How to find answers to common objections to Catholicism?

[HoneyBee]

Greetings to you all,

I was baptized, confirmed, and got my first Holy Communion in the summer of 2020. I can't believe that almost three years have passed since I was received into the Catholic Church. Since then, however, I seem to have fallen away from the Church and attempted to be an Evangelical Protestant sort of Christian. I've attended Non-Denominational churches thinking that maybe Catholicism wasn't the correct form of Christianity because I was looking at everything from a surface level. Not only that but I seem to suffer from a mental illness that causes me to have frequent and sometimes rapid shifts in my beliefs and identity. It's something I'm trying to get help for, but in the meantime, it has caused me much confusion in what I believe in. I'm here because I'd like to revisit Catholicism and see if maybe I could "come home" to the Church. I have a desire to return because the teachings of the Church seem a lot more set in stone than a lot of branches of Protestant Christianity. No hate to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I'm just noticing a trend, at least where I live.

In order to try and help cement my beliefs in my brain, I'm going to have to look at answers to common objections that Catholics are faced with. Catholic Answers might be a good resource for me to check out, and this app one of the local parishes has a subscription to called FORMED, but aside from those resources, does anyone know of any books that might be good for me to look into? I especially love audiobooks because of my attention span issues, if that helps. Thanks!

Sincerely,
HoneyBee

 

[disciple Clint]

Greetings to you all,

I was baptized, confirmed, and got my first Holy Communion in the summer of 2020. I can't believe that almost three years have passed since I was received into the Catholic Church. Since then, however, I seem to have fallen away from the Church and attempted to be an Evangelical Protestant sort of Christian. I've attended Non-Denominational churches thinking that maybe Catholicism wasn't the correct form of Christianity because I was looking at everything from a surface level. Not only that but I seem to suffer from a mental illness that causes me to have frequent and sometimes rapid shifts in my beliefs and identity. It's something I'm trying to get help for, but in the meantime, it has caused me much confusion in what I believe in. I'm here because I'd like to revisit Catholicism and see if maybe I could "come home" to the Church. I have a desire to return because the teachings of the Church seem a lot more set in stone than a lot of branches of Protestant Christianity. No hate to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I'm just noticing a trend, at least where I live.

In order to try and help cement my beliefs in my brain, I'm going to have to look at answers to common objections that Catholics are faced with. Catholic Answers might be a good resource for me to check out, and this app one of the local parishes has a subscription to called FORMED, but aside from those resources, does anyone know of any books that might be good for me to look into? I especially love audiobooks because of my attention span issues, if that helps. Thanks!

Sincerely,
HoneyBee

Try this, hope it helps you. Catholic Answers

 

[narnia59]

Greetings to you all,

I was baptized, confirmed, and got my first Holy Communion in the summer of 2020. I can't believe that almost three years have passed since I was received into the Catholic Church. Since then, however, I seem to have fallen away from the Church and attempted to be an Evangelical Protestant sort of Christian. I've attended Non-Denominational churches thinking that maybe Catholicism wasn't the correct form of Christianity because I was looking at everything from a surface level. Not only that but I seem to suffer from a mental illness that causes me to have frequent and sometimes rapid shifts in my beliefs and identity. It's something I'm trying to get help for, but in the meantime, it has caused me much confusion in what I believe in. I'm here because I'd like to revisit Catholicism and see if maybe I could "come home" to the Church. I have a desire to return because the teachings of the Church seem a lot more set in stone than a lot of branches of Protestant Christianity. No hate to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I'm just noticing a trend, at least where I live.

In order to try and help cement my beliefs in my brain, I'm going to have to look at answers to common objections that Catholics are faced with. Catholic Answers might be a good resource for me to check out, and this app one of the local parishes has a subscription to called FORMED, but aside from those resources, does anyone know of any books that might be good for me to look into? I especially love audiobooks because of my attention span issues, if that helps. Thanks!

Sincerely,
HoneyBee

Are there any specific teachings you struggle with? That could help direct book selections.

One suggestion I would have is to watch episodes of The Journey Home. You can find them on youtube just by searching there. You can focus on stories of converts from the Protestant/Evangelical background. I think it can be helpful to hear how others have worked through some of their struggles with Catholic teaching on the way to the Church. I would especially recommend listening to the ones with Steve Ray, he's been on the show several times.

This is also his personal testimony:

 

[HoneyBee]

Are there any specific teachings you struggle with? That could help direct book selections.

One suggestion I would have is to watch episodes of The Journey Home. You can find them on youtube just by searching there. You can focus on stories of converts from the Protestant/Evangelical background. I think it can be helpful to hear how others have worked through some of their struggles with Catholic teaching on the way to the Church. I would especially recommend listening to the ones with Steve Ray, he's been on the show several times.

This is also his personal testimony:

Hmm... well, the teachings I find myself struggling with sometimes are the rosary, confession, the fact that the Virgin Mary apparently had no other children aside from Jesus, and the issues of contraception and homosexuality. For school, actually, I did an assignment where I did some research into the rulings on homosexuality and quoted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Doing some in-depth research into where the Church stands on the issue helped me to feel more at ease, for sure.

All of the teachings I have questions on are just a quick Google search away. I understand this, but I suppose I just wanted to come on here to voice this as well because I don't like to be isolated in my questioning thoughts. By bringing them into the light, so to speak, I'm trying to keep the doubts from festering like they have in the past.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Hmm... well, the teachings I find myself struggling with sometimes are the rosary, confession, the fact that the Virgin Mary apparently had no other children aside from Jesus, and the issues of contraception and homosexuality. For school, actually, I did an assignment where I did some research into the rulings on homosexuality and quoted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Doing some in-depth research into where the Church stands on the issue helped me to feel more at ease, for sure.

All of the teachings I have questions on are just a quick Google search away. I understand this, but I suppose I just wanted to come on here to voice this as well because I don't like to be isolated in my questioning thoughts. By bringing them into the light, so to speak, I'm trying to keep the doubts from festering like they have in the past.

On the matter of contraception the go-to person is still Janet Smith.

 

[HoneyBee]

On the matter of contraception the go-to person is still Janet Smith.

You know, I believe I heard one of her talks a few years ago on a CD. I'll have to hear the talk again. Thanks for the referral!

 

[narnia59]

Hmm... well, the teachings I find myself struggling with sometimes are the rosary, confession, the fact that the Virgin Mary apparently had no other children aside from Jesus, and the issues of contraception and homosexuality. For school, actually, I did an assignment where I did some research into the rulings on homosexuality and quoted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Doing some in-depth research into where the Church stands on the issue helped me to feel more at ease, for sure.

All of the teachings I have questions on are just a quick Google search away. I understand this, but I suppose I just wanted to come on here to voice this as well because I don't like to be isolated in my questioning thoughts. By bringing them into the light, so to speak, I'm trying to keep the doubts from festering like they have in the past.

The rosary is a private devotion so is not required for Catholics. But since many Catholics do find it to be important in their spiritual life, at a minimum it's worthwhile to understand. You might want to listen to this woman's prespective -- she was exploring Catholicism and decided to pray for the rosary for the first time. You can fast forward to about 27:19 and listen for about 5 minutes, she also talks about the communion of saints.

What in particular troubles you about the dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary?

 

[narnia59]

On the matter of contraception the go-to person is still Janet Smith.

She is wonderful. Kimberly Hahn has some good material as well. One of the things that is so interesting about Kimberly's story is she came to the conclusion that contraception was a problem long before they ever even considered the Catholic Church.

 

[narnia59]

You know, I believe I heard one of her talks a few years ago on a CD. I'll have to hear the talk again. Thanks for the referral!

Have you ever read anything on JPII's Theology of the Body? Since some of your issues involve the Church's teaching on sexuality a book about that may be helpful as well as it's a very holistic approach.

 

[HoneyBee]

The rosary is a private devotion so is not required for Catholics. But since many Catholics do find it to be important in their spiritual life, at a minimum it's worthwhile to understand. You might want to listen to this woman's prespective -- she was exploring Catholicism and decided to pray for the rosary for the first time. You can fast forward to about 27:19 and listen for about 5 minutes, she also talks about the communion of saints.

What in particular troubles you about the dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary?

Well, I guess what bothers me is the translations of the Bible and how some state that Jesus had siblings. It gets to be pretty confusing sometimes. I suppose this could be fixed by my reading a Catholic translation of the Bible though.

 

[narnia59]

Well, I guess what bothers me is the translations of the Bible and how some state that Jesus had siblings. It gets to be pretty confusing sometimes. I suppose this could be fixed by my reading a Catholic translation of the Bible though.

The issue is not with specific translations -- the issue is the way we view family today versus in the time of Christ. At the time of Christ, the Greek word adelphos (that gets translated as brothers) had a much broader meaning than we interpret brother to mean today. We interpret same parentage. Adelphos at the time of Christ meant same general clan/family.

So in the Greek version of the Old Testament in use at the time of Christ we see adelphos used to mean cousins (1 Chronicles 23:22), uncle/nephew relationships (Gensis 14:14, 29:15). We know those are the specific relationships because we are told enough about the parentage to make that determination. The culture in the time of Christ also knows nothing about "step" relationships. So Acts 7:13 makes a reference to Joseph's "brothers" (the Old Testament sons of Jacob), but most of them are half-brothers because they have four different mothers and a common father.

If you read the Scripture through the lens of the time it's written, you understand that a reference to Jesus' brothers doesn't tell us anything except they are within the broader context of the family clan, because we're never told who their parents are. It's only when you read it through modern eyes people wrongly conclude these are biological siblings of Jesus.