Should I really be Catholic?

[SheepsCousin]

I’m a Catholic and I’ve recently been wondering should I really be a Catholic. I have been looking into Sedevecantism a bit and they seem to have a somewhat convincing case for their stance. For example, Vatican 2 doesn’t seem inspired and has some Controversial things. There’s also question of whether Saint Pope John Paul ii really is a Saint. The Sedevecantists assert he’s full of heresies and even that he’s the antichrist. Is the novus or do mass really valid?

Also why wouldn’t I go Orthodox? Why would I think I’m in the real church and that the Orthodox Church isn’t the real church.

Then there’s Protestantism. Does the modernism in the Catholic Church show it isn’t inspired? For example, Vatican 2 seems to be so different than previous teaching so how could it really be from an inspired church? (you can tell them by their fruits) Do we have good reason to believe Jesus really did set up a church? Even if yes, why wouldn’t that church be a Protestant church?

To sum up my whole paragraph: is the Catholic church really inspired and why? And are we in the church that Jesus set up?

 

[Mythicalbio]

The Church can’t reach heresy in a council. It is arbitrary to use previous understanding to judge a new teaching, why not go further back? There is a point where every teaching will look like heresy to a previous idea. The idea that a man could be God would have seemed like heresy to the Israelites. Calling it modernism is arbitrary. Sedes and the people like them have elevated their own understanding of the faith above the hierarchy, obviously a sin.

The Mass is valid because the authorities in the Church said so, and the Popes are never full of heresies, or are heretics. So if the Church teaches something that seems to be foolish and heretical, who is the heretic and fool, the Church or you? Arians felt the Church was wrong, so did Prots, Jansenist, Pelagians, Gnostics. If the Church teaches against your understanding, YOU are the one who is wrong, 100% of the time.

 

[AL_1323]

Why Be Catholic and Not Just Christian? - YouTube 7 Reasons Why Everyone Should Be Catholic - YouTube The Problem with Sedevacantism - YouTube Why Sedevacantism is False - YouTube
The Heresy of Sedevacantism - YouTube

These might be helpful, watch these and think about your decision.

 

[Irishmom2]

Welcome to CAF, you have many questions. You should try not asking a bunch of questions in one thread. You may want to look for answers while you wait by using the search feature, many of the questions you posed have been asked and answered numerous times on CAF.

 

[c4csp]

A lot of us Catholics are upset with Vatican II but we don’t leave Christ’s Church. We need to stay and fight, be knowledgeable, call it our prelates when they are wrong, etc.

Bishop Lefebvre was all for the church and did everything to stay and keep tradition. Time tells, and we are slowly seeing how he was right in many ways. The SSPX will hopefully be in full communion with Rome soon. We already see tradition making a large comeback.

Now the Sedevecantists grew out of the SSPV, and many SSPV are Sedevecantists. Where I believe all CMRI are Sedevecantists. They are in error regarding the papacy.

I believe once the SSPX is back in communion with Rome, you will see the SSPV and CMRI quickly get in line. We see how quickly splits occur. I mean folks split from SSPX.

So stay in the Catholic Church because these groups will be back under Rome in due time. And their preservation of the liturgy will be very much appreciated. The Latin Mass will be back and Catholicism is going to resurge again. We already see this modernism being called out by Bishops and slowly but surely we will be moving back to those more reverent times. We are just in a down time in the Church. It has happened before but there will be a renewal. Stay with the Church.

 

[Dorothy]

Our Lord Jesus Christ gave the fullness of the faith to the Catholic Church. We are all sinners and need prayer and the sacraments.

The evil one is busy trying to pull many away from the truth. Ask Our Lady to intercede for you. Ask her every day. A good thing to do is to stay away from the sites that try and persuade others to leave the Church with lies and distortions.

Also, remember that Our Lord appointed Peter as our first leader. (pope).

Much prayer and sacrifice is needed for the Church, and for the whole world.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

I’m a Catholic and I’ve recently been wondering should I really be a Catholic. I have been looking into Sedevecantism a bit and they seem to have a somewhat convincing case for their stance.

Same, but then again I don’t think they have a point. Don’t get me wrong the are very convincing but their position makes no sense. Vatican I says that Popes have been ordained to rule “in perpetuity”. Sedevacantism is position against Vatican I teaching on continuity of Papacy. Also laity have no right to declare Pope heretic. St. Robert Bellarmine wrote 5 opinions on how to deal with heretic Pope- it is up to competent authorities to declare that heresy. God wouldn’t allow His Church to fall.

For example, Vatican 2 doesn’t seem inspired and has some Controversial things.

Try to read actual documents. They are much less controversial than they seem. Even then, Vatican II is not infallible. Pope Paul VI explicitly stated Council is not infallible

There’s also question of whether Saint Pope John Paul ii really is a Saint.

Yes, Pope John Paul II has done certain controversial things… but Saints have done that. St Cyprian thought re-baptizing people is okay. St. Robert Bellarmine was manifest heretic because he thought baptism of water isn’t necessary for salvation (of course he did not do it out of disobedience to the Church, he just didn’t know probably). St Peter fell three times and then had to be corrected by St Paul. Saints happen to have participated in many errors and they had shortcomings… but fact they were with God proved to be more important.

Also technically proclamations of Saints are not infallible- they are teaching worthy of assent but not infallible…

Is the novus or do mass really valid?

According to everything objective, yes. Even if Sedevacantists were right, our Priests would still have Apostolic Succession and while some prayers concerning Sacrifice were removed, most have remained. If Orthodoxy has valid Liturgy then so does current Catholic Church

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Also why wouldn’t I go Orthodox?

Well try to read up on Papal Primacy. It is quite honestly very convincing to me that Popes have exercised more power than Orthodox admit. Orthodox reject Filioque but Church Fathers supported it. Orthodox say Creed was always uniform but history proved it wasn’t. Orthodoxy accepted Council of Carthage as dogmatic during Ecumenical Council and definition of Original Sin but now they reject it. St George Hagiorite, Georgian Orthodox Monk who lived during Great Schism also professed in front of Emperor and Patriarch of Constantinople that “Rome is inerrant” (can not be in error). This proved that even East held Papal Infallibility as early as 1090

And I will now quote myself from another thread:

There was never formal excommunication against Church of Rome or West- a very important point.

Nikodemos of Athos talks about this in his commentary on the canons- no canonical penalty has any force unless a living council enacts it. Because there wasn’t council condemning Latins, we are de-jure not in real state of Schism from Orthodox viewpoint. Papacy itself was first anathemized by name in 1583 so that’s another thing to take into consideration.

Just as an example, Greek Old Calendarists said that hierarchy is deposed by adopting new Calendar. New Calendarists said that since they condemned hierarchy without council they excommunicated themselves. New Calendarists used that lack of canonical trial as a proof that Old Calendarists broke off the Church. However, wasn’t same done by Orthodox Church? Notice the parallel in following paragraph.

Orthodox Church declared Pope heretic without canonical trial, hence they excommunicated themselves. Orthodox Church hence must acknowledge that according to canons they broke off the Church. Quite an interesting spin on things, isn’t it? And this is all according to Orthodox ecclesiology…

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Then there’s Protestantism. Do we have good reason to believe Jesus really did set up a church? Even if yes, why wouldn’t that church be a Protestant church?

Well yes, because there is no “Protestant Church”. Let’s follow simple logic;

1. Lord rebuked St Thomas Apostle for not having certainty in his faith. So there needs to be certainty.
   Scripture says Church is “pillar and foundation of Truth” and warns against heresies. Lord tells us He will always be with us and that He will give us Holy Spirit to guide us.
2. That means Church is unable to be in error (pillar and foundation of Truth) and guided by Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus is with us and He said “I am Truth, Way and Life”. If He is Truth and with Church always, can Church be in error?
3. Protestants claim Church has been in error until reformation. There are also many branches of Protestantism and each believe their own. They all hold Bible to be final authority but Church wrote the Bible! Church also decided what is and isn’t Bible. You can find things such as “Gospel of St. Thomas” and it is just forged document. Church knew this and compiled Bible and decided which books are correct and which aren’t. Without Catholic Church we wouldn’t have Bible at all!

Does the modernism in the Catholic Church show it isn’t inspired?

No, it just shows that Satan is attacking the Church. He seeks to destroy Bride of Christ. Please do not run but help Church and help our Lord fight against Satan from within the Church! Church is Ark of Salvation and gates of Hell shall not prevail against it!

Vatican 2 seems to be so different than previous teaching so how could it really be from an inspired church?

Only some extreme interpretations. Vatican 2 doesn’t necessarily teach anything infallibly so where Vatican 2 and Tradition contradict, Tradition wins! … but I seriously doubt there is something like that present in Vatican 2 documents.

Do we have good reason to believe Jesus really did set up a church?

Yes, because we see how Apostles operated and how they left successors. We see first apprentices of Apostles testify (St. Ignatius of Antioch was apprentice of St. John the Apostle) that Lord Jesus established Church. If Apostles weren’t wrong then our Lord and Savior did indeed establish Church.

(you can tell them by their fruits)

Catholic Church is #1 charitable organization in the world, also #1 non-governmental provider of free education. That’s quite enough fruits.

God bless you in your journey. Pray to Lord so that He reveals to you what is true but also search using your head. Devil can manipulate emotions but if you seek, you shall find. That is what our Lord promised us. I will pray for you… please pray for me too Thank you for asking, it shows that you have serious concern for your Salvation which is very good thing.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

Because Matthew 16:16-19

 

[AL_1323]

One thing unique about our faith is we have a unbroken line of succession of bishops. So the bishop of your dioceses is successor of one of the 12 Apostles.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

AL_1323’s answer of 8 hrs ago and this from Orbis:

“Even if Sedevacantists were right, our Priests would still have Apostolic Succession and while some prayers concerning Sacrifice were removed, most have remained.”

; for example are useful. Then there is the Office which is supposed to be the property of the Laity anyway.

Just to look at it from the “other” side(s), your participating in hearing Scripture and a sermon, and joining in hymns and prayers, says nothing about your organisational affiliation that you need squirm about.

Keep reading your Bible with side references and pray for needs. That’s the kind of belief Jesus wants of us. He says to bear another’s burdens not to carry baggage of fixers, minders, handlers et al (if or when there are any) any extra mile anytime soon.

We’re not here to polish someone else’s image of monolithism. Don’t be all or nothing. Who ever said to you you have to package deal? JP II was just trying to react to the many overreactions to the overreactions to all the overreactions and so on. The sexuality battle was in some ways lost - by superficiality - 100 years ago. Who knows God won’t help the situation to go right in a fresh way sometime soon? We should carry on praying for the big shouts because of their various positions rather than their personalities.

Look at all the “characters” who not only may have apparently run the JP II papacy, but the present outfit still. Because they don’t have doctrinal status, they get overlooked. At the same time that allows us to not necessarily consider our core beliefs so badly impacted as to break with the label “catholic” per se. St J H Newman even demoted the Pope himself to second place on his drinking list.

You or I are (I think) free to keep our cool as to our affiliations and interpret our “duties” according to our consciences. No-one else need feel you are painting them into any corner. In my personal opinion, that is within the meaning intended by Jesus, Holy Spirit and the Apostles for rumbustious times (like most times are).

In my young day most pew dwellers DIDN’T “go to communion” and I think the rest of us didn’t actually fuss about their priorities. I expect they held a far more colourful spectrum of opinions about popes or prelates, than we even hear of nowadays.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Then there is the Office which is supposed to be the property of the Laity anyway.

What exactly do you mean by that? That Priests are laity? History (writing of disciples of Apostles) contradicts this. There is also parallel between Old Testament Priesthood.

You or I are (I think) free to keep our cool as to our affiliations and interpret our “duties” according to our consciences

We are all required to form out conscience. It isn’t personal opinion which sets the Truth, but Church that guards the Truth .

Fortunately, we live our fath in the Church. Church is protected from error and guides us hence we do not need to all be theologians and philosophers to get to Heaven. Church is there when our ego wants to change the Truth and Church is there to maintain us in Herself- Bride of Christ, Ark of Salvation. That is beauty of Catholicism.

 

[SheepsCousin]

I’m a bit late becasue I only now have permission to respond to people but thanks for your reply, massively helpful!

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

I’m a bit late becasue I only now have permission to respond to people but thanks for your reply, massively helpful!

I am glad it was helpful you are welcome then.

 

[BartholomewB]

For example, Vatican 2 doesn’t seem inspired and has some Controversial things.

Many councils, perhaps even all of them, have done controversial things. What could have been more controversial, in the 1860s, than the newfangled idea of “papal infallibility”?

 

[commenter]

For example, Vatican 2 seems to be so different than previous teaching

It would help if you cited a specific “teaching” (not a pastoral practice) from the past, and show how some specific teaching in a V2 document contradicts it.

Other than the document on the liturgy, most V2 documents simply reflect developments that were already taking place since V1 or Trent. Laity for instance by the 1950s were far more involved.

 

[Malka]

Might be helpful…

Cathedra Petri : or, The titles and prerogatives of St. Peter, and of his see and successors ; as described by the early fathers, ecclesiastical writers, and councils of the church : Allnatt, C.F.B : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Ar

Philip Schaff has translations of the Early Church as well.

 

[Hawkmaid7]

God bless you in your journey. Pray to Lord so that He reveals to you what is true but also search using your head. Devil can manipulate emotions but if you seek, you shall find. That is what our Lord promised us. I will pray for you… please pray for me too Thank you for asking, it shows that you have serious concern for your Salvation which is very good thing.

You make me happy, thank you for such a thorough response!

 

[StudentMI]

Just wanted to say this is a great post. I agree.