... and yet there are "traditional" websites that cite we have increased the Sriptural readings in the Pauline Mass as evidence the Mass has been "protestantised."
Absolutely. More than any other denomination.
I've been being a lurker on this thread for a while, but had to comment on this. I am not a Catholic, but am married to a former Catholic. We went to a Caothlic chruch (the one my wife grew up attending) for many years. And while I had never been fully comfortable attending, it was a nice old church, conservative in it's values, and did stick to a good basic bible message.
We wanted the kids to attend church youth events, but travel distance always made it impossible to make it to events (we lived in a different town that the church we were attending), so we decided to check out some of the local Catholic churches in our community.
The first was interesting. The best discription is simply rude. Another discription would be cold. Not friendly atmosphere in the least. Nothing like the church my wife had grown up in, and the attitude was one we didn't want our kids exposed to.
There was a second Catholic church in town, so we tried it. One visit was enough. It had gone totally new age. Hymms were sung to the Earth Goddess, and the mass "Message" was on "God, how she loves us". None of us had a desire to ever return.
We decided to try some of the other churches in the area. I will have to agree with you in that many of the churches did not have very biblical messages. We prayed for the Lord to lead us to a good church
We had just about given up. On the Sunday morning that we were going to go back to the Catholic church that we did like, the alarm did not go off (it was set) and we over slept. When we woke up, we realized that we could not make Mass on time. My wife a few days before had been given a phamplet for a Baptist church just down the road from us (the whole time we have been church hunting, my wife had been willing to try any church... "Anything but Baptist" had been her motto). We went anyway as we were wanting to stress to the kids that church was important and we couldn't just not go because we had overslept.
This church was amazing. The service was like a Bible study. Everything the Pastor taught, he had scripture to back up. He encourages his congergation to challenge him if they disagree on something, but that they should make sure that when they do, have scripture to back things up, not just "mans wisdom". My family ahs been attending ever since, and we joined about a year ago as members.
Please don't think that I am trying to use this as a slam on the Catholic church, taughting that my wife left the Catholic church... My point is, Just as there are good Catholic churches out there (such as the one she grew up in), there were many that were not so good (and some even lost in the new age movement). Evangelical churches are the same. There are those who hardly look at a bible, teaching "Touchy-feel-good" stuff, and there are those who are good, doctrinally sound churches.
It is your personal relationship with Christ that matters here. God gave us his Word. You can know if your church is one that is in good standing with the Lord, or if it is one that he will spew out. And whatever denomination you attend, if you have questions, turn to the Bible and determine if your church follows Gods ways or mans ways.
If anyone wishes to see my definition of a good non-Catholic church, check out Faith Baptist Church. We have online messages so you can hear and make your own determination if doctrine and good solid bible teaching is being taught.