Separated Brethren

[Sojourner]

There was a thread on this topic that [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=9976"]homeschoolmom started in Open Mic[/url] ... many of us came from Protestant backgrounds, and have friends and families we love who are Protestants.

While I love being Catholic, and have no desire whatsoever to leave, I am still very thankful for the background and teaching I received in the Protestant church. Ironically enough, I wouldn't be a Catholic today if it weren't for the Protestant Church.

[Ellenita]

It's good to acknowledge this Sojourner. Without a doubt my love of the Bible stems from my protestant days....of course I know this can only increase now that I've 'come home'! I was thrilled to see that my church are beginning bible studies at the end of the month!

[Sojourner]

That's really great, Ellenita! I've been discouraged at my church from starting Bible studies (Catholics don't do that, you know) but I will still quietly encourage it. I think anytime you can get people thinking about their faith and really wanting to learn to know God better, it's a good thing.

[twf]

Perhaps you should send an email to your bishop...I would think he would instruct his priests to encourage Bible study (as long as it is made clear that all of these Bible studies would look at every passage of study within the framework of Sacred Tradition and the teaching of the Magisterium).

[Ashley]

[quote name='Sojourner' date='May 4 2004, 06:53 PM'] That's really great, Ellenita! I've been discouraged at my church from starting Bible studies (Catholics don't do that, you know) but I will still quietly encourage it. I think anytime you can get people thinking about their faith and really wanting to learn to know God better, it's a good thing. [/quote]
Your Church discourages you from studying and reading God's Word?

[Crusader_4]

No. It is scared that if ppl read the bible without looking at the Big Picture and Tradition they will mess it up...because the scripture is very dangerous in a sense its like Dynamite if used properly its amazing if used wrongly it can be deadly...even the Devil quotes scripture. So its not a discouraging of studying the bible or anything of that nature its just quite often in Catholic circles there is a lot of worries about bible studies because it is very protestant in some of its nature. So the Priest is probably more worried that an innapropriate teaching of it would take place.

[Apotheoun]

My conversion from Methodism to Catholicism was not so much a rejection of error as it was an acceptance of the fulness of truth, and this is the very substance of a real conversion. The process of conversion must always be positive in nature, and so it is never directly the rejection of error; rather, it is the acceptance of truth. As Venerable John Cardinal Newman pointed out in his book, [u]An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine[/u]:

"[The] gradual conversion from a false to a true religion, plainly, has much of the character of a continuous process, or a development, in the mind itself, even when the two religions, which are the limits of its course, are antagonists. Now let it be observed, that such a change consists in addition and increase chiefly, not in destruction. True religion is the summit and perfection of false religions; it combines in one whatever there is of good and true separately remaining in each. And in like manner the Catholic creed is for the most part the combination of separate truths, which heretics have divided among themselves, and err in dividing." [John Cardinal Newman, [u]An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine[/u], (Notre Dame: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), page 200]

Clearly then, when one focuses on what is true and good in Protestantism, he is not endorsing [i]in toto[/i] the theological presuppositions underlying that religion; instead, he is concentrating on those particular goods, which if taken to their logical conclusion will lead Protestants into the bosom of the Church. Some Catholics center so much on anti-Protestant polemics that they run the risk of reducing conversion itself to a negative experience, i.e., into a rejection of error rather than an acceptance of truth, and in doing this they fail to grasp the true nature of religious conversion. Cardinal Newman eloquently explained the error of reducing conversion to a negative experience, when he wrote:

". . . if a religious mind were educated in and sincerely attached to some form of heathenism or heresy, and then were brought under the light of truth, it would be drawn off from error into the truth, not by losing what it had, but by gaining what it had not. . . . That same principle of faith which attaches it at first to the wrong doctrine would attach it to the truth; and that portion of its original doctrine, which was to be cast off as absolutely false, [i]would not be directly rejected, but indirectly, in the reception of the truth which is its opposite[/i]. True conversion is ever of a positive, not a negative character." [John Cardinal Newman, [u]An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine[/u], (Notre Dame: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), page 200-201]

Admitting that certain doctrinal propositions within Protestantism are true is not an endorsement of that religious system as a valid alternative to Catholicism. Instead, it is simply the recognition of what the Second Vatican Council called the [i]elementa ecclesiae[/i] present in the communities that separated from the Catholic Church in the 16th century. [cf., [u]Lumen Gentium[/u] 8; [u]Unitatis Redintegratio[/u] 3-4] Thus, the proper way to bring Protestants into the fullness of truth, which is found only in the Catholic Church governed by the Successor of St. Peter, is to build on those truths that they already possess,

[Mickey's_Girl]

Well-said, Apotheoun!

I think it *should* be conversion *to*, not conversion *from*, because otherwise--is it really conversion? Newman's discussion also takes into account the real experience of many Protestants who convert to Catholicism--they were sincerely seeking God and had a relationship with him in their Protestant church, but something was missing, or they found out that there was more.

Thanks for adding to the discussion.

MG

Edited June 13, 2004 by Mickey's_Girl

[Child of God]

So the Holy Spririt doesn't guide Christians??? Or does the Holy Spirit only guide in reading scripture when a priest is there to interpret???

[Apotheoun]

[quote]So the Holy Spririt doesn't guide Christians? Or does the Holy Spirit only guide in reading scripture when a priest is there to interpret?[/quote]

In answer to your first question: of course the Holy Spirit guides Christians, and I know this from my own experience, for it was by His guidance that I converted to Catholicism.

In answer to your second question: it is a doctrine of the faith that the Magisterium of the Church is the sole authentic interpreter of the word of God, whether it is found in scripture, or whether it is handed down in tradition. Private interpretation of scripture is just that, private. Therefore, private interpretations are binding on no one, and if they contradict the authoritative teaching of the Magisterium, they are clearly in error and must be rejected.

[cmotherofpirl]

The New Testament was compiled by the Church, and picked out the books that agreed with Church teaching and were linked to an Apostle. So its a Catholic book , and only Church who gave it to us is capable of correctly interpreting it.

So if we were to read a scripture passage and say "Aha this is what it means" and our meaning is in direct contradiction to Church teaching, we are wrong. Only the Church has the divine protection to get it right.

So read your Bible, but make sure your understanding agrees with the editors.