being a trad in a liberal family

[Santantonio]

When thinking of these matters, you really need to separate political leanings with religious thought.

It is a weapon of evil to corrupt both political parties so badly that supporting either is morally repugnant.

No political disagreement should ever be raised to the point of impacting personal, especially familial relationships.

Democrats used to be socially more conservative than Republicans.
Everyone is being manipulated !!! Realize we are not going to change anything and our time on Earth is for
our souls to not become separated from God.. whatever happens. Don't worry too much about who's getting
communion or confession and how often. Jesus would never eternally condemn someone He loves and who has
loved Him just because they didn't understand or "believe in" confession to a priest or the "real presence" of the
Eucharist. Both sides of those issues are arguable and must be understood in their proper contexts.

I do not believe the Church is as stable a standard of the Word of God is, and Tradition as it was expressed in Trent is not the same as it was in the early church. When St Paul said not to partake unworthily he meant to show respect and acknowledge Christ's sacrifice for us. Do you really think Christ is going to judge all people in history based on whether or not they celebrated Eucharist as a thanksgiving to Jesus or as a True and Present Sacrifice? How could he when both conclusions are entirely possible. It is a mystery that can be logically defended either way. Just like auricular confession or confession to God. This is my conclusion after 50 years of cradle Catholicism and an extreme amount of education and research.

[Josephine87]

So you've become a Protestant?

[Tales]

It is a mystery that can be logically defended either way.

And again we get to the heart of all the troubles that have plagued us since Thomism came to dominate the Church - you can make logic say whatever it is you want it to say.

[Santantonio]

So you've become a Protestant?

I can recite all Four Creeds and my Baptismal and Confirmation vows with conviction.
There is nothing in any of them about the Real Presence or the Sacrifice of the Mass.
This is a complicated subject, historically. I am not saying I don't believe in those two things.
I am saying they are not what makes me or anyone else a Christian.

[Kreuzritter]

Democrats used to be socially more conservative than Republicans.
Everyone is being manipulated !!! Realize we are not going to change anything and our time on Earth is for
our souls to not become separated from God.. whatever happens. Don't worry too much about who's getting
communion or confession and how often. Jesus would never eternally condemn someone He loves and who has
loved Him just because they didn't understand or "believe in" confession to a priest or the "real presence" of the
Eucharist.

No, I believe justification and holy living is impossible without the grace of the sacraments. That leaves "invincibly ignorant" Protestants in a pickle, a pickle that becomes blatantly obvious when one is familiar with how most of them approach sin, confession and forgiveness.

"It's not absolutely necessary" is not even in the same ball park as "It doesn't matter, so who cares?". Your entire position is built upon a non sequitur.

Both sides of those issues are arguable and must be understood in their proper contexts.

Meaningless waffle.

I do not believe the Church is as stable a standard of the Word of God is, and Tradition as it was expressed in Trent is not the same as it was in the early church. When St Paul said not to partake unworthily he meant to show respect and acknowledge Christ's sacrifice for us.

St. John Chrysostom disagrees.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220127.htm

But then the whole early Church disagrees, because the Chruch from the earliest textual and archaeological record treated the Eucharist as a sacrifice upon a physical altar, the "altar" wording in reference to the Lord's Supper even being New Testamental.

Do you really think Christ is going to judge all people in history based on whether or not they celebrated Eucharist as a thanksgiving to Jesus or as a True and Present Sacrifice?

Protestants don't have a Eucharist.

I'll be going with Christ's own words. "53 Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me."

How could he when both conclusions are entirely possible. It is a mystery that can be logically defended either way. Just like auricular confession or confession to God.

Because, contrary to your dumb relativism, only one conclusion is actually true, and only the Apostolic churches have a Eucharist.

This is my conclusion after 50 years of cradle Catholicism and an extreme amount of education and research.

Well, you conclusion is wrong, so all your education and research has profited you nothing.

I can recite all Four Creeds and my Baptismal and Confirmation vows with conviction.
There is nothing in any of them about the Real Presence or the Sacrifice of the Mass.

Creed of Pope Pius IV

I profess, likewise, that in the Mass there is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; and that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist there is truly, really, and substantially, the Body and Blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that a conversion takes place of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood, which conversion the Catholic Church calls Transubstantiation. I also confess that under either species alone Christ is received whole and entire, and a true sacrament.

Oops. Youhaven't been entirely honest about reciting one of the creeds with conviction, since you've apparently never even read it.

The Apostle's Creed was a public and baptismal confession of faith; the Eucharistic doctrine was a mystery kept "secret" from "non-initiates" (Mass of the Catechumens). Of course it doesn't mention the Eucharist; but it it doesn't even mention Baptism, the central part of Christ's great Commission.

[Traditionallyruralmom]

So you've become a Protestant?

I can recite all Four Creeds and my Baptismal and Confirmation vows with conviction.
There is nothing in any of them about the Real Presence or the Sacrifice of the Mass.
This is a complicated subject, historically. I am not saying I don't believe in those two things.
I am saying they are not what makes me or anyone else a Christian.

? 
yikes
not a Catholic response...
you say 50 years of research has brought you to this conclusion, sounds like you have educated your self right out of the faith.

[Miriam_M]

No, I believe justification and holy living is impossible without the grace of the sacraments.

I certainly believe that a baptized Catholic cannot maintain his or her Catholic faith without the grace of the sacraments, nor, certainly, stay out of mortal sin indefinitely. 

I've actually always marveled at the minimalist "once a year" requirement for receiving HC (during the Paschal season), let alone "waiting" a full year (yikes) if you committed a mortal sin 364 days before Easter and are just now confessing it ahead of your annual obligation.

Apparently I'm just ultra-weak, compared to a whole bunch of saints-in-waiting who "don't need" the sacraments until spring. 

[Flick]

The difference between your 50 years of Catholic education/research and my first 20 years of Catholic education (1940-1960) is what was taught.  You learned your understanding of catholic teaching from post Vatican II's neo-reformation, pro-protestant, uncatholic modernists.  Sadly, tragically, you and I, do not hold the same Faith although we both identify as Catholic.  This is the awful result of Vatican II and Pope John XIII's opening the windows of the Church to the winds of satan.

Please, this is in no way meant to anger or malign you; all of my family: sisters, childern, in-laws, all extended family believe as you do.  You, they—except for my sisters who are old enough to know the Faith—believe what they were taught, but, again, what was taught was not the Catholic Faith.

As far as reciting the Creed, Anglicans, Methodist among others recite word for word the Creed at their services—are they Catholic?

[Elizabeth]

As far as reciting the Creed, Anglicans, Methodist among others recite word for word the Creed at their services—are they Catholic?

I had forgotten that!

[Geremia]

Mt. 19:29:

every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold [Mk. 10:30: "now in this time", i.e., in the present world, too], and shall possess life everlasting.

Fr. Cornelius à Lapide, S.J.'s commentary re: "spiritual kindred":

[It] shall not seem that he has lost his own possessions, but has only laid them down, and in Christ's providence has multiplied them with great usury. For spiritual affections are sweeter than natural ones [Suaviores enim sunt affectus spiritus, quam naturæ]. Wherefore he who has left one home for Christ will find a hundred and more homes of pious people open and ready to receive him with love and gladness. [...] They find the houses of all the faithful open to receive them to hospitality, and are frequently migrating from house to house. So too a religious, who has left one house of his father for Christ finds a hundred, not houses, but colleges and monasteries, very great and fair to receive him with maternal tenderness. So also he who has left one field for Christ will find a hundred fields of the worshippers of Christ by which he may be nourished, and that without labour, or toil, whereas he would have had to cultivate his own. In like manner for one brother forsaken, there will be very many Christians who will cherish him with fraternal love, and cleave to him more sweetly with spiritual attachment. For one sister, very many maidens will chastely love him, and attend to his wants like a brother. Instead of one father, very many elders will cherish him as a son. For one mother, very many matrons will supply his necessities with maternal care. For one wife, a hundred wives of others, united to him in chaste spiritual bonds will be ready by means of themselves and others to care for him in sickness, and attend to his wants just as lovingly as though they were his own wives. Lastly, instead of a single son or a daughter, innumerable children will revere him as a father, and hang upon his sound doctrine and counsels, from whom his mind will derive greater pleasure than he could for his own children.

[Santantonio]

? 
yikes
not a Catholic response...
you say 50 years of research has brought you to this conclusion, sounds like you have educated your self right out of the faith.

Perhaps it's not a "Catholic response" in this age, but was it long ago?

""Now, that prayers and giving of thanks, when offered by worthy men, are the only perfect and well-pleasing sacrifices to God, I also admit. For such alone Christians have undertaken to offer, and in the remembrance effected by their solid and liquid food, whereby the suffering of the Son of God which He endured is brought to mind." - Justin Martyr

To repeat my opinion, I never said the bread and wine are not transformed into the BBSD of Christ.
I said it can be understood in different ways and that is what Church history shows.

[Flick]

"To repeat my opinion, I never said the bread and wine are not transformed into the BBSD of Christ.
I said it can be understood in different ways and that is what Church history shows."

If bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, which must be believed to be Catholic, how can this be understood in different ways?  And, please, cite where in church history--which I understand to be preVatican II—Transubstantiation may be understood in different ways?  I don't see how there can be any gray area, it either is or isn't the Body and Blood of Christ, or am I wrong?

[Xavier]

THE BIBLE:
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread."

-1 Cor. 10:16-17

"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord."

-1 Cor. 11:23-27

And St. Justin Martyr who was quoted earlier also says,

"This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God's Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus."

"First Apology", Ch. 66, inter A.D. 148-155.

"God has therefore announced in advance that all the sacrifices offered in His name, which Jesus Christ offered, that is, in the Eucharist of the Bread and of the Chalice, which are offered by us Christians in every part of the world, are pleasing to Him."

"Dialogue with Trypho", Ch. 117, circa 130-160 A.D.

Moreover, as I said before, concerning the sacrifices which you at that time offered, God speaks through Malachias, one of the twelve, as follows: 'I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord; and I will not accept your sacrifices from your hands; for from the rising of the sun until its setting, my name has been glorified among the gentiles; and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a clean offering: for great is my name among the gentiles, says the Lord; but you profane it.' [Mal 1:10-11]. It is of the sacrifices offered to Him in every place by us, the gentiles, that is, of the Bread of the Eucharist and likewise of the cup of the Eucharist, that He speaks at that time; and He says that we glorify His name, while you profane it."-"Dialogue with Trypho", [41: 8-10] http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/father/a5.html

[Santantonio]

"To repeat my opinion, I never said the bread and wine are not transformed into the BBSD of Christ.
I said it can be understood in different ways and that is what Church history shows."

If bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, which must be believed to be Catholic, how can this be understood in different ways?  And, please, cite where in church history--which I understand to be preVatican II—Transubstantiation may be understood in different ways?  I don't see how there can be any gray area, it either is or isn't the Body and Blood of Christ, or am I wrong?

It is a large topic of many facets and distinctions across the Christian experience. I only brought it up in relation to the subject of the thread, namely how different opinions should be dealt with ecumenically. Having been exposed to the Catholic positions regarding this, and still not accepting them, Protestants have their reasons. The Orthodox have their reasons in their different Eucharists. Try to explain to them why the Roman church doesn't provide both species to the laity (most widely) and they will reject your arguments with the Gospel.

[Miriam_M]

"To repeat my opinion, I never said the bread and wine are not transformed into the BBSD of Christ.
I said it can be understood in different ways and that is what Church history shows."

If bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, which must be believed to be Catholic, how can this be understood in different ways? 

It is a large topic of many facets and distinctions across the Christian experience.

A rather modernistic response.  Sounds like one of Francis' sermons (and I don't mean any of the Saints by that name.)

To be clear, one can be the only practicing Catholic remaining in a thoroughly well catechized family of many siblings -- each one having received an identical education (including the same orthodox, traditionalist teachers), yet most no longer practicing and leaving others wondering whether a sliver of faith remains. 

None of my siblings are practicing.  Like me, they were taught one truth, not "several facets" of it.  There may be a variety of reasons why my siblings act like agnostics, but it wouldn't be because of "several facets and distinctions."  None of them chose, later, a different religion and began practicing that.  Inexplicably, they simply abandoned the faith of their childhood.  Secular liberal politics has become their replacement religion.

It is certainly a mystery to me, but I will tell you that I saw the seeds of this in my childhood.  In other families I also sometimes see a spectrum of fidelity, practice, and devotion, and similarly, it puzzles me.  I do not consider myself any more moral/holy than my siblings, but I do not hesitate to identify as Catholic, whereas I believe that whenever they get admitted to a hospital, they never register as Catholic.  I can't comprehend that.

Supposedly, God implants the grace of Faith more in some family members than in others, but that is a great mystery to me, since it is de fide dogma, which I believe, that God wants to draw all creatures to Himself, and if so, why would He distribute the grace of Faith unevenly, so that it would be easier for some to remain in the true Church than it would be for others?  Again, I saw this even in childhood.  My sister was never as devout or as interested in matters of religion as I was, yet we received the same sacraments in the same locations, within traditional rites and within the same solid doctrine.

I can understand the reverse:  why in some families all remain practicing Catholics regardless of periods of doubt. The common denominator I see in those families is a pair of devout parents who reliably taught and practiced the faith.  I wonder if loss of faith is related to things like divorce, one parent not being Catholic or practicing his/her Catholicism, or other divisions and disappointments in parental leadership.  Yet again, I'm in the same family.  Whatever disappointments I experienced were not ones strong enough to lead me from God.  If anything, they led me more toward God.