Thinking about RCIA

[SpeSalvi]

I tentatively looked at the Orthodox Church, but leaned toward Roman Catholicism for a few reasons- first, by the time I started looking into actually converting, I believed that Jesus clearly gave the authority of the Church to Peter. Jesus set up his Church to allow hierarchical leadership and that’s demonstrated in acts when Peter had the final say on certain requirements for becoming a Christian. The Roman Catholic Church still uses that structure, the Orthodox Church does not. Of course, being LDS before made me pretty comfortable with that structure.
Another reason is that my husband and his family are Roman Catholic. I had gone for years fighting Catholicism, so I wasn’t as concerned with that, but it was worth taking into consideration.

I have more to say but I’m short on time, so hopefully I’ll be able to return and finish later.

God bless you in this journey!

 

[xixxvmcm85]

This may be a topic for a different thread, but curious if you had looked into the Orthodox church and, if so, why did you choose Catholicism?

I gave Orthodoxy a serious consideration simultaneously; in fact the “theologically deep” questions I mentioned in my previous post which required more one-on-one chatting with the parish priest all revolved around Orthodoxy. While attending Mass, I would also frequent Divine Liturgy at the local OCA here in San Francisco.

I managed to use only logic and history to bring myself to apostolic Christianity, in general, but the Great Schism was a huge stumbling block. I wanted to get baptized only when I was perfectly certain, without any supernatural faith whatsoever, that either the Catholic or the Orthodox Church is the true Church. I read pretty much anything I could get my hands on concerning the two churches, but alas, Easter Vigil was fast approaching and nothing seemed to satisfy me. I finally decided to just give the Catholic Church the benefit of the doubt. Despite my reluctance, I appealed to nothing more than the “burning in the bosom” that I got when knelt in front of the Blessed Sacrament as a sign, if you will, that the Catholic Church is where God wanted me to be.

I was subsequently baptized, confirmed, and received the Eucharist for the first time at the Vigil. Then, a couple weeks later I stumbled across this article from Catholic Answers Magazine. It’s a bit of a read, but it’s the first (and so far only) piece of apologetic work that I’ve read concerning Catholic vs. Orthodox understanding of doctrinal infallibility which uses classical deductive logic to argue in favor of the Catholic Church. Essentially, the author lays out the Orthodox Church’s views of infallibility in bullet-point-like manner and then demonstrates how said Church’s conclusion of infallibility is circular, and thus logically fallacious.

It seems almost serendipitous (or was it providential? ) that while I scoured the internet for something just like this prior to my conversion, I couldn’t find it until after I took the leap into that baptismal font.

 

[PJM]

=fence_sitter;9757282]The local parish begins RCIA next week and I’ve been thinking about attending. Would it be wrong to go for a while without any intention of being baptized? I’m interested in learning more about the faith and maybe meeting some Catholics (I don’t know any good, strong practicing Catholics.) Can someone describe what the RCIA classes are like? Would I be expected to pray in front of others or other things I may not be comfortable doing? I would describe myself as ex-mormon Agnostic at the moment.

NO, NOT AT ALL. IN FACT THAT IS THE IDEA AND THE IDEAL. TO SEE IF GOD IS CALLING YOU TO THE ONLY CHURCH; ONLY FAITH THAT HE JESUS FOUNDED:thumbsup:

I TAUGHT RCIA FOR THREE YEARS AND IT’S FORMATTED TO HELP YOU DECIDE.

GOD IS GUIDING YOU. GO FOR IT!

You’ll be in my prayers,

pat /PJM

 

[SteveVH]

It seems almost serendipitous (or was it providential? ) that while I scoured the internet for something just like this prior to my conversion, I couldn’t find it until after I took the leap into that baptismal font.

Most certainly, providential. Great story!

 

[fence_sitter]

Then, a couple weeks later I stumbled across this article from Catholic Answers Magazine.

Thanks for this, I look forward to reading it.