Talk:Lapsed Catholic

message: I think is a good idea to create a category about this.--Domingo Portales 20:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Good Idea

message: We protestants have a word for people who were raised in religious households but no longer follow the teachings of their (and assumably no one else's) religion: agnostics. Is a lapsed or recovering Catholic simply a euphamism for an atheist or agnostic, or does it have wider applications (say, a former Catholic who now follows Islamic or Mormon teachings)?
:Answer :
:Agnostic has nothing to do with that ! An agnostic think that maybe God exist or maybe not, but anyway this knowledge is impossible for human being to reach. And therefore, there's no need to argue about "God wants you to wear red pants" or "You shalt not have sex with bananas", and all that stuff. Someone can be agnostic with or without being raised in religious households. And someone can Lapsed without being agnostic.
:Atheists don't believe in God.
:A lapsed catholic is someone raised as a catholic who decides to stop all the catholic worship (going to church every sunday, etc...) but still believe in God. That's all.
 
::Great question! In the Catholic faith, once someone becomes Catholic, they are Catholic forever. "...Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark (character) of his belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation." Technically, a Catholic who fails to live the faith could be more precisely labled a heretic, an apostate, a schismatic etc... or labled by the sin the commited (drunkard, murderer, gossip etc...) so the term is a euphamism in that it sidesteps naming the exact fault(s) of the Catholic in question. Elephx4 (talk) 08:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Confusing

message: The article states that "lapsed" is most often applied to Catholics. Is this really a "fact"?
I am a "lapsed Catholic", in as much as I have quit going to church, but I am agnostic when it comes to the concept of a Creator-Created relationship with God. I suppose it's possible, but just can't commit to the idea. 
I just linked in from the Robert DeNiro article. I wonder how he defines the term. 
I guess the point is that it is difficult to attach labels to a group of people based on a short article.  I believe the generic label for anyone who falls away from a religion is "apostate." Knowing the crowd that scans these pages however, I'm sure there is someone who will argue the use of that term as well. 
Tim F. TFreckman 16:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Is that a Fact?

message: An anonymous contributor from Ireland (NTLWORLD.IE) has, on grounds of irrelevance (deletion 1) or unreliability of source (deletions 2 and 3), excised three parts of this article.  But:
#The sample sources do show the use of the adage "Once a Baptist, always a Baptist"..  
#Newsweek is surely a reliable source to show that "bad Catholics" is a term in use for people who haven't renounced their religion but do not practise it.
#What more reliable source can be cited for RCC law than its Code of Canon Law?  Esoglou (talk) 12:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion of sourced information 

message: When I came to this article yesterday it seemed very confused and a reflection of several editors' viewpoints rather than anything documented.
It basically said that anyone who was once a Catholic but no longer carried out necessary observances was a lapsed Catholic (without saying whether this was official, unofficial Church category, the opinion of Catholics in general, the opinion of the person, or several of these). It dealt exclusively with what the person did (e.g., attend), with no consideration of their belief, adopting a different belief, or abandonment of belief. The subject is a messy can of worms, with things that can't be clearly demarcated, but what can be said should be said, and any fuzziness revealed, not swept under the carpet.
I just asked for a citation; the response was to clarify the lapsed did not exclude those who had adopted another religion—but still no sources.
I note that a lot of the article is not sourced at all. Some sources seem a bit close to their subject. Rather than get into interminable discussion that ultimately doesn't produce any light, I remind people of some Wikipedia policies: (1) material without a source can be deleted without further ado. (2) where sources are cited, they must be reliable—judgement call here. (3) Bold editing is encouraged; [WP:BRD|bold editing speeds up fixing problems]]. This would apply to anything unclear, in particular; rather than edit-warring, people who have an opinion must be encouraged to find sources and write proper clear text, expressing various opinions from reliable sources is a good thing.
While this isn't s guideline, if text that is written seems to be someone's opinion or editorialising, it seems quite reasonable for someone to replace it with a different approach. As long as neither is sourced, all such text is subject to deletion or modification.
Coming to this article in particular, I think it should show how to describe someone who was once a Catholic but now:
*1 someone who believes in a God and the teachings of Catholicism, and carries out all required observances (practicing, believing, perhaps)
*2 someone who believes in a God and the teachings of Catholicism, and carries out some of the required observances such as occasional church-going
*3 someone who has ceased to believe in a God, but continues to follow all observances for social or occupational (if holding an ecclesiastical post) reasons
*4 someone who believes in a God and the teachings of Catholicism, but never carries out any of the required observances
*5 Someone who believes in a God and some things, but strongly disbelieves other things, and/or digmas and practices. E.g., disbelieve transubstantiation and physical assumption of Mary, support contraception and abortion
*6 someone who now practices another branch of Christianity and considers themselves a believer in it
*7  someone who now practices another Abrahamic religion and considers themselves a believer in it
*8 someone who now practices a non-Abrahamic religion and considers themselves a believer in it
*9 someone who does not believe in a God and does not practice any religion
All of these have variants regarding public expression of belief, e.g., someone who privately has no belief, or serious doubts, but publicly behaves as a believer. It would be useful to give names to each these numbered categories (practicing C, lapsed C, ex-C, etc.).
Pol098 (talk) 14:27, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: There may be a grey area with no well-defined agreed demarcation between a "lapsed" and an "ex" Catholic. But this needs to be brought out in the article, not fudged. Pol098 (talk) 14:45, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very confused article 

message: I think 'Cultural Catholic' should not redirect and have a page of its own. I don't equate the terms 'Lapsed Cathlolic' with 'Cultural Catholic'. A Cultural Catholic is someone who observes the outwards signs of being a Catholic but may keep his/her own counsel when it comes to his or her own thoughts on, for example, the divinity of Christ and nature of God. He or she may believe in the advancement of the social mission of the church, follows and even advocates propagation of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and believes in preserving the cultural heritage of the Roman Catholic church. A very similar concept is 'Cultural Judaism'. I would create a page, but maybe someone would like to chime in on some other aspects of this. h00pla (talk) 23:20, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Oddly, there is an article already at "cultural catholic" so you may just want to expand on that. I think whatever happens, that article should be a redirect to the capitalized name. Elizium23 (talk) 00:38, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Cultural Catholic: Page of its own

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thread_title:  External links modified