Salvation for a fallen-away Catholic

[Vic2]

A person I know wants to know the Catholic Church’s teaching on his salvation. Here is what he told me about himself:

I was raised a Catholic. I was baptized as an infant. I was confirmed when I was 13. I remained a lukewarm Catholic until I was 37. At my mom’s prompting, I attended an evangelical church and I heard a biblical gospel for the first time. I could not believe I had lived 37 years without anyone telling me or hearing the biblical gospel. I was born again and raised to newness of life at 38. I was baptized again at that time to celebrate and announce my rebirth.

What is the Church’s teaching about his salvation? He loves Jesus but rejects core Catholic beliefs.

Thanks.

 

[Zundrah]

A person I know wants to know the Catholic Church’s teaching on his salvation. Here is what he told me about himself:

I was raised a Catholic. I was baptized as an infant. I was confirmed when I was 13. I remained a lukewarm Catholic until I was 37. At my mom’s prompting, I attended an evangelical church and I heard a biblical gospel for the first time. I could not believe I had lived 37 years without anyone telling me or hearing the biblical gospel. I was born again and raised to newness of life at 38. I was baptized again at that time to celebrate and announce my rebirth.

What is the Church’s teaching about his salvation? He loves Jesus but rejects core Catholic beliefs.

Thanks.

That’s a sensitive subject. But why the re baptism? Unnecessary.

But on the plus side, from what I recall, I’m sure the Catholic Church teaches that protestants don’t necessarily go to hell. Depends what they believe. But I could be wrong.

 

[DavidFilmer]

I wonder what “Biblical Gospel” means. Is there a non-Biblical Gospel? Did he go to Mass where somehow the Gospel was not read at each and every service, as is absolutely required? If a person attends Mass for three years, he will hear almost all of the Gospel read to him (we skip genealogies and such).

But, I digress. You asked about salvation. The Church’s position is amazingly simple: if you die in a state of Grace, you are saved. Otherwise you are condemned.

Baptism places us in a state of Grace. Mortal sin removes us from a state of Grace. If he has not committed any mortal sin since his (original) Baptism then he is saved. Nothing else matters.

Has he committed a mortal sin? Only God knows for sure.

 

[Jesus_Is_Lord77]

A person I know wants to know the Catholic Church’s teaching on his salvation. Here is what he told me about himself:

I was raised a Catholic. I was baptized as an infant. I was confirmed when I was 13. I remained a lukewarm Catholic until I was 37. At my mom’s prompting, I attended an evangelical church and I heard a biblical gospel for the first time. I could not believe I had lived 37 years without anyone telling me or hearing the biblical gospel. I was born again and raised to newness of life at 38. I was baptized again at that time to celebrate and announce my rebirth.

What is the Church’s teaching about his salvation? He loves Jesus but rejects core Catholic beliefs.

Thanks.

Cool . God bless you…I had a pretty radical conversion/born again experience at 21…I know a few people who had the same experience as you. One is in my church. His life was so radically changed his whole catholic family has come to visit twice now to see where he was going…It’s all about Jesus and putting our trust in Him not the name on the sign of the church we attend…

 

[Kotton]

I wonder what “Biblical Gospel” means. Is there a non-Biblical Gospel? Did he go to Mass where somehow the Gospel was not read at each and every service, as is absolutely required? If a person attends Mass for three years, he will hear almost all of the Gospel read to him (we skip genealogies and such).

I wonder about this also. Did they sleep through Mass, or mentally plan the rest of the days activities? As for their knowledge of Catholic doctrine, did they never have catechism lessons, or were they asleep then as well?

Has he committed a mortal sin? Only God knows for sure.

Yes, we leave it to God to judge.

 

[Zundrah]

I thought that anyone who went through RCIA got a Catechism at the end of it or after confirmation. So there’s no excuse to be ignorant.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Nothing really to add (I too am curious what this is about the “biblical gospel”), except to say that leaving the Church is certainly considered grave matter.

That is, full knowledge and consent of will would be enough to make it a mortal sin - though we cannot judge whether or not those are present. And even if the knowledge condition were absent, it is possible that the failure to pursue and acquire such knowledge, if due to negligence or disdain for truth, is its own problem.

But yeah, we cannot know if he is currently in a state of grace (and hence would go to heaven if he were to die now), we can only know that he’s done something that could, again, given the other two conditions, have dropped him out of it.

 

[sambos671]

It’s easy to make statements like. Where were you during Mass? The fact is by nature the Mass is Liturgical and many things are repreated and positions are accomplished routinely. As a person growing up a Catholic it is easy to adopt correct posture, right sayings, and proper participation without thought. Especially, if parents do not adopt their proper role and re-enforce the childs personal relationship with our Lord. Soon prayers are said for their sake and unkowningly a vending machine type theology takes hold. If I do such and such then God will do such and such. And the person can live their whole lives in the Church and participating in a robotic fashion with out ever asking the bigger questions or having a real relationship with God. As Catholics without proper attention to our faith we can easily fall into pagan type belief and offer our required oblations and forget about God the rest of the week. What the man really seems to be saying is that the Gospel was never properly reinforced in his parish. Faith was taken for granted. And he didn’t know much about the dynamic nature of our relationship with Jesus. The Catholic Church for the past 50 years until recently forgot to evangelize its own. BTW saying the Catholic belief is easy ie “all you have to do is die in a state of Grace and you are saved” is sensless when a person doesn’t know what you mean by Grace.

 

[Zundrah]

It’s easy to make statements like. Where were you during Mass? The fact is by nature the Mass is Liturgical and many things are repreated and positions are accomplished routinely. As a person growing up a Catholic it is easy to adopt correct posture, right sayings, and proper participation without thought. Especially, if parents do not adopt their proper role and re-enforce the childs personal relationship with our Lord. Soon prayers are said for their sake and unkowningly a vending machine type theology takes hold. If I do such and such then God will do such and such. And the person can live their whole lives in the Church and participating in a robotic fashion with out ever asking the bigger questions or having a real relationship with God. As Catholics without proper attention to our faith we can easily fall into pagan type belief and offer our required oblations and forget about God the rest of the week. What the man really seems to be saying is that the Gospel was never properly reinforced in his parish. Faith was taken for granted. And he didn’t know much about the dynamic nature of our relationship with Jesus. The Catholic Church for the past 50 years until recently forgot to evangelize its own. BTW saying the Catholic belief is easy ie “all you have to do is die in a state of Grace and you are saved” is sensless when a person doesn’t know what you mean by Grace.

I’ve never seen a Catholic say this.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

It’s easy to make statements like. Where were you during Mass? The fact is by nature the Mass is Liturgical and many things are repreated and positions are accomplished routinely. As a person growing up a Catholic it is easy to adopt correct posture, right sayings, and proper participation without thought. Especially, if parents do not adopt their proper role and re-enforce the childs personal relationship with our Lord. Soon prayers are said for their sake and unkowningly a vending machine type theology takes hold. If I do such and such then God will do such and such. And the person can live their whole lives in the Church and participating in a robotic fashion with out ever asking the bigger questions or having a real relationship with God. As Catholics without proper attention to our faith we can easily fall into pagan type belief and offer our required oblations and forget about God the rest of the week.

Indeed. This is very probably what happened, though blaming the parishes completely may be a little harsh. A person should have a natural curiosity about the things they do, and should figure out what is going on.

BTW saying the Catholic belief is easy ie “all you have to do is die in a state of Grace and you are saved” is sensless when a person doesn’t know what you mean by Grace.

I do not think this was meant as a “this is all you have to know to be Catholic” statement, but as the intro to a “we cannot know if someone else is going to hell or not” statement. That is why there was more explanation after. But we cannot know if this person committed a mortal sin by leaving the Church (or if he has after) because we cannot see into his heart.

 

[Luvtosew]

It’s easy to make statements like. Where were you during Mass? The fact is by nature the Mass is Liturgical and many things are repreated and positions are accomplished routinely. As a person growing up a Catholic it is easy to adopt correct posture, right sayings, and proper participation without thought. Especially, if parents do not adopt their proper role and re-enforce the childs personal relationship with our Lord. Soon prayers are said for their sake and unkowningly a vending machine type theology takes hold. If I do such and such then God will do such and such. And the person can live their whole lives in the Church and participating in a robotic fashion with out ever asking the bigger questions or having a real relationship with God. As Catholics without proper attention to our faith we can easily fall into pagan type belief and offer our required oblations and forget about God the rest of the week. What the man really seems to be saying is that the Gospel was never properly reinforced in his parish. Faith was taken for granted. And he didn’t know much about the dynamic nature of our relationship with Jesus. The Catholic Church for the past 50 years until recently forgot to evangelize its own. BTW saying the Catholic belief is easy ie “all you have to do is die in a state of Grace and you are saved” is sensless when a person doesn’t know what you mean by Grace.

Your correct, being much older than the OP’s friend I can attest to this, and well I do believe that there are many more like me (some I know) that are not aware of the full meaning of Mass, and as well know many Catholics who never opened a Bible , and even though listening to verses taken out of books at Mass does not really educate people that well. I do see things have changed much in the last 15 years, now of couse I’m not talking about all Catholics or the ones on this message site.

 

[nilofc]

Extra Ecclesiam, Nulla Salus.

Knowing fully well that the Church is the ordinary means of salvation and refuses to enter her… then… you know.

 

[wondrousgnat]

Every time I go to mass I hear a reading from the gospel… However, I have been to many Protestant churches where gospel readings do not occur. Sometimes even no biblical readings at all. And actually I have been to some churches which do not even have a cross.

\What does he think about scripture which states that there is only one baptism? What does his preacher believe about that if he performs them?

I have known a number who left the Catholic church to go elsewhere where they are “on fire for the Lord.” And they invite me to their churches. A couple of years later they invite me again, but to a different church which has the “fire.” Then later another church. Eventually the usually stop going to any church.

I recall hearing Ralph Martin state that he would never advise someone to leave the church but admitted that some would never have been saved if they stayed Catholic.

In the case of the op I would like to hear an update 5 years from now on where he is.

 

[FaithfulAndTrue]

Your correct, being much older than the OP’s friend I can attest to this, and well I do believe that there are many more like me (some I know) that are not aware of the full meaning of Mass, and as well know many Catholics who never opened a Bible , and even though listening to verses taken out of books at Mass does not really educate people that well. I do see things have changed much in the last 15 years, now of couse I’m not talking about all Catholics or the ones on this message site.

You can add me to this list too. I was raised Catholic. I went to mass every Sunday from birth until I was 22. I went to Catholic school from K-12. I had the mass memorized. I could recite lots of what I would call Catholic “facts”—that is, lots of prayers, the 10 commandments, sacraments, names of saints, church history, Jesus’ parables, the passion, etc—but never actually understood the gospel until I was listening to Christian radio at age 29.

I certainly bear some level of responsibility for this, obviously. Why did I not ask bigger questions instead of just going with the flow? If you asked me why Jesus died on the cross, I would have reflexively said, “To forgive our sins.” But if you would have asked me, “Why did Jesus have to die on the cross to forgive our sins?” I would have been completely stumped.

Perhaps God blinded me for a time so I would have a greater appreciation when He opened my eyes? I don’t know. But what I do know is hearing the Gospel a few verses at a time every week was not enough to come to a “big picture” understanding.

I have a very close family friend that used to attend the same parish I did. She has since moved on to a new parish and (accurately, IMO) describes the old one as a “dead church”.

 

[sambos671]

I’ve never seen a Catholic say this.

You just did. However, I’m sympathetic because I fell away from the church for much the same reasons but upon serious research and prayer I was lead back to the church. I often wished I knew then what I know now. Look around your Parish. You’ll see many Catholics in the same circumstances as I’ve described. Which is why its important to evangelize our own.

BTW Now I’m very upset with the Liberal members of the Church (ie Nancy Pelosi types). I blame them for a lot of this.

 

[JonathonofOhio]

Okay to answer the OP’s question.

We simply do not know. We are not able to judge whether or not this person will get into heaven or what is going on in their heart, or what God will decide for this person. It is not up to us. That is between them and God.

That said I can only say what I know:

• His second baptism in invalid, because he was already baptized in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit.
• It is one thing to say, “I love Jesus”, but it is another to keep his commandments: “If you love me, keep my commandments.” - John 14:15. Jesus wants us to SHOW Him we love Him by keeping all of his commandments, not just the ones we pick and choose. He doesn’t want us to just pay lip service to him (“And the Lord said: Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from me, and they have feared me with the commandment and doctrines of men” - Isaiah 29:13 :: “Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven” - Matthew 7:21)