Catholic Identity.

 I was born into the Catholic Church and was baptized as an infant, I had my first communion and reconciliation as a child, and was confirmed as a teenager. Although I was never devout, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour when I was 21 through an evangelical Christian radio ministry, which in turn gave new life to my Catholic faith. Although I remained a Catholic, I identified as a born again Christian. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I learned the difference between the two denominations and what they taught about being born again. Regardless, there was a significant change in my life back then, which continues to this day.

Being Catholic is much like an identity to me and I remember growing up under the papacy of St. Pope John Paul II. The culture I grew up in was largely affected by his papacy, and the way the culture viewed the church was significantly different from the way the current culture views it. Growing up, the pope didn’t try to be relevant to his culture, there was more of an awareness of sin in our culture, and the politically correct culture that we currently live in didn’t exist like now, it existed in infancy.

Over the years, the culture has forced the church to deal with issues that they see as necessary to purge the Church from her sins, and make things right with those who have been hurt. The Church claims that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church, and if this is so, then it makes the Catholic Church responsible and even accountable to the public. This is why I believe our last Pope, Pope Francis, had a difficult time addressing specific issues, that the church didn’t have to address in previous generations. Things that society deemed unacceptable in previous generations, are now acceptable by this generation, and if the church is Universal, then it has a responsibility to address these issues as well. 

The problem is that the Church claims to represent Jesus Christ, that it has a bible, the apostolic succession of the apostles of Jesus Christ, and the traditions of the early church up through the centuries. Unlike the reformation churches, the Catholic Church doesn’t hold that the bible alone is it’s authority, which has given Protestant churches the ability of less compromise over the years, because they hold that God’s word cannot change. I haven’t met a Catholic yet who proposed we can change God’s word, but the idea of changing with the culture has become a concept for other religious denominations in our time including now the Catholic Church.

I predict that over the next few years, people who have had a strong Catholic identity are going to find their church compromising on things they never thought they would see in their church. I predict that the legacy of Pope Francis will give the leaders of the current church a licence to change and compromise many things, that many Catholics will be shocked to see. The bible says the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, but the current Roman Catholic Church is already set to change, and I also believe the church will become more irrelevant to some people as it tries to recapture it’s identity in the 21st Century. This is Mike.