My aunt converted from Disciples of Christ to Catholicism when she got married. I suspect religion was all a lick and a promise with her anyway, so it didn’t matter much to her. She and her husband differ on a lot of philosophical points and have still stayed married for fifty years, so more power to them.
My husband and I were both raised Catholic and also raised our children in The Church. The kids made their First Communions and my son was confirmed. After the kids were grown my husband and I kind of lapsed. Then when my son was diagnosed with cancer, I couldn’t get to church fast enough! After he died (3-1/2 years ago) I again lapsed. About a year ago my husband said he wanted to get back to church but didn’t want to go to the Catholic Church. He is more interested in going into depth with the bible. That isn’t done much in the Catholic Church. So I agreed to TRY another church. We went to a Covenant Church. What a culture shock that was!! Lots of singing and then going through bible verses line by line. People wandered around while the pastor was speaking, getting coffee, etc. They would shout out their opinions on what he said. Myself, I found it very distracting and very disrespectful to the pastor. One day one of the ladies during fellowship asked me if we had any children. I told her our daughter and her family lived out of town and then I told her about our son that died. I told her that the only thing that kept us going was that we knew he was now cured and living an amazing new life. She looked at me and said, “are you sure?” I said yes I was sure. We stuck around for 9 months or so and decided we had enough. While picking apart the bible was interesting and the pastor did have some very powerful messages it just wasn’t for us. We missed 2 Sundays in a row (not planning on going back). I had phone messages, emails and texts wondering where we were and that they’re praying for us. Now I had been away from our Catholic Church for 2 years or more and no one said “boo” to me. I felt like I was trying to leave a cult (the Covenant Church). It was intrusive and nosey. We went back to our Catholic Church. During the first Mass back, I almost started crying. I felt like I was home again. I felt that I was actually worshipping The Lord. I emailed the pastor of the Covenant Church and told him why we left. I’m happy where I am now.
I was raised Catholic, but I’m now basically atheist. The rest of my family is still Catholic and I have great respect for the church. I have known two adults who converted from protestant to Catholic, and I have no idea why either did it. I mean, technically, one did because her husband was Catholic. The other did it for reasons similar to the OP. One of his parents was Catholic, his grandparents were Catholic, eventually he and his other parent (forget if it was mom or dad) just went ahead and converted. So I know why they did it, but I don’t know that either was genuinely devoted to Catholicism. As far as I know, neither has regrets about their conversion.
It seems to me (just my little pile of anecdotes) that when any two halfway-reasonable people get married, religious differences between them are handled in a way that accommodates both of the people well enough somehow. Even when one of the people has rigid religious requirements, often the other person is OK either going along with it or staying out of the way.
Maybe what I’ve just said is tautological anyway - maybe it’s just that two opposing fanatics would never become interested in each other in the first place.
Thanks everyone for your insightful answers. They have been interesting! I especially liked reading how **JohnGalt **views visits to the Lutheran church now since he’s been Catholic. Totally an insight I wouldn’t know on my own!
**TRC4941 **so sorry to hear about your son. I can’t imagine getting an answer like that from someone in a church. I am glad you have found some happiness back in the Catholic church.
For what it’s worth, I am not actually looking to join any church right now (erm, well I guess I can being that my home church just closed). I haven’t really enjoyed being part of a congregation for 10 years or so. I suppose the question of this thread isn’t so much “What should I do?” but instead “Is this a thing people do?”
And yes I get that The Reformation itself is old news. But still I know more about the differences between Catholics and Lutherans due to history lessons than I do, say, the difference between Quakers and Methodists.
Like pretty much everything else in this thread, anecdotal only:
I attend an Episcopal church. Based on survey responses from self-studies preparatory to calling new rectors, I can tell you that something like 20% of the congregation came to this church (or to the Episcopal Church Writ Large) from Catholicism. (A few more came from other “Protestant” branches; a handful, including me, came from No Religious Background Whatsoever; most of the rest were “cradle Episcopalians.”)
Of these former Catholics: off the top of my head I can think of maaaaybe two who switched over because they married someone who was Episcopalian. Most of the rest (that I know of, anyway) left for theological or political reasons: people who were out of whack with Catholic attitudes toward divorce, abortion, and particularly sexuality and sexual orientation. (We have a lot of lesbians and gay men who grew up as Catholics; I sometimes wonder if they’d be inclined to go back if the Romans were a bit more accepting.)
As for those who leave our church. I can think of one who married a Catholic, stopped coming to our church, and started attending Catholic services instead. Don’t know if he became a Catholic in any kind of formal way (reception into the Church, etc.). My sense, though, is that the great majority of those who leave our church either give up organized religion altogether, end up at another Episcopal church, or join the local Lutherans or Congregationalists. Episcopal --> Catholic, at least at our generally very liberal church, seems not to be a big thing.
YM obviously Vs.
This depends on your ELCA congregation. I don’t think anyone is confused as to whether or not my congregation supports gay marriage - the fact we have same sex marriages in our Church without any issue and walk in the Atlanta Pride Parade every yearshould dispel any confusion on that. And sermons have been preached on extending health care to the poor.
I also think that folks aren’t too confused as to what Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton’s views are on those positions either.
The ELCA as a whole has put out a few Social Statements, including one on abortion, human sexuality, and health care: Social Statements - Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
I think this is a fascinating comment. I have attended a lot of Catholic services over the years, in a number of different churches (some regular services along with weddings and funerals–I’m related to a lot of Catholics and know many more in this heavily-Catholic part of the US) and with a few exceptions I would say that “they’re going through the motions” is a very accurate descriptor of what I see.
Congregational prayers recited (often mumbled) at top speed, homilies that generally seem quite generic. If it’s 10:25 we’d BETTER be at the Lord’s Prayer. One thing that always surprises me (it’s not done in every church I’ve visited, but certainly in most of them) is people leaving as the organist strikes up the first notes of the final hymn. Which also means little or no congregational fellowship afterward.
Don’t get me wrong, not all of this is “bad” by any stretch of the imagination. I have generally enjoyed these services. Moreover, I find that many Episcopal services are too long and too weighty and take themselves too seriously. There’s something to be said for moving things along more quickly than we seem to do. But I don’t generally get a sense in these services that people are taking “care [in how and why] they’re doing things”–no sense that people at the altar or in the pews are fully engaged in what’s going on.
Oh well, maybe you have to “be” Catholic in some very important sense to appreciate it–but from where I sit it feels very much like something you do because you gotta do it, and then, phew, it’s over and you get to leave!
Plenty. Ultra-Conservative Catholics loathe Francis. Even just regular Conservative Catholics (like the New York Times’ Ross Douthat) are deeply suspicious of him. They believe he is trying to change long standing church doctrine by simply declaring it so (the Pope doesn’t have the power that a lot of Protestants think he does) - or by being vague enough that anyone can feel they are on the right side of church doctrine.
Quakers are mystics. Methodists are complete hierarchists. If you don’t know what to do, Quakers say ‘Wait for God to speak to you.’ Methodists say ‘Form a series of committees with representation from all interest groups, institute formal rules of order and discuss it endlessly.’
More seriously, Quakers emerged from the chaos gripping the CoE during the late 1600s. They were a Dissenter Group (What was happening in England at this time was that the CoE was relatively new and still trying to figure out if it was more of a “non-papal Catholic church” or full-bore Protestant. Tons and tons of groups emerged out of the chaos like the Anabaptists, the Puritans, the awesomely named Muggletonians, the Brownists and my favorites the Diggers and Levellers - who were forerunners of the modern anarchist movements in the early 20th century continuing to today. These groups essentially completely broke ties with the CoE and became religious dissenters. They were generally quite radical for the time and themes of pacifism and a need for social reform were prevalent in most of their theologies to the point where they often called for the abolition of property and the destruction of social class and in extreme cases the destruction of the government itself. Go Dissenters!
Quakers sprung out of the Seeker movement which emphasized the corruption of all organized religion and the idea that all external forms of worship were bad including things like the sacraments and even the idea that people should be leaders in the church. Quakers took this doctrine and ran with it. They believed that even the Bible is a man made book and that ultimately the only way to truly know the will of God is to sit and listen for his direct communication and only that direct revelation from God is theologically sound. Early Quakers were essentially outwardly similar to the Amish today. They were strict pacifists (and most still are) they wore simple clothes and fought for social justice. They were known for their ‘unprogrammed’ style of church service. Essentially it worked by everyone agreeing to go to church at a certain time and then they just would sit there until someone felt that God wanted them to say something. Everyone else would listen and then they would sit some more until the next person felt God wanted them to say something. Sometimes services would be hours just sitting in silence, sometimes they might bicker back and forth. They were still very Christian in all respects. Modern Quakers have sort of gone off the page a bit. There are still conservative Quakers that are very similar to their early brethren, but as is wont to happen when there is no hierarchy and little leadership, there are more liberal Quakers that may not even be Christian at all. There are in fact atheist Quakers (how exactly God communicates with you that he doesn’t exist is probably something Fox wouldn’t be able to get his mind around, but I’m no Quaker theologian.)
Methodists on the other hand came after things had settled down in the 18th century. They were founded by the Wesley brothers (John and Charles) - two English clergymen and started out as a ‘society’ within the CoE. John essentially thought that much of what was happening in churches was spiritually empty. People going through the motions and he felt that there was a need for a deeper spiritual understanding of God which he termed holiness. To achieve this holiness, he set up groups that today we might think of as Bible study groups and applied a ‘Method’ to help them grow spiritually closer to God. The Wesley’s were largely ecumenical in nature, so didn’t deny that the CoE was good, but felt there was a second type of salvation that he termed sanctification that was not necessary, but a good thing. It is very simply defined as a state in which you desire to fully be in God’s will. To get there involved the typical things of the time- live simply, pray a lot, support justice, etc. Because of this, Methodists became heavily involved in social justice movements and became known for their adversity to what they saw as vices that kept people mired in poverty. Theologically, they rejected predestination and became the one of the leading voices of Arminianism in the Christian world. In practice today, Methodists tend to be fairly moderate Christians (my wife calls us the vanilla of Christianity) the leadership leans fairly liberal and the congregations are mostly moderates. Since they do tend to be fairly vanilla, they take on the character of whatever community they are in. Southern United Methodists tend to be conservative. African UMs tend to be fundamentalists, Northern United Methodists tend to be liberal and so on. As most mainlines do, they tend to emphasize social justice over personal salvation and Evangelicals often accuse them of being wishy-washy and not standing for ‘right’ (however they choose to define that.)
We could get into point by point differences in theology. The biggest difference though is that Quakers only believe in personal direct revelation. Methodists believe in the Quadrilateral which means that all theology should be based upon Scripture, Reason, Experience and Tradition. The Bible is awesome, but tradition has something to say since it’s what other people have thought about things. If something is illogical, it just is, God gave us brains for a reason and turning them off at the church door is idiocy. And ultimately, you have to experience something before you can really be assured that it’s real. Those main theological differences are probably what led to everything else.
The idea of the last hymn is that it’s played as people are leaving the worship space. But leaving the worship space doesn’t mean the end of congregational fellowship. Most churches I’ve been to have coffee and donuts in the parish hall right afterwards. Though I’ll grant that attendance at that is much lower than for the service itself.
The church I attend has never had a non-Catholic guest speaker, but then, at Catholic services, you don’t generally get “speakers” at all. You sometimes get a guest priest conducting the Mass (often from some missionary order), but that has to be a priest, because only a priest can say the Mass. On the other hand, during the Prayers of the Faithful, we’ve often had things like “For our Muslim brothers and sisters, as they go through their holy month of Ramadan, that their fasting might help them grow closer to God, we pray to the Lord…”. My pastor was genuinely surprised when I mentioned that a lot of churches wouldn’t include a prayer like that.
Recently, we visited one of my uncles, and in addition to attending Mass at the local Catholic church, we also went with him to a service at his not-very-specific-denominational Protestant church. The feel of it to me was very much like a flower in a vase: Beautiful, but without roots. I like my religion to have roots, and the Catholic church’s roots are quite deep.
There’a a broad range of Lutheran service practices, and a less-broad range of Catholic mass practices – but there’s still a range there, but less so than for Lutheran servicess, IMHO. I assume, OP, that you are not Wisconsin Synod. Doesn’t seem so from your OP. Among the Synods, the range of practices among all ELCA churches is broader than that of LCMS churches, which in turn is broader than that of Wisconsin Synod churches. My guess, as I’ve never been Wisconsin Synod.
I also went the other way, and my wife did too – I was raised Catholic, then became Lutheran. ELCA first, then LCMS as it was the closest to where I lived, and now I’m back to ELCA and have been for the last 20 years. Before marrying my wife, she was Catholic and she would come to my LCMS church with me, and I would attend her Catholic mass with her. My LCMS Lutheran services were more “strict” than her Catholic masses (which were led by a very cool priest, BTW). She says my LCMS church was “more Catholic” than her church. Anyway, we’re now both ELCA, married in ELCA and that’s where we go. But she says she’s still Catholic.
The liturgies are very similar. And much has changed in the almost 501 years since Luther nailed the 95 theses onto the Wittenberg Castle church door, in October 1517.
Ive gone the other way around. I grew up catholic my whole life, married a christian reformed girl (which ive always considered protestant). In becoming memebers of our ‘new’ reformed church, my wife simply had her ‘papers’ transfered from her old church. I explained i had no ‘papers’. They wanted me to go through a whole spiel of professing faith and meeting with elders. I politely explained i wasnt gonna do that and they could take me as is, or ill be a non-member going to a reformed church. They accepted the terms and im now a catholic that happens to be a member at a reformed church.
On the other hand, my father grew up methodist tried the same thing with catholic church. The catholic church denied his request and hes simply been a methodist going to a catholic church for over 30 yrs.
Edited to add that our daughter was baptised at the reformed church that we go to. The baptism is apparently is accepted by the catholic church.
I’m not Christian, I’m a Reform Jew. But I have an interest in the range of religious expression, and have talked to many people about their faith, and attended many Christian services.
Personally, I think the Reformation is one of the best things that ever happened to the Catholic Church, and it is in a far better place today than it was prior to the Reformation. So I wouldn’t hang my hat on the pre-reformation problems of the Catholic Church as a reason not to join.
But your connection to your church, and your not being able to see yourself as a Catholic are both excellent reasons to stay where you are. I’m pretty sure Lutheran “counts” to the Catholic church, and your mother doesn’t have to worry that you are hell-bound for not being a proper Catholic. So I think you should politely ask her to back off, and cite your depth of feeling towards the church you already have, which, as you point out, she gave you. Just like a job interview, it’s best to focus on the positive (of the church you prefer or the job you seek) and not bash the alternative (her church or the job you want to leave.)
Best wishes.
Just to expand, the Catechism in section 838 says
The way it is typically described is that non-Catholic Christians who have been baptized in the Trinitarian formula (I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit/Ghost.), are contrite for their offenses to God, who believe in the Trinity and salvation through Christ and who if convinced of the truth of the Catholic Church would become Catholic are Catholics in spirit and thus part of the Catholic Church.
So a Lutheran who genuinely believes Catholicism to be untrue, but was baptized and is sorry for their sins and tries to live a decent life is not excluded from Heaven, but they are seen as being in imperfect relationship with God and can only truly be in God’s will by becoming Catholic.