Except that I later clarified the question: At what point in refusing to accept certain official Catholic teachings does someone finally say to her/himself “I guess I’m not really a Catholic any more”? I guess it would be more of a personal decision that an official line in the sand…but so far, no matter how many ways they differ from those official teachings, I really haven’t met anyone who has come to that decision yet.
When you talk about “membership in the Catholic church”, that conjures up an image of the church as a society or club with stated membership criteria.
The thing is, though, that’s no really a full account of the Catholic church’s self-undertanding. In Catholic thinking, the statement “I am a Catholic” has less in common with the statement “I am a member of such-and-such a trade union” (or sports club, or dining club, or whatever) and a lot more with the statement that “I am American” (or Irish, or Australian, or whatever).
To be Catholic is to have a particular relationship, or set of relationships, with the Catholic community. The relationships include shared belief, but can’t be reduced to shared belief. And it’s not a simple binary; the relationship can be stronger or less strong. It can be complicated.
To confuse matters further, while the Catholic church has plenty to say in general terms about what Catholicity is, and what the relationship (termed “communion”, if you’re googling for it) involves, it’s notoriously slow to make any public pronouncement about whether any individual is, or is not, a Catholic. The various aspects of your relationship with the Catholic church may all fall away over time, but the church will be very slow to make the judgment that you are no longer a Catholic. In 999 cases out of 1,000, it is the individual who makes this judgment, and not the church.
So, does someone’s rejection of this dogma, or that dogma, mean that he can no longer be considered a Catholic? Well, if he thinks it means that then, yes, it means that - because he has decided that it should. But if you are looking for cases where the church says it means that, they’re fairly few.
And he or she decided that it should is going to be a highly variable decision. For some, they may choose to reject Catholicism when they disagree with a single point of dogma, but I suspect that is really rare. And I further suspect that for most people who stop self-identifying as Catholic, the breaking point has nothing to do with dogma at all - its either a political choice (i.e. leaving the church in the wake of child sexual abuse scandals) or a decision that you’ve found an alternative spiritual home (or made a decision you don’t need or want one at all).
Absolutely. Shared belief is just one aspect of the relationships that make someone a Catholic. Some people leave the church despite sharing a substantial amount of Catholic beliefs (e.g. Catholics who become Anglicans). Others stay despite doubting or denying virtually all of the distinctively Catholic beliefs. And I suspect many leave after realising not so much that they deny Catholic beliefs, as that they just don’t find them relevant, interesting or engaging - i.e. they lose interest.
I was hoping to hear from a former Catholic. Any out there to give their perspectives?
It would seem that the theologins of that period had to have a reason why Jesus didn’t have the stain of original sin himself, that he would have inherited from Mary, so they decided Mary must have had a special dispensation. It would seem more practical of a supreme being who knows all things before they happen, and afterwards, that he could have created man with out flaws, and there would be no reason to punish the entire human race because of it, or why animals suffer when they didn’t sin!
There are degrees of former Catholicism. I haven’t attended Mass regularly in thirty years, but I’m not particularly militant about it. I’ll wait for sweeping reforms that will likely never come; I doubt I’ll ever join a Protestant denomination.
Me. I left over a few things. Mostly political. I got sick of a dogmatic belief that women where unfit to be priests. I was still culturally catholic for a long time though, until I found a different spiritual home that was more in line with my own beliefs and until I had children with my husband who is an atheist. Then it became very hard to even think of myself as culturally catholic. Though I still love the music.
That’s not quite right. Jesus would’ve been born without original sin one way or another; they didn’t need a “reason”. That would’ve been immediately clear, in fact — if Mary could be granted an exemption then so could Jesus. Rather the point was to prepare her for the duty of bearing him (and of choosing to do so of her own free will, uninfluenced by the presence of original sin).
It should be noted that Mary’s immaculate conception afforded her only the benefits of baptism, prior to that being a thing (for obvious reasons). It’s intended to be special, but not something ad hoc or out of reach of the rank and file.
I’m not a former Catholic. But I am (as stated) a former near-Catholic, where “near” conveys a proximity of which I’m still not fully sure. This includes attending RCIA classes almost to completion as well as independent study, particularly in Aristotelian/Scholastic philosophy. Still by no means an expert in that.
What’s a Catholic? Clearly there’s no one right answer. But considered as an organized religion, I think Catholicism is what it its leaders purport it to be. They make it rather clear what portions of the dogma are required and which are optional, and if a person submits to the authority in Rome then it seems rather strange to me to disregard those teachings. Someone can call herself Catholic and not believe (say) its teachings on contraceptive use, but then she’s following a religion whose leaders say she’s vincibly wrong. Why bother with that?
In other words: the legitimacy of Catholicism rides on the truth of the whole shebang. if the Church is wrong on (say) contraception, then its teachings can no longer be trusted; and if you believe that are you still a Catholic? I dunno. But I wouldn’t call myself one in that case.
Speaking as a former near-Catholic who’s done a bit of research on the issue–
In a real sense, one’s canonical identity as a Catholic cannot be totally abrogated. The Church believes that a valid baptism is permanent, and nothing a person does afterwards (blasphemes, stops believing in Church doctrine, converts to another religion, is excommunicated) can erase the seal of Christ from their soul. I don’t know if it’s possible to annul a baptism–virtually all priests would adhere strictly to the given formula, so you’d have to prove that something was wrong with his internal intentions when he said the words, and that seems a dubious proposition.
A person who’s already been validly baptized in a non-Catholic church and is later received into the RCC would have received the sacrament of confirmation, and likewise it is considered permanent.
From 1983 to 2009, it was possible to formally defect (actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia catholica). But defecting didn’t (couldn’t) invalidate baptism and confirmation. I don’t know how the Church would handle a marriage between an active Catholic and one who defected (would the defector be considered a baptized non-Catholic or as an excommunicated Catholic?).
This was one of the reasons children sealed my one sided breach with the RCC. I cannot, in good faith, commit my children to a belief system as infants. I believe strongly that each person must define their own spiritual journey (or lack of journey), and that to seal someone within a religion that offers no release is unethical. If my children choose to be catholic, or Jewish, or Buddhist of Hindu or pagan or atheists, thats fine…but it must be their choice.
So regardless of my no longer identifying as catholic, I technically always will be. But generations of Catholics have ended with me (neither of my sisters are raising children within the church - one is now Methodist the other UCC. They made the switch when marrying men of those faiths).
I’m a former catholic. I believed in God when I was a kid, but then I stopped. Funny thing is, I don’t remember realizing I didn’t believe in God. I remember believing in God and reading Bible stories and believing them, and I remember not believing in God, but I don’t remember stopping. I must have been 10 or 11.
If you asked a priest if I was still Catholic, he’d probably say, “Sure.” But that just means that if I showed up at the church and said I hadn’t been to mass in a while but want to start, I wouldn’t have to be baptized or confirmed. In his eyes the fact that I don’t go to church and don’t believe in God doesn’t make me a non-Catholic, it just makes me a bad Catholic. And he wouldn’t kick me out of church just because I don’t believe in God, the point would be that he’d try to change my mind, not shun me. The only way I’d get in trouble is if I went around telling everyone else in the church that they shouldn’t believe in God.
I have a family involved, so that when I go home, of course I attend mass with them and go through all the motions, even though my heart is not into it. The family will not accept that I have left the church, only that I have temporarily strayed. I never get into a philosophical argument with them or say negative things about the horrible politics and history of the church, because they have unshakeable faith, and it will hurt the elders.
From what I notice, despite my disagreements, and even my complete disbelief in the required dogma: that Jesus is God, I still feel at home in the church, as far as the social and community aspects are concerned. It is as if Catholic is carved onto me.
I know a lot of people who are no longer catholic, particularly if they are no longer Christian, who go back to the RCC to get married, simply because they are closeted when it comes to grandma. And it is a very pretty ceremony and for someone who grew up with it, feels like the right one for a wedding.
But at no point do the leaders say that you have to accept teaching on contraception in order to be a Catholic. So if “Catholicism is what it its leaders purport it to be” then a Catholic who rejects church teaching on contraception is - or can be - still a Catholic.
You raise the separate question of why such a person would want to be a Catholic. A variety of answers are possible; probably different people in this position would offer different answers. But they all come back to the point I made earlier; religious identity cannot be simplistically reduced to shared belief.
(There is, incidentally, a traditional statement of the core beliefs required for admission to the church; the creed. Contraception isn’t mentioned.)
You can still defect; there just isn’t a prescribed procedure that you have to follow. Whether you have defected is a matter of fact, not a matter of form. Which means that, when it becomes a matter of canonical significance, there can be a degree of uncertainty about whether someone has or has not defected.
For canonical purposes, a Catholic who has defected is not a Catholic. They are in the same position as any other baptised non-Catholic.
I was raised in the Catholic church, and the reason I fell away is because I couldn’t buy the nonsense they were peddling. As I got older (pre high school) I thought church was something that you had to do, like going to school. I remember being shocked when I realized that people actually believed the silly stories and myths.
My main awakening happened when we our youth group meeting was at our house. After communion, one of the girls in the group asked one of the women leaders of the youth group what was the bread that we ate? The woman said, “it’s the body of Christ!” Yeah" the girl said, but what kind of bread was it?" “It’s the BODY of CHRIST!”
Listening to this I remember not understanding how someone can believe that the bread we had turned into human flesh. While I had never been “into” church, this is the event I think drove me from it. This ritual is obviously very important for most Catholics however I did not accept it. Add this to the virgin birth, that God watches over us and is concerned about what we do and who we do it with, or that it even exists.
Given that and many other issues I disagreed with the church on, I felt I could no longer be a member of that organization and be able to look at myself in the mirror. And quite honestly, I have no respect for people (and I have many family members in this group) who don’t believe in rather important things that the church says you should believe yet still claim to be of that faith. I actually have more respect for morons like Santorum because I believe he actually believes the BS he says he espouses. As far as I am concerned it is the cafeteria christians (believers in general) that I feel are weak minded and can’t let go of the faith they were brought up in or just the idea of believing in general.
Since the fact is unknown, the would you consider the fact that it is presumption on the RCC’s part?
It is impossible, because the requirements are so loose that even an atheist non-Catholic can perform a valid baptism. The only requirement is a small amount of water (spitting on your finger would work), and an intent to “do as the Church does”. There isn’t even any requirement for specific words to be said. A priest, no matter his internal mental state, just by performing the ritual, obviously is “doing as the Church does”, so that’s covered, right there.
Anyway, where I “stopped” being a Catholic was on the issue of idolatry and “other gods”. There are a large number of Catholic practices that eventually struck me as idolatry. I won’t bother to list them. So, I read up on what the church actually teaches about those practices, and the thinking behind them. It struck me as a distinction too subtle for most of the people in the pews, so while the Church may have made a distinction that makes it not idolatry, the average member may well have drifted into sin, by the Churches own teaching. Then, to top it off, the justification struck me as a distinction without a difference. There are other doctrines I had issues with, but I could still have remained a Catholic by my own self-identification in spite of those. This was the one that caused me to stop identifying as one.
Eventually, I realized I didn’t really believe in God, either, and had no actual emotional need (or desire, for that matter) for any “spiritual” stuff, so I dropped Christianity entirely, but that took a few years longer.