Swimming the Tiber

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Giovanna

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Q: When is the official “point of no return”, so to speak, in the RCIA process? Is it the Easter Vigil itself? Conversely, am I considered to be officially renouncing the Anglican Communion in total, if I go through with the first Rite of Acceptance next week?
 
There is no point of no return, you have free will and the liberty to do whatever you want.
The Catholic Church wont force you to stay, not go to another church, etc… It is all up to you.

Now to consider yourself Catholic all you have to do is really believe it. There are many people who say they are Catholic who don’t really believe it and that doesn’t necessarily make them Catholic. Only God knows, and you know if you believe in your heart.

Now to make it official you do have to go through class and publically confess with your mouth that you honestly believe in the Christian faith that comes to us from the Apostles. You also have to renounce Satan and all his works.

This all happens usually around the Easter vigil.

In Christ
Scylla
 
Giovanna said:
Q: When is the official “point of no return”, so to speak, in the RCIA process? Is it the Easter Vigil itself? Conversely, am I considered to be officially renouncing the Anglican Communion in total, if I go through with the first Rite of Acceptance next week?
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This touches on something that really bothers me. In renouncing your Protestant past, in your case the Anglican Communion, are you not simultaneously renouncing a number of things that the Catholics hold to be true? There may be things you renounce today that you will discover are even more true in Catholicism, but you already renounced them. How do you reconcile that? Do you need to renounce the Anglican Communion to become Catholic, or rathere do you need to affirm the Catholic Church, in which case the renunciation is implicit?
 
Truthstalker said:
This touches on something that really bothers me. In renouncing your Protestant past, in your case the Anglican Communion, are you not simultaneously renouncing a number of things that the Catholics hold to be true? There may be things you renounce today that you will discover are even more true in Catholicism, but you already renounced them. How do you reconcile that? Do you need to renounce the Anglican Communion to become Catholic, or rathere do you need to affirm the Catholic Church, in which case the renunciation is implicit?
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I don’t believe there’s any renunciation, except possibly of general heresy. You don’t have to say “I renounce Anglicanism”, you would simply say “I believe and submit to everything the Catholic Church teaches”.

Peace and God bless!
 
Hi Giovanna,

As stated above, there is no point of no return. As for renouncing the Anglican Communion, did you know that there are Anglican Use parishes – Anglican parishes who converted wholesale and kept their liturgy? See here.

Verbum
 
The liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer was changed to meet with the requirements of the Catholic Church. It is not the same liturgy, per se, as is used in the Episcopal Church, although it is based on that liturgy.
 
One going through the rite of acceptance is still a “student” - that is they are recognized and welcomed as one who is learning about Catholicism with serious intent. However it is not a committment other than to listen with an open mind, and a committment of the community to welcome and pray for the person concerned. One who goes through this is not a christian at least in a legal sense, unless they were so already, and are not yet a catholic unless they were so already.

Full reception into the church as a Catholic usually occurs at the Easter vigil and includes confirmation, and if the person was not previously baptized of baptism as well. This can sometimes take place on other days, although that would be unusual.

The only thing a candidate is asked explicitly to reject is Satan and his lies, and this occurs during the vigil, not the Rite of Accceptance. Becoming a Catholic would of course be an implicit rejection of past beliefs and practices only to whatever extent they are incompatible with the teaching of the Catholic church.

Welcom to all going through this rite! I did the same some years ago.
 
Giovanna,

If I may, I would like to encourage you in your swim across the Tiber. I started the trip myself in 1989 and finished five or six years later.

I don’t know when the official “point of no return” is, but I am hard put to think of a more irrelevant question. I have never for one minute regretted my joining the Catholic Church.
  • Liberian
 
As that great sage Homer Simpson once said: “Once you go Vatican, you’ll never go back again.” 😃
 
Giovanna-

I was received into the Catholic Church Easter Vigil, 2006 and am still amazed at the journey that brought me here.

I would say that the point of no return isn’t an external event, but happens internally, the moment you know in your heart that you **are **Catholic. Now, it may take you years to fully make the leap across the Tiber from there, but once you know, you just know. 😉

There were times I was scared to death, and wanted to hide from what I knew God was asking of me, and I could have. We all have choices and we make them. But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t keep asking the tough questions until we chose right!

God bless you on your journey! It’s quite an adventure, don’t lose heart!
 
Giovanna said:
Q: When is the official “point of no return”, so to speak, in the RCIA process? Is it the Easter Vigil itself? Conversely, am I considered to be officially renouncing the Anglican Communion in total, if I go through with the first Rite of Acceptance next week?
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Actually it is all up to you. If you in the future openly claim to refuse to follow the Magisterium or Papal teachings you would be separated from the Catholic Church. Probably the same is true for other churches. I am guessing you intended to address when are you out of “communion” with the Anglican Church ? As in will my Catholic rite create and official separation from the Anglican Church?, which depends on the teachings of that church. For example a Catholic who denies Rome or practices some form of Anti-Catholic (not non-Catholic) practice is separated but can return after confession and repentance.
Hope that helps
 
Thanks for all the thoughtful advice, all. For the record, Catholicism is truly the faith of my mind and heart. It’s been like coming home, and I don’t truly want to turn back. For those who seem to wonder why I am even asking the question:

I. The teaching on mortal sin is affecting my OCD; and there are times I wonder how my mental health will hold up to the strain (I am scrupulous); and

II. Christmastime, and the Rite of Acceptance, are both giving me pause to realize the magnitude of what I’m doing; and a bunch of nostalgic early childhood memories of the Episcopal church are part of the result. Yes, even though they’re heretics with women in collars and a gay archbishop. I sometimes miss them just the same. They were a part of me. Sometimes, I think they always will be, in a way.
 
Giovanna said:
Yes, even though they’re heretics with women in collars and a gay archbishop. I sometimes miss them just the same. They were a part of me. Sometimes, I think they always will be, in a way.
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They’re part of us all in a way. I have a really old Catechism from the 1840s that says it beautifully:

“Again, all those sincere people belong to the soul of the Church, who, being baptized, and believing the great fundamental truths of Christianity, and who are prevented from believing it in all its details, not by carelessness, nor temporal interest, nor human respect, nor the spirit of obstinacy, nor by malice, but simply because they never doubted, and never had sufficient means of knowing the truth, which they would embrace at once, and with gladness, could they only discover it,*—*all these, we say, belong to the soul of the Church.” 🙂
 
Swimming the Tiber? I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s really quite dirty.
 
Giovanna said:
II. Christmastime, and the Rite of Acceptance, are both giving me pause to realize the magnitude of what I’m doing; and a bunch of nostalgic early childhood memories of the Episcopal church are part of the result. Yes, even though they’re heretics with women in collars and a gay archbishop. I sometimes miss them just the same. They were a part of me. Sometimes, I think they always will be, in a way.
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I sometimes get this nostalgic longing, especially at holidays, *for the old time religion * 😉 , but I realize that I’m still new to Catholicism, and eventually I will fall into the rythmn of life in this new environment, my new home.

And I also realize that everything that I have experienced as a Christian outside of the Catholic Church, happened for a reason, one that I’m not completely in touch with yet, but it will eventually become apparent, so although I am at times angry/frustrated at some of the untruths/half truths that I had been taught, overall I have to understand that the journey through it all is a part of who I am and will be used in a way that I might not have seen otherwise.

In other words, embrace it all, your past, your present and your beautiful future!

And welcome HOME! 😃
 
“Again, all those sincere people belong to the soul of the Church, who, being baptized, and believing the great fundamental truths of Christianity, and who are prevented from believing it in all its details, not by carelessness, nor temporal interest, nor human respect, nor the spirit of obstinacy, nor by malice, but simply because they never doubted, and never had sufficient means of knowing the truth, which they would embrace at once, and with gladness, could they only discover it,—all these, we say, belong to the soul of the Church.”
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I’ve never heard that before. That’s pretty cool.
 
I swam it and swam back. To another bank anyway (not the same side I came from), went to seminary, was ordained in a liturgical denomination.

RevDrNorth
 
Someone needs to read up on his Cardinal John Hentry Newman.

teeee
 
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