Posted on 03/30/2019 8:12:59 AM PDT by Salvation
Question: I had reason to hope my niece was going to convert to the Catholic faith. But there were so many obstacles the Church set up that discouraged her. She was asked to go to classes, and they told her that her marriage was not valid and she would need an annulment. Further, it was necessary to wait until Easter, etc. The nearby evangelical church set up no such obstacles, and she was able to join at once and be considered a member. I hear so much talk of evangelization today, but I share my niece’s frustration. Can we not streamline this process?
— Name withheld
Answer: There is a kind of appealing simplicity that you describe in many Protestant denominations. But there are problems with the approach that should give us pause. Ultimately evangelization is more about conversion than mere membership. We are summoned to embrace the saving teaching of the Lord and to walk according to it.
Because adults make informed decisions, the Church considers it important to teach them the fundamentals of the Faith so that they can know what it is they are agreeing to when they enter the Church. Although some of the Scriptures portray an almost instant, on-the-spot baptism, the consensus in the early Church shifted to a lengthy, three-year period of instruction (called the catechumenate) prior to baptism. This likely was because of the insight that quick conversions often led to quick departures or a falling away when the true demands of discipleship became known.
Instructions are most insisted upon for those who are unbaptized. In the case of those who are baptized and come from different Protestant denominations, the length and content of instructions will depend on their background. It is up to the discretion of the pastor who discerns with each individual what is needed. It is certainly not required for those already baptized to “wait until next Easter.”
The concerns about a person’s marital status are rooted in the very words and teachings of Jesus himself. He teaches without ambiguity that for a person to marry, then divorce and enter another marriage, puts them in an ongoing state of adultery in the “new” marriage (cf. Mt 5:32; Mt 19:1-9; Mk 10:11-12; Lk 16:18, etc). He adds rather firmly, “What God has joined together, let no one divide” (Mt 19:9).
It will be further noted that when the Lord was evangelizing the woman at the well, he brought her to a moment of conversion, and she asked for the gift of faith. But the Lord Jesus saw fit to first raise with her the fact that she had been married five times and was now living with a man outside of marriage. Her conversion would not be complete or adequate until she was willing to live chastely. Then the graces could flow.
For reasons of their own, many Protestant denominations have decided to practically overlook such passages. But the Catholic Church takes the Lord’s teaching on these matters rather seriously, as he clearly intended that we should. In some cases, after an investigation based on evidence, the Church may use its power to bind and loose, to indicate that the previous marriage was not “what God has joined,” and it recognizes the first marriage as null. A person’s current marriage then can be blessed and recognized. But we simply cannot set the Lord’s words aside as if they were of little importance.
Thus some conversions to the Catholic faith will take some time to be faithful to the teachings of the Lord and the nature of true conversion. It is worth the diligence required.
No prob :)
Woo woo! Five hundred responses since my note to you. All while I was playing Rip van Winkle this PM! (Els must be somewhere in here . . . )
Read your Bible — many times he talks about the old law and how it is being replaced by a New Covenant.
Funny thing really. They repeat what they’re taught, and when someone contradicts them with Scripture, they either shut down or get stuck on a loop.
I’m Catholic. He’s not. I also don’t pretend to be a Protestant theologian like a few on FR that think their Catholic theologians. I make no remarks when these posters make a Protestant religion post. I don’t weigh in on it. I am not a protestant. It would be nice if the Catholic bashers used the same common courtesy.
Yet no Catholic deems it worthy to comment on.
I am an ex catholic, and I already commented on Mary. Does that count? 😁😆
It would be nice if the Catholic bashers used the same common courtesy.
***
...nah.
You really think that we’re just gonna sit here and let our faith get attacked?
If you don’t like it, don’t read it.
Go to the caucus threads; we won’t bother you there. Of course, they only have like 20 posts on each of them, half of them by the same person.
“Funny thing really. They repeat what they’re taught, and when someone contradicts them with Scripture, they either shut down or get stuck on a loop.”
Yep.
They believe the simple assertions they were told.
Seek truth?? No.
They were told the “truth” by Rome.
No mind necessary.
No deep thought or logic informed the arrival of that belief.
We used to have a Roman FReeper here who would think. We were friends and prayed for each other and the things happening in our lives.
I didn’t realize at the time what a rare FRoman he was, God rest his soul. May he have come to trust Christ fully and only for his eternal life.
“With one sacrifice, then, he has made perfect forever those who are purified from sin.
Who are those going to Purgatory??
.......
You would think they’d read that book...
“You are number 6”
We are all members of SPECTRE. 😁
And THIS (FR) is why we never seem to get caught up on our yardwork!
The CAtholic bashers are getting timeouts.
The Catholicism bashers are getting ignored.
I never did understand what that weather balloon bounding along was supposed to represent...?
The problem, per se, with looking to HIM for the answers, is with human error. If you get fifty believers in a room and ask them to interpret, say, Jesus' teaching on Divorce, I promise you there will be more than two strongly divergent opinions. And yet, everyone is reading the same Bible.
I don't worship Mary, I don't pray for the Saints to grant us miracles (only God or His Son or the Holy Spirit can do that), and I don't think every utterance by the Pope is as pure and full of Truth as the New Testament (even with great Pope's that's not true). Between me and other Catholics, your mileage may vary. I hope that helps.
Members in The Five Amigos org?
Yes, and no revelation or authority was given to the Samaritans. They had broken away from the Jews and contrived religious doctrines to supplant them. They were wrong. It was not until there were churches in Samaria that were part of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church that they had rest.
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Which is NOT the modern-day organization that calls itself Roman Catholicism because modern-day Roman Catholicism is A: manifestly heretical, and B: Unrepentantly sinful.
We’ve only been over this dozens of times.
And the nonsense about only church bodies that had letters written to them in the New Testament being part of the Body of Christ is not only nonsensical but ALSO heretical.
The same old conflation of the org with the Ekkelsia .. just a different flowered shirt to distract. I get it from them every thread like this one. Are you expecting these to understand spiritual things with their works based mindsets?
“Members in The Five Amigos org?
.....
Yes all +15 amigos can be part of the 5 amigos (and a few are amigas).
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