Serious Question

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Agnus_Dei

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Okay so if a Catholic left the Catholic Church and joined the Lutheran Church.
Will he go to heaven or hell?
 
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Agnus_Dei:
Okay so if a Catholic left the Catholic Church and joined the Lutheran Church.
Will he go to heaven or hell?
Click to expand...
Since we cannot read this person’s heart and judge his level of culpability for any sinful actions, we cannot know.

If a Catholic comes to believe the Church is in error in some essential, officially defined doctrine, it is a mortal sin against conscience, a sin of hypocrisy, for him to remain in the Church and call himself a Catholic, but only a venial sin against knowledge for him to leave the Church in honest but partly culpable error.

This article, surprisingly, has a good summary of how to properly form one’s conscience as a Catholic:

envoymagazine.com/familyplanning.htm

(search the page for “conscience”)

Verses relating to moral sin and persevering to the end:
Mt 7:21 - not everyone saying “Lord, Lord” will inherit
Mt 24:13 - those who persevere to the end will be saved
Rom 11:22 - remain in his kindness or you will be cut off
Phil 2:12 - work out your salvation in fear and trembling
1Cor 9:27 - drive body for fear of being disqualified
1Cor 10:11-12 - those thinking they are secure may fall
Gal 5:4 - separated from Christ, you’ve fallen from grace
2Tim 2:11-13 - must hold out to the end to reign with Christ
Hb 6:4-6 - describes sharers in Holy Spirit who then fall away
Heb 10:26-27 - if sin after receiving truth, judgment remains
2 Pet 2:20 - If sin after coming to Christ, the last state is worse than if they hadn’t known way to righteousness

P.S. 10,000 Difficulties do not amount to one doubt. It’s important to keep in mind the difference. The existence of mystery is a condition of humanity’s limited scope of vision and not reason for despair.

If you accept the Church’s authority, understanding its divine origin and protection, then having a difficulty does not imply that you reject authoritative teaching.
 
So what do you suggest me to do?
I believe in everything the Roman Catholic Church teaches
but the one mortal sin = hell thing
really scares me
?
 
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Agnus_Dei:
So what do you suggest me to do?
I believe in everything the Roman Catholic Church teaches
but the one mortal sin = hell thing
really scares me
?
Click to expand...
Good!

Phil 2:12 - work out your salvation in fear and trembling

This is deadly serious business. See sin as a slap in the face of the crucified Christ, and it’ll make you realize why you should prefer death over sin. However, you should also trust God in his perfect justice and mercy.
 
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Agnus_Dei:
So what do you suggest me to do?
I believe in everything the Roman Catholic Church teaches
but the one mortal sin = hell thing
really scares me
?
Click to expand...
one mortal sin = hell

but

one grave offense =/= hell

For something to be a mortal sin, you must willfully act to choose it. This is paramount to willfully rejecting God. That is precisely why a mortal sin leads one to hell (read John 15:1-10).

As DeFide pointed out, we are to join St. Paul in working out our salvation in fear and trembling. Remember, however, that we obey God’s commands not out of some legal obligation, but out of love.
 
Leaving the fullness of the Faith that He has given to us in His Catholic Church is never the answer, for wherever we go WE are still there with all our sins and failings.

To echo what “DeFide” has said, you should be cultivating a sense of God’s justice AND His mercy. May I suggest a daily reading of the 23rd psalm? Read it slowly and with all intention to put your trust in your loving Father who wants to draw you by His love into His presence. Also, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy could be of help to you. You are right not to want to offend God, but learn to desire that more because of Who He Is and how worthy He is to be loved and trusted, rather than out of servile fear. We are to fear the Lord, but that filial fear (the right kind of fear) is one filled with hope in God’s loving concern for us - not just as a group, but as distinct individuals in communion with Him and each other whom He is “cultivating” for a life of eternal blessedness.
 
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Agnus_Dei:
So what do you suggest me to do?
I believe in everything the Roman Catholic Church teaches
but the one mortal sin = hell thing
really scares me
?
Click to expand...
The fact that it scares you doesn’t change reality. One who dies in a state of mortal sin is lost. And changing one’s religion won’t change that.

And a Catholic who leaves the Church is committing heresy. And that is an on-going sin.

So if you are afraid of mortal sin – as we all are – you should do four things.
  1. Examine your conscience. What specific sins are you committing?
  2. Confess your sins – you can always be forgiven if you confess.
  3. Seek to change your ways. Try to avoid the occasion of sin. Pray for help.
  4. Repeat 1 through 3 for as long as it takes.
 
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Agnus_Dei:
So what do you suggest me to do?
I believe in everything the Roman Catholic Church teaches
but the one mortal sin = hell thing
really scares me
?
Click to expand...
But changing churches won’t change this. That is, if the Catholic Church is right about this, then it will continue to be right whether you are Catholic or Lutheran. If the Church is wrong, ditto. Changing churches doesn’t let you play by a different set of rules, for churches do not make the rules, God does.

So the question you need to answer is whether or not the Catholic Church is the Church founded by Christ, and which is given the fullness of divine revelation, or whether it is lying or mistaken when it makes such claims. If the Church’s claims are true then you must remain Catholic. If they are false than you must leave.

Oh, BTW, the claims are true. 🙂
 
I want to add one more thing. You really need to get over this fear that God is going to “get you” by allowing you to die between commission of a mortal sin and repentance for that sin. God is not out to send you to hell, but to bring you to heaven.

What you are experiencing, it seems to me, is a serious lack of trust in the mercy and/or the omniscience of God. You are doubting that He knows your heart and that He might therefore make a “mistake” and send you to hell when you didn’t “deserve” it. God is not going to make a mistake. If you have truly chosen God, you will end up in heaven (and you’ll be glad you did). If you have truly chosen against God, you will end up in hell (and you’ll be glad you did).
 
Another way to put is, you can’t run away from God. If you are afraid, run toward him. After all, He is your father and will protect you.
 
So when Lutherans run to God they run to a different one…or what?
 
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Agnus_Dei:
So when Lutherans run to God they run to a different one…or what?
Click to expand...
Read what you posted:
I believe in everything the Roman Catholic Church teaches
but the one mortal sin = hell thing
really scares me
?
Click to expand...
You are saying you believe in the Church, but might leave it because of the question of mortal sin.

You would be running away from the Church in which you profess to believe, looking for one with different beliefs – as if that would somehow change God’s rules.

So yes, you’d be running away from God. Lutherans have separated themselves from the Church – and for a Catholic to leave the Church is the sin of heresy.
 
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Agnus_Dei:
So when Lutherans run to God they run to a different one…or what?
Click to expand...
Of course it is the same God; but they - and others outside the Catholic Communion - have responded to Him in a manner less than the fullness that the Lord Jesus established in His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Your problems won’t go away by going to a Christian denomination diminished in its response to Him.
 
From reading the other threads on mortal sin there still seems to be confusion. Mortal sin is the deliberate rejection through an evil act of God’s sanctifying grace–that very thing that makes us worthy of Heaven. As a human, anyone is free to do this. I don’t understand why telling God to go away and God accepting this is such a problem. No one accidently mortally sins.

Scott
 
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