My mantra is that faith and reason are complementary but reason cannot substitute for faith.
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Where [is] the wise? where [is] the scribe? where [is] the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. - I Corinthians 1:18-25
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, [and] hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. Jeremiah 2:13
If I thought the Catholic Church was hazardous to their Spiritual health, I certainly would have said so.
But the Catholic Church is an exclusive club as hosepipe is wont to say. The subtext is our way or the highway. Nevertheless, if the Spirit led me to join that club, I would. But He hasnt. And for that, the local priest ought to be thanking God because I would surely be a disruption since if I were a member, I would challenge every dogma, every doctrine, every sacrament, every tradition that serves as a wedge or even a veil between God and man.
Of a Truth, there is only one Way, Jesus Christ. And the Catholic Church is not God.
“And for that, the local priest ought to be thanking God because I would surely be a disruption since if I were a member, I would challenge every dogma, every doctrine, every sacrament, every tradition that serves as a wedge or even a veil between God and man.”
If he knows of you, I am sure he is giving thanks, A-G. Of course its likely if you started disrupting a Roman Catholic parish with your challenges, you’d be asked to leave and that would be as appropriate as it would be were I to claim to become a Roman Catholic and then attacked the various dogmas of that particular church. I am, therefore, curious as to your point.
The first is the question of reason generally, and it touches on what it means to be in the image of God, what choice and freedom are, and a bunch o' stuff. And, of course, it touches on what reason is. The modern view seems to be that reason is "the meat computer", while the older view is it is a faculty whereby we perceive truth. (The lower case 't' is important here.)
Then the other is the issue of closed communion. It's not really an analogy but my first response to your complaint was "We don't believe in premarital sex, either." It's not that you're not good enough or we're too good. It's that we take Communion - Koinonia -- "discerning the body" seriously and we take YOU seriously.
(At least this is how I understood it, when, a gazillion years ago I was a seminarian/chaplain at a hospital where some RCs said Mass daily and I asked if I could communicate and they said only under very special circumstances - like I was dying or somesuch. Really I didn't think THEY were jerks, I thought, "We have GOT to work harder to end our divisions."
As long as you thought/think the doctrines and such were wedges and veils, I can't see the Holy Spirit (or the local holy-dude) letting you join us. I guess what is a fence to some is a gate to others.
As to questioning, as long as you have a priest with time and brains, your questioning would be welcome, I'd guess. As to your leading the Rosary and such, that's what I'd say we mean by being a member but not a member in full communion.
You don't believe what we teach, you don't believe what we say we are, and you disagree with us about God's promise to His Church. These are not unimportant disagreements. What seems to me to be a gift of God, the charism of the Church as a whole, seems to others to be nothing but control and power and mumbo-jumbo and hocus-pocus and veils and wedges. What seems to me to be a bridge is to you a chasm. While that is true, it would be a cheap and unsatisfactory pretense to admit you to full sacramental communion.
And the Catholic Church is not God. Um, duh? But it IS the body of Christ, we think.
As to the "our way or the highway", well, I have a joke, but it will have to wait ...
Not proofing. in haste, scuse typos.
PRAISE GOD FOR YOUR FAITHFULNESS
TO
HIM!