MyCatholicSource.com - 'Quick Help' Page: Family Member Becoming Protestant

Answer / Resources:

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First, your daughter has presumably already been baptized in the Catholic Church and baptism cannot be repeated. Second, if Catholic enters a heretical, man-made 'church' this would be a grave matter that would endanger salvation.

For further information, please see... (click links to view)

* Importance of Being Catholic

* Heresy Reflections

The links above may illustrate the seriousness of the proposed action. For example, the Heresy Reflections page above contains quotations such as...

"For not every sin, however grave and enormous it be, is such as to sever a man automatically from the body of the Church, as does schism or heresy or apostasy." (Pope Pius XII)

"Even the heretics appear to have Christ, for none of them denies the name of Christ; yet anyone who does not confess all that pertains to Christ does in fact deny Christ." (St. Ambrose, Doctor of the Church)

"Can. 1364 §1 An apostate from the faith, a heretic or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication, without prejudice to the provision of Can. 194 §1, n. 2; a cleric, moreover, may be punished with the penalties mentioned in Can. 1336 §1, nn. 1, 2 and 3. §2 If a longstanding contempt or the gravity of scandal calls for it, other penalties may be added, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state." (1983 Code of Canon Law)

"Those, indeed, who belong to God and to Jesus Christ - they are with the bishop. And those who repent and come to the unity of the Church - they too shall be of God, and will be living according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren: it anyone follow a schismatic, he will not inherit the Kingdom of God. If any man walk with strange doctrine, he cannot lie down with the passion." (St. Ignatius of Antioch, hearer of St. John the Apostle, c. 110 A.D.)

"Has the truth of your Catholic mother so failed you, who have been placed in the highest office of the priesthood, that you have not at once recognized yourself as a schismatic, when you withdrew from the apostolic sees? Being appointed to preach the Gospel to the people, had you not even read that the Church was founded by Christ our Lord upon the chief of the Apostles, so that the gates of hell might not be able to prevail against it (cf. Matt. 16:18)? If you had read this, where did you believe the Church to be outside of him in whom alone are clearly all the apostolic sees? ... Why, therefore, did you, already dearest in Christ, wander away from your portion, or what hope did you have for your salvation?" (Pope Pelagius I, 560 A.D.)

May God grant your daughter the grace to remain a member of the Catholic Church – or if she has already left the Catholic Church, to promptly return to it.

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