Why are you not Catholic?

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Share_love said:
May I ask how long you were Catholic? You were taught about the Real Presence, right?

How do you explain this?

therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

Or this?

therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/english_pdf/BuenosAires3.pdf

I don’t mean to sound confrontational, but there is no scriptural support for what you just said. No other apostle was given the keys of the kingdom, only Peter.

If you don’t believe the Catholic Church is the only church, then why does Jesus explicitly say, “Upon this rock, I will build my church”? Why not “churches”?
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Can you find a neutral website or two that claims what the two websites above do?

I believe that there is a church that Jesus founded, but it’s not the Catholic Church and is instead the church of all Christian believers, the invisible church that binds us all together in Him.

I was Catholic for about 15 years. Went through CCD as a child.

With that said no one is going to convince me that you must be Catholic, it’s just never going to happen. As I stated before, had I been given an actual choice I would not have been Catholic. I was unfortunately born into Catholicism. As soon as I had the chance I left and will not be looking back.
 
lonegreywolf20 said:
I still had issues though with different churches and bounced around 5+ years. I even went back to mass at the local Catholic Church for a time. However, me going back to the Catholic church didn’t last long as ** so many rules of the Catholic Church just do not line up with scripture and is the main reason why I am no longer Catholic. **

Almost a year ago I went to a Lutheran service for the first time and I knew that I had found my church, since then my two children were baptized Lutheran and my wife and I have become Lutherans.
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The first bolded part is simply not true. I would be glad to discuss this with you, if you would like.

The second bolded part is where I think you are running into theological problems. Our goal isn’t to find “our church”; it’s to find Christ’s Church. As a Christian, wouldn’t you want to have the comfort of knowing you are in the Church that God Himself founded?
 
Share_love said:
The first bolded part is simply not true. I would be glad to discuss this with you, if you would like.

The second bolded part is where I think you are running into theological problems. Our goal isn’t to find “our church”; it’s to find Christ’s Church. As a Christian, wouldn’t you want to have the comfort of knowing you are in the Church that God Himself founded?
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There is nothing to discuss for me. I am not going back to the Catholic church, no way no how.

I am in the Church that God himself founded and I am not speaking of the Lutheran church. The church that I am speaking of is in my reply above this one.
 
lonegreywolf20 said:
Can you find a neutral website or two that claims what the two websites above do?

I believe that there is a church that Jesus founded, but it’s not the Catholic Church and is instead the church of all Christian believers, the invisible church that binds us all together in Him.

I was Catholic for about 15 years. Went through CCD as a child.

With that said no one is going to convince me that you must be Catholic, it’s just never going to happen. As I stated before, had I been given an actual choice I would not have been Catholic. I was unfortunately born into Catholicism. As soon as I had the chance I left and will not be looking back.
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Then let me ask you, why is it that Jesus apparently builds an ‘invisible’ Church on Peter? And how come this ‘invisible’ Church is, according to 1 Timothhy 3:15, “the pillar and bulwark of the truth”? Does it make sense for an invisible Church that binds all Christians in Him to be the pillar and bulwark of truth? If it were, why are there doctrinal disputes among Protestant denominations? :confused:
 
lonegreywolf20 said:
Can you find a neutral website or two that claims what the two websites above do?

I believe that there is a church that Jesus founded, but it’s not the Catholic Church and is instead the church of all Christian believers, the invisible church that binds us all together in Him.

I was Catholic for about 15 years. Went through CCD as a child.

With that said no one is going to convince me that you must be Catholic, it’s just never going to happen. As I stated before, had I been given an actual choice I would not have been Catholic. I was unfortunately born into Catholicism. As soon as I had the chance I left and will not be looking back.
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What is not neutral about the website I shared with you? Not all the scientists who were conducting tests were Catholic. That is not an exclusively “studied by Catholics, tested by Catholics, believed by Catholics” page.

Here is a video you may like. The man who gave this talk was once an atheist.

youtube.com/watch?v=qbg_dhI4XCs

If it’s an invisible church that Jesus founded, why did He bother changing Peter’s name from Simon to a word that literally means “rock,” and then tell him that on this “rock,” He will build his Church? By the way, the Lutheran church originated due to the actions of a dissident ex-Catholic who personally wanted to throw out the entire Epistle of Saint James because he thought it was an “epistle of straw”; interesting, considering that the Epistle of James explicitly denies justification by faith alone.

Did you have a traumatic experience or something? It sounds like something personally hurt you along the way.

Also, the Church whose teachings, you said, contradict Scripture, compiled Scripture. I’m just trying to figure out why you wanted to leave so badly. Please don’t interpret any of this as me being argumentative; I am trying to help.
 
Micosil said:
Then let me ask you, why is it that Jesus apparently builds an ‘invisible’ Church on Peter? And how come this ‘invisible’ Church is, according to 1 Timothhy 3:15, “the pillar and bulwark of the truth”? Does it make sense for an invisible Church that binds all Christians in Him to be the pillar and bulwark of truth? If it were, why are there doctrinal disputes among Protestant denominations? :confused:
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Yes. That’s why there are absolutely no doctrinal disputes in Catholicism. LOL.
 
Micosil said:
Then let me ask you, why is it that Jesus apparently builds an ‘invisible’ Church on Peter? And how come this ‘invisible’ Church is, according to 1 Timothhy 3:15, “the pillar and bulwark of the truth”? Does it make sense for an invisible Church that binds all Christians in Him to be the pillar and bulwark of truth? If it were, why are there doctrinal disputes among Protestant denominations? :confused:
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Spot on. 👍
 
lonegreywolf20 said:
I made a mistake there. I thought that Lutherans did consider marriage a sacrament. I am still new to being a Lutheran and still learning.
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No problem. Lots of Lutherans would call marriage a sacrament like act. And I don’t think anyone can argue that they have not received grace through a healthy and strong marriage.
 
SalusaSecondus said:
Yes. That’s why there are absolutely no doctrinal disputes in Catholicism. LOL.
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There may be dissidents who don’t agree with certain teachings, but the Church does not have internal disputes within herself. You have people who faithfully follow her teaching, and people who do not. That does not reflect a conflicted religion, but people exercising their free will to rebel if they so choose. However, entire Protestant sects disagree with each other over very important things, like the nature of Baptism, the role of the church, the plan of salvation, etc.
 
Micosil said:
Then let me ask you, why is it that Jesus apparently builds an ‘invisible’ Church on Peter?
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I thought that Peter went to Antioch before he went to Rome. An E. Orthodox might say that the see at Antioch has precedence of the see at Rome, which came later.
 
Micosil said:
Then let me ask you, why is it that Jesus apparently builds an ‘invisible’ Church on Peter? And how come this ‘invisible’ Church is, according to 1 Timothhy 3:15, “the pillar and bulwark of the truth”? Does it make sense for an invisible Church that binds all Christians in Him to be the pillar and bulwark of truth? If it were, why are there doctrinal disputes among Protestant denominations? :confused:
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There are disputes because we’re human. Disputes are natural for us.

I will reiterate that I will not be convinced that the Catholic Church is the true church.
 
Share_love said:
There may be dissidents who don’t agree with certain teachings, but the Church does not have internal disputes within herself. You have people who faithfully follow her teaching, and people who do not. That does not reflect a conflicted religion, but people exercising their free will to rebel if they so choose. However, entire Protestant sects disagree with each other over very important things, like the nature of Baptism, the role of the church, the plan of salvation, etc.
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Actually there are many internal doctrinal disputes in Catholicism. Catholics dispute with each other all the time.
 
Tomdstone said:
I thought that Peter went to Antioch before he went to Rome. An E. Orthodox might say that the see at Antioch has precedence of the see at Rome, which came later.
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Early Christians identified Rome as the place of Christian unity, with Peter as the visible head of the Church.
 
SalusaSecondus said:
Actually there are many internal doctrinal disputes in Catholicism. Catholics dispute with each other all the time.
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Like I said, individual Catholics may have disputes. The teachings themselves cannot and will not contradict themselves, because they came from Christ.
 
Share_love said:
Like I said, individual Catholics may have disputes. The teachings themselves cannot and will not contradict themselves, because they came from Christ.
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Not entirely, in fact history is loaded with Catholic disputes, in fact there was a massive schism in which there were two popes in the RC church. Half of RC counties followed one, the other half followed the other, that’s hardly a dispute between individual Catholics wouldn’t you say?
 
Peter_J said:
I definitely get your revulsion at that. The only thing I can really say is this: there have been a number of times when I have read an anti-Protestant or anti-whatever (and often downright nasty) post, and then saw a Protestant (yes Protestant) thanking the author of said post for “being such a good Catholic”, or words to that effect. So it is clear that the phenomenon you mentioned is not limited to Catholics. 😦
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Oh indeed, I hope nobody gets the impression I was implying this is something unique to Catholics. Had it just been this I may not have left the church, but on reflection I think it was the “straw that broke the camels back” so to speak. It was the last major “bad” event before I decided to leave, it just happened to be a rather dramatic one.

There are good and bad Catholics, as there are good and bad Protestants, Muslims, Athiests and every other group.
lonegreywolf20 said:
An example would be marriage. No where in the Bible does it say that you must be married by a Catholic priest in order to be considered married by God. No where in the Bible does it say to betray your wife by getting a radical sanation (my wife would not get married by a Catholic priest as she believes that we are already married and I fully agree with her that we do not need to be married once again to have a valid marriage in the eyes of God) with or without her knowledge as I was told to do by Catholics.
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I must say I share this concern with you, although it is not one that ever crossed my mind until I left the Catholic Church.

I find the very concept of a confessional upon reflection to be a very shady affair. Allow me to share a true example; a former friend of mine had an affair and was advised by his confessor not to tell his wife.

Lets think about this. The mistress in question thankfully wasn’t but could have been a common prostitute riddled with every sexual transmitted disease under the sun. The man is placing his wife at risk and she isn’t been giving any warning to take precautions (testing, preventative treatments etc). Not only that but he was encouraging the idea of lying to ones spouse, that is terrible and why I decided to tell his wife myself by sending an explicit picture of the mistress and him he’d been keeping on his phone to the wife. For the record they are still together but she made him be tested and wait six months to be “in the clear” from any STD’s that may not have revealed themselves. You may think I’m a troublemaker bringing scandal on a good Catholic couple, I think I may have prevented her from catching something awful from his whore.

We can bring this out to anything really, murder, rape, child abuse is the big one that comes to mind really…“Don’t tell your wife, you’ll bring scandal”. As we’ve seen in the past fifty years it’s all too tempting to replace “wife” with “your parents”. I feel very uncomfortable with the level of underhand dealing Catholicism encourages, from radical convalidation to confession.
 
Tomdstone said:
The first Catholic church was founded by Peter at Antioch, not at Rome, Acts 11:20-21.
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Ignatius of Antioch

“Ignatius . . . to the church also which holds the presidency, in the location of the country of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification, and, because you hold the presidency in love, named after Christ and named after the Father” (Letter to the Romans 1:1 [A.D. 110]).

From this page: catholic.com/tracts/the-authority-of-the-pope-part-i
 
Tomdstone said:
I thought that Peter went to Antioch before he went to Rome. An E. Orthodox might say that the see at Antioch has precedence of the see at Rome, which came later.
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Tomdstone said:
The first Catholic church was founded by Peter at Antioch, not at Rome, Acts 11:20-21.
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It is true that Peter was in Antioch before Rome; however, note that Ignatius of Antioch, who was precisely the bishop of Antioch, doesn’t identify himself as the one with primacy. Rather, he says,
Ignatius of Antioch:
Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which has obtained mercy, through the majesty of the Most High Father, and Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son; the Church which is beloved and enlightened by the will of Him that wills all things which are according to the love of Jesus Christ our God, which also presides in the place of the region of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honour, worthy of the highest happiness, worthy of praise, worthy of obtaining her every desire, worthy of being deemed holy, and which presides over love, is named from Christ, and from the Father, which I also salute in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father: to those who are united, both according to the flesh and spirit, to every one of His commandments; who are filled inseparably with the grace of God, and are purified from every strange taint, * abundance of happiness unblameably, in Jesus Christ our God.*
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