The reason why young men are leaving the church

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Ernie07 said:
Knowledge about our Catholic faith will lead to conviction that the Catholic Church is truly the Church Jesus built and protected. Once you have that confidence then you can work toward passion and for me it was embracing fully the Mass.
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I love that! That’s how it was for me. The more I learn, the more I love God and the Church, and the more I love God and the Church, the more I want to learn. It’s an upward spiral.

So many things in this life are downward spirals. And so many things about God are upward spirals. The more you pray, the closer you are to God and the closer you are to God, the more you want to pray…

All of those really amazing upward spirals take an act of your free will to start the journey. Seek and you will find, and the more you find, the more you want to seek. Learn, pray, seek—each of these acts of the will are always rewarded with amazing returns.

And the Mass! I can still remember dragging myself to Mass and just not being able to love it. Until I asked God to help me love it so I could want to do what He wants me to do, instead of just wanting to want to do what he wants me to do. Huge difference, and I had to ask God to help me get there. He makes it so easy, if you ask for His help.
 
PJM said:
My intention is ONLY to share the fullness of God’s Truths, which you seem [to ME at least] either resist or insist MUST be on your terms; which is typical of Protestants.
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So your main argument if I disagree with you is to call me a Protestant, even though I have already told you of my long and faithful Catholic history. Nice. So step one of apologetics for you is to selectively cut and paste quotes from the Catechism. If that doesn’t work, go to ad hominem attacks.
PJM said:
And NO the bible does not specifically say [it does however teach it] that Missing
Mass on Sunday intentionally IS a Mortal sin.
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Well thanks for one straight answer anyway. It begs a couple of questions, though:
  • How can the Bible teach what it does not say?
  • Are we saying the writers of the Bible, who were supposedly divinely inspired, were not capable of saying what they meant? That instead they left things vague so others would later have to fill in the blanks. If so, why would they do that?
 
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No finite text can exhaustively explain all there is to know about anything. This isn’t hard to understand.
 
Then it shouldn’t be hard to understand that I’m not talking about “all there is to know.” I’m talking about a really fundamental element here. I’m talking about being explicit that others who come after have license to expand on Jesus’ teaching, rather than just passing it on.
 
The Church’s authority to interpret the teachings of Christ, as well as to impose precepts on the faithful, has been understood from the earliest times.

None of the books of the Bible was ever intended to be or represented as being an instruction manual. No offense, but that is a rather Protestant way of understanding the Bible, and it’s completely ahistorical. Most of the New Testament was written in response to specific problems, none of which involved there being a question regarding the gravity of the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday. And no part of it was written as a systematic treatise on the precepts of the faith.
 
That doesn’t answer my question. It sounds like you are saying that the justification is simply that we’ve always done it that way. And again, I am NOT talking about precise instructions. I am talking about something pretty fundamental. Simply saying something is “Protestant” without offering a credible counter argument. is you making it seem like the Protestants may have had a point. If apologetics has any substance to it, it should be able to handle this more deftly.
 
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That we’ve always done it that way is a better justification than any appeal to the text of the Bible, since an appeal to the Bible depends on accepting whatever part you’re citing as Scripture. And such a judgment cannot be based, logically, on anything other than the consensus and judgment of the Church.

It’s Protestant because it is based on the same incoherent approach to Scripture that Protestants take. We know what is and isn’t Scripture because the Church has spelled it out for us. So it’s absurd to grant greater authority to the Bible than to the Tradition of the Church.
 
Are you kidding me? “We’ve always done it that way” is a huge common fallacy. I means NOTHING. It proves NOTHING.

And are you really saying the actual accounts of the words and actions of Jesus and the Prophets take a backseat to rules made up later? If the word of Christ is not primary, you are not describing a Christian church, Catholic, Protestant or otherwise. That is saying there are people, and/or organizations, that stand equal to God. I am incredulous.

If you are saying that is “Protestant” with those kind of ridiculous arguments, you are just lending credibility to Protestants. I could make better arguments for your position even though I don’t agree with it!
 
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MAGISTERIUM was instituted by Christ Himself.
 
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The only reason to believe that 4 canonical Gospels are inspired but e.g. the Gospel of Thomas isn’t, is because the Church has told us so. So any confidence we place in them must logically already be placed int he Church.

This is basic logic.
 
It is fair to ask a person who thinks the Church “made up rules later” if they are Protestant.
 
Excellent question. Do some research, the answers are not hard to find. The keyword is MAGISTERUM, that’s all you’ll need.
 
I’m a young Catholic man and attend Mass every morning because Christ calls me to do so.

I often make the martyrs contemplation as I’ve termed it.

I start off by thinking of being shot going out of or into Church, asked to renounce my faith to save a family members life etc. I’d readily give up my life in any situation mentioned for Christ and his Church. I always stand firm to the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Because I love Christ,

I believe because Christ told me so.
 
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So you got nothing but an ad hominem attack. You make a statement and you don’t even try to back it up.
 
“The answer of a christian can be no other then the same of God to our smallness: tenderness, meekness.”
Jorge Bergoglio, Buenos Aires,24 of December 2004.

[You’ve accused me three times of things I haven’t done, the conversation ends here. Enjoy the spirit of Christmas.]
 
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Please forgive me if I offended you @jfz178 , I will try to give an explicit answer.

Some things were not “completely defined” in the bible. For example, some things about the Holy Trinity, among others. If you look at it, through the centuries, many heretic movements like Nestorianism, Jainism, Gnosticism, among hundreds of others…Debated and held dogmas that are contrary to the catholic church, but if you look at it only in biblical perspective the bible doesn’t supply explicit arguments that permit outright refusal or confirmation of either positions. (So who is right?)

Well, it is said in the bible the Lord wouldn’t stop sending His Spirit to the church, and through the continued work of the Spirit would assist His church, among other things, in knowing right from wrong. That is why the catholic church derives its authority both from the bible and from tradition. Because, the action of The Holy Spirit is made manifest through time, through history.

(Where is this written? In many places, the catechism, the councils, the works of saints and bishops through the ages…Where does Christ institute the Sacraments? In the bible! )

I am too tiered to go look up references and exact definitions in the literature, but you can start on the index of the catechism or ask someone that has energy to go “hit the books”. The fundamental ideas, the logic to it, are however as I have written. Sorry if I can’t muster the energy to write bibliographic references or invoke biblical passages held to support this - you’ll have no problem in finding someone to supply those. Just open a new topic and in a few minutes someone will answer you.

Again, I’m sorry, and have a nice Christmas. God bless.
 
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