Dear Bob,

Thanks for the question.

What you have said is far more realistic than what your girl friend has said.

Being baptized makes you a Catholic but your conscience still has to be formed and developed.
A one-week-old baby cannot possibly read the Catechism nor even pray.

It's the responsibility of you and your girlfriend's parents as well as the local church parish community to raise you with good Catholic values. The primary educators in the faith, though are the parents. This is what your parents promised the Church when you were baptized, though, sadly, many parents, take an attitude of:

• We'll say anything, whether we mean it or not, as long as our baby is baptized."
  

I say this based on my family experience. There is no such thing as being:

• 10% Catholic
• 25% Catholic
• or any other percentage
  

Being truly Catholic means accepting everything (100%) Jesus taught for you. In fact, the word "Catholic" means "universal," in the sense of "according to the totality" or "in keeping with the whole." CCC 830

When Catholics receive Holy Communion at Holy Mass each week, whether they know it or not, they are publicly saying,

"I am in communion with ALL the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church which Jesus founded on St. Peter and his successors back in 33 A.D."

Because the Communion recipient believes this, he or she better perfects themselves, and physically becomes one with The Lord. You should not receive Communion when you are not cognitively in communion with Christ, or at least striving to understand, when it comes to difficult teachings.

Your friend said:
She thinks that's nuts. It doesn't matter what she actually believes, or whether she shows up at Church. She's Catholic. Even if she rejects the entire Catechism (and in fairness, she doesn't), she's still every bit as Catholic as the Pope.

No one is denying she is a Catholic but if she publicly shares this with others, she is a hypocrite.
Hypocrisy being defined as:

The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform to.

It is sad that in our 2010 culture, scandalous T.V. pop celebrities make it known they are Catholic while their behavior is in total conflict with the teachings of the Church.

That said: The difference between your girl friend and the Pope, is that one is a hypocrite and the other isn't.

• What does this mean to her?
  

She has no creditability! When she talks about issues relevant to the faith of the Church, no one is going to believe her, or should believe her because her words don't match her behavior.

There's an additional problem she has because of this. If everyone sees her as a hypocritical Catholic, people will likely question her truthfulness on other non-religious issues.

• If she behaves differently from what she says she believes on faith issues, what's to say her words won't contradict her behavior on other non-faith issues?

When one is a hypocrite, their trustworthiness goes down in all areas. This is why hiring managers with a disdain toward people of faith should re-think their reasoning for such a disdain. At least people who practice their faith, match words with actions.

For short: You know what you are getting.

Baptism sets the seed of Catholic Christian growth within the soul. It is your girl friend's parents, her parish, and your girl friend's responsibility to water and feed her soul appropriate, or she will spiritually die by getting sucked into the values of this sex-saturated, secular world.

Due to the divide among Catholics in their behavior, I used the terms "practicing Catholics" and "dissenting or non-practicing Catholics" to differ between those faithful to the Church's teachings, in word and behavior, and those that are not faithful. I would consider you a non-practicing or dissenting Catholic based on what you have told me.

It is just a way to describe someone who:

• does, what they say they believe, versus
• someone who doesn't do, what they say they believe.
  

These are not official Church terms. If you formally joined another Christian denomination or worst a cult which involved you making a different profession of faith, you would be considered an ex-Catholic.

If an ex-Catholic ever wanted to return to the faith, all they would have to do is make an appointment with a priest or the pastor at their local parish and receive the sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession. The Confessor would give them the appropriate penance which would probably include renouncing their previous faith and re-making a profession of faith in the Catholic faith, like the Nicene Creed or Apostles Creed.

These postings may help as well:

• Can you clarify the duty to assent versus the duty to believe as it pertains to papal infallibility?
• What is the gift of infallibility?
• Can you explain the difference between dogmas and doctrines and what is required by each?

I hope this helps,

Mike

Hi, Bob —

There are different senses of the term "Catholic" that are used in different ways. There's a colloquial sense in which one is Catholic, there is a doctrinal sense, there is a juridical sense, and so forth. These are not formal definitions, I'm just using them as examples. There is, surprisingly, no formal definition of the term anywhere.

From a juridical standpoint (i.e. one of canon law), once you enter the Catholic church, you are treated as a Catholic until you die, even if you attempt to renounce the faith. (This was not always true, but has been true since a few years ago.) So one can say that once a Catholic, always a Catholic. It's like a family; even if you're disowned, that relationship is still there, whether you like it or not.

One can also define Catholic according to beliefs. I.e., you are a Catholic to the degree that you accept the Catholic faith, and if you totally repudiate the faith, you are no longer Catholic. This is a valid way to look at things, too, as long as you don't attempt to interpret canon law this way. This arises when it comes to marriages; anyone who ever entered the Church must observe the Catholic form of marriage for the marriage to be valid whether they are practicing as Catholics or not.

So in a certain sense both of you are right; you're just looking at it from different perspectives.
I wouldn't say your friend is as Catholic as the pope but perhaps she has equal claim to the title. However, there is another factor and that is the question of heresy and apostasy; someone who obstinately denies what must be believed with divine and Catholic faith is a heretic according to canon law, and someone who totally repudiates the Christian faith is an apostate.

I cannot judge how obstinate you or your friend are or whether you are knowingly denying such tenets but you may formally qualify as heretics, even though both of you may in some sense still be Catholics.

Eric