Church for Non-Believers

I understand that. I'm just explaining the attitude in the United Church of Canada. The table is open to everyone.

 

Got it. I misunderstood.

As a Protestant, I naturally disagree with the Catholic Church’s perspective on Transubstantiation. Even as I appreciate many aspects of that church.

 

Is there some secret way a Catholic could tell that you are not eligible for their communion?

 

No, but that is where some knowledge and understanding of the religion is supposed to come into play. And, there should be some honor applied to the practice of the faith.

Also, the Catholic church is very non-secular compared to most denominations. Particularly in comparison to the currently popular non-denominational/inter-faith ones -- it is far less likely to have people going to it who did not either grow up in the faith, or who otherwise have had some previous exposure to and education in it. There is much more formal training in it and formal steps to it than in most other churches, and so, there are certain traditions and expectations that are typically in place.

Any Catholic knows all about early religious training that leads to First Communion, and classes that lead to Confirmation, formal youth groups, and about the rites of baptism and confession, and about regular prayer and rosary recitations, etc.

In most other churches these days, there is just...baptism.

 

Nah. And you are technically eligible for it. The communion table in any given church does not belong to the church, regardless what the church itself says. There isn't any particular Biblical evidence it has to be administered by a priest or an ordained pastor, for that matter. I suppose it is because, hey, let's not misapply communion. Or something.

In this way, I consider it a disputable matter, and I do not desire to be a stumbling block for, you know, a Catholic who wouldn't understand my view of communion. (Or my own pastor, for that matter, whose denomination teaches ya gotta be ordained - which in practice means you sat through three years of seminary - to administer it.) So I generally play by house rules. I'm just not in a Catholic Church much, short of fish frys and basketball games and whatnot.

 

I hear their pre-marriage classes can be helpful.

 

Yes. Many churches have those.

Value varies. The good ones explain how much people can really suck, including your partner.

 

It's been my experience that the sucking ends once you get married.

 

People suck in general. It’s the human condition. You are guaranteed to see your partner in a few sucky moments. Your partner is guaranteed the same of you.

 

That wasn't quite what I was getting at.

 

Ah. Yes. Well then

 

It's adorable that you didn't get the joke, but to this point, one of the reasons I think I might like to go to church is because my faith in people, in general, has dimmed. My default belief for most of my life was that most people are good and want to be good. Some shit has happened to me where I don't believe that's true anymore, or at least I don't believe it in the way I once did. I used to demand a kind of perfection in my friends and the people I loved, and I've been almost always disappointed and even hurt because of that, and now I'm trying to find some middle ground where I can still think that people are trying their best, but where I give myself the necessary self-protection to navigate those moments when inevitably you feel let down, and I wonder if a little faith might help there. It's like on the Internet, when people tell you to get a thicker skin. I fought that for a long time, because I didn't want a thicker skin and saw no virtue in one. I wanted to feel everything. But you reach an age when you can't feel everything and stomach it. I can't maintain such a black-and-white worldview and make it. I need to find some kind of finer balance. Like, only those who learn to live in the grey survive.