The Catholic Identity: Why do you choose to be/remain a Catholic?

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Why do we choose to be/remain as a Catholic? Personally, what makes up your identity as a Catholic?

As opposed to other Christian denominations
As opposed to other worldviews

I am just hoping to gather the unique identities of everyone within this community, as well as the commonalities of our shared identities! Pray that the light of Christ will share through from all of you into me, to inspire me to become more Christ-like!

Anyone, even non-Catholics or non-Christians, can share their thoughts too! Because, I strongly believe that within everyone, there is a God-given identity (just whether it is uncovered by the person, and/or interpreted in a way I can understand within my limited capacity).

God bless, may the peace of the Lord be with you always!
 
Within Catholicism is a culture of finding truth. It’s a culture/education of acknowledging reality in order to know God and live life to its fullest. That’s what I like about it.
 
DoubtingKT said:
Why do we choose to be/remain as a Catholic? Personally, what makes up your identity as a Catholic?
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The Real Presence of Jesus is here in the Catholic Church. I can see and receive God in the physical form every day. The only other church where that happens is Orthodox, and I have zero heritage from any Orthodox country and my ancestors were persecuted for being Roman Catholics in their homeland. So I continue to stand for what they stood for.

And yes, Catholic is the church founded by Jesus. Protestant churches and other non-Catholic churches (with possible exception of Orthodox) were all founded by some human who thought they knew more than God.
 
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I used to be protestant, and converted several years ago. If it were up to my personal preference, I would still be protestant because in my experience, those churches are friendlier and more caring (just my opinion, I’m sure many Catholics have deep friendships. )

Anyway, I’m Catholic because as I began to read the very earliest church fathers, they looked and sounded like the Catholic Church. And then I began to think, hey Jesus left us a Church, I don’t think Martin Luther can throw the baby out with the bathwater just because there was corruption in the church. There was corruption among the 12 disciples!!

So I’m Catholic because I believe this is the church Jesus established, and I’m trying to be obedient to Him.
 
I love Catholicism because of the Eucharist. The beautiful idea that God became man and sacrificed Himself to save us on the Cross, and that this Paschal Mystery is recreated at every Mass, and that I can partake in this mystery through Communion, is something that no other religion has, because no other religion is of divine origin (except maybe Judaism).
 
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Love. Love of God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Love that is God-centered will be reflected on those who are crated in His image and likeness.
 
I have never heard an argument against the Catholic Faith that I could not find an effective counter to. At least, I haven’t found an argument that didn’t do away with all forms of the supernatural altogether.

And I have looked very hard to find one.

Also, on the positive side, I find Chesterton’s Orthodoxy to be utterly convincing.
 
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This.

I believe Jesus when he said he was going to establish a church that was so enduring that not even the gates of Hell will have power over it.
 
It was the disunity amongst non-Catholic Christian churches that was the beginning of my journey back into the church. The rampant disagreements over mostly secondary issues, but over some other very important perhaps primary issues, made me wonder about the question of authority. Had God set up some kind of authority to preserve unity, or did he really intend for Christendom to be broken up into thousands of different pieces? If God did not give that magisterial authority to one church, then how are you supposed to know who is right and who’s wrong on all the issues that separate various kinds of Christians? I could no longer accept that God would allow that kind of aimlessness. Plus, I missed the more meaningful communion.
 
I am a “cradle” Catholic…and will remain a Catholic…I Pray all of the time…
when I wake,
during Rosary,
before I eat,
when I’m outside walking,
and He saved me from a natural disaster!
I am in such a peaceful state, early in the morning while praying my Rosary…
 
When I read the NT I saw a Church out there that was visible with tangible authority. (Matt 18) One that can make binding decisions on the entire universal Church (Matt 16/Acts 15). One in which the Church leadership was actually hearing confessions and forgiving sins through the ministry of the Church (John 20:23). One in which a pure offering with incense takes place from sun up to sun down. (Malachi 1:11). Something that could actually kill you if you didn’t examine yourself before you receive it (1 Cor 11:27-30)

I saw the Catholic Church in the scriptures…yes, with warts and problems run by sinful human beings…but still the Church established by Jesus, not sinful men. I’m grateful to be a part of it.
 
Thank you friends for all the inspiring and insightful sharing, be it from Catholics or not.

A summary of some learning points I gathered, some of which resonated with me:
  1. Truth in Catholicism: a culture of finding the Truth
  • Truths that corresponds entirely with external reality that humans live in (corroborates with all the other areas of knowledge/fields of discipline)
  • Truths that coheres with other truths within the system of beliefs in Catholicism
  • Experientially applicable and relevant to how one uniquely lives life to the fullest in Christ
  1. Jesus Christ, the Incarnate of God, instituted the Church: If Jesus Christ is God, I will want to follow after Him entirely, in the way He thinks, feels, acts, and lives His life on Earth, under His absolutely wise, loving, merciful, and just leadership.
  • Sacred Scripture: Within It, the whole Truth of Jesus Christ written
  • Scared Tradition: Within It, the whole Truth of Jesus Christ living His life on Earth demonstrated
  • The Magisterium (Apostolic succession from Jesus Christ who instituted the Church): Within It, the whole Truth of Jesus Christ’s leadership in guiding all man to Him empowered upon His people (the Apostles, the Pope, the Priests and the Clergy, and the Laypeople, all in their unique role and authority by Him to serve Him and His Kingdom)
  • All of these coheres and remain consistent with one another, originates from the one true God
  1. The Grace of God through the Seven Sacraments; the Love of the Trinitarian God
  • The Real Presence of Jesus Christ (the Eucharist): If Jesus Christ is God, I want to get as close to Him as possible, as soon as possible, with all of me (including all my senses and faculties). To be One with Him is my life’s sole purpose.
  1. Grants peace of the Lord: wholesome, completeness of one in Christ
  • Beyond seeing the journey in spiritual growth and/or my relationship with Christ as an aspect of life, Jesus Christ revealed to me my unique vessel of life by which all the other aspects of my life take shape within. Without Jesus Christ, there is no life (no vessel of life, created in His image.
  1. A prayful life centred over Jesus Christ
  • Prayer connects the mind with the heart.
  • Prayer connects the soul and the body with the Spirit.
  • Prayer connects me with God.
  • Prayer connects me with His people.
  1. Faith in Jesus Christ:
  • No matter how we try to convince ourselves how amazingly consistent Catholicism as a system of belief is as compared other systems of belief in providing answers to all the questions we desire in our heart, it always seem to fall short of allowing us to have complete knowledge of God and/or of ourselves.
  • Yet, it is only logically so. For if God is who God is, He is beyond our human capacity to define Him entirely. What we think we had completely define is either merely a part of God or not of God.
  • Truly, God’s love is already given freely to each of us (Catholics or not), it is up to us to choose to love Him, grounded in the our Faith in Christ, founded upon the Truth of Christ, in Hope of being in communion with Him and His people.
 
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(Not enough space, my bad)
  1. Fear of going to hell:
  • Hell is the absence of God.
  • Yet, I feel Heaven would feel like Hell too for those who choose not to be there/forced to be there/hates.
 
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I believe it is the Church Jesus founded. I have yet to have anyone convince me that another Church was the one He founded. And Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the LIfe. I want these things.
The Catholic Church has the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Confession, that keep us firmly in a state of grace. We have Mary and the saints interceding for us. We have, in short, all the help possible to be saints. I have yet to have anyone point me to another Church that has an absolute Treasury–riches upon riches–of spiritual goods for the taking. I’m sticking to all the riches in my Father’s House!
 
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I couldn’t reasonably nor logically accept the common Protestant argument that there is no one single church that has the fullness of truth. Some of my closest Protestants friends believe that all Christian churches have some truth and so long as you strive to follow Jesus and the Bible that was all that mattered.

That seemed to me like a rationalization born out of necessity. The Catholic Church is the only one that consistently advocates that they are the Church founded by Jesus Christ.
 
I’m a pentecostal because I see Biblical evidence that the gifts of the Spirit, found in 1 Corinthians 12 & 14, are still active today. I believe in things like Sola Scriptura and justification by faith alone because my mentor has taught it and it makes sense to me. I go to a baptist church and I have agreed with almost everything they’ve taught me, so perhaps I am a borderline baptist.

I have no interest in going to a pentecostal church because I’m not into things like “being slain in the spirit”, running up and down the aisles, everyone speaking in tongues, convulsing on the ground, etc. I don’t find those practices to be necessarily Biblical. For me, tongues is a private prayer language that only God understands, but He has given that gift to me after I asked for it. I don’t agree with the practice of many people praying in tongues at the same time, though.
 
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