Q. I have had family members who have asked, “Why do Catholics think they are too good to accept going to church in another religion on Sunday?” What do I say to them?
This is an experience many Catholics have. In this column, we’ll look at some ways to navigate conversations like this.
First, though, it’s important to make a distinction: attending a worship service at another church instead of going to Catholic Mass, versus attending a worship service at another church in addition to going to Mass.
The latter is something many Catholics who are married to someone in another Christian tradition do: they attend Mass but also attend the worship service at their spouse’s church. Provided that doing so doesn’t draw them away from their Catholic faith, this can be a good way to navigate this circumstance.
But many people who pose the question above are getting at a different issue: Why don’t Catholics accept going to church in another tradition as essentially equal to the Mass? And it’s on this question that we’ll focus the remainder of the column.
One of the key goals in responding to this question is to help the person asking it understand that, as Catholics, we don’t see Catholicism simply as one viable option among many. In our culture today, it’s common for people to view the variety of religious options (including the various Christian traditions) as something akin to a spiritual menu: just as we all have our own food preferences (with none of them being any “better” than another), so, too, do we all have our own spiritual or religious preferences with none being better than another.
But that’s not the Catholic understanding. (It could be argued that that’s not the understanding taught by other Christian traditions either, but that’s a question for them.) Rather, it’s our understanding that God has revealed himself to humanity, first through the Jewish people and then through Jesus Christ. Not only that, but he also revealed to us teachings that we are to believe and practice (both rituals and morals) that we are to live out. In short, Jesus calls us to follow him as his disciples and as such, to accept and practice everything he revealed to his Church.
And this includes our participation in the Mass. The Mass was not established by a priest, or a bishop or even a pope; it wasn’t established by a saint, a scholar or even one of the apostles. Rather, it was established by Jesus himself.
When we go to Mass, then, we aren’t participating in a merely human, man-made religious ceremony; we are participating in the ritual that God himself gave us in order to deepen our relationship with him and to nourish us, not only with his Word (the Holy Bible), but also with his own divine life (the Holy Eucharist, which is Jesus himself: body, blood, soul and divinity).
We go to Mass, in other words, because this is the means that Jesus himself gave us to grow in relationship with him and to grow as his missionary disciples.
This is one of the primary reasons why going to Mass on Sundays is so important for Catholics. To be sure, if the Mass were merely a man-made religious ceremony, then the complaint that others have about us choosing the Mass over their religious service would have more merit. But that’s not the case.
There is another point to briefly consider, and again, I suspect that the actual teachings of other Christian traditions also align with the Catholic position. There is a theological principle that how one prays flows from what one believes, and vice versa—what one believes flows from how one prays. Apart from the human vs. divine origins of the Mass, the fact is the Mass embodies and expresses Catholic teaching, and the worship service at, say, a Lutheran church does the same thing. The Catholic Mass “Catholic-izes” those who intentionally participate in it, and a Lutheran service “Lutheran-izes” those who intentionally participate in it. And to participate in each of them is to implicitly affirm the theological positions of those respective traditions.
So, as a Catholic, I (want to) go to Mass first and foremost out of obedience to Jesus, and also because I want to become more Catholic, and the Mass helps me do so.
