What if its against my conscience to be Catholic?

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JoyToBeCatholic said:
Lol - yes, that certainly is true! (no pun intended), but we can’t walk around just accepthing things b/c someone says they are true, now can we?
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Perhaps this verse would be helpful.
Mar 9:24 (9:23) And immediately the father of the boy crying out, with tears said: I do believe, Lord. Help my unbelief. (Douay-Rheims Version)
 
lak611 said:
Perhaps this verse would be helpful.
Mar 9:24 (9:23) And immediately the father of the boy crying out, with tears said: I do believe, Lord. Help my unbelief. (Douay-Rheims Version)
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That is my constant prayer…
 
…and thousands of churches who believe they are following the truth…
 
JoyToBeCatholic said:
If it goes against my conscience to continue to be Catholic because I simply can’t grasp and accept its practices and beliefs (albeit, possibly b/c of my own flawed capacity to understand it), should I remain Catholic anyway? What does the Catholic church teach about following one’s conscience?
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We are to follow our conscience, BUT we are to properly form our conscience. Conscience is not simply our feelings. It does not get rightly formed by just accepting just any old view.

Conscience is a pupil, not a teacher. Consience is not above truth.
 
I think I don’t understand why we have the Bible in the first place. Why pronounce it “canon” at all? Why not just make the church THE authority? Or… Why not make church writings today canon? Either way its the same to me.

Unless… God preserved His Word so that people would know, 2000 years later, what the truth is. The Bible may not have been mass-produced in all that time, but Scripture has been out there, among not just Catholics, since the first books were being circulated and copied over and over again.
 
JoyToBeCatholic said:
Unless… God preserved His Word so that people would know, 2000 years later, what the truth is. The Bible may not have been mass-produced in all that time, but Scripture has been out there, among not just Catholics, since the first books were being circulated and copied over and over again.
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Until the 11th century, there were no Christians except Catholics. Then there were Catholic and Orthodox, with the same canon. There were no Protestants until the 16th century.
 
JoyToBeCatholic said:
I think I don’t understand why we have the Bible in the first place. Why pronounce it “canon” at all? Why not just make the church THE authority? Or… Why not make church writings today canon? Either way its the same to me.
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To put it rather bluntly, the New Testament is a book written by Catholics for Catholics. Jesus taught the Apostles; the apostles handed on those teachings to their followers and their successors. A great deal of that apostolic teaching got written down by those who were inspired by the Holy Spirit to do so. The Church decided which of those writings should be in the canon.

No book can be an ultimate authority, because a book cannot speak or interpret itself. It can’t grab your hand and say, “wait a minute, this is what I was trying to say here!” Only a person can do that.
 
JoyToBeCatholic said:
I think I don’t understand why we have the Bible in the first place. Why pronounce it “canon” at all? Why not just make the church THE authority? Or… Why not make church writings today canon? Either way its the same to me.

Unless… God preserved His Word so that people would know, 2000 years later, what the truth is. The Bible may not have been mass-produced in all that time, but Scripture has been out there, among not just Catholics, since the first books were being circulated and copied over and over again.
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The Church is the authority. She is a living authority. Scripture and Tradition need a custodian and authentic transmitter. That is the Church.
 
JoyToBeCatholic said:
Last year, I decided that I could no longer, in good conscience remain Catholic. I realized that I had convictions far more in line with anabaptist beliefs than I ever realized. I sought a conservative Mennonite congregation and began visiting their services and becoming a part of their community (as far as was possible, since they are not so close to me).

IOW, I see in the Catholic church the possibility that its claims are true, but I feel as though I am going against my own convictions and against my own conscience when I follow it
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Yours is the rare case where “conscience” isn’t some transparent excuse for self-indulgence.
The Catholic Church teaches that if your conscience tells you to leave, you should leave. After a brief sojurn with the Mennonites you are beginning to see that there are some deep problems with Sola Scriptura. However there are also some very real problems and open questions in relation to Catholicism.
I am not telling you what to do. I think that in end you will realise that every serious philosophical claim has its difficulties, but the Church’s claims much less than most. But that time isn’t yet.
 
JoyToBeCatholic said:
I guess I’m looking at it from the point of view that canon is what it is b/c its supposed to be the rule of measure. Who decides when something is in line with the rule of measure? If the church does, does this not put the church above scripture? If the rule of measure cannot even be determined by ordinary man, then what does he have to base his evaluation of the truth on? IOW, why should he take someones word for it? What rule of measure does the new Christian use to judge each church out there?
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Well, yes it does put the Church above Scripture in a sense. The Catechism states that Scripture and Sacred Tradition are “bound together”. Since the Church interprets Sacred Scripture then yes, in that sense the Church is above Scripture.

In another thread I posted my favorite teaching from my Sprititual Director…I’ll do it again here:
“Faith is not an act of the intellect, faith is an act of the will.”

On a white water rafting trip the guide told my friend that if someone fell off of the raft the only way you could pull them back in was to push them down into the water first and then pull them up. This sounded crazy to him since he is a big strong guy, so when someone fell overboard he grabbed them and tried to pull them back on the raft…and couldn’t. Finally he obeyed the guides directions and pushed his friend down into the water…and he came out of the water so fast they both ended up on the floor of the raft. Sometimes things don’t make sense intellectually, that doesn’t mean we should blindly accept everything but we need to realize that we do not know everything and sometimes we need to accept while we search.
 
DallasCatholic said:
On a white water rafting trip the guide told my friend that if someone fell off of the raft the only way you could pull them back in was to push them down into the water first and then pull them up. This sounded crazy to him since he is a big strong guy, so when someone fell overboard he grabbed them and tried to pull them back on the raft…and couldn’t. Finally he obeyed the guides directions and pushed his friend down into the water…and he came out of the water so fast they both ended up on the floor of the raft. Sometimes things don’t make sense intellectually, that doesn’t mean we should blindly accept everything but we need to realize that we do not know everything and sometimes we need to accept while we search.
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Awesome analogy! I think I may borrow that one!😉
 
Yes, faith is definately an act of the will. I will to even believe in God in the first place. But I cannot apply willed faith to everything. In this case, its very difficult to will faith in something that often goes against what I believe.
 
Dear JoytobeCatholic,

Perhaps you are digging too much and creating more dust than a clear view? Sounds like you are trying too hard. Speak to the priest as you mentioned, but I think what you need is to listen more and let God do the thinking for a while.😉 Sometimes INACTION is the bets action.👍
 
JimG said:
To put it rather bluntly, the New Testament is a book written by Catholics for Catholics. Jesus taught the Apostles; the apostles handed on those teachings to their followers and their successors. A great deal of that apostolic teaching got written down by those who were inspired by the Holy Spirit to do so. The Church decided which of those writings should be in the canon.

No book can be an ultimate authority, because a book cannot speak or interpret itself. It can’t grab your hand and say, “wait a minute, this is what I was trying to say here!” Only a person can do that.
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Right, no ordinary book can, but the Bible is not an ordinary book.

Why doesn’t the church continue to canonize its writings now? Why did it stop so early?
 
kell0618 said:
Dear JoytobeCatholic,

Perhaps you are digging too much and creating more dust than a clear view? Sounds like you are trying too hard. Speak to the priest as you mentioned, but I think what you need is to listen more and let God do the thinking for a while.😉 Sometimes INACTION is the bets action.👍
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I know what you mean. I have been laying off lately. In fact, this was one way I was doing that. Its the first time in ages that I’ve tried asking for a Catholic viewpoint on my specific questions. Its a nice change of pace, thank you 🙂
 
JoyToBeCatholic said:
Right, no ordinary book can, but the Bible is not an ordinary book.

Why doesn’t the church continue to canonize its writings now? Why did it stop so early?
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Because the Apostles died. Canon is OT Scripture which we got from our Elder brothers in the faith and NT which is the writings of the apostles. You won’t find any of the ECF in canon.
 
lak611 said:
Until the 11th century, there were no Christians except Catholics. Then there were Catholic and Orthodox, with the same canon. There were no Protestants until the 16th century.
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That’s not entirely true, there were the monophysite and nestorian churches of the east-unless you’re not counting them as christians.
 
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