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jas84173
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Does the Church have an official declaration of what it Is? Is it a heresy?
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PaulfromIowa
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If you do a search on the main Catholic Answers homepage, you will find much content. Mormonism is polytheistic and not compatible with biblical Christianity.
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Kielbasi
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Just that Mormonism and the LDS church isn’t Catholic, its priests don’t have any particular authority and neither of its sacraments- communion and baptism are valid.
If a Mormon wants to become Catholic- if they’ve only have been baptized in the Mormon faith, they have to be re-baptized.
If a Catholic wants to get married to a Mormon, they have to get a “disparity of cult” dispensation before it can be ok’ed.
I don’t think Mormonism is really a “heresy” , because they don’t pretend to be Catholic.
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jas84173
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Yah but the Church did define Jehovah’s Witnesses as a heresy, and they don’t try to be Catholic either.
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Kielbasi
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I’ve never heard JW’s referred to as “heretics” from an official Catholic source.
Do you have a citation or a link on this?
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jas84173
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I do know the Gruppo di Ricerca e Informazione Socio Religiosa of the Milan Roman Catholic Dioceses
declared in a convention in May 2011 that Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrine are incompatible with
Roman Catholic dogma. Which in theory means it’s a heresy. I don’t have a link, I read about it in my JW booklet from Catholic Answers actually lol.
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Luke6_37
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Mormon cosmology reads like a science fiction story - kind of like Battlestar Galactica.
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Kielbasi
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“incompatible with Catholic dogma” isn’t quite the same as heresy, I don’t think.
By that means, Hinduism, the Nation of Islam, and Druidism are all “heresies” too, but I think the word has a more narrow definition.
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USMC_Convert
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That they need our prayers, love, mercy and friendship…
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Luke6_37
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Heresies are false teachings that contradict or distort true or “orthodox” teachings. Heterodoxies are teaching that exist apart or alongside what is defined as orthodox. For example, believing in nature spirits (Druids?) is a heterodoxy, because it does not necessarily conflict with any orthodox Christian doctrines. However, believing that Jesus never died on the cross (Islam) is a heresy, because it directly contradicts what orthodox Christians believe. By the same token, believing in the divinity of Christ is a heresy from an Islamic perspective so it goes both ways.
What Mormons believe about God the Father, Jesus, Satan and pretty much their entire cosmology and understanding of where they stand as created beings in relation to the divine is completely at odds orthodox Christianity. So that makes Mormon doctrines heretical from a Christian perspective.
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thephilosopher6
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Mormonism a terrible distortion of Christianity. Possibly worse than Islam, atleast in its cosmology.
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Fiasco
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A good description! May have inspired L Ron Hubbard.Mormon cosmology reads like a science fiction story - kind of like Battlestar Galactica.
And one or two distressing similarities.
Very slightly tongue-in-cheek but, apart from a few inner-circle folks and their Prophet, i don’t think ANYONE knows what exactly Mormonism is, and that includes the average LDS member “in the street”. Try to get straight answers from LDS missionaries or others, eg on these forums, and you come away more confused than ever.
Plus. the Prophet receives new “revelations” every so often.
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otjm
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Heresy is a rather elastic word, as it gets thrown around quite a bit to cover a far ranging field of beliefs.
In general, heresy was applied to people who either were Catholic, or generally knew what was contained within Christian doctrine and practices, and went astray from them in some particulars.
To contain some of that elasticity, the definition of heresy which I have used is “the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith, or it is likewise obstinate doubt concerning the same.”
Apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith.
So for Mormonism, it would seem that it is not a heresy, but rather an apostasy - although, again, I have no knowledge if Joseph Smith was originally a Christian, and if so, under what set of beliefs.
Mormonism appears to be made pretty much of an almost completely different view of reality as the Church understands it. The comments about it having a different cosmology is right on; for example, everyone exists as spiritual beings prior to being born, and Christ and the Devil were spirit brothers. And God is a perfected human being is a good place to start.
There are trappings which the Mormon religion contains, such as baptism and communion, but their understanding of these is radically removed from what Christianity (i.e. not just the Catholic Church) holds.
The Church does not have a line by line repudiation of Mormon doctrine, as it is simply unnecessary.
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otjm
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One needs to understand where the missionaries are coming from. They have several tracts which they pursue. Most, but not all, are in the 18 to 22 age bracket, and they have been given not all that much as to the history and teachings of Joseph Smith. They are there to convince you they are morally upright and they are very quick to offer any sort of assistance they might be able to provide. Need your windows washed, grass mowed, odd jobs done - they are going to volunteer. If they can’t meet your needs but can understand them, they may boot back to their superiors to see if assistance can be made.Try to get straight answers from LDS missionaries or others, eg on these forums, and you come away more confused than ever.
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They will pray for you, and they will pray with you - and they pray a lot. But they have almost no sophistication in theological matters, and they are taught to not get into long debates with Christians; they would far rather spend their time with someone who is open to hearing their message. Some may choose to correct me, but I have often said they do not have a theology; they simply have a religion.
In short, they are very social, and come from a background of an almost smothering social interconnection. There are several comments concerning Mormons: if you are in need (food, clothing, shelter, a job, and etc.) and are Mormon, a non-practicing Mormon, or willing to become a Mormon and in Utah, you go to the Mormon Church; and if you are anything else or nothing at all, you go to the Catholic Church.
And if you are Mormon and doing business with another Mormon, you will be taken care of and business will be in your best interest. And if you are not Mormon but doing business with one, watch your back. Having worked for a Fortune 500 company, and my sales manager was Mormon (and all but 4 sales reps were Mormon), I am not without experience in the matter. If you are in business to business sales and they can buy the equivalent from a Mormon, don’t bother with 5 closes. Just move on.
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LibbieHawker
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If you want to get the clearest idea of what Mormonism actually is (and is not), I think your best bet is to ask an ex-Mormon, such as myself.A good description! May have inspired L Ron Hubbard.
And one or two distressing similarities.
Very slightly tongue-in-cheek but, apart from a few inner-circle folks and their Prophet, i don’t think ANYONE knows what exactly Mormonism is, and that includes the average LDS member “in the street”. Try to get straight answers from LDS missionaries or others, eg on these forums, and you come away more confused than ever.
Plus. the Prophet receives new “revelations” every so often.
It’s very hard to get straight answers from people who are still in the faith, because cognitive dissonance makes it uncomfortable for them to look at the tenets of their faith rationally. But somebody who has left it has no issues examining it critically or speaking about it honestly.I do find there is a lot of misinformation about Mormonism among other religions–for example, somebody up-thread here said that Mormonism is polytheistic. That is not the case, and in fact it gave me a bit of a chuckle, considering Catholic folks pray to saints all the time, and that seems rather polytheistic to somebody who’s not a Catholic!
Mormons do not pray to anyone other than God, in the name of Jesus Christ.I’m no longer a Mormon (nor am I religious at all, in fact) but I do find the history of the LDS church fascinating (I am a confirmed history nerd) so I know quite a lot about it and can answer questions that church members and missionaries may be reluctant to answer or simply may not know the answers to yet. (Keep in mind, Mormon missionaries are 19-21 years old. They are very young and usually haven’t had a chance yet to study the history of their own church. They teach what they’ve been told to teach, and their knowledge of church history and doctrine doesn’t yet extend beyond that point.)
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LibbieHawker
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Smith was originally a Methodist. Although many other denominations of Christianity disagree with their view, Joseph Smith and all Mormons who have come after him consider themselves to be Christians, because they worship the Abrahamic God and Jesus Christ (albeit with a different interpretation than most other Christian denominations have accepted.)
In order to understand why Mormonism looks so different from most other surviving Christian denominations, one has to understand the milieu in which it arose. The history of the Burned-Over District is rich and fascinating, but probably too long to go into here! The culture of the specific time and place where Mormonism was developed played a major role in shaping it. A multitude of other interpretations of Christianity arose at the same time, and each of them had as much social clout as Mormonism had at the time. Today, however, only a few still remain. Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Jehova’s Witnesses all came from the same “stock,” if you will, being religious reactions to the dramatic culture of the Burned-Over District. I’m really not sure why these three particular religions survived to the 21st century, but all the rest of the BOD religions did not.
As a former Mormon, I don’t believe their understanding of baptism and communion are radically removed from what Christianity believes of either of those two rites. In fact, they seem directly in line with what most other Christian denominations believe about the same. Baptism and communion may be one of the only places where Mormon doctrine agrees with more conventional Christian doctrines.
Baptism for the dead is a different rite from baptizing living church members, but it may not have been a foreign concept to the earliest Christians. Something that may be a similar rite to baptism for the dead is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:29, depending on how one interprets it.
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Solomonson
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All this aside, Mormons still don’t accept Jesus Christ as the Second Person of the Triune God. Thus the claim of being a Christian denomination is false.
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Michael85
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Mormonism is not a Christian religion. They believe that God was once a man on another planet, that He followed the laws and ordinances of the god of that world, and after death became the God of this world.
This belief is not compatible with Christianity. Ergo, Mormonism is not Christian.
This belief is not compatible with Christianity. Ergo, Mormonism is not Christian.
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TheTrinitySaves
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