What Is the Priesthood of Believers?

According to The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge—the three primary differences between Catholics and Protestants are: their views of the Bible; the concept of the grace of Christ; and, the phrase the priesthood of believers.

We’ve already discussed the Bible and the grace of Christ. Today we’ll tackle the priesthood of believers.

 The Priesthood of Believers:

As far as the last element of Protestantism, the universal priesthood of believers, Protestants believe that through Christ they have been given direct access to God, just like a priest.

Under the universal priesthood of believers concept, God is equally accessible to all the faithful, and every Christian has equal potential to minister for God.

As you can imagine, this point-of-view stands in direct opposition to the concept of a clerical class . . . a spiritual aristocracy or hierarchy . . . within the Catholic Church. As a lifelong Catholic, I was taught that the priest’s role was to stand between me and God.

The Catholic Encyclopedia’s argument is: “The universal priesthood of believers is a fond fancy which goes well with the other fundamental tenets of Protestantism. For, if every man is his own supreme teacher and is able to justify himself by an easy act of faith, there is no further need of ordained teachers and ministers of sacrifice and sacraments.”

In other words, because the Protestant reliance on the Bible and a universal priesthood of believers diminishes the need for priests to perform ceremonies and sacraments, it is hopelessly flawed.

Although many religions use priests, most Protestant faiths reject the idea of the priesthood as a group that is spiritually distinct from lay people . . . the general population.

Non-Catholic Christian churches typically employ ministers and pastors who perform many of the same functions as Catholic priests such as clarifying Scripture, performing baptisms and marriages, etc.

In many Protestant denominations the professional clergy is viewed as servants acting on behalf of the local believers.

This is in contrast to my experience and view of Catholic priests as a group of men who have a distinct authority over their congregation . . . and spiritual role different from—and high above—those of us sitting in the pews.

The Protestant universal priesthood of believers outlook is believed to be derived from several passages of the New Testament. The exact meaning varies from denomination to denomination, but it generally refers to a doctrinal responsibility of every member of the Christian faith to spread the Good News of Jesus.

Like many of the differences between Catholics and Protestants, the priesthood of believers concept appears to have started withy Martin Luther.

While Luther didn’t use the exact phrase “priesthood of all believers” in 1520, he suggested in his writing To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation that all baptized Christians are “priests” and “spiritual” in the sight of God.

Referencing 1 Peter 2:9—“You are a royal priesthood and a priestly kingdom”—and Revelation 5:10—“Through your blood you have made us into priests and kings”—Luther argued that all Christians are consecrated priests through Baptism.

Based on 1 Timothy 2:5—“For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus”—most Protestants today recognize Christ as the only mediator between themselves and God.

Catholics insist that priests are vital to Christian life. They argue that doing away with priests nullifies non-Catholic Christians’ legitimacy as an effective worship group. Without priests, Catholics suggest that there is no connection to Jesus.

The Bible passage Protestants often use in rebuttal of the Catholic priest class is Hebrews 7:23–28:

²³ There were many priests under the old system, for death prevented them from remaining in office. ²⁴ But because Jesus lives forever, his priesthood lasts forever.²⁵ Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.

²⁶ He is the kind of high priest we need because he is holy and blameless, unstained by sin. He has been set apart from sinners and has been given the highest place of honor in heaven.²⁷ Unlike those other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices every day. They did this for their own sins first and then for the sins of the people. But Jesus did this once for all when he offered himself as the sacrifice for the people’s sins. ²⁸ The law appointed high priests who were limited by human weakness. But after the law was given, God appointed his Son with an oath, and his Son has been made the perfect High Priest forever.

A little later in this blog, I will discuss more about priests and the Catholic clergy. Remember, though, this salient point: its staunch belief in the moral and spiritual superiority of its priests is one of the three important differences between Catholics and Protestants.

 In our next post, we’ll examine: How Roman is the Roman Catholic Church?

This blog is being written as a resource to ease the transition from being a Catholic to whatever faith choice the former Catholic chooses to follow. The intent of this effort is to help former Catholics deal with that separation and, prayerfully, strengthen their relationship with Jesus.

All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s. In all matters of faith, you should do your own research, pray, and be guided by your conscience and Holy Scripture.

© 2012, Sawyer Creative, LLC. All rights reserved

Amazing Grace

As mentioned previously—according to The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge—the three primary differences between Catholics and Protestants are: their views of the Bible; the concept of the grace of Christ; and, the phrase the priesthood of believers.

As someone deciding whether to go back to the Catholic Church, it would be a good idea to briefly explore what those differences are.

We’ve already talked about the Bible. Today, we’ll discuss the grace of Christ.

The Grace of Christ:

Protestants believe that one is saved through grace alone. Catholics believe that one doesn’t experience grace without the benefit of its sacraments.

Simply stated, most Protestants believe that to receive the God’s grace, he or she must accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior and follow His teachings.

To most non-Catholic Christians, there is no series of tests or milestones to earning Christ’s grace in our lives on earth and in heaven.

No man or group of men determines a non-Catholic Christian’s state of grace. It is strictly between the individual and God.

Catholics, on the other hand, believe that you must experience the sacraments, specific rituals throughout one’s life—from birth to death—in order to achieve grace.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the sacraments as follows: “The whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments.”

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states it this way: “Christian initiation is accomplished by means of the sacraments which establish the foundations of Christian life. The faithful born anew by Baptism are strengthened by Confirmation and are then nourished by the Eucharist.”

As a former Catholic, you know that there are seven sacraments in the Catholic Church: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.”

(When I learned the sacraments as a young Catholic, Anointing the Sick was called Extreme Unction and, later, Last Rites.)

With the ceremony of each of these sacraments, the involvement of a priest is crucial, making the Catholic clergy indispensable throughout the life of a Catholic.

Bottom line: To a non-Catholic Christian, grace is given; To a Catholic, it is earned through a series of rituals.

In our next post, we’ll look at the priesthood of believers.

This blog is being written as a resource to ease the transition from being a Catholic to whatever faith choice the former Catholic chooses to follow. The intent of this effort is to help former Catholics deal with that separation and, prayerfully, strengthen their relationship with Jesus.

All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s. In all matters of faith, you should do your own research, pray, and be guided by your conscience and Holy Scripture.

© 2012, Sawyer Creative, LLC. All rights reserved

Catholics and Protestants Differ Over The Bible

As noted in our last post, one of the three differences between Catholics and other Christians is the focus on the Bible: Catholics look to the Church for guidance . . . Protestants look directly to the Word of God for instruction.

The more I learned about the Bible, the more I became convinced that the difference in philosophy is not subtle.

After a half century of Catholicism, I finally had motivation to sit down and start learning about the Bible in 2003. As I mentioned in an earlier post, in my experience as a Catholic, reading the Bible really wasn’t part of the worship process.

Certainly, the Bible was available to be read, but I never felt encouraged to read it.

Why was that? I wondered.

I found an answer to that question in the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia:

“The belief in the Bible as the sole source of faith is unhistorical, illogical, fatal to the virtue of faith, and destructive of unity.”

Speaking as a Catholic authority, that same source goes on to charge that,

“. . . it is illogical to base faith upon the private interpretation of a book.” 

When you step away from the Catholic Church and look at it objectively, that argument is difficult to reconcile. After all, that “book” is the Holy Bible.

And nobody is suggesting that “private interpretation” is advised. Non-Catholic biblical scholars have studied the Bible for centuries. There is no evidence that a Catholic biblical scholar is any smarter or dumber than a non-Catholic Christian biblical scholar.

As a Catholic, I never understood why the first thing King Henry VIII did after he broke the Anglican Church away from the church in Rome was to have the Bible translated into English.

That simple act had a huge impact: Almost overnight, Scripture made sense to those who wanted to read it without learning a language that ceased being relevant around 600 A.D.

According to various historians, the bulk of the portion of the Bible we call The Old Testament was composed between the fifth century BC and the second century BC, although parts of it date back much earlier.

In The New Testament, Jesus references events and teachings from The Old Testament. To me, that indicates that Jesus Himself validates The Old Testament.

The remainder of the Bible? Jesus’ own disciples wrote The New Testament.

The Bible, therefore, is divinely inspired. It’s the Word of God.

It should be noted that the Protestant and Catholic Bibles are not the same. Although The New Testament in both versions is essentially identical, the Catholic Old Testament has seven more books than the Protestant version.

At the time the Bible was first being compiled, a Greek translation of Jewish Scripture called the Septuagint was in common use among the Jews. These writings were referred to as the second canon and contained writings that were relatively recent additions to their faith, written between the years 170 B.C. and 70 B.C. Because the Septuagint was part of Judaism at the time, it was included in the original Old Testament of the Bible.

Around 100 A.D., Jewish rabbis revised their Scripture to exclude the Septuagint. They apparently believed at that time that the books were too new to be accepted as the inspired Word of God.

When Protestant reformers in the 1500’s began assembling their own Bibles, they decided to follow the canon of Judaism for the Old Testament. They excluded the Septuagint and moved the material to a separate section of the Bible called the Apocrypha. Protestant Bibles included the Apocrypha until the mid 1800’s, when it was dropped.

The Catholic Church retains the Septuagint to this day.

That’s why the Catholic Old Testament includes the books of First Maccabees, Second Maccabees, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, The Wisdom of Solomon, and Sirach (Ecclesiasticus). There are also additions to the books of Esther (10:14-16:14) and Daniel (3:24-90; 13; 14).

There’s no way to know the Bible just by reading the words. It must be studied in depth and in context in order to apply its teachings to your life.

When I told my youngest son, a graduate of a prestigious Catholic high school, that I was going to a Bible study one morning, his immediate response was, “When did you become a Protestant?”

We won’t be publishing additional posts until after the observance of our Savior’s death and resurrection. 

This blog is being written as a resource to ease the transition from being a Catholic to whatever faith choice the former Catholic chooses to follow. The intent of this effort is to help former Catholics deal with that separation and, prayerfully, strengthen their relationship with Jesus.

All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s. In all matters of faith, you should do your own research, pray, and be guided by your conscience and Holy Scripture.

© 2012, Sawyer Creative, LLC. All rights reserved

Catholicism Versus Protestantism

When you choose not to go back to the Catholic Church, you’re faced with finding another worship home. That was a problem I encountered.

What, exactly, was a Protestant?

When I was jettisoned from the Catholic Church, I thought about why other Christians were always called Protestants. I knew lots of Protestants and they weren’t any more prone to protestations than any of the rest of us.

So, I did some research.

The Protestant movement was started by a German monk named Martin Luther who was serving as a professor of biblical studies at the University of Wittenburg. Luther first took issue with the Catholic Church on the subject of the sale of indulgences on the eve of All Saints Day (Halloween) in 1517 A.D.

(An indulgence is the full or partial reduction of time spent in Purgatory for sins prior to entering heaven—technically referred to as temporal punishment.)

In other words, Luther was disputing the practice of collecting money from family members to shorten or eliminate any punishment the deceased was due in Purgatory. The Church was selling heaven to the living for the benefit of the dead.

By April of 1529, Luther’s disputes with Rome were well documented and his followers were growing in number. Church leaders called for the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire as part of an attempt to deal with the movement that was making significant inroads on the continent.

The gathering occurred at Speyer (in what is today Germany). At that assembly—called the Diet of Speyer—(Holy Roman) Emperor Charles V attempted to smother Luther’s movement by force

Reacting against the decree, a group of noblemen—mostly from fourteen Germanic cities—entered a solemn protest declaring the ruling unjust and impious. Because of their strong response, they were called Protestants.

Interestingly, the term Protestant was given greater impetus through its use in the Declaration of Faith made by all of the kings of England at their coronation after Henry VIII separated the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. The kings recited the phrase: “I declare that I am a faithful Protestant” . . . leaving little room for Catholics to rule.

Over time, the original connotation of “no toleration for Catholics” changed and the term is now applied to members of those Western Churches and sects that were created by the various reformers like Luther and John Calvin who were in direct opposition to pope and, by association, the Catholic Church.

What’s the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant?

There are many varieties of reformed Christians. However, regardless of how structured or vague the creed of an individual organized sect may be, Protestantism rests on a few standard rules or principles.

An acknowledged Protestant authority, Philip Schaff writing in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, expressed the principles of Protestantism like this:

 “The Protestant goes directly to the Word of God for instruction, and to the throne of grace in his devotions; whilst the pious Roman Catholic consults the teaching of his church, and prefers to offer his prayers through the medium of the Virgin Mary and the saints.

 “From this general principle of Evangelical freedom, and direct individual relationship of the believer to Christ, proceed the three fundamental doctrines of Protestantism—the absolute supremacy of (1) the Word, and of (2) the grace of Christ, and (3) the general priesthood of believers.”

Contention between the Catholics and the Protestants arises from all three of those fundamentals.

In our next post, we’ll examine some of the disagreements between Catholics and Protestants.

This blog is being written as a resource to ease the transition from being a Catholic to whatever faith choice the former Catholic chooses to follow. The intent of this effort is to help former Catholics deal with that separation and, prayerfully, strengthen their relationship with Jesus.

All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s. In all matters of faith, you should do your own research, pray, and be guided by your conscience and Holy Scripture.

© 2012, Sawyer Creative, LLC. All rights reserved

Claiming a Christian Identity

My moment of truth came in late 2003 when I hit rock bottom, financially, emotionally, and spiritually. It was then that a bible thumper, Holy Roller, Jesus freak friend of mine urged me to become a Christian.

What? Was that supposed to be a joke?

As I already mentioned, at that point in my life, I considered myself not only already a Christian, but the best type of Christian: a Roman Catholic.

(Even a fallen Catholic had to be far superior to the alternative . . . or so I believed.)

Maybe I wasn’t the best Roman Catholic in the pew, but since we Catholics were part of the one true church, we were the real deal . . . and every other Christian denomination was just second-tier, a major step down.

Much to my surprise, it turns out that many Christians who are not already Catholics actually choose not to become Catholic. They see the Catholic Church as an impediment to actually knowing Jesus.

Discussing religion had always been difficult for me . . . probably because I didn’t know a lot about anything but being Catholic. And frankly, I found born again Christians more than a little off-putting.

My friend gave me two books: The New Living Translation Study Bible and a copy of (Protestant) Pastor Rick Warren’s powerful existence-defining book, The Purpose Driven Life.

Years ago, I remember reading that the Bible was the number one selling book in the country every year. As a vociferous reader, I remember thinking, “Why? Who would want to read about all of the ‘thou’s’ and ‘who begat whom(s)’?”

Frankly, the Bible intimidated me. Because of my half century as a Catholic, I was pretty sure you had to wear a Roman collar and stay celibate in order to read and understand that particular book.

So, I sat down and read the Warren book first, before starting on the Bible.

The Warren book is structured to be read over a forty day period. I followed those instructions precisely in order to absorb the contents the way the author intended.

It was an eye-opening journey.

As a recovering Catholic, I was amazed that the Bible was very clear that I wasn’t a pariah . . . a worthless and sorry excuse for a man, destined for eternal damnation.

I actually had a purpose.

My personal situation was addressed right there in Romans Chapter 5, verses 15 and 16:

“And what a difference between our sin and God’s generous gift of forgiveness.  For this one man, Adam, brought death to many through his sin. But this other man, Jesus Christ, brought forgiveness to many through God’s bountiful gift.  And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but we have the free gift of being accepted by God, even though we are guilty of many sins.”

 To me, almost overnight, the Bible went from being a book of questions to a book of answers.

In our next post, we’ll discuss discovering the Bible.

This blog is being written as a resource to ease the transition from being a Catholic to whatever faith choice the former Catholic chooses to follow. The intent of this effort is to help former Catholics deal with that separation and, prayerfully, strengthen their relationship with Jesus.

All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s. In all matters of faith, you should do your own research, pray, and be guided by your conscience and Holy Scripture.

© 2012, Sawyer Creative, LLC. All rights reserved

Losing Your Religious Identity

The problem with leaving the Catholic Church (and not going back) is that you lose your religious identity. The obvious solution is to create a new religious identity . . . except we’re not well prepared to know how to do that.

I never saw that complication coming but, even in my case—I was not particularly devout—we human beings have been programmed to need God.

(That’s no doubt the work of our Creator who seems to have thought of everything.)

From the earliest recorded history, man has accepted that there had to be a higher being.  The Romans, Greeks, Aztecs, Mayans, Egyptians, Zulus, Swahilis, Chinese, Israelites, Druids, Native Americans, all had gods to worship. Even the Australian aborigines untouched by any other civilization until they were visited by Captain Cook in 1770 A.D. had their Dreamtime legacy.

It is difficult to argue that all of these disparate civilizations came to the same conclusion only to all be wrong.

“If God did not exist it would be necessary for us to invent him.” —Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire

If you choose to pare everything down to state-of-the art scientific theory that suggests that the universe started from a single atom and a big bang, you are still left with these unanswered questions:

Where did that one atom come from?

What caused the bang?

Somehow, something came from nothing. And that’s impossible.

Only a Supreme Being whose existence and power we cannot fathom or measure could have provided the initial material to get everything started. Logically, there is no other explanation.

When science fails, our default alternative is faith.

So six long years after my marriage was over—and with it my association with the Roman Catholic Church—I had no idea what to do about my religious identity. How was I to access God? Was I truly not worthy of His love? Where could I turn?

I was all alone.

Or, at least, that’s was what I believed after a lifetime of Catholic Church teachings.

I went six years without setting foot into a church building of any kind. In fact, during those six years, I worked at a major Orlando,Florida theme park on Sunday mornings so I wouldn’t feel excessive guilt about missing church.

Interestingly, I missed it.

That’s when I first came to grips with the premise that the Catholic Church doesn’t speak for God.

In our next post, we’ll discuss claiming your religious identity.

This blog is being written as a resource to ease the transition from being a Catholic to whatever faith choice the former Catholic chooses to follow. The intent of this effort is to help former Catholics deal with that separation and, prayerfully, strengthen their relationship with Jesus.

All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s. In all matters of faith, you should do your own research, pray, and be guided by your conscience and Holy Scripture.

© 2012, Sawyer Creative, LLC. All rights reserved

Reject the Myth of the One True Church

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to recovering from Catholicism is overcoming the lifelong intellectual and emotional programming that the Catholic Church is the one true church.

That concept was pounded into my head from my very first formal Catholic education class; I’m guessing it was in the first grade.

The argument was that all other churches were second-rate . . . and only the Catholic Church will get you into heaven. The Christian world, according to the Church, is filled with pretenders. Only Roman Catholicism—they contend—represents God’s will.

How is that a problem? If there is only one true church and you aren’t in it, you have no legitimate alternative. Period. There is no access to heaven, to eternal life.

All of the non-Catholic Christ-based choices available to Christ believers are charlatans and impostors and their poor misguided followers are surely going to hell.

That was what I was taught. That was what I blindly believed for a half century.

I grew up on Long Island. The baseball team I followed with fervor was the New York Yankees with players like Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and Roger Maris.

To me, any other denomination other than the Roman Catholic faith wasn’t another major league team like the Cleveland Indians or Boston Red Sox. All the Protestant religions were the minor leagues.

They were the Toledo Mud Hens of Christianity.

What I learned from the nuns at St. Francis de Chantal School time and time again was that no organized religion could hold a candle to Catholicism.

That was an unshakable truth.

So, four-plus decades later—after living as a Catholic, marrying a Catholic, and raising my children as Catholics—what was I to do when my marriage ended in 1997 . . . and with it, my relationship with the Catholic Church?

Where do you turn when you are turned away from the one true church?

Nowhere.

Until you can resolve in your heart and soul that the Catholic Church is a well capitalized faith-related institution with no exclusive claim to Jesus Christ, you are spiritually adrift.

Good news: you have a chance to get over it.

I lived through a six-year period without direction for my burning faith. As my life and fortune spiraled downward, I had no lifeline. I had to reach the bottom, broken and defeated before someone slapped me upside the head and told me that Jesus had been there all along, waiting for me to turn to Him.

That was the point when I admitted to myself that I needed an avenue to worship, even if it wasn’t the alleged one true church.

I became a Christian.

In the end, if you are going to recover from your lifelong Catholic instruction and indoctrination, there’s only one path open to you: turn your life over to Christ.

In our next post, we’ll continue discussing the claim of the “one true church.”

This blog is being written as a resource to ease the transition from being a Catholic to whatever faith choice the former Catholic chooses to follow. The intent of this effort is to help former Catholics deal with that separation and, prayerfully, strengthen their relationship with Jesus.

All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s. In all matters of faith, you should do your own research, pray, and be guided by your conscience and Holy Scripture.

© 2012, Sawyer Creative, LLC. All rights reserved

What the Catholic Church Does Amazingly Well

I took a slight detour with my last post to address a specific comment questioning the factual basis of a claim in the preceding post.

Since I’m already a little off track, I thought I’d acknowledge some current events that the Catholic Church finds itself in the midst of today . . . and its performance under pressure.

Signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, the federal government’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as Obamacare) requires that all employers fund and facilitate “contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization.” As an employer, the Catholic Church is not exempt from that law.

While the merits of the law are the subject of someone else’s blog, the Catholic Church’s reaction deserves plaudits here.

The Catholic Church has had a consistent policy throughout my lifetime of forbidding the use of contraceptives. As Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi—who claims to be Catholic—points out, many Catholic women have chosen to ignore the ban. While that may be true, it’s a free will choice by those individuals and not something that’s endorsed—let alone provided free of charge—by the institution of the Catholic Church.

The part of the law that has been overlooked by the media, though, is that along with contraceptives, Obamacare also requires the employer to provide abortifacients.

Abortifacients are literally substances that induce abortion.

To Catholics and, indeed every other Christian I’ve ever met, an abortion is the murder of another human being. It doesn’t matter whether the abortionist uses surgical implements or a pharmaceutical combination of mifepristone and misoprostol . . . the U.S.federal government is using the power of law to insist that churches become complicit in murder.

That’s unacceptable.

To their credit, American Catholic bishops have said they will close all of their businesses rather than comply with a law that forces them to commit mortal sin.

Frankly, those who insist that the Catholic Church to violate its primary purpose of saving souls don’t fully grasp what an enormous crisis they’ll create by following through with their ill-conceived legislation.

Millions of lives will be negatively impacted and the country’s fragile economy will take a crippling blow if the Catholic Church closes its hospitals, clinics, schools, universities, orphanages, and charities.

For example, the Catholic Church has perhaps the most extensive private health-care delivery system in the nation. It operates 12.6 percent of the hospitals in the U.S. In 2010, the total financial impact of Catholic hospitals was $98.6 billion[1].

Imagine the havoc if the federal government forces those hospitals to suddenly shut down:

Over 120,000 beds would disappear from an already-stressed system. And one in six patients in the nation’s current health system would have to go somewhere else. The dramatically diminished system would have to absorb almost $100 billion in additional costs annually.

And it’s highly unlikely that any secular hospital group will step in and take the place of Catholic hospitals. That’s because Catholic hospitals have always taken a leading role in providing less-profitable services to patients.

Catholic hospitals handle 16.6 percent of Medicare and 13.65 percent of Medicaid discharges. In other words, more than one in six seniors and disabled patients get attention from these hospitals. In addition, more than one in eight low-income patients is treated in a Catholic hospital.

And don’t forget: over a half-million healthcare workers employed by Catholic hospitals would lose their jobs almost overnight.

Of course, it’s not just hospitals. The Catholic Church also runs more than 7500 primary and secondary education schools in the U.S. . . . educating more than 2.5 million students—over a third of whom aren’t even Catholics.

In most cases, not a dime of taxpayer money gets used in teaching these students in a system that has a 99% graduation rate and a 97% success rate at placing students in college. Based on an average cost of $8000 per student per year in public schools, Catholic schools save taxpayers about $20 billion dollars each year.

Catholic Charities would also have to close its doors. In the latest data available (2003), Catholic Charities provided emergency food services to 6.5 million people, temporary shelter to over 200,000 people, and a range of other assistance—including clothing, finances, utilities, and medication—to another 1.5 million people.

While the Catholic bishops should be commended for staying true to their ultimate mission of saving souls, this potential calamity should serve as a reminder to every American that the Catholic Church has been historically committed to the health, education, and quality of life of Catholics and non-Catholics alike throughout this country.

The Catholic Church should to be praised, not vilified by secular politicians and media pundits.

In our next post, we’ll get back to examining some questions recovering Catholics confront.

This blog is being written as a resource to ease the transition from being a Catholic to whatever faith choice the former Catholic chooses to follow. The intent of this effort is to help former Catholics deal with that separation and, prayerfully, strengthen their relationship with Jesus.

All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s. In all matters of faith, you should do your own research, pray, and be guided by your conscience and Holy Scripture.

© 2012, Sawyer Creative, LLC. All rights reserved.

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[1] Source: Catholic Health Association of theU.S.

Accept That the Catholic Church Has the Ability to Fail

The Roman Catholic Church may be the largest, wealthiest organization on the face of the planet—indeed, in the history of the world—but it is losing its members and losing its clergy.

The shepherd may want to tend his flock, but today, the flock is abandoning the shepherd at such a rate . . . it’s almost a stampede.

In the face of a significant exodus, you have to be open to the possibility that maybe the Church did something wrong somewhere along the way.

This is going to strike some of you as shocking, but as you read more and more posts to this blog, you’ll realize that a strong argument is being made that the Catholic Church has failed in many respects.

I realize, that’s a direct contradiction to what I learned in Catholic school.

The impression I had from a very early age was that the Catholic Church was always right . . . has always been right . . . and will always be right.

I believe the Church is becoming increasingly ineffective in today’s society because it became convinced that its role was to give commandments, not live the commandments.

Like the Pharisees who Jesus railed against for their blind, sanctimonious adherence to rules handed down by men over the centuries, the Church hierarchy proclaimed dogma, created institutions of doctrine, built towering edifices, decreed canon law, dressed itself in gilded vestments, and affected all sorts of liturgical pretentiousness.

And we accepted all of it as gospel.

Instead of leading its membership, the Church herded its flock down its chosen path.

When you wipe away the Church’s inventions, much of what we take for granted as Catholic doctrine is actually inspired by the Church’s desire to strengthen its institutional grip on power.

Throughout the coming installments of this blog, you’ll see where many of those things that everyday Catholics believe are tenets of Catholicism were never part of the original church. Much of what we perceive as being Catholic was fabricated along the way, not by divine inspiration or direction, but by men.

Things like: the pope and, much later, papal infallibility; purgatory; changing bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ; celibate priests; the offices of bishops, archbishops, and cardinals; the sign of the cross; as well as the designated saints after whom Catholics are named . . . all have been invented by men over the past fifteen hundred years.

To break loose of the binds of the Catholic Church, we must recognize how fanciful many of the Church’s teachings and traditions have been.

The easiest way to start on the path to leaving behind Catholic guilt is to acknowledge that—in many respects—the Catholic Church is a fifteen century exercise in obtaining and wielding wealth and power. And that mistakes were made.

In our next post, we’ll look at how the Catholic Church is losing its members.

This blog is being written as a resource to ease the transition from being a Catholic to whatever faith choice the former Catholic chooses to follow. The intent of this effort is to help former Catholics deal with that separation and, prayerfully, strengthen their relationship with Jesus.

All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s. In all matters of faith, you should do your own research, pray, and be guided by your conscience and Holy Scripture.

© 2012, Sawyer Creative, LLC. All rights reserved.

Forgiveness vs Absolution?

Catholics are so slogged down in guilt, that it has become a sad commentary on the religion.

Catholics “do guilt” better and more convincingly than any other species on the planet.

From conversations I’ve had over the past few years, I’ve learned that non-Catholics are often confounded by the Catholic-guilt dynamic. They don’t understand it . . . especially if they’re following the teachings of Jesus from a more literal point of view.

They argue that the fact that anyone could carry around paralyzing guilt while knowing that God forgives and loves unconditionally is illogical.

Hey, welcome to my world—and yours, too, if you’re a recovering Catholic.

One reason for this apparent disconnect is because Catholics don’t ask God for forgiveness . . . they ask a priest for absolution. The priest assumes the role of a God proxy.

Absolution is an integral part of the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance. The sinning Catholic, called a penitent, confesses his or her sins to a priest and then prays an act of contrition (a rote prayer recited verbatim every time by every penitent).

The priest then assigns a penance and imparts absolution in the name of the Trinity and on behalf of Christ Himself, using a hundreds of years-old sacramental script generally mumbled in Latin.

The Latin-English translation reads:

May our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you; and by His authority I absolve you from every bond of excommunication and interdict, so far as my power allows and your needs require. Thereupon, I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The essential part of the priests’ words to make the sacrament of penance valid are: “I absolve you from your sins“.

Absolution, therefore, contends that the priest stands in for God and—in His place—forgives your sins and puts you in a “state of grace” so you can receive sacraments or enter heaven.

But . . . there’s a big but . . . nowhere in the Bible is there a requirement for or even a suggestion of third-party absolution. In fact, the word absolution is not used once in the Bible. (The word forgiveness is used multiple times.)

Regardless of its lack of biblical authority, the Catholic Church insists that it plays a pivotal role in any forgiveness you receive.

I find it remarkable that the Catholic Church ingrains in its followers the ultimate self-doubt: You are not even good enough to ask God for forgiveness.

In other words, whatever you do, you are inadequate. Your only hope is absolution of your sins by the Church.

What recovering Catholics need to realize is that—from the outside looking in—it appears that the men who have run the Catholic Church over the centuries don’t truly believe that we lay people deserve to go to heaven.

No, you didn’t misread that last sentence.

There is ample evidence that the foundation of the church’s refusal to celebrate a loving, forgiving God is the fact that its leadership has traditionally believed that its everyday people (you and me) simply are not worthy of salvation.

Where is my proof? You’re living it. If you hadn’t spent your whole life trying (and mostly failing) to fulfill the ideal of a Catholic, you wouldn’t have any problem walking away from the church today.

In our next post, we’ll set the stage for examining some questions recovering Catholics confront.

This blog is being written as a resource to ease the transition from being a Catholic to whatever faith choice the former Catholic chooses to follow. The intent of this effort is to help former Catholics deal with that separation and, prayerfully, strengthen their relationship with Jesus.

All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s. In all matters of faith, you should do your own research, pray, and be guided by your conscience and Holy Scripture.

© 2012, Sawyer Creative, LLC. All rights reserved.