Ask Mormons
This will be a new interactive feature where Catholics can ask questions they wish to find out a Mormon perspective on. Mormon readers are then welcome to respond informally through comments or they can submit a more polished response to the blog authors’ private email forum for consideration as a new blog entry.
Note that message boards such as FAIR’s LDS Dialogue and Discussion forum are often better suited for getting an informal level response to your question. However, the debate culture of such forums is suspicious of sincerely asked questions. If you are looking for an expert response, but not a protracted conversation to your question consider emailing FAIR’s list of volunteer apologists. Also consider getting in touch, on a local level, with Mormon missionaries or friendly Mormons after church services to learn more about Mormon religion, albeit in a relatively high pressure environment.
Note that this page is under construction. It is hoped it will be expanded to include more information about the various popular Mormon forums that welcome discussion with Catholics. Of interest is how each fits different needs, what kind of exchanges they are looking for, and include some Catholic feedback about what their experience on those forums have been. The same information is sought for local Mormon-Catholic interaction.
Regardless of other forums available for asking questions and discussing or dialoguing, we hope here at M&C that we will be able to fulfill a niche. We hope that conversations will be much more informative, structured, and charitable than what seems to typical elsewhere. We will look for technological ways and encourage charitable contributors, so as to facillitate this type of discussion.
Please use the comment section to ask questions and please be patient for answers while our readership is currently low and our blog authors are few.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
I understand that it is Mormon doctrine that the husband must call the wife into the highest celestial kingdom in order for them to receive exaltation.
If the husband becomes a non-believer, is it justified for the wife to seek a divorce since this would influence her place in the afterlife?
October 9th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
About the father of God
Sorry for my english.
I wanna know about the doctrine of the LDS church that tells God was a man like us and had a father. And about we becoming gods. I think this part of the doctrine goes against Isaiah 43:10. I am asking this because my girlfriend is mormon and I love her. But if dont become mormon she will break with me. I want to believe but some parts contradicts the Holy Bible and I’m having some dificults on it.
I will be very grateful if you answer my question.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:34 am
On this feast of the Immaculate Conception I thought it might be a good time to ask if the Mormon Church has any official doctrine on the events surrounding Mary’s conception of Christ? That, and I just wanted to see if people still visit this site.
March 1st, 2007 at 8:33 pm
While I know polygamy has been temporarily suspended, why is it ok in CK? Why can a man be sealed to more than one wife, but a woman to only one man. Polygamy, no matter where it takes place, attacks the inherant dignity afforded each person.
March 6th, 2007 at 4:13 am
Kevin,
Sorry for my late and brief response, I don’t get much time to monitor this site these days.
My short answer is that a woman that was married more than once in this lifetime is typically posthumously sealed to all her husbands. I am guessing that polygyny has been more practiced in Mormon and biblical history than has polyandry because of economic factors. Historically some men have been in more of a position to provide for multiple wives than vice versa.
I can only speak for myself, but I regard Abraham, Brigham Young, and their wives as more honorable and dignified because they were willing to raise up a righteous posterity through unpopular, yet authorized means. I will imagine that the sacrifices of men and women to be obedient to righteous principles will be rewarded in the next life.
I personally don’t spend much time wondering about what conditions will be like in the Celestial Kingdom, but I am pleased that the mutual consent of all parties involved will be necessary for whatever arrangement is arrived at.
The best treatment, in my opinion, of this admittedly speculative subject is Eugene England, “On Fidelity, Polygamy, and Celestial Marriage,” Dialogue 20/4 (Winter 1987): 138-154.
It is found on-line at:
http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/dialogue&CISOPTR=20301&REC=18
May 19th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
On the Mormon theology of man becoming god… In Catholic belief of the Sacred Species of the Holy Eucharist…if we partake in the sacrament of eating the actual body and blood of Christ, would we not then, become gods? having ingested the physical manifestation of Christ?
August 6th, 2007 at 11:08 am
In reply Mary Ann’s comment –
I do think you’re onto something there! I’m having that same discussion with a Catholic friend of mine, and I came across an article in the Catechism which seems to agree with what you just said:
460 The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: [2 Pt 1:4] “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” [St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939] “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” [St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B] “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.” [St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4] [1265, 1391, 1988]
As far as I know, there hasn’t been any statement made to disagree with that by anyone else in the Catholic Church since, and I believe it’s still a tenant of Eastern Orthodox traditions.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:10 am
(sorry to double-post)
I just realized though — the striking similiarity between that third quote and the famous couplet:
“For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”
compared to
“As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.” The second part of the couplet almost exactly matches the first quote…
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, “Amen, Amen I say unto you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
Taking Communion is not saying that you will become a God. Catholics believe that nothing can, has been, or will be equal to God. God gives us eternal life in heaven. The Eucharist is food for the soul. In order to take Communion you must be in a state of Grace. That means you must have had a recent confession, be in good standing with the Church and have attended Mass on all Holy Days and Sundays.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I’m dateing a mormon girl she said if we are going to get marrie she wants me to become an active member for aleast one year so we can get marrie i said that i agree not just for her to get marrie to me cause i willing to learn about her religion too so i need to know how i can become a active member and what that means?
September 26th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I have an interesting question for anyone who can answer. I have looked through this website and found the cenarios between Catholic and Mormon marriages to be a strain at best often times leading to dischord and divorce at worst. I have found no site or post that explains a Pagan/Wiccan and a Morman relationship. From what I’ve read, if two people who at least both believe in the same god (even though they don’t worship him the same way) can’t find a way to find the middle ground with religion and raising a family… how can a Wiccan and a Mormon make it work?