35 Beliefs that Would Have Kept Me From Becoming Catholic (That the Catholic Church Doesn’t Teach!)

Posted on by Kenny Burchard
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If the past three years of my life have been anything, they have been an almost daily exercise of frequently using the phrases “but the Catholic Church doesn’t teach that,” and “I wouldn’t have become Catholic if that is what the Catholic Church taught!” That’s because I have found that one has to constantly confront everything from innocent ignorance to flat-out deceit and lies when talking to people about what the Catholic Church actually teaches. By way of confession, I myself spread many of these things from my own pulpit during my years as a Protestant pastor, and in my conversations with Catholics who I was trying to “save” from the errors of Catholicism. Perhaps having to constantly deal with these errors in conversations with others is part of my own penance for spreading some of them myself. Curated from conversations I’ve had with others over the past 3 years, I have provided a summary of 35 typical things I hear over and over that, had the Catholic Church taught any of these as a Dogma, would have kept me from converting to the Catholic Church after 33 years as a Protestant Christian, and 20 years as a Pentecostal pastor. Of course, there are more than 35, but these are pretty typical and open dialogue to related errors and misunderstandings which could be discussed in the comments if anyone wants to chime in.

  1. That Jesus is not the only mediator between God and humanity.

  2. That Jesus is not the only way that humanity can be saved from sin, hell, and death.

  3. That the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is not the Gospel.

  4. That the Jesus Catholics worship is still on the cross, and that he has not risen, ascended, and is not now seated at the right hand of God, the Father.

  5. That I have to go to a priest *instead of* Jesus to confess my sins.

  6. That I need to pray to Mary *instead of* Jesus.

  7. That purgatory is a place one goes to pay for his/her own sins because the atoning work of Jesus is not enough to free us from the eternal penalty of sin.

  8. That if a person gives money to the Church it will free a person from purgatory.

  9. That purgatory is a way to have a second chance at salvation after death.

  10. That a person could ever earn their own salvation through doing good works apart from faith in Jesus.

  11. That I had to be baptized by a Catholic priest inside of a Catholic Church in order to go to heaven.

  12. That a person baptized as a baby will go to heaven regardless of how they live their lives.

  13. That baptism, confirmation, and first communion guarantee that I will go to heaven no matter what.

  14. That idolatry is permitted, and it is therefore okay to worship Mary or any other creature, rather than worship being reserved to God alone.

  15. That Mary was righteous and sinless in and of herself, and that she didn’t need the grace of God, or the merits of Jesus to be her Lord and Savior.

  16. That praying while kneeling in front of an icon, a photo, a sculpture, or any other kind of art was the same thing as worshipping either that item or the thing that it depicted.

  17. That the words “prayer” and “worship” were always synonyms for the same activity (that all worship is prayer, and all prayer is worship).

  18. That I should not read the Bible myself.

  19. That the Bible should not be read or preached at the Mass.

  20. That the Bible should be chained to the pulpits of the Church so that people cannot read it in private.

  21. That Catholics should not have Bibles in their homes.

  22. That only priests can understand the Bible properly, and only priests can teach the Bible, and everything a priest says when explaining the Bible is true (because Catholic priests cannot ever be wrong).

  23. That God cannot (and does not want to) use women to serve him, and that women cannot be leaders in the Catholic Church.

  24. That the Pope is never wrong about any opinion or belief that he personally has about anything.

  25. That the Pope is sinless.

  26. That every man who has ever been the Pope was a faithful Christian, and that because they were the Pope they must all be in heaven, as no Pope can ever go to hell.

  27. That the Pope has a direct line to God that enables him to create brand new doctrines that have never been known or believed before.

  28. That the Catholic Church is free to create new doctrines — especially if direct new and divine revelation is given to the Pope.

  29. That a Pope and/or the Catholic Church has ever created a new doctrine.

  30. That the Pope and/or the Catholic Church can change the dogmatic teaching of the Church as if to say, “We once believed A to be true, but now we believe A is NOT true, and instead, B is true.

  31. That there may be future revelation coming, and if there is, God will first give it to the Catholic Church (which is how we’ll know the new revelation is from God).

  32. That the Catholic Church has the authority to make a person a Saint, and therefore, the only Saints in heaven are the ones that the Catholic Church canonizes.

  33. That it is a dogmatic truth that all unbaptized babies who die as babies go to a place called limbo.

  34. That a person cannot become a Christian outside of the visible structures of the Catholic Church.

  35. That I was not really a Christian before I became a Catholic.

What would you add to the list? What things have you heard others say about Catholic beliefs that are simply not true? And for those who are not Catholic, does it surprise you to see things on this list that you may have thought were taught by the Catholic Church?