What makes one a Catholic? Well, we start by being baptized and sometimes we think that that is enough. Being baptized is like someone adopting you, taking you home and tells you: “Now you are one of the family.” Behaving like one of the family is living your baptism. Simply staying by the front door, doing your own thing and ignoring the rules of the house is an insult to who has adopted you, because you actions are saying: “I do not want to be here.”
A true Catholic is not one who once has been baptized, neither one who once has received the sacraments of initiation and stopped there. Such a person is only a nominal Catholic. A true Catholic is one who is at home in the Catholic faith, that is, one who believes all that the Catholic Church teaches and whose life is lived according to these teachings. And therefore we need to know what the Church teaches. We need to inform ourselves about the true teachings of the Catholic Church. And by true teachings I mean what the Church’s Magisterium teaches and not what the papers say or what you have read in some books. What the Catholic Church teaches and believes is found in “The Catechism of the Catholic Church” and not in what some authors say.
In other words if there are some teachings which you do not agree with and therefore you are not ready to accept, then you cannot feel at home in the Catholic Faith. If you want to be honest with yourself, you either try to inform yourself through the proper channels and accept them or else you look somewhere else. If you are not ready to play by the rules, why be part of the team?
In this light I cannot understand how one can be, for example, pro-choice or in favour of abortion, just to mention one example, and at the same time he or she say that they are Catholics and receive Holy Communion. I only mentioned abortion to give an example, because this is one of the worst things, because who are you to decide about the lives of innocent defenseless beings?
Like abortion there are other situations where one shows that he or she are ignoring the Church’s teachings and do their own thing, or even worse teach and propagate their own twisted beliefs. If one does so, one is not playing by the rules and cannot be part of the team. With God you cannot stand with one foot in the shadow and the other foot in the sun. You are either with him or against him. In the gospel according to St. Matthew Jesus tells us: “The one who is not with me is against me.” (Matt 12:30)
Are you with Jesus, or against him?
A true Catholic is not one who once has been baptized, neither one who once has received the sacraments of initiation and stopped there. Such a person is only a nominal Catholic. A true Catholic is one who is at home in the Catholic faith, that is, one who believes all that the Catholic Church teaches and whose life is lived according to these teachings. And therefore we need to know what the Church teaches. We need to inform ourselves about the true teachings of the Catholic Church. And by true teachings I mean what the Church’s Magisterium teaches and not what the papers say or what you have read in some books. What the Catholic Church teaches and believes is found in “The Catechism of the Catholic Church” and not in what some authors say.
In other words if there are some teachings which you do not agree with and therefore you are not ready to accept, then you cannot feel at home in the Catholic Faith. If you want to be honest with yourself, you either try to inform yourself through the proper channels and accept them or else you look somewhere else. If you are not ready to play by the rules, why be part of the team?
In this light I cannot understand how one can be, for example, pro-choice or in favour of abortion, just to mention one example, and at the same time he or she say that they are Catholics and receive Holy Communion. I only mentioned abortion to give an example, because this is one of the worst things, because who are you to decide about the lives of innocent defenseless beings?
Like abortion there are other situations where one shows that he or she are ignoring the Church’s teachings and do their own thing, or even worse teach and propagate their own twisted beliefs. If one does so, one is not playing by the rules and cannot be part of the team. With God you cannot stand with one foot in the shadow and the other foot in the sun. You are either with him or against him. In the gospel according to St. Matthew Jesus tells us: “The one who is not with me is against me.” (Matt 12:30)
Are you with Jesus, or against him?
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