What teachings would the Catholic Church have to drop for you to be a catholic

[NDfan]

First, the meat thing is not just some ritual. It actually has meaning. It is choosing to give up something that we like to better our soul. WOuld you dare tell Christ that he should not have fasted for forty days?

Are you saying that there are no overweight PCA or OPC ministers? None of them were alcoholics? None of them committed adultry? Are homosexual? Have tempers? Veiw porn?

Ralph my brother how are you? With regard to meet on Fridays I was always taught in Catholic school that it was because Christ was the sacrificial lamb that died on a Friday. That’s why we don’t eat meat on Fridays. Was that your teaching? What used to upset me was the constant changing from you can to you can’t to you can back to you can’t. Then it was you can’t unless you’re pregnant or are elderly then it was Ok. I remember a very funny story. Our church had a bullroast during Lent on of all days Good Friday. The Priest literally stood up and offered special dispensation that it was Ok to eat meat.

Peace Brother

 

[newbetx]

But I do not agree with the Church. I’m open to being convinced.

Really? TOB for Beginners…Or The Good News About Sex and Marriage. Let us know if you have questions. Deal?

 

[LutheranDK]

That isn’t what he is asking. He is asking non-Catholics to answer to know what it would take.

Thank you - exactly!

Now, to answer the question, there are a number of things that keep me “out” of the RC church:

1: I do not believe that the Bishop of Rome has universal authority over all believers. The doctrine of the primacy (unless we’re talking a prima inter pares-primacy) would therefore have to go, as well as the various other doctrines that place the Bishop of Rome as the de facto head of the church.

2: I believe that while Mary was (!) indeed the Theotokos (because to deny that is to deny the divinity of Christ), she was not immaculately convcieved; id est: She was a sinner like the rest of humanity, save Christ.
Thus, the various Marian dogmas would all have to go (intercessory prayers, immaculate conception, etc).
It is also interesting to note that there was great disputes over this question for centuries…

3: It is one of the greatest tragedies of Western Christendom that it was the Via Moderna scholastics and Thomas Aquinas that came to influence the RC church, and not the Via Moderna Augustiniana.
Because while the former (with Thomas Aquinas) emphasized the freedom of the will in choosing sin or not, the latter held to Augustine’s thoughts, that salvation is entirely the work of God, from start to finish.
(interestingly, btw, that Roman-Catholics held this view of Luther’s two centuries before Luther did…so it wasn’t just an “invention” by Luther)
An adoption of the Via Moderna Augustiniana viewpoints would have had HUGE consequences (to the better) for the RC church, and just might have prevented the split of Western Christendom during the Reformation.

There are probably other things as well, but these are those I could come up with off the top of my head

 

[curtishouse29]

The Pope comes up with some pretty clever sayings to try and lend credence to his dogma of the whole world submitting to him. Only one problem. This phrase makes no sense.

That phrase makes perfect sense to me. If everybody has a version of their own truth it becomes subjective. Truth is not subjective.

 

[Le_Cracquere]

Hi Le Cracquere,

Clearly, you believe that the Catholic Church teaches some things which are erroneous. That’s not really surprising. (Presumably, if you didn’t think that, then you would be Catholic yourself.)

What’s curious to me is that it seems (reading between the lines) that you believe the Catholic Church is, if you will, “infallibly wrong”. I.e., that she teaches errors and will never stop teaching those errors.

Kind of a bleak position to take, if I may say so.

Welll … I didn’t exactly mean it that way. What I mean is, maybe the Catholic Church teaches errors, and maybe it doesn’t. If the Catholic Church does teach errors, it would be the kind of church that is susceptible of making errors (obvious, I know). IF the Catholic Church is susceptible of making errors, then it’s not the kind of Church it claims to be. If it’s not the kind of Church it claims to be, little point in my joining it, Q.E.D.

 

[LutheranDK]

The Pope comes up with some pretty clever sayings to try and lend credence to his dogma of the whole world submitting to him. Only one problem. This phrase makes no sense.

The phrase makes perfect sense. To speak of more than one truth is nonsense. The trick is to find out what that one truth is…

And as for your conspiracy-theory: I refuse to dignify it with a rebuttal…

 

[gcnuss]

You’d make a fine Catholicl deacon.

Rebecca,

Well, if I were convinced that I should convert, there’s always the “pastoral provision.”

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

Hello Gabriel how are you brother??

Sorry to interrupt this post with Lambic but I wanted to ask a few questions. If we look back at the first councils and the representation they had we find that many of the churches who considered themselves to be Christian were not represented. So we really can’t claim that many of these councils were truly ecumenical. Look at the council of Nicaea which was called by Constantine. We had Bishops right within what became known as the Catholic church that held different views on the nature of Christ. This all was taken by their interpretation of scripture. And we find that the councils mostly appealed to scripture to try to define their dogmas. Now the councils usually made their final decisions by majority vote. Is it really fair to say that because the majority voted one way that this now is absolute truth?? And we really can’t consider it to be a majority given the entire church was not represented. I’m curious what your thoughts are on this and what have you found in your research?

Gabriel of 12;

Peace be with you NDfan; At the council of Nicea, we do not have an Ecumenical council sorry; What we have is a confrontation of Heretics and Heresy teaching “Arianism” which conflicted with the teaching of the Apostles handed down to the Church.

What you fail to see how important these councils were that yes, even the Emperor of Rome convened Emperor Constantine I, who was concerned in keeping the peace.

Think for a moment if your church was having an important doctrinal issue discussed would the President of the U.S convene your meeting?

Here is a brief historical account; There were 318 Bishops present. We dont need to go into the dangerous reasons that prevented others to attend. Although the Arians’ were represented very well who were enemies of the Catholic church. Eusebius of Ceasarea was the historian present and no one to my knowledge refutes him. The heavy weight St. Anthanasius was the Theologian present again another who never refuted in Christianity.

We wont get into specifics when St. Nicholas ( yes;Santa Claus) Co-cocked the “Arian” priest when he began to speak and deny Jesus divinity. In any case what resulted from this Arian Hersey that brought the Catholic council together was the Apostolic “Nicene Creed” still professed today by Catholics, also the decrees and resolutions of “Consubstantiality of the Word”, “Homousin with the Father”. These resolutions was then Ratified by Pope Silvester I. So you see my brother; the Catholic church did not invent the Trinity, she proclaimed the Trinity as defined, believed, taught from Apostolic Tradition and Sacred Scripture. The Catholic church has always taught you cannot have Apostolic Tradition without Sacred Scripture.

NDfan:
I would challenge the septuagint given that there are many versions written by different people. And it was compiled over a long period of time. Not the 70 or 72 days some claim. Now Protestants don’t reject the entire Septuagint so you’re making kind of an unfair statement here. Just the Apocryophal works which the Jews also reject.

Gabriel of 12:
My thought was that Protestants reject books from the Septuagint, if I was not clear on my thought, I stand corrected. The reason Protestants and Jews reject the Deutero’ books because they found no Hebrew counter parts. As you know today, the dead sea scrolls proved both Protestants and Jews wrong. Besides when the Jews rejected these books was to discredit Jesus, and Protestants sided with this argument? The Catholic church “Rock” stood her ground and history proved her position to be divinely supported.

To be cont.

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

Cont. from previous post

NDfan;
As far as sacred tradition I don’t dismiss it because I think it’s important to know what the early churches were doing. But sacred tradition cannot contradict scripture. And some traditions like those related to Mary did not appear until the 5th century. Maybe the late 4th century but in either case we cannot trust that these traditions were handed down by the Apostles given we don’t find them cited in scripture. This is where I am guarded with sacred tradition because it’s so easy for legend to start to creep in once you get past 100 years of an event.

Gabriel of 12:

Ah. this is were Protestants error; You expect these mysteries of God to come out of the pages with your personal interpretations, it is not going to happen. Jesus revealed “ALL” the scriptures to his disciples, (See Luke 24). For one Mary is revealed beginning with Genesis, her assumption is in the prophets, her immaculate conception is foretold by God himself. This my brother was handed down by the Apostles supported by Sacred Scripture. But you need the Apostolic Catholic church to teach you these mysteries of God. Not your 20th century interpretation of scripture.

NDfan;
Well once you truly understand the meaning of Matthew 16 then the whole chair of Peter thing kind of falls by the wayside. But not to derail the thread we face an interesting dilemma because the OP asks an intriguing question. If we said that there are dogmas of faith that are required for our salvation what would those dogmas be and can Protestants and Catholics ever agree? Things that are not required for salvation can be placed in a category of this is what the church teaches but not required belief. For instance I don’t have to believe Mary was assumed into Heaven to obtain salvation in Christ. I don’t have to believe Mary was a perpetual virgin nor that she was sinless to obtain salvation in Christ. Why does the Catholic church make these dogmas required beliefs when they have nothing to do with Christ and many Catholics today don’t even believe in them?

Gabriel of 12;
I would recommend you get a scholary neutral position of Mathew 16, and you will find the Catholic church correctly interprets this statement of Jesus building his church upon Peter these last 2000 years. It is obvious you wont take this 2000 year old sacred scripture teaching of Mathew 16, then find any time in history a neutral biblical scholar to help your interpretation.

The reason the Catholic church teaches the four dogmas of Mary, is because they are recorded in scripture from both the old testament and new testaments. She is the thread that sews these two covenants of God together (it is a fascinating study). Secondly if you dont have the correct belief about Mary, you will never have the correct or full faith understanding of Jesus himself, for these doctrines of Mary point to Jesus’s Divinity and his humanity. Thus for Catholics to raise ones faith that surpasses all understanding in Jesus our Savior, Mary’s dogmas help us to understand the great work of Salvation for our humanity, and increases our faith on who Jesus is; God incarnate;

Nice to speak with you NDfan;

 

[wmscott]

A couple of other things come to mind, concerning whether or not a non-catholic, would consider becoming a catholic; 1) most or all of us do not recognize the pope as the evangelical leader of the entire Christian world, 2) we don’t believe in praying through Mary and the saints,3)no need for the rosary or prayer beads! Let’s face it; if most of us non-catholics suddenly decided to take the plunge, we would definitely be “cafeteria catholics”.

To this I totally and whole heartily disagree, most Converts are deeply devoted to the Catholic Church, most are very informed as to its laws, rules, precepts, doctrine, and so on. This is because they had to take the time to study it in depth before converting and giving up their old way of life and in some cases being alienated from their families. This is not done lightly by any means. However, this is just one Converts opinion.

 

[wmscott]

I have been coming off and on to this thread to see what would be said. I have been thinking about what the best answer would be. The only thing I can say is that it is not easy being a Catholic, there are many forces working against us both from within as well as from the outside. I would not want the CC to drop anything to please those of us here on earth. That is not what the Church Christ instituted here on earth is about. With the CC there is the Truth, some of it hard to swallow when we take a good look at ourselves. Are we going to be able to live up to every truth and standard? NO, we are humans, we are imperfect, and we are sinners. As was stated by someone that I can’t remember, the CC is not a home for saints but a hospital for sinners, we have our religious as our doctors and nurses and our Sacraments as our medicine. The only thing I can do is to do my best to be the best Catholic I can be and then let the Lord judge me when it is time.

 

[NDfan]

Gabriel of 12;

Peace be with you NDfan; At the council of Nicea, we do not have an Ecumenical council sorry; What we have is a confrontation of Heretics and Heresy teaching “Arianism” which conflicted with the teaching of the Apostles handed down to the Church.

Gabriel peace to you too brother. Technically Nicea was considered to be the first of seven ecumenical councils given the scope of churches in attendance. Ecumenical simply meaning world wide. And yes they were resolving the conflicting nature of Christ but also decided on when to celebrate Easter or the Resurrection. Constantine invited all 1800 Bishops but only 250 to 300 showed as counted by Eusebius. I don’t disagree with the findings of the council per se just showing that the church as a whole was not well represented.

What you fail to see how important these councils were that yes, even the Emperor of Rome convened Emperor Constantine I, who was concerned in keeping the peace.

Gabriel I completely understand the importance of these councils. I’m certainly not downplaying their role or importance, just citing again that the participation is not reflective of the entire Christian church. So the majority rulings were not really the majority rulings.

Think for a moment if your church was having an important doctrinal issue discussed would the President of the U.S convene your meeting?

I’m not sure of your point here but no he probably would not.

Here is a brief historical account; There were 318 Bishops present. We dont need to go into the dangerous reasons that prevented others to attend. Although the Arians’ were represented very well who were enemies of the Catholic church. Eusebius of Ceasarea was the historian present and no one to my knowledge refutes him. The heavy weight St. Anthanasius was the Theologian present again another who never refuted in Christianity.

Don’t forget Alexander of Alexandria He sided with Athanasius.

We wont get into specifics when St. Nicholas ( yes;Santa Claus) Co-cocked the “Arian” priest when he began to speak and deny Jesus divinity. In any case what resulted from this Arian Hersey that brought the Catholic council together was the Apostolic “Nicene Creed” still professed today by Catholics, also the decrees and resolutions of “Consubstantiality of the Word”, “Homousin with the Father”. These resolutions was then Ratified by Pope Silvester I. So you see my brother; the Catholic church did not invent the Trinity, she proclaimed the Trinity as defined, believed, taught from Apostolic Tradition and Sacred Scripture. The Catholic church has always taught you cannot have Apostolic Tradition without Sacred Scripture.

Gabriel I’m in complete agreement with you here and not at all trying to criticize the church for their role. Again I’m just looking at council participation as not being reflective of the entire church.

My thought was that Protestants reject books from the Septuagint, if I was not clear on my thought, I stand corrected.

Maybe I misunderstood then. It appeared you were saying Protestants rejected the Septuagint altogether.

The reason Protestants and Jews reject the Deutero’ books because they found no Hebrew counter parts.

No that’s not true Gabriel. That argument gets used a lot but it certainly is not the case. The canon of the OT was considered closed by 400BC. These works appear after that with the oldest being the book of Enoch. Jews certainly recognize that their people continued writing after this time frame but that does not imply these works would be defined as canonical. If you use that argument then you could say everything written in Greek after Christ should be canonical in the NT. The Jews flat out admitted that no Prophets existed between 400BC and the time of Christ. The Apocryphal works show that.

As you know today, the dead sea scrolls proved both Protestants and Jews wrong. Besides when the Jews rejected these books was to discredit Jesus, and Protestants sided with this argument? The Catholic church “Rock” stood her ground and history proved her position to be divinely supported.

No they just proved that the writings of the Apocrypha existed in the native language. But that doesn’t mean they are canonical.

 

[NDfan]

Cont. from previous post
Ah. this is were Protestants error; You expect these mysteries of God to come out of the pages with your personal interpretations, it is not going to happen. Jesus revealed “ALL” the scriptures to his disciples, (See Luke 24). For one Mary is revealed beginning with Genesis, her assumption is in the prophets, her immaculate conception is foretold by God himself. This my brother was handed down by the Apostles supported by Sacred Scripture. But you need the Apostolic Catholic church to teach you these mysteries of God. Not your 20th century interpretation of scripture.

I certainly don’t expect them to come out in my own personal interpretation. As far as Mary being revealed in Genesis that simply is not true. If you are referring to the use of the term woman we both know GOD was speaking strictly to Eve. If you are referring to the she will bruise your head, that was a mistake made by a copyist as the proper rendering of the Hebrew text is HE will bruise your head, referring to Christ. JPII recognized and admitted this mistake and made a general statement that the church saw this as an allusion to the birth of Christ. But that has nothing to do with Mary’s sinless nature of perpetual virginity. If you try to dig into the Prophets then you run into trouble there as well since we both know the Prophets foretold that even the family of the Messiah would reject HIM, brothers and sisters.

I would recommend you get a scholary neutral position of Mathew 16, and you will find the Catholic church correctly interprets this statement of Jesus building his church upon Peter these last 2000 years. It is obvious you wont take this 2000 year old sacred scripture teaching of Mathew 16, then find any time in history a neutral biblical scholar to help your interpretation.

Gabriel I have done that brother ad nauseum. I’ve studied it extensively in the Greek which is how it should be done. The bottom line is this. Matthew did not start by saying, I will build my Church on this massive rock, this petra (feminine). He first designated Simon using the masculine petros, and then made the distinction between him and the foundation by employing the feminine petra. It confirms a contrast, and not an identity.

We then have to carefully consider the grammar of the Greek. The first noun petros is without the definite article “the” in the Greek while the second petra is with it. (You are petros and on “this” petra.) The first noun is masculine gender while the second is feminine. The first noun implies a smaller rock than the second noun. The first noun is modified by a second person pronoun while the next noun is modified by a third person demonstrative pronoun. The change from the second person singular to the third person makes no sense if Matthew intends the readers to understand the foundation rock to be Peter. The grammar simply does not show an identity being made of Peter as the Petra. It shows a contrast between he (peter) being a small rock and Christ being “The Rock”.

As far as finding sources over a 2000 year history to support me I can initially name 2. Chrysostom on the rock: “Upon this rock, that is, on the faith of his confession." Also in the Collect from the Gregorian Sacramentary and in the Roman Missal on the Vigil of St. Peter and St. Paul are found these words, “Grant that thou wouldst not suffer us, whom thou hast established on** the rock of the apostolic confession **(quos in apostolicae confessionis petra solidasti) to be shaken by any commotions.

The reason the Catholic church teaches the four dogmas of Mary, is because they are recorded in scripture from both the old testament and new testaments. She is the thread that sews these two covenants of God together (it is a fascinating study). Secondly if you dont have the correct belief about Mary, you will never have the correct or full faith understanding of Jesus himself, for these doctrines of Mary point to Jesus’s Divinity and his humanity. Thus for Catholics to raise ones faith that surpasses all understanding in Jesus our Savior, Mary’s dogmas help us to understand the great work of Salvation for our humanity, and increases our faith on who Jesus is; God incarnate;

The church defined Mary as Theotokos to refute heretical claims that Jesus was not divine. I don’t have a problem with using some teachings about Mary to defend Christ. But Mary being sinless or a perpetual virgin doesn’t do anything to defend HIM. Again if you study the Greek in Matthew 1 you will see Mary was not a perpetual Virgin. Matthew fully expected Mary to have marital relations with Joseph which is why he uses the Greek word Synerchomai in verse 18 for come together. Synerchomai means conjugal cohabitation or living together having sex. If you also study 1:25 and that famous until word which in Greek is written Heos Hou you will see Joseph absolutely knew Mary after Jesus was born. This is what opened my eyes to Rome’s errors. And as you say it is a fascinating study.

Nice to speak with you NDfan;

Gabriel you know I enjoy speaking with you as well. PEACE brother

 

[joyfulseraph]

I don’t think that the church has to drop anything. I hear and read so many conversion stories and think, if they were able to accept everything and convert like that, and they felt as if it was OK…that it was God’s will, that every belief catholics have is true, that it’s what God wants…then who am I to say it’s wrong. But still, my head seems to think differently…I mean, it could be intellectually right, historically right…even biblically correct, but I can’t seem to truly, really believe. Like the eucharist, it’s obvious “this is my body, this is my blood” but even if I believe it because the bible says so, because the church teaches it…It’s hard to tell if I truly believe it. But that doesn’t mean it has to change. I also don’t understand how praying to the saints can be okay, although I understand that it’s just like asking someone here on earth to pray for you…but some of the words in various prayers directed to the saints, seems not right. I also don’t understand how catholicism can seem so materialistic and carnal . And I don’t understand the beliefs about mary and what “devotion” to mary or the saints really means.
And also, a big one, though I know it doesn’t have to change, is confession. I believe the sacrament itself is true, but I can’t see myself participating in it. I can’t see myself being chronically worried over sin, because that’s how it is for me.

I think I saw someone on here say that if they dropped any teachings, it wouldn’t be catholic and that’s true. It would all just be a protestant denomination.

I consider catholics “lucky”, who understand and really believe in everything and live like it…often I wish I were them.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

There seems to be so much in common across all Christians that i wondered what would need to be changed about the Catholic church before you would consider converting e.g. stop the focus on Mary as key for many but what else would need to change…

1/ Supremacy of the Pope and infallibility
2/ women’s ordination
3/celibacy for priests
4/reversing the statement that homosexuality is “disordered” and at least honoring gay civil unions
5/a clear statement on evolution and the death penalty
6/acceptance of contraception as a reasonable method of birth control besides NFP

I’m not thinking there is much hope. A church that has married itself to being infallibly led and without error on issues of faith and morals, it seems to me has let the genie out of the bottle and cannot recapture it now.

 

[Veritas248]

I think that’s fair to ask.those who named what they don’t agree with the following: Why don’t you accept certain teachings? Is it because of a genuine question or is it because of selfishness and pride? Is it the Church’s fault, or yours?

 

[joyfulseraph]

I think that’s fair to ask. those who named what they don’t agree with the following: Why don’t you accept certain teachings? Is it because of a genuine question or is it because of selfishness and pride? Is it the Church’s fault, or yours?

I think for me it’s because of genuine questioning…and not understanding. I don’t think it has to do with selfishness…but I might have a tiny bit of pride in it without realizing it. I think it’s both of our fault to some degree, perhaps. I explained a bit in my previous post on this topic.

 

[Veritas248]

The only reason I’m asking is because whenever I ask people I know who aren’t Catholic, I never can seem to get a straight answer.

 

[JonNC]

I don’t think the Catholic Church should change anything, on my account. If, in an alternate universe, the Catholic Church had never defined Purgatory, the Immaculate Conception, and Papal Infallibility, it would be much easier for me to become Catholic. It is difficult for me to accept the concept that these were always believed, just not yet defined, when they are not and were not believed by the Orthodox. I am also a little concerned about what teachings might be dogmatically defined in the future.

This is exactly how I feel. Maybe the Pope should call truly ecumenical council, including Orthodoxy and perhaps willing protestants to reach agreement on these issues…

In Him, all things are possible.

Jon

 

[Peter_J]

Welll … I didn’t exactly mean it that way. What I mean is, maybe the Catholic Church teaches errors, and maybe it doesn’t. If the Catholic Church does teach errors, it would be the kind of church that is susceptible of making errors (obvious, I know). IF the Catholic Church is susceptible of making errors, then it’s not the kind of Church it claims to be. If it’s not the kind of Church it claims to be, little point in my joining it, Q.E.D.

Ah, I see what you mean.

Likewise if e.g. Lutheranism is in error (which I believe it is) then I don’t want to join it, but I do hold out hope that they will someday “see the error of their ways”.

(When you really come down to it, I guess that no – or very few, anyhow – Protestants actually think that the RCC is “infallibly wrong”, even though a lot of Protestants speak as though they thought that. E.g. When they say “The RCC teaches, and will always teach, the false doctrine of the Immaculate Conception”, etc.)