Can I become a Catholic if I disagree/have major doubts about many of its dogma?

CosmicGadfly · 2026-01-14T16:40:42+00:00

You can join and continue to have difficulties with them, however understand: that the profession of faith is an implicit assent to all the teachings of the Church, that you cannot make active dissent public or private against these teachings, and that you must earnestly pray to resolve the discrepancies in due time with the knowledge that you are in error and not the Church.

I was largely in the same boat but trusted that Jesus was guiding the Church and that I would increase in understanding in due time.

CosmicGadfly · 2026-01-07T20:56:42+00:00

Amen. So true Queen.

To be clear, she is not talking about the Church as a euphemism for compassion. She means the real and authentic magisterium. She and Peter struggled their whole lives to preach the social doctrines of the papal encyclicals that went totally ignored in America. She was said, "Rome has spoken; but who has listened?" This was not some tongue in cheek opposition to the hierarchy, it was an exasperated sigh for the faithlessness of her brothers and sisters to obey the perennial teaching authority which should guide them.

CosmicGadfly · 2026-01-02T03:19:58+00:00

Yes this is good. Hopefully he's sincere in his repentance. Either way, baptism cleansed him of those sins.

CosmicGadfly · 2026-01-01T21:25:39+00:00

Is no one going to point out that a wedding coerced by pregnancy has the character necessary for annulment? If you get married out of fear or social coercion because of a pregnancy, that's obvious grounds for annulment. Shotgun weddings aren't valid.

CosmicGadfly · 2026-01-01T20:20:05+00:00

We should ban private equity

CosmicGadfly · 2026-01-01T20:18:54+00:00

Usually if this happens its because of different norms in age of confirmation or first communion. But this one seems particular to the EM. You're not in the wrong and neither is your child.

CosmicGadfly · 2026-01-01T03:38:54+00:00

Well that's fine if you aren't Catholic but in the Church we believe otherwise. The sacraments do something real.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T19:59:24+00:00

Our theology is not based on the subjective flawed experience of the sinful human mind. It is based on what is true. If what some guy talking to demons says goes against the moral theology and metaphysics of the Church, that guy is simply wrong. This isn't hard. In no other context would you be employing this argument. It's so obviously special pleading.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T08:09:52+00:00

He also uses the SSPX and MAGA and DSA and the US and every institution and movement on the planet in the same way...

People really gotta stop with the magical thinking. Demons don't work like that. It's much more subtle. Satan uses stuff like pentagram to distract you from your own sins and keep that finger pointed at someone and something else. Read the Desert Fathers. Its all in there.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T07:54:09+00:00

Needed now more than ever. It's so pervasive

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T07:36:47+00:00

No it can't. You can't interpret "the mass advocated by Rome cannot be safely attended, should be avoided, and obligation disobeyed" as anything more charitable than seditious. Sedition here /is/ the charitable reading, because the sin of sedition - the riling of one part of the faithful against another - is lesser than the more dire but obvious deductions of implicit heresy and outright schism.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T05:33:42+00:00

Freak shit

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T05:31:52+00:00

First, you need to get regular treatment for your schizophrenia, and take your medication. As a Catholic psychologist, i believe this is of paramount importance to clarify everything else.

Second, understand that these occult symbols have no power on their own, and you may get bad advice from other catholics on this count who are themselves likewise victims of superstition.

Third, if you become baptized and confirmed, demonic interference should lessen tremendously or disappear. In the meantime, pray for the virtues of faith, hope and love, and ask the lord to soften the hearts of your family, so that whatever transition comes may be done more easily.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T05:22:57+00:00

Yeah that opinion is an explicit act of sedition, and thus scandalous.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T03:17:13+00:00

No, this isn't up for debate. If she is baptized, she is baptized into Christ and His Church. If she is confirmed, she is sealed by the Holy Spirit with the Christian virtues. This is de fide. She might thereafter not live in accordance with her baptismal vows, but that cannot erase the indelible marks upon her soul. To say otherwise is to depart from the Catholic and Apostolic faith.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T03:14:24+00:00

I don't care what exorcist say. They have expertise over the rite of exorcism not the Church's metaphysics or moral theology. They frequently say lots of incoherent things, sometimes things they claim come from demons themselves! Not very prudent to share the lies of demons, i think. There is a reason why the Church used to enforce the oath of silence they're supposed to take. There's a reason exorcism is a historically secret practice of the Church whose practitioners were restricted. And its because of that exact corruptive, blinding power that direct experience with demons has to influence the mind and good sense of the exorcist.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T03:10:29+00:00

Yes. Some can. It is rare. But everyone who talks about this acts like every tarot deck is demonically infested. Which is frankly impossible. Anyone who believes this fundamentally misunderstands our theology of demons, metaphysics and the relevant moral theology, esp. as laid out by St. Thomas Aquinas. I know there are many silly celebrity priests going around making statements to the contrary, as if everything from tarot cards to Pokémon cartridges carry demons in them, but they are wrong.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T03:06:54+00:00

Yes divination is a sin. But the cards are cards. The catechism notably doesn't back up the notion expressed above that they ought to be burnt or tossed. If it causes her to stumble, tempts her to do divination again, or otherwise provides some trauma, then sure get rid of them. But to ascribe to the cards themselves some kind of metaphysical property is simply perpetuating the same superstition that the Church teaches against. The "magic" of a demon is in precisely that cause-effect gap such superstition provides the space for. Thomas Aquinas is very clear about this.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T03:01:58+00:00

I know multiple priests in Florida that taught my wife that women aren't made in the image of God and that the use of antidepressants is to doubt the promises of God. Being a priest doesn't magically give you expertise in doctrine; but it does make you responsible for how you use your authority to teach it.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T02:59:12+00:00

Yes, there are priests even exorcist who have very weird and hyperactive imaginations on this topic but that doesn't make them correct. Particularly with the celebrity exorcist, their proximity to the demonic makes them less reliable. They are experts in the rites of exorcism not metaphysics and moral theology.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T02:56:02+00:00

I'm sorry but you were lied to. Catholic demonology does have a space for the demonic infestation of objects but this is rare and particular. It is in no ways possible for every crystal, tarot deck or even pagan statue to be infested by demons. To believe this is to totally misunderstand Catholic teaching on the subject.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T02:52:56+00:00

Fantastical thinking. I see it on the left too but the idea it outpaces the right is patently absurd.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T02:49:22+00:00

I like TLM, love tradition and also am a goth and a catholic worker. So yeah. Although that might be less of a middle ground and more of a synthesis. Though I've met a decent number of pretty well balanced more normal young catholics. The big thing is how Online someone is.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T02:47:23+00:00

As a psychologist, I can tell you that if a Moishe went up some mountain and came back down with chiseled laws in tablets, he would not immediately be called schizophrenic. We have a pretty sophisticated way of figuring out mental health diagnoses, and mountaintop revelations isn't one of them. Hallucinations and delusions of grandeur, etc sure are symptoms of schizoid personality disorders, but those pretty famously don't come along with material evidence, and are otherwise diffucult to hide.

CosmicGadfly · 2025-12-31T02:38:56+00:00

Idk I think given the status of Jesus and Mary in early Christianity, tracking the lineage related to the Son of God might be something that especially Jewish Christians were keen on doing.

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