What do you believe?

[Veritas41]

Ryan, I pray you’ll continue to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. I’m a convert from evangelical Protestantism (Catholic for 10 years now), and the verse I clung to and prayed as I investigated the Catholic faith was Prov 3:5-6.

Other posters have pointed you to some good websites and sources to find out more about the Catholic faith. I think Catholic Answers is a great place to start which can point you to other resources like Catholics United for the Faith (www.cuf.org). They have “Faith Facts” that explain various Catholic teachings and the scriptural support for them.

Just remember that not everything that calls itself “Catholic” is always completely faithful to Catholic teaching. Even if you get to the point of being intellectually convinced the Catholic faith is true, there can still be psychological adjustments – from my own experience, it was the 1) trauma of finding out some things I believed were wrong, 2) actually changing my beliefs – the process of change was confusing at times, 3) dealing with ingrained prejudices against Catholicism, 4) dealing with negative reactions from family and friends.

Also, be prepared for a Church that is very, very human! You may experience poorly or irreverently done Masses; people in the pews may look like they would rather be having a root canal done; many priests don’t preach very well, so don’t expect to learn too much from attending Sunday Mass (most of what I’ve learned has been on my own), and be prepared that many Catholics are ignorant of their faith, complacent or defiantly dissent from Church teachings. ( I keep in mind the Church let me in, so I just added to the imperfection of its members )But all that doesn’t matter if it’s the Church Jesus founded, which is why I am still Catholic.

 

[anon52328184]

in response to elts1956 again, if i am called before an iraqi tribunal and told i am going to get death if i do not rescind my faith, they are not asking me to explain my faith. there is a difference between rescinding and defining.
your example doesn’t make since. ryan isn’t asking us to rescind our faith.
he is making a very simple request to learn more about it so he can make further judgments. i, for one, did not feel like i was in front of a ""firing squad in trying to answer some questions for him.

 

[elts1956]

no, i understand you are talking about the catholics. i still don’t understand your way of thinking elts. ryan says he wants to know about catholicism,
how our beliefs differ from what the protestants believe, why we say we are the “church”. i think people were welcoming him and impressed the questions he is asking at his age for wanting to look deeper. i don’t think we were evangelizing and i still don’t get the tribunal aspect of your point and standing before an iraqi? why an iraqi?

Forget it deborahaz. You are right, my post was not to the questions asked. Just a beef I had to get out of my system. No one has evangelized on this thread as yet.

 

[ryanclewis]

Thank you all very much! I do plan on staying here, not only for trying to understand Catholicism, but also for the discussions. Some posts I’ve already read are very thought-provoking.

Ryan, I pray you’ll continue to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. I’m a convert from evangelical Protestantism (Catholic for 10 years now), and the verse I clung to and prayed as I investigated the Catholic faith was Prov 3:5-6.

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

So many people now try to “reason” their way through spiritual matters…it makes me slightly wary of trying to gain information on the Internet. But in the end, as long as we leave our hearts open to God, He will not lead us astray…

Something I was curious about, I tried to gather this from another thread but there was far too much argument that I didn’t understand…does the Catholic Church believe that Protestants have salvation, even though we are not part of “the” church?

 

[anon52328184]

ryan, i am a recent convert to catholicism also. i converted from the episcopal church.

i am familiar with the thread you are referring too. i am not knowledgable enough about catholicism yet to answer that question for you.

that thread might be a little deep for you at this time and i don’t know if i would recommend it because on that thread, it is back and forth, back and forth. you might get confused and not learn what the catholic church really believes about that.

hopefully, someone more knowledgable than i will be able to answer that for you.

i am glad that you are enjoying coming here, but i am not sure if it is a good idea to read some of the threads because it will be very confusing.

 

[ricko]

Something I was curious about, I tried to gather this from another thread but there was far too much argument that I didn’t understand…does the Catholic Church believe that Protestants have salvation, even though we are not part of “the” church?

To say that non-Catholics “have salvation” would be incorrect. But all non-Catholics have a chance at salvation. To explain better, only the Catholic Church was promised protection from teaching error, only the Catholic Church was guaranteed that “the gates of hell shall not prevail” against her. Only the Catholic Church has “the fullness of truth”. Others teach different beliefs from one end of the spectrum to the other. There is only ONE truth and that is the teaching of Jesus Christ given to the ONLY Church that he established, the Catholic Church. It is God’s desire that all men be saved. The bible says that "not everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved but he that DOES the WILL of the Father. How do you know what the will of the Father is unless the Church that he founded tells you? Most non-Catholics will tell you they get truth from the bible, yet they cannot agree on what the truth is because the Holy Spirit was given only to the Catholic Church to keep it from teaching error and not to the others. That’s why you see so many different churches all teaching different things. Yes, they do have a chance at salvation but no assurance for they do not have the truth or worse they rejected the truth when they rejected the Catholic Church. For those there is no salvation.

 

[anon52328184]

thanks. i was hoping someone would come here to give an answer exactly like that!!!

 

[Rolltide]

Thank you all very much! I do plan on staying here, not only for trying to understand Catholicism, but also for the discussions. Some posts I’ve already read are very thought-provoking.

Something I was curious about, I tried to gather this from another thread but there was far too much argument that I didn’t understand…does the Catholic Church believe that Protestants have salvation, even though we are not part of “the” church?

The answer is actually fairly simple, although the official wording requires a SUBSTANTIAL explanation. We believe that “there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church”. BUT… if you have “invincible ignorance” that the Catholic Church is the one true church, you will have a chance at salvation based on the amount of truth that you understand. Note that this does NOT mean, no matter what it looks like, that ONLY Catholics are saved!

So, in practical terms, what does that mean? First, it means that those that fully understand Catholicism and reject it probably don’t have a chance at salvation. This would include anyone who was Catholic and left the church and was accurately taught what the church really believes. (Now, if they had been raised only nominally Catholic by a family that didn’t really go to church much, they might not actually understand doctrine that well. There is a chance they could qualify as ignorant.) This would also include most of the first couple of generations of Protestants, who fully understood Catholicism and rejected it’s theology. According to Catholic theology, they are probably also doomed (although ultimately, we recognize that only God knows for sure. The church can proclaim that certain saints are in heaven, but never proclaims definitively whether someone is in hell.) However, most modern Christians that grow up Protestant probably do not “fully” understand Catholicism (since they really aren’t exposed to it, and what they learn is often inaccurate), and so there is a possibility that they may be “invincibly ignorant”, in which case, they will be judged by what they understand. If, however, they studied Catholicism and truly understood it, and STILL rejected it, then they would likely be doomed. Non-Christians very well might be “invincibly ignorant”, but have even less understanding of Catholic Christianity than Protestants, and so, it would still be possible, but perhaps increasingly unlikely that they would merit heaven. They would have to do their best to follow God by following natural law, and recognize that there was some higher power. The biggest problem for all of these groups is that they lack the benefit of a sacramental confession, so if they EVER committed a mortal sin, about the only way it could be removed would be through an Act of Perfect Contrition, meaning they would have to be truly sorry, NOT just because they were afraid of hell, but because they were sorry that they offended God. If one isn’t even Christian, you can see how this might be extremely difficult. How would a non-Christian even KNOW what an Act of Perfect Contrition was? (There is also the possibility that they could make a “baptism of desire”, like the thief on the cross.) Thus, when someone outside of the Catholic faith DOES make it to heaven, it is STILL “through (the teachings preserved in) the Catholic Church.”

 

[MrS]

Ryan…

A number of years ago, I came across a wonderful article on why to be Catholic. There are five general areas covered. The writer used to be a Hindu, and through the grace of God, became interested in Catholicism.

I so enjoyed his article, that I replaced his numerous Scriptural references with the actual Scripture verses. I supplied the article to all the teens in my Apologetics classes… and their parents. Those with an appreciation of Scripture, or at least an apprecitiation of their Faith, got the most out of it.

Today that man is a strong Catholic… and the governor of Louisanna… Bobby Jindal.

If you are interested in the article, PM me and I will send you the word document.

.

 

[jmcrae]

Thank you all very much. It’s nice to know that I’ll actually be able to ask questions without being condemned…

(I go to a Baptist church, by the way)

A and C: From what I understand, Catholics base these beliefs off of Jesus’ statements in Matthew 16: 18-19, where Jesus gives the “keys to the kingdom” to Peter. But aside from this, I guess I just can’t see how the papacy is biblically based.

It isn’t; it’s historically based. We trace our Popes in a direct line back to St. Peter, because of the letters that the people wrote to them back in those days, things that were written about them - things they were doing in their office as Pope - and also based on the letters that they wrote back to the people.

It was Pope Innocent I who gave us the Bible, by making an Infallible Declaration about it in about 405 AD. If it had not been for this Pope making an Infallible Declaration, we would not have a Bible at all.

B: Jesus says that he is our mediator in 1 Timothy 2:5. Why should we pray to anyone else? Additionally, do you believe that we can pray directly to God?

Jesus’ mediation does not consist in praying for us (since He is already God), but in dying for our sins on the Cross. We pray for each other, and, because of the fact that we have eternal life (Sainthood), we can continue to pray for others, even when we get to Heaven.

E: For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. - 2 Tim 4:3. I think the Bible is very clear that works and faith go hand in hand. I don’t pretend to fully understand this, but I don’t think simply saying “I accept Jesus’ salvation” and walking away is what the Bible means by “faith”.

This is absolutely correct. If you have a bit of time, it would be worth reading through the Letter of James - it’s fairly short, but it gives a good picture of the teaching of the Catholic Church on this issue.

 

[mary_bobo]

No, Ryan wasn’t in the context of my post. I hope he stays around. I was talking about those Catholics who seem to think they MUST Evangelize and, to me, SEEM to be defending themselves when it SEEMS they are not being asked to defend their Faith. To me they have the same reaction one would have if called before an Iraqi, for example, tribunal and being sentenced to death if they don’t rescind their Faith. Hope that clarifies.

Let us refrain from talking about those Catholics as they have not appeared here.

 

[elts1956]

Let us refrain from talking about those Catholics as they have not appeared here.

Yes Mam. I was trying to explain my explanation of “something” to another poster which wound up being no explanation at all, so I just forgot it.

 

[emeraldcoast]

I am 15 years old, live in the United States, and have grown up Protestant.

I am starting to question certain aspects of my faith. I don’t necessarily believe everything I’ve been taught so far; some doctrines I’ve been taught just don’t seem to agree with everything in the Bible.

For instance, salvation by faith alone. What defines “faith”? I have been taught that nothing can take it away from me, and I believe that. Yet, there are clear passages in the New Testament that seem to say that we CAN lose our salvation, through sin and rejection.

Anyway, I want to know about Catholicism. How do your beliefs differ from what Protestants believe? What are your reasons for confession, praying to saints, etc? Why do you say that you are “the” church?

Hi Ryan,

Have you brought up your questions and concerns with your parents and your pastor? If my child came on a board like this, I would hope that an adult would direct them back to their parents for guidence.

God Bless!