In the past there have been a few of my Roman Catholic friends and brothers ask why I’m not Catholic. (Yes, I do think I can consider Catholics as brothers in Christ although I disagree doctrinally with them on several points.) I feel I need to give a response on the issues I have with the Roman Catholic church. However, I disagree with several Protestant denominations on the same issues. With that said, here are the five reasons why I’m not a Roman Catholic.

First, I disagree with their view of tradition. I do feel that tradition is valuable and has a place in worship and devotion to God, but it must be subservient to inspired scripture. From what I see, Catholics have placed tradition equal to scripture and too often when tradition and scripture contradict, they will side with tradition over scripture. However, they are not the only ones who do this. Several protestants are guilty of this same thing. I recall the story that when Barton W. Stone was being ordained in the Presbyterian Church, he was asked to follow the Westminster Confession of Faith. He agreed to follow those sections that didn’t conflict with scripture. This didn’t make the council happy, and Stone eventually left them to start his own movement. What all Christians must realize is that placing tradition equal to, or higher than scripture is the very mistake the Pharisees made, and Jesus often indicted them for that reason.

Throughout scripture and history God has given us many examples of righteous people for us to draw inspiration and to emulate, but we should never worship them. That is my second problem with the Roman Catholic church, their concept of sanctification. I have no problem giving honor and respect toward the great believers of the past, but we should never let such honor cross over into worship. I feel the Catholics have done that when they set up icons and pray to the saints. We should pray only to the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. Offering prayers to anyone else is to place them equal to God. We should never make anyone equal to God, not even the mother of Jesus. Don’t get me wrong, I have great respect for Mary. I believe that there is no woman before or after her that was more righteous, but she was still human and flawed by sin. To place her perpetually “pure” by claiming that she failed in her duty as a wife to Joesph by staying a virgin, and placing her conception outside of natural means with the tradition of immaculate conception is to attempt to deify her, and that is sinful.

My third objection is their strong separation between clergy and laity. However, this is not just their problem, for you see the same tendency in other denominations. I take I Peter 2:5 seriously and view all Christians as a holy priest with Christ as our High Priest. Our baptism ordains us in that priesthood. I accept that each of us has different gifts and functions in the body of Christ, but we are all priest, and all are the same in Christ be we male or female, Jew or Gentile, and will add, whether we are “clergy” or “laity.”

I have spent all of my professional life dealing with and being part of bureaucracies, be it government and military bureaucracies or corporate ones. And I have come to hate bureaucracies. There is a tendency for bureaucrats to be more concerned about keeping those above them in the hierarchy happy rather than doing the job the organization was created to do. I recognize that some bureaucracy is necessary, but I have found the smaller it is and the closer it is to those it serves the better. Such as those of a small company or a small congregation.  However, once a bureaucracy becomes large it forgets why it was formed and begins to serve only itself. From time to time I heard it said, “We need to do this for the good of the service,” forgetting that the service was created to defend the country. Sometimes what is good for the service is not what’s good for the country. This is my fourth objection to the Roman Catholic church; it is an over bloated bureaucracy that is more concerned about its public image than its mission. This was the case with the pedophile priest scandals. The church hushed it up and moved the offending priest to other parishes, and the parishioners’ whose lives were destroyed were ignored. They forgot that their true mission was to shepherd the flock to heaven, and casting them aside to maintain a public image is failing that mission. Now I admit they are not the only ones with this problem. Many protestant denominations with their national and regional councils have fallen into the trap of serving their organizations instead of shepherding their flocks.

My final difficulty with Catholicism is their dependence on ceremony. I believe that like tradition, ceremony can be a very good thing. It can help us focus our minds about what truly sanctifies us, but that is lost if we start seeing ceremony as a kind of magic incantation. That was the mistake the seven sons of Seeva made at Ephesus as told in Acts. The thought calling on Jesus to cast out demons as Paul did was all that was needed. So, they tried to do so without faith in Christ and they ended up running out of the house bloody and naked after the demon set on them. I see too many Catholics treat their ceremonies as a way to appease God rather than as a way to focus their minds, hearts, and souls on God. To them sins are only forgiven if a priest says your absolved and you say some set prayers by rote. In short, they see it as a magic trick. Unfortunately, you can see the same thing in other denominations. Aren’t there times we forget that baptism is public demonstration of our humbling ourselves before God and the sinner’s prayer is just a recognition of our own wretchedness. They are not tricks to gain Gods good grace, and to forget that we are making the same mistake of the Catholics’ confessional granting absolution without change.

Of course there are some things the do right, and I’ll mention those in the next post.

#Catholics