Want to know why are you CAtholic?

Why aren't you Catholic?

I will be the first to answer.

Not CAtholic because I have not read enough nor choosen to until this time in my life about this religion.

My grandmother had been Catholic and left the church in the 1930's due to terrible practices by the Priests and Nuns in her Parrish. She had nothing good to say about the church. This was passed down to my mother and then me.

I think that all churches and religions have the ability to bad and good. It is learning about the core beliefs of the religion and whether or not the church you attend actually practices these...that will be my ulitimate decision in this matter.

-- susan (susanlatte@aol.com), October 29, 2003

Answers

I grew up Catholic and attended Catholic school. My parents divorced and I was away from the Church for many years and attended numerous other churches.

In 1999, I had a strong urge to return and did so. God was preparing me for what was to come.

I has some serious health problems. While in the hospital, I had a dream, in which, a voice (neither male nor female, gentle but authoritative said, " Through intercession, your life has been extended." When I awoke, I felt awesome, totally awesome. Never would have dreamed anything like that would happen in a million years. Never would have considered it.

I had been on prayer lists, literally, from Houston to Honolulu.

I know I am here for a purpose. I have been to many churches. I believe the Catholic Church possesses "the fullness of truth". If it didn't, it would not have endured.

Why am I Catholic? Because, I NEED the Church.

God bless,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), October 29, 2003.

I am not Catholic, and never was. Simpley because I never was.

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), October 29, 2003.

susan,

most impressed, i must say that your openness to truth is admirable... after your first post about divorce i had my doubts, but i find you to be objective and open to information. i withdraw any comment about anti catholic tendencies and ask your forgiveness.

I am catholic. Unlike many here, i was NOT raised catholic. i converted of my own free will. I was born to two parents who were atheists. when they divorced, my dad remarried to a catholic (after a proper annulment of course). my mother, who attended mass with her grandparents as a child, is about as anti catholic as they come, so when i began attending mass with my father, she began going (and hence taking me, at age 8 or 9) to church at the God awful place that exists solely to bash the catholic church.

so i attended mass, and protestant service, alternating between weekends. i recieved baptism in the catholic church, dad was happy, mom was pissed. I 'accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior,' mom couldnt have been more pleased, dad could care less, because my baptism had already done that and he knew i didnt mean it in that church. after a year or so, i took my first holy communion and abandoned any pretense of not being catholic. i wore a crucifix, even to the protestant church, battering down anyone who chose to comment on it.

As my faith grew, so did my willingness to challenge the lies i saw. after services i would go up to the youth ministers and tell them where they were wrong about the catholic church. i would quote scripture to them to prove they were wrong. imagine that, here the head pastor (who claims to have been catholic) is preaching how catholics dont read the bible, and a ten year old is outmatching the youth ministers. every challenge to my faith became a building block, forcing me to learn more about my church and my relation to God. i have heard, debatedly, EVERY complaint a protestant can reasonably hurl at the church, and as such i've become a bit of an apologist of sorts, a protestant debater if you will.

after a few more years i gave up on even going to my moms church, how can you continue to educate those whos eyes are sealed to truth, those who continue to preach lies when they know better? you cant. an early teen cant expect an adult to listen to them, its sad, really. so i am catholic, through and through. i dont oppose protestants, in fact i have great respect for some of them, but i will say that i have found a fullness of truth that i have not seen in any of the many churches i have been to.

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), October 30, 2003.

Shalom Susan,

We are sorry to hear about your grandmother’s experience with some of our Church’s leaders. Carol had a similar experience but later came to forgive that man because she realized that even our Church leaders are human and can make mistakes, even serious ones and they are covered by the same Blood that we are. Still, we both understand if others cannot forgive, because such forgiveness comes hard and only from above and only if we get the courage to ask.

As to your initial question:

>>>Want to know why are you Catholic? >>>

We are Catholic because the Roman Catholic Church is the foundational Church that formed first, though Vatican II declares others are also true (so long as they do not divide the body). Also our Church possesses the only true Eucharist in its fullness with a doctrine that is Biblically sound. This is because Yeshua said:

“…he who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My Flesh is food indeed and My Blood is drink indeed. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him.” Jn.6.54-56

And further when the people were offended by this implication of His words, He said in His defense:

“ It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and truth.” Jn.6.63

The word above for flesh in Greek is “sarx” which means “flesh”, “a symbol of something external” or “human nature”. Now if His Flesh is life, how can it be “of no avail” and “human nature” does fit “Flesh and Blood” indeed. Therefore, we conclude that what He said was that His words “the flesh is of no avail” is that “a symbol of something external” “ is of no avail”. His Flesh and Blood are Spirit as G-d is Spirit, and this is truth as are the words He spoke, no matter how hard they are to understand or accept. Please note that through all of Yeshua’s (Jesus’) parables, He explained these to His disciples, but when it came to this teaching, He did not give further explanations because what it was exactly as He meant it to be, even as people walked away saying “this is a hard saying, who can listen to it?”

It is this truth (among others) that kept Carol’s faith long enough to forgive and move on. Later though we came upon an approved prophecy of St. Nilus who died in 430 which we believe may explain your grandmother’s experiences:

“After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century …There will be no respect for parents or elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right hand way from the left. At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds and murder will rule in society.”

Yet from what we have researched and encountered, these sins are not limited to the Catholic Church (Protestants have pastors, Catholics have Priests), but this was a symptom of a decaying society as a whole for which no church can be completely immune from; thus opening the door to the coming of the anti-christ. Yet we believe our Blessed Mother stated at La Sallete in a parable that this decline actually began in the 18 hundreds. For us, this helps explain what your grandmother saw, even though her vision was limited to what she knew in her local parish. Yet this sin was not limited and grew later into the Holocaust for which all the Christian world of that day holds some responsibility. It is also why the Catholic Church has tried to bring reconciliation (see Nostra Aetate and “We Remember; both can be found through a search engine).

Unfortunately, this decline has not ended for it still grows today. For example, most Catholics no longer celebrate All Saints Octave, a feast where we remember that we must take up our cross and follow Him. Instead the vast majority in America observe (we don’t like the word celebrate in this context) Halloween, a day based in paganism, which happens to be also one of the apostasies many of those Catholic saints we honor died resisting!

So has anyone seen Pope John Paul II celebrate Halloween? How about the cardinals, like Cardinal Ratzinger? There is no party in St. Peter’s Square for this day, nor is there a holy day of obligation. Regrettably, this phenomenon seems strongest in America, yet we suspect other nations are being affected as well. In our own vicinity, we have seen too many times where these parties are being observed in the halls of the churches as they unknowingly celebrate the feast of Sanhan, the god of darkness. We could also discuss the many practices of this day and show it is contrary to our Christian faith. However, even beyond that point, how many of these people who partake in the celebrations of Halloween also make it to church for the Holy Day of All Saints? Again, this problem is not limited to just this day, for there is also Secular Claus (some term him as satan Claus) and Fertility Sunday. The true origins and traditions of our faith are being lost to the secular attractions, which can also be evidenced by the confused looks of those “C & E’s” (those who only go to church for Christmas and Easter) when they finally make it though the doors.

So, we suspect your grandmother was correct about the symptoms, but she missed the cause of the disease, which is Protestantism, which divided our faith. Why? Because Protestantism made accountability useless (thus, excommunication became meaningless); in other words, if you have a “beef” with your church, simply leave and start a new one. Although it took two hundreds years to ferment, in the late eighteen hundreds sin was born and when it was full grown a quarter of a million innocent Jews died because of our sins. This is why all the older denominations are part of Ecumenical dialogue while the younger ones are crying “New World Order”!

Shalom, C & C

-- C. Foegen (cfoegen@angelfire.com), October 30, 2003.

Paul,

No apology necessary.

I am glad that there is meaningful dialogue here.

I appreciate not getting the old answer " I am Catholic cause my family was" It is nice to see that even if a persons family is a certain religion...that person can go out and educate themselves on a faith.

-- susan (susanlatte@aol.com), October 31, 2003.

Jmj
Hello, Corey and Carol Foegen.

You wrote: "We are Catholic because the Roman [sic] Catholic Church is the foundational Church that formed first, though Vatican II declares others are also true (so long as they do not divide the body)."

Please provide the quotation, from a document of the Second Vatican Council, that "declares others are also true (so long as they do not divide the body)." Also, please list all the "others" that are "true."

The reason I am asking this of you is because I found your statement to be confusing (and possibly erroneous). So, if I had this reaction, I can imagine that Susan may have been misled by your words -- possibly even into thinking that Lutheranism is one of the "others [that] are also true."

God bless you.
John
PS: I want to caution you concerning St. Nilus the Elder (d. c. 430), who is not a Father or Doctor of the Church. The Catholic Encyclopedia's article about his says nothing at all about his being the beneficiary of private revelations or of any reputation as a predictor of future events. It does, however, say, that there are works that are "spurious" and works that are "wrongly attributed" to him. I recommend that you ignore anything purportedly written by St. Nilus, unless it is published in some form that contains specific ecclesiastical approval and authentication.

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), November 02, 2003.

Shalom John,

You had asked us to:

>>>Please provide the quotation, from a document of the Second Vatican Council, that "declares others are also true (so long as they do not divide the body)." >>>

"The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the Baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter" (Lumen gentium Nov.21 1964, Vatican II.

Further, she has:

Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church" (Unitatis Redintegratio, Nov.21, 1964, Vatican II)

As for our quote of St. Nilus the Elder (d. c. 430) we pulled that quote from a site claiming it was "fully approved" which we found at:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/praeternatural/

You will find the entire quote by going to the "fully approved" section off the left menu, then click on his name (about halfway down). To us this site looked authoritative from its references, but based upon your recommendation we researched further are still are unable to fully determine whether approved or not. However, noting that he is an approved saint of the RCC, it would seem that his life was researched and found to be acceptable, including his writings (for how can a good tree bear bad fruit?, Matt.7.18). If indeed this is an error on our part, then please show us evidence as well as a way to prevent any future errors as such (perhaps a link to a known "approved" site).

Shalom, C &C

-- C. Foegen (cfoegen@angelfire.com), November 03, 2003.

Jmj

Peace to you too, Corey and Carol.

1. When I asked you, last time, to provide a Vatican II quotation, I was careful to quote your words, in which you said that the Council Fathers "declare others are also true." (From the context of your words, I believed you to be referring to "other" churches.)

I am familiar with the quotations you have just now posted, but I hope that you can see that they do not refer to any other church as "also true."
I believe that, to the average reader, if we speak of a church as "true," we are taken to mean that it is true in ALL its doctrine. Any Christian body which falls short in this regard cannot be called a "true church," but only a church or community that participates in some greater or lesser portion of Christian truth, but with an admixture of error.

When speaking of non-Catholics, the Catholic Church uses the term "church" to refer only to (1) those ancient Eastern bodies that preserve apostolicity, though not full communion with us -- e.g., the Eastern Orthodox churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, etc. --- and to (2) a few schismatic Western bodies, most notably the Polish National Catholic Church. The reason I mention these "churches" is that they come closest of all non-Catholic Christian bodies to qualifying, under your phrase, as "true." They retain the sacraments and teach almost the fullness of the truth -- teaching wrongly, of course, against the supremacy of the successor of St. Peter. By contrast, Christian bodies not having apostolicity (e.g., the Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and so many others) are not referred to as "churches" in Catholic documents, but as "ecclesial [church-like] communities."

2. Concerning St. Nilus ... Thank you for posting the URL of the site on which you depended. My belief is that the site is one of unclear reliability -- presenting verifiable things mixed with the unverifiable. It is not an official Church site, but a private one put together by a well-meaning man (Simon Galloway) who seems to have wanted to make a collection of private revelations. Above a list of people whom he calls "prophets," Galloway inserts the words, "Full Church Approval." I have some comments about those words, which have the potential to be misleading to non-Catholics and new Catholics.

While all the people on the list are indeed regarded as very holy by the Church, their beatification or canonization is not a guarantee that their writings are without error. (Even St. Thomas Aquinas's writings have imperfections.) Moreover, the Church does not really "approve" of prophecies made by these people -- in the sense of saying that they can be relied upon to come true. Nor does the Church "approve" of autobiographical statements made by these people -- in the sense of saying that we Catholics are required to believe what they say about visions, locutions, and the like. Rather, "full Church approval" should be taken only to mean (a) that the writings of these people do not contain heresy and (b) that we are free, if we wish, to believe their descriptions of private revelations they believe they have received.

But there is a further problem. How can you and I, as visitors to the site, know whether or not something attributed to one of the holy persons was indeed said or written by that person? That is why I started this section by referring to "reliability" and "verifiability." Although I am a believer in some private revelations and am open to accepting others, I seriously doubt the reliability of the quotation attributed to St. Nilus. Leading me to this healthy skepticism are several factors:

(a) the circa 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia article about St. Nilus that I mentioned last time -- which says nothing about prophetic works, and which could have been expected to quote such a remarkable passage about the soon-to-come tragic events of the 20th century -- if the passage were genuine.
(b) the fact that the alleged quotation is presented without any attribution whatsoever. There is not even a title of a work, much less any publication details, page number, etc.. This can be a hint that it is a sheer invention.
(c) the fact that the alleged prophecy just feels a bit too "pat" -- too perfect, detailed, and clear. It thus bears a hint of possibly having been fabricated in recent years.
(d) the fact that, in my more than 50 years, I have never seen it prior to a few years ago. If it were genuine, people in the Church would have been loudly quoting it throughout the 20th century (including my lifetime) as a great prediction of woe. Nobody at all quoted it.
(e) the fact that people like Galloway, who establish private Internet sites, are trusting souls, not averse to copying such alleged quotations from other sites (or from e-mail), which sources themselves may have the material second- or third-hand. The point is that insufficient reliability is present, because anywhere along the "chain," an honest error or even an intentional deception could have crept in.

In closing, C & C, I would recommend that, if much of your spirituality is based in private revelations (Saints, Blesseds, Marian apparitions), you definitely need to use only the most authoritative printed materials possible -- books bearing episcopal approval (Imprimatur) and detailing the "pedigree" of the materials contained therein. I am making this recommendation to you lest you be deceived by material of questionable reliability that is widely posted on the Internet.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), November 03, 2003.

Shalom John,

Thank you for pointing out the ambiguity of our wording; we can now see exactly what was bothering you on our choice of wording. We were indeed talking about the individuals of those churches as potentially having faith, not necessarily the churches being doctrinally true (though we agree with you about Eastern Orthodoxy). Only the Roman Catholic Church has the fullness of the truth indwelling, however this does not mean those in the other denominations may not have some “truths”, they just lack it in it fullness (some more than others) and also contain serious errors that divide the body of Christ.

As for visions of the saints, we are drawn to these, particularly those of our Blessed Mother. The reason we do this is because about a year ago we posted on a Catholic message board our views of prophecy as described in Zech. 5 that we believe references our Church and defends her placing her Temple (St. Peter’s) in Rome. One person continued to discuss this view and agreed that they could see what we saw from additional Scriptures we quoted related to that topic, at least indirectly. And the end of this adventure this person said that our Scriptural understanding matched closely certain vision of Catholic visionaries and our Blessed Mother. Surprised and intrigued we began check his words and when we found the Fatima vision on the Vatican Web Page and read this, we could see what he said seems to be true. This is why we tried to sleuth out those other visions trying to steer toward only “fully approved” material, but we can now see that even that method has its limits.

Yet over this time we have been fanatically challenged, but buying many books as suggested just isn’t practical. So do you know of any on-line resources or ones we find at our local library that fit the criteria you mentioned? Also is there a list of these materials we could download to help us pull together these resources if the means ever become available? We are particularly interested in getting verifiable materials for visions of La Salette and St. Hilarion (371) and Pope Leo XIII (1903) as these we use in defending Vatican II and at least those of our Blessed Mother seem confirmable in prophecy as we explained in our post “Vatican II, La Salette and Fatima”.

Further, we would be interested as how one goes about getting the imprimatur for their material? We ask because we are seriously interested in getting it for our materials, however our previous attempt failed as the message back was “you must use proper channels”. We took it to our local priest, who in turn gave it to his pastoral assistant as she was heading to the diocesan office. So we still do not understand what went wrong. In other incidences, we have asked leaders to read our site for possible errors, but have been turned down for numerous reasons. The only limited success we had is that when we were told by a leader that he actually sent his material to the archdiocese of NY. SO we further asked if it must go to the archdiocese or the local diocese, and whether there is a particular administrative person or department to contact, but to date no response on that. This is why we have started to bring these things here as we felt from dreams that there are real leaders here “incognito” in hopes of pursuing this desire.

Part of the reason we are seeking this is because we have created potentially two teaching tools that could help Catholics teach the faith. They are “The Hunt For The Risen Christ Game” and “The Trinity Triangle”. We also have an extensive write-up on the Eucharist, based our Scriptural defenses of this important doctrine of our Church, but without such assurance of no errors we really hesitate in openly broadcasting our materials (we link them only when asked or if we perceive it is needed; as well as offer this openly to those we KNOW are leaders in our Church). However if we could replace our “disclaimer” with the imprimatur (even if this was only for a portion of these materials which we would isolated on website) we would not need to be so hesitant at sharing these materials, which we believe could benefit other Catholics. We are particularly interested in those we written about the Transubstantiation, as at locally we know this is a teaching being lost among our youth because of the attacks these kids are facing from their friends in school and Scriptural studies are potential answers to many of these attacks. Shalom, C & C

-- C. Foegen (cfoegen@angelfire.com), November 05, 2003.