Without a Church home - feeling lost

[Markie Boy]

I'll open by saying if this may get too controversial - move to St. Justin's. However I am not here to debate at all - and I request, please no replies from protestants - Orthodox or Catholic only.

I think I have hit the wall where I can no longer try to be Catholic, with little hope left to change that. It makes me sad, as my family is Catholic, my daughter is at confirmation age, my youngest at first communion age.

My reading on Papal Infallibility and it's history renders it simply not true. Pope Francis statement that "God wills the plurality of all religions" confirms this. I don't buy the fine print that it's not "ex-cathedra". When you speak to the whole world you are teaching - let your yes be yes, and no be no.

But it makes me sad - not angry - because it didn't have to be this way. The implications of this are that if the "dogma" is false, then Vatican I was in error, and Catholic councils are not infallible.

I simply don't know what to do, or where to take my family. You guys have been one of the kindest communities I have run into so I'm here. There is one Orthodox parish I found 1.25 hours away.

Coming from where I am - what are the chances I'll run into issues there like liberalism, poor teaching, cold community, etc? I don't think I have the spiritual strength to change and go into another bad environment right now.

I think I have theological issues I'd have to overcome with Orthodoxy yet - but I seem to have those with all churches. I just don't feel like any one church has really held to the Apostles ways without adding or changing stuff.

Thank you and God Bless - and thanks for putting up with me.

 

[thecolorsblend]

Orthodox or Catholic only

Fair enough.

However, you have posted this in a forum where Catholics cannot teach Catholicism. Or at least, I assume we're not allowed to teach against Eastern Orthodoxy. For that reason, it's difficult for Catholics to provide answers to your concerns.

In any case, I will pray that you make the right choice.

 

[Markie Boy]

Fair enough.

However, you have posted this in a forum where Catholics cannot teach Catholicism. Or at least, I assume we're not allowed to teach against Eastern Orthodoxy. For that reason, it's difficult for Catholics to provide answers to your concerns.

In any case, I will pray that you make the right choice.

You are right Chevy - sorry about that - Catholics can't really share here. I may re-post this in OBOB later when I have time.

 

[ArmyMatt]

pray, be patient, talk to the closest Orthodox priest, talk to your family, make no rash choices.

 

[Goodhuman]

If you want the biblical church go to orthodoxy.

 

[Markie Boy]

pray, be patient, talk to the closest Orthodox priest, talk to your family, make no rash choices.

I used to move pretty quick - no more. Very good advice - thank you.

 

[dzheremi]

Lord have mercy. I've been there, Markie Boy, and I know it's not easy. I can only imagine it's all the more difficult with a family of your own to consider. May God continue to guide you and strengthen you in your journey.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I used to move pretty quick - no more. Very good advice - thank you.

all in God's time

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Hey Mark,

First of all, I think your posting here might be God's good work beginning in you. I was a devout Catholic. A raging lunatic Catholic. Some in here might think I still am (a lunatic) I was 100000% into it and I had that catechism memorized, every rule down, and I was a fierce apologist for Catholic dogma. The pope was infallible in my book, sola Papum was my philosophy, and those Orthodox were a bunch of stubborn, long-bearded splinter schismatic ethnic oddballs on the fringe. I truly was more Catholic than the pope (well, this one anyway! LOL).

But reading the patristics, learning about the Councils, studying the heresies, and truly diving into subjects with an open mind opened my eyes widely. For me, "The Primacy of Peter" by Father Meyendorf really was a scholarly, intelligent, well-reasoned book that gave me new insight into the papacy and how important it was in the ancient church, and yet, never superior, infallible, unilateral, or all-encompassing. That book was an awakening. Another thing that was interesting was to read what the Catholics and Protestants call "The Photian Schism" (which really should be the Nicholatian Schism!). It shows you the precursor moments that lead up to the Great Schism of 1054. When you learn little nuggets like how St. John Chrysostom, Our Father Among the Saints, was out of communion with the papacy almost his entire life, and yet considered a saint in Catholicism, it gives you pause! Throw in the "Donation of Constantine" and the odious Catholic Scholastic Movement and their medieval corruption, you start to get the picture. Pope Honorius I was another humdinger that woke me up.

There are liberals in Orthodoxy, but thankfully they are in small number. In Catholicism and Anglicanism, you feel like you're at a Hillary Clinton rally. While politics should not impede your conversion, trust me, Orthodoxy is pretty awesome for not having a ton of liberals.

Don't let community dictate your conversion. By and large Orthodox are friendly folks. I will say, my parish is THE BEST! They welcome everyone with the love of Christ and you feel like family immediately. They're just a neat bunch of people. But that is thanks to the Lord's use of Father George, our priest. He is a priest who LOVES converts! It's his passion. He made the place welcoming and it is his strength. We are like the United Nations at our parish. Russians, Protestant converts, Catholic converts, white, Mexican, Asian, South American, Palestinian, Greek, you name it! Some parishes, I hear, are far more ethnic. Who cares! Sometimes it just takes time to fit in and people welcome you to the fold. You'll be fine!

I think you've taken a great step! It took me a year to finally convert. Father kept joking with me, "When are you finally going to get chrismated, already!?" I was a reluctant convert. I had a TON of sentiment holding me to Catholicism. A ton......I went out kicking and screaming. My wife, who is far less interested in religion than I am, got excited about Orthodoxy, and God used her to pull me in.

I'm really glad you're here, Mark. Father Matt is right that you should deliberate, pray, contemplate your decisions, and ask plenty of questions here. We're here for you. Most of us here have been through the exact same things.....the same questions, concerns, fears, hesitations. If you had told me 12 years ago or so that I'd become Orthodox, I'd tell you I had a better chance of turning into Tina Turner. God works in mysterious ways, indeed! If you had told me I'd be ordained a Reader in the Orthodox Church, I'd say you're daft. I imagine guys like Father Matt 20 years ago had no idea they'd be Orthodox clergy. God is miraculous and wonderful!

So glad you're here!

I'll open by saying if this may get too controversial - move to St. Justin's. However I am not here to debate at all - and I request, please no replies from protestants - Orthodox or Catholic only.

I think I have hit the wall where I can no longer try to be Catholic, with little hope left to change that. It makes me sad, as my family is Catholic, my daughter is at confirmation age, my youngest at first communion age.

My reading on Papal Infallibility and it's history renders it simply not true. Pope Francis statement that "God wills the plurality of all religions" confirms this. I don't buy the fine print that it's not "ex-cathedra". When you speak to the whole world you are teaching - let your yes be yes, and no be no.

But it makes me sad - not angry - because it didn't have to be this way. The implications of this are that if the "dogma" is false, then Vatican I was in error, and Catholic councils are not infallible.

I simply don't know what to do, or where to take my family. You guys have been one of the kindest communities I have run into so I'm here. There is one Orthodox parish I found 1.25 hours away.

Coming from where I am - what are the chances I'll run into issues there like liberalism, poor teaching, cold community, etc? I don't think I have the spiritual strength to change and go into another bad environment right now.

I think I have theological issues I'd have to overcome with Orthodoxy yet - but I seem to have those with all churches. I just don't feel like any one church has really held to the Apostles ways without adding or changing stuff.

Thank you and God Bless - and thanks for putting up with me.

 

[Markie Boy]

Thanks Gurney! This is one pattern I am seeing when I discuss things with Catholics - they don't read history and take it as it is. I have almost stopped discussing things with them, as I have show fact after fact that what it has become is not what it was.

The simplest argument I have had is over allowing married men to be clergy. The evidence from the New Testament is overwhelming - Jesus chose married men! 1 Tim. ch. 3, 1 Cor. 9:5, Titus 1:6 - and they just refuse and choose their tradition over God's Word. From what I have seen, this has caused them to have a very unbalanced clergy - not connected to the people too often. I used to think the argument from Scripture and history would open their eyes on this - but nope. And so I give up finally.

Going to PM you Gurney with a few questions. Thanks!

 

[ArmyMatt]

Some in here might think I still am (a lunatic)

(raises hand)

 

[E.C.]

Hey Markie.

I also used to be Roman Catholic. My stepmom was Orthodox, my dad converted about a year after they got married, and I followed suit about a year or so after that when I was sixteen. I was in a Catholic school in the strongly Irish tradition until the eighth grade and loved history. What sold me was Timothy Ware's book "The Orthodox Church" because there was soooooooooo much that happened between the Edict of Milan and the Crusades that the Catholic Church just never talks about. Once you get passed the need for a single Pope it's all downhill from there

Take your time and pray A LOT. Don't rush. I don't know if you've been to Liturgy before, but if you do go, it may be a good idea to go a few times solo before bringing the family along (I was in Mississippi for three months going through school with the Navy and the nearest church was two hours; trust me, I understand your pain!) With that said, respect the choices of the family to remain Catholic if they so desire because sometimes pushing one way too much ends up sending people towards Atheism. I've seen families convert as a group and families convert one at a time and no one way is better than the other.

I'm not going to lie, the Orthodox Church has changed since the 1st century days of the Apostles, but they were changes out of necessity or reaction to heresy and not changes on a whim. For example, there wasn't an iconostasis in the Orthodox church until after the Iconoclast Heresy was defeated. It used to be only the bishop who could consecrate the Eucharist until persecutions forced them to grant an economia to the priests to do so. There wasn't a Nicene Creed in the days of Acts, but it was formulated in a response to Arianism in the Fourth Century. The list goes on, but we never changed for the sake of changing and instead changed out of necessity.
Any theological "changes" were more clarifications than anything else.

(raises hand)

(second)

 

[Light of the East]

Oh boy, do I feel your pain, Markie. I found the Eastern Catholic Church 20 years ago and thought I really had the best of both worlds. I got to be Orthodox and have the Pope. Such a deal! I had the beautiful Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and all the smells and bells that went with it. Perfect.

But then I just had to go to seminary. It was in my third year that I was really confronted with what does it mean to be "in communion?" How could I be in communion with Rome when I didn't agree with Rome? And the more I read and studied, the worse it got.

About three years ago I began to really long to be fully Orthodox. But when I floated that idea by my wife in a casual conversation one night, my wife, who was raised by Dominican nuns with rulers, flipped out. Add to that some issues with my UCC parish, and converting was a long way off.

Fast forward to this year. With the parishes closed in the USA, I was able to make a quiet break from the UCC parish I was in. There is an OCA mission parish meeting -- guess where? -- in my wife's Roman Catholic parish. This fact, and little discussions here and there, seems to have put her in a position where she is accepting the fact that I am headed East.

So.....like you.....I have no home right now, and it sucks. I can't get the chrismation process started, don't know how long it will take, and really can't do anything but sit and wait in a bit of frustration (all in God's time, as Fr. Matt says!)

Yeah, God bless you, brother, and grant you His peace.

 

[Markie Boy]

Wow- thanks Light of the East. The parishes closed down has been such a nice breather for me, and now that they are open and we are starting to go to Mass, I am not returning for communion. We still go to Mass as a family, but I'm very much a spectator.

We'll see - I'm trying to be patient. It's hard to look at your kids (I have four), knowing you are not in the best of places for them, yet keep going as you don't have anything better to offer.

 

[Light of the East]

(raises hand)

Watch out, Gurney, I'm coming to take your crown!

 

[ArmyMatt]

Watch out, Gurney, I'm coming to take your crown!

good luuuuuck...

 

[Light of the East]

good luuuuuck...

Don't need no luck. All natural talent. You just wait till I unlock the door and let the crazy out!

 

[ArmyMatt]

Don't need no luck. All natural talent. You just wait till I unlock the door and let the crazy out!

great...another one...

 

[Light of the East]

great...another one...

Hey, life wouldn't be very interesting without us, now would it? We keep people on the edge of their seats and in many cases, when we bring misfortune to ourselves, provide some serioius amusement!

 

[ArmyMatt]

indeed y'all do.