Various faiths before conversion and Confession

[RoseLRose]

I was baptized in a non-Catholic Christian church as a baby. As a teenager, I abandoned that faith and spent many years basically between agnosticism and various New Age/occult practices, such as fortune-telling, Tarot cards, astrology, etc…I was never heavily involved in any of that, but I dabbled in it. I didn’t think about Christianity much, although I retained some of the cultural aspects and celebrated holidays with my family and friends.

After several years of that I converted to a non-Christian religion. This made me an apostate from Christianity. I left that faith after a short time, and returned to my “cultural” Christian and agnostic state. A few years after that, I started learning about Catholicism, and eventually converted. My Protestant baptism was deemed valid, so there was no need for another baptism. I didn’t talk to my parish priest about what happened after my leaving the Protestant church, although I later confessed the sin of leaving Christianity for a non-Christian religion. (I mentioned that this happened before becoming Catholic.)

I have heard that the sin of apostasy requires absolution from a bishop. I confessed this sin to a priest, and he absolved me and didn’t mention anything about going to the bishop. Was I not subject to this rule because I was a non-Catholic at the time of my apostasy? I just want to make sure that I haven’t somehow missed something that I was supposed to do…

 

[spiderweb]

Since no one else has given their thoughts on this, I’ll give my non-authoritative opinion.

Because the “apostasy” was not from the Catholic church, you are not bound by the Catholic Church in this instance to receive the absolution of the bishop because you were not a member of the Church at that time.

I would suggest you just talk to your priest about it and then follow whatever he says so you can have some peace of mind about the matter.

 

[otjm]

I was baptized in a non-Catholic Christian church as a baby. As a teenager, I abandoned that faith and spent many years basically between agnosticism and various New Age/occult practices, such as fortune-telling, Tarot cards, astrology, etc…I was never heavily involved in any of that, but I dabbled in it. I didn’t think about Christianity much, although I retained some of the cultural aspects and celebrated holidays with my family and friends.

After several years of that I converted to a non-Christian religion. This made me an apostate from Christianity. I left that faith after a short time, and returned to my “cultural” Christian and agnostic state. A few years after that, I started learning about Catholicism, and eventually converted. My Protestant baptism was deemed valid, so there was no need for another baptism. I didn’t talk to my parish priest about what happened after my leaving the Protestant church, although I later confessed the sin of leaving Christianity for a non-Christian religion. (I mentioned that this happened before becoming Catholic.)

I have heard that the sin of apostasy requires absolution from a bishop. I confessed this sin to a priest, and he absolved me and didn’t mention anything about going to the bishop. Was I not subject to this rule because I was a non-Catholic at the time of my apostasy? I just want to make sure that I haven’t somehow missed something that I was supposed to do…

In addition, there are three things necessary for a sin: 1) it must be serious; 2) you must know that it is serious; and then you must intentionally do the act.

From your post it sounds as if 2 never occurred, and possibly 1. You have confessed; the matter is ended. Go in peace.