but if anything else is required (such as formal renunciation of pagan beliefs) the priest will let you know.

Mostly I just wanted to say WELCOME HOME!

 

[PhilJ]

Thanks Cimachol.

 

[vsedriver]

So I prayed every week for my wife to conceive and I prayed for years and it didn’t happen so I lost faith and left rather than accept that it wasn’t God’s plan for us

did you ever consider adoption? I have a sister in law who is adopted and a niece and nephew. My brother and his wife have no children but were foster parents for years. Two of their foster sons stayed in the family. My brother with no biological children is a grandfather where 4 of his siblings with biological children have no grandchildren.

Perhaps God wants you to seek a different route. So many children are waiting for a loving home.

 

[Brendan_64]

I was in a similar situation to you and for a few years was involved in paganism until I suddenly came back.

I just went along to Confession in our parish and told the priest in the Confessional box and then made quite a long Confession where I just told him all that I could think to remember at the time (I don’t think there was anybody waiting behind me so that was OK). As I was already a baptised and confirmed Catholic, all that was needed was a Confession and that was it.

I would say to just be very straight with the priest and tell him everything, don’t hold back. I would think the priest will be very happy to have you return. Just think, if you were a priest sitting in the Confessional mix and suddenly someone comes in who’d lapsed from the Church and become a pagan and now is confessing this and wanting to return, how would you feel?

Welcome home!