Why I Am No Longer a Roman Catholic
I was brought up
Roman Catholic, taught that missing Sunday Mass was a mortal sin, except when
you were sick. (A mortal sin: you would burn in hell, for eternity, unless you
confessed it, and were absolved.)
How could I have
believed that?
It’s taken me years
to learn not to accept other people’s theology, but to question everything,
including other people’s interpretations of Scripture. (As I’ve blogged
in Inerrancy and Me,
I’ve been to Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, Charismatic, Anglican and
non-denomination churches. They have all believed in inerrancy, and all taught
different things.)
The first time I
skipped Church, to study for an exam, I was 21. And—incredibly–I wondered if I
would go to hell if I died before I went to confession. (The whole
system–missing Mass is mortal sin; forgiveness only through confession–of
course, bolsters the power and authority of the priesthood. But I didn’t see
that then.)
And then, after
skipping Mass again, I realized that given that I was so often excruciatingly
bored by the ancient words of the liturgy that I knew by heart, it was
extremely unlikely that God would send me to hell for missing Sunday Mass.
Or that he would
forgive me upon the say-so of a priest, when I wasn’t truly sorry. Or
would not forgive me without formal confession, if I were sorry.
Scripture did not say
that missing Sunday Mass was a mortal sin, and being a Catholic Charismatic had
me reading Scripture.
And so I didn’t go the
next Sunday, or the next… In fact, because of memories of almost unbearable
boredom during 21 years of Catholic Masses, I simply cannot force myself to go
now even when I visit parents, in-laws, Catholic relatives or friends. How
anti-social!
A slippery slope. I
began questioning other things.
An aspect of my
family’s faith which annoyed me was their large donations for masses to be said
for dead relatives to spring them from purgatory. My mother still pays for
masses for my little family, so let me not totally discount any spiritual
blessing from this, because we have certainly been blessed.
I thought of Sister
Josephine in school, who told me that she loved me best of all the students
she’d taught over 40 years, and would use her discretionary “pocket money” to
buy masses to be said for me in perpetuity in Rome. I would look at the Mass
cards dubiously, and wish she had bought herself (or me!) chocolate instead.
But she would be
delighted with the woman I now am, the life I now live, and my durable faith,
so perhaps her intention of buying prayer for me was honoured by God—or perhaps
there are still priests in Rome praying for me. Perhaps.
The shawl of faith
kept unravelling.
Come on, did the
words spoken by a priest change the host to the very Body and Blood of Christ?
If it did, if I were indeed ingesting GOD, wouldn’t I be radically changed?
But after Mass, I,
and everyone else at boarding school, was as bitchy as before. I mentioned that
to Sister Josephine, and she replied, “But how do you know what you would have
been if you had not received Holy Communion?” And that indeed, who knows.
Nah, didn’t believe
in transubstantiation any more. We do it in memory of him, that’s all.
Gotterdamerung. The Twilight or Destruction of False
Gods. It’s very sad, very stressful, very painful—and very liberating!
And what was all this
praying to saints? Wasn’t Jesus, God himself, who died to atone for our sins
enough? Who could have enough devotion to pray to Therese, Anthony, and Jude in
addition? And why, why, why pray to this crowded communion when you can go up
the waterfall, through the veil, to the presence of the Most Holy God himself?
Didn’t Jesus say we
shouldn’t be like the pagans who think they will be heard for their many words?
Instead how I suffered through the gabble, the noise of the Catholicism I was
brought up in, the Novenas, the Litanies, the Rosaries, the Masses
And all the
extra-Biblical dogmas men with too much time on their hands have conjured
up—Papal Infallibility, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven, these
“infallible dogmas” were mere invented ideas, conceits.
“infallible dogmas” were mere invented ideas, conceits.
Oh, let me not get
started!! Especially on the sentimental, ubiquitous, extra-Scriptura reverence
for Mary.
Where is all this in Scripture, I used to ask? an anguished, roaring bull–knowing little of Luther, little knowing he asked the same questions 500 years ago!!
Where is all this in Scripture, I used to ask? an anguished, roaring bull–knowing little of Luther, little knowing he asked the same questions 500 years ago!!
So what is coming
from Catholicism to Mere Christianity like?
Imagine the Lord
Jesus sitting by a quiet, still mountain spring. He is surrounded by the
turmoil of the money changers and those selling doves. By apparitions of the
virgin, dogmas, novenas, litanies, rosaries. A terracotta army of saints. A
noisy crowd of witnesses. You cannot see him or hear him clearly. That was
Catholicism for me.
And how grateful I am
to the tormented Martin Luther for pointing out that a man is saved by Jesus
alone, without all this paraphernalia.
We can come back to
the heart of worship, which is all about Jesus.
And we must make sure
we ignore the moneychangers and those selling doves in Protestantism too, steer
clear of the noise of too many festivals, conferences,
books, celebrities, big name speakers, big egos, all flogging their
course, book, blog, their way to the Way. Their Latest Greatest Shortcut to
Heaven.
But you, Man of God, flee all this, and
come back to the Jesus you’ll encounter in the Gospels, those simple sparse first century
narratives. Come back to the heart of worship.
