Expert: Fr. Michael - 5/6/2008

Question
Hi Reverend,

I was raised a Roman Catholic. My parents and all my relatives are nominal Catholics who love to mock the Church and criticize it.

But I tried to be loyal despite what my family would say. When I was in High School I told my parents that I wanted to join the Franciscan religious order and they went ballistic. They would not hear of it. My mother said that if I did that she would have to tell all her friends that her son became a bumb. I never did become a Franciscan.

For years I went to mass and confession and often tried to be a good Catholic. I even served as a Eucharistic minister in the Church for a year before I left. But some years ago I left the Church and became a born again Christian. I now attend a Baptist Church and I feel much better about my faith. I feel much more confident and I am finally happy about my faith.

It's funny that while I was Catholic my family constantly knocked the Church, but when I left the Church I actually heard them defend it. My mother who is a Christmas and Easter Catholic refused to come to my Baptist baptism. Yet she doesn't even believe in the existence of an afterlife and laughs at me when I talk about heaven or hell. When we discuss religion my brother says that he has faith when I ask him if he believes in Christianity, but every word out of his mouth proves that he does not. You can't be constantly mocking the faith and then at the same time say that you believe.

I found all this very interesting. For Catholics who obviously had no faith whatsoever, they quickly changed their tune when I left the Church. They defended the Church, but never went to the point of saying that the Roman Catholic faith was real. They just defended it saying that I should not leave it. I guess they would have preferred it if I was a nominal Catholic who had no faith at all, just like them. If I had done that I know that I would be on the highway to hell for sure.

To tell you the truth I don't see how any of the 7 sacraments of the Church can be applied to nominal Catholics who have no faith. When I had my Catholic Confirmation at the age of 14 many of the kids in the confirmation ceremony were border line atheists from what I could gather. They went through the ceremony because it was tradition. I don't know how a nominal Catholic who has no faith can hope for a pleasant afterlife just because he follows the rituals. Faith has to be real, and not superficial.

My question to you is this, according to Roman Catholic theology am I going to hell because I left the Church? I followed my own conscience and I have real faith, unlike my nominally Catholic relatives who laugh at anything to do with religion.

Thank you!!
Josh

Answer
Of course, no one can give you a definitive answer on that question, as God is the only omniscient judge.  However, it would be hard for you to plead "invincible ignorance," because you once had the true Faith.  Moreover, nothing in your message indicates that you became a Baptist because you believed that it was the true Church, only that you "feel better."  "Feelings" are no guide to the truth.  A lot of people "feel" very good about sinning.

There are quite a lot of Baptists who are just as nominal as your "Catholic" relatives, so that is no just criterion for you.  Moreover, the way you describe yourself and your relatives, you are not really Catholics in the traditional sense, but what are called Newchurchers, that is, followers (to the degree that they follow anything) of the unCatholic New Order that was implemented in 1969.

You are right in saying that, at least for an adult, meriting eternity with God in Heaven usually takes much more than mere ritual.  The individual must also have the intention, repentence for sin, and a firm purpose of amendment.  But neither does a so-called "born-again Christian," who can after his Baptism is nrepentant and not desiring to please God.

It appears that you are using your relatives' lukewarm (at best) faith to be an excuse for you to justify a false religion for yourself.  Of course, that just doesn't wash.  You are your own man.  What your relatives do is beside the point.  And that is just as true of an erroneous, but sincere, Baptist as it is for a true Catholic.