Dear Winona,

Thanks for the question.

Based on your what you said in your e-mail, I would recommend you go to Confession and share with the Confessor what you have shared with us. After going to Confession and receiving some counsel from the priest, there is no reason why you can't go back to Mass.

I think you have a few misperceptions about the Church and the faith based on what you have heard or learned from friends over the years.

You said:
So much of the Roman Catholic religion is made up of stuff from when the pagans joined the Church.

Not quite. The pagans had their practices, like the exchange of wedding rings and the Christmas tree, that the Church did adopt but, in doing so, She took the good from their practices and sanctified them for use in the Church.

That's far different than adopting pagan practices.

You said:
I believe every single part of the Apostle's Creed

That's good and very important! Nevertheless, when we receive Holy Communion at Mass we are saying we are in a Common Union with Jesus and the Church He founded. Learning the faith is not something you can do with a snap of your fingers; it requires time and an openness to accepting the Church's Teachings . . . to accepting Jesus' Teachings!

Strengthening your faith requires:

• practicing it and
• knowing it.

On practicing the faith:

Out of 168 hours in the week, all the Lord asks of us, most weeks, is one hour and, though we may not have a desire to go to Sunday Mass, it's for our own good because receiving the Eucharist, as well as keeping a daily prayer life, will help us make good, holy choices for that week.

The bishops of the United States have also recommended that Catholic families make a habit of receiving the Sacrament of Confession on a monthly basis; I agree!

Living a sacramental life is the key to strengthening your faith rapidly.

Practicing the faith also includes discerning your calling.

• Where do you want to serve the Lord in His Church?

Talk to your pastor and find out what ministries your local parish offers, then ask yourself:

• Which one would I enjoy (participating/serving) in the most?

On knowing the faith:

I would start with reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If you find something is hard for you to accept, ask the Lord to help you understand that Teaching; He will help! As you grow in the faith, remember that one's faith is not based on how one feels.

Catholics should believe in the Catholic Church, not because it makes them feel good, or because they agree with all the teachings of the Church but because they believe the Church is the truth-telling Church that Jesus founded on St. Peter and His successors.

Truth-telling now and Truth-telling in the future. For example, if the Church clarifies a teaching in the future or is forced to teach on an issue She had not previously confronted. (For example, back in 33 A.D., no one would have any idea what In Vitro Fertilization was.) For other sources on where you can learn more about the faith, check out our recommended reading page.

You said:

• Would there be any problem with me coming back to the Church?

No, Just go to Confession first and ask the priest for some counsel.

Hope this helps,

Mike

Hi Winona,

I encourage you to do some reading. I rejoice that you have developed a deeper relationship with the Lord, but as my friend Mike said, you have some misconceptions and I think you'd be genuinely surprised at how biblical the Catholic Church is if you opened your mind and listened to the evidence. I once thought as you did, but as I began to study what the early Christians actually believed and taught, my mind began to change.

We're here to answer specific questions for you. A good place for you to start might be here:

• Is Catholicism Pagan?

Then if that doesn't answer your questions, perhaps you can share with us specific things you think are pagan that concern you, and why.

You said:
Around 1990, the Church dropped saying, This is the Word of the Lord to
Word of the Lord. This was also the time of the Jesus seminars where they talked about what Jesus said and didn't say in the New Testament, so I left the Church because She no longer believed in the Bible or so I was taught.

I'm not sure what you meant when you shared the account of the Church changing to
The Word of the Lord. I'm scratching my head, trying to figure out if you are arguing, if the Church dropped This is . ., then it must no longer believe in the Bible?

The reason This is . . was dropped is because it is not there in the Latin original. We do definitely believe in the Bible as the inerrant Written Word of God; if we didn't, I don't know why we'd end each reading with The Word of the Lord. You seem to be focusing too much on two rather ancillary words. I suggest you read a document called Dei Verbum [Vatican]|[EWTN] from Second Vatican Council to see what we believe about the Bible.

You seem to have been influenced by Evangelical Protestants.

• While these are our brothers in Christ, and there is a lot we can learn from them, you owe it to the Truth to learn the other side of the story, don't you agree?
• I mean, if you've heard all this negative stuff about the Catholic Church from someone else, shouldn't you hear the Catholic side and give it a fair hearing before believing the Protestant account?

I think your asking us, and your desire to come back, shows that you are willing to do this, and
I encourage you to go deeper. Try reading the book:

• Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on "Romanism" by "Bible Christians"
  by Karl Keating

Also explore www.catholic.com (not affiliated with us).

Eric

Dear Winona,

You have been sadly miseducated and misinformed about the Catholic Faith. I am sorry for that. You also seem to be misunderstanding the remarks of the people here.

You have also encountered some anti-Catholic fundamentalists who are also very confused about the faith and who don't know history. Get Karl Keating's book:

• Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on "Romanism" by "Bible Christians"
  by Karl Keating

— if you want all your questions addressed.

As for sinful priests, very early within Christendom the Church had to decide if the sins of the priest would prevent Christ from acting through Him.

As we see in Scripture, the sins of Peter did not stop Christ from using him. I know that many, many priests have committed grave evils. We put our faith in Christ, not in priests.

Mary Ann

Winona,

Almost everything you said was not Catholic teaching.

I am not criticizing you, I'm just saying that what you have been told is not accurate. When Mike said God only asks one hour, he meant that God only asks as a minimum that we worship at Mass once a week. Many Catholics worship daily at Mass and at prayer services.

There is more Scripture in our services than in fundamentalist or evangelical services. Mainline Protestants use the same lectionary as we do, and read the same amount on Sunday.
Our daily prayer, the Office, is made of Scripture.

All sin is terrible, but you must admit that being unkind to someone is a lesser sin than killing that person. One can slightly offend a friend, and one can turn against a friend, betraying him. That is the difference between light and grave sin, though because God is all holy, even slight sin is much more damaging and offensive than we realize, but God is merciful.

There is no woman goddess, but there is the woman of Revelation (Read Revelation 12), who is both the Church and the one who is the model of the Church, the one who brought us Christ and was His only perfect disciple, His mother.

All the earliest testimony, including Scripture, as the post-Apostolic generation read it, shows that Mary did not have other children. Those who say otherwise:

• do not understand the languages involved
• have not read the Early Fathers, or
• have not done a careful study of the relationships of the New Testament.

I am glad you find her a model. Ask her to lead you to Jesus, which is her job.

The Church did not burn Joan of Arc. A corrupt traitor bishop in league with politicians illegally found her guilty in a sham trial and turned her over to his patrons, the English, who killed her.

If you miss the Mass, come to it. Pray to God for light and have compassion for all the poor Catholics who do not know their faith or who do not live it — which includes most of us!

Blessings.

Mary Ann

Winona —

You seem to be a woman sincerely seeking Christ, and I thank God for that. Clearly He is working in your life.

I went through, what you went through: the same questions and the same doubts about the Church. Through much study, and being open to the Holy Spirit, I found answers to all my questions, and saw that the most biblical church is the Catholic Church. There is a lot of misinformation and confusion out there so it's not surprising you would think the way you do.

You have a lot of questions. We won't attempt to answer them all, at least not at once, but again
I encourage you to read good Catholic sources that explain the Catholic faith instead of relying only on Evangelical and Fundamentalist sources. If you want to know what someone believes and why, it's only fair to ask them, not someone else and it's only fair to give someone a chance to respond when someone challenges them.

If indeed you are a sincere seeker of truth, we welcome your questions one by one. We have answers to them if you are open to our replies.

As for returning to Mass, you are certainly welcome and encouraged to attend Mass. One day,
God willing, you will believe what we believe and be united with us and so receive the Eucharist.

The Eucharist, we believe, is the Body of Christ. The Church is the Body of Christ as well, and so the Eucharist makes the Church through Communion. For this reason, we believe that only those who are in communion of mind and heart with the Church, that is, those who accept what the Church believes and teaches, may receive our Eucharist. This is how the Church of Christ originally operated and how it operates today (with some rare exceptions). It's sort of like a husband and wife: If they are not married or not completely reconciled, they wouldn't think of having conjugal relations. The Eucharist is the most intimate union with Christ and His Body - the Church, we can have, so if one is not reconciled with the Church, one cannot really participate in her Eucharist.

A few comments on your questions. I understand the scandal you have concerning priests but you are deceiving yourself if you think Protestant pastors do not do the same thing. So do doctors, teachers, child-care workers, and all sorts of people we trust. The fact that people sin is irrelevant to whether their position is legitimate. One cannot disprove the priesthood by citing priests who sin. Though Judas betrayed the Lord, he did not thereby invalidate the Apostles.

As for going to Mass, look at Hebrews 10:24-31. It says not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Then in verse 26 following that, it says

It goes on more severely. The implication there is that if we willfully forsake the assembling of ourselves together, we will receive condemnation (a mortal sin). As for a biblical basis for mortal sin, I'd refer you to 1 John 5:16. Also it is clear that some sins incur condemnation (1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:21). A mortal sin is a sin that causes us to lose salvation (there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries). If you don't believe in mortal sin, you either believe:

• that all sins for a believer are mortal, in which case salvation is hopeless, or
• none of them are (the more common case), which contradicts the two verses I cited above.

Catholics who don't believe the faith are a scandal, yes, but they make their own decisions:
they don't disprove the Catholic faith. The Scriptures never say that the members of the true Church will always be well-educated. You are to be commended for your knowledge, but it doesn't prove that you are right. The thing about the Catholic Church is that it is built on 2,000 years of biblical reflection of myriads of holy people, something that the knowledge of one lifetime cannot hope to match.

I can't argue with you about inane sermons. I did know a Catholic priest who put Bibles in the pews, though. He is now a bishop of Australia.

Don't worry about what other people do. It's irrelevant. In the first twelve leaders of the Church:

• one betrayed the Lord
• one denied Him, and
• one doubted His Resurrection.

Not a good track record.

• Would you have left that Church?

You are quite right, we need to follow the Lord 168 hours a week, a fact that is reflected in Catholic devotional tradition.

• Have you read any of the saints and what they had to say about the spiritual life?

As for the intercession of saints, this is a big topic which I encourage you to search our knowledge base about. I'll point you to:

• Revelation 5:8
• Revelation 8:5
• Hebrews 12:1
• Hebrews 12:22-23, and
• Jeremiah 15:1.

As for Mary as Co-Redemptrix, this is another big topic but I would point out to you that we call her Co-Redemptrix because she is the prototype for the Church (that is, she symbolizes, in her person, what the whole Church is, and by extension, who its members are), and every time you evangelize someone, you are cooperating in the work of redemption. See:

• Romans 16:20
• Genesis 3:16
• 2 Corinthians 5:17-20
• Colossians 1:24
• Matthew 10:38
• 1 Peter 2:21
• John 14:12, and
• 1 Peter 4:12-13.

Marian belief goes back to the earliest ages of the Church (although it was not always as clearly formulated as it was today) and was rooted firmly in Scripture, not in pagan concepts.
For example, the Queenship of Mary comes from Psalm 45 and Revelation 12.

Answers to all of your questions can be found on our website if you are only willing to look for them.

• If you can't find them, ask.
• If you don't understand or want more information from what I've given here, ask.
• If you want resources, ask.

Eric