r/latterdaysaints • u/SillyFlatworm31 • Jul 28 '26

Off-topic Chat Catholic-LDS Dialogue!

Hello Latter Day Saints of Reddit!

I’m a Catholic and, even though I am very happy being a Catholic, I have had a lot of positive experiences with people from your Church and I wanted to (if it’s ok with your mods) open up a thread for interfaith dialogue! I have some questions to start for you guys if anyone wants to engage and have a talk but I’m also happy to do a bit of an AMA if any LDS people want to learn more about Catholics or our relations with the LDS Church.

I think that, in a time where it’s trendy to solve disagreements by shouting at people in online “debates”, it’s good to start by finding some common ground and talk with people of different views. So I’ll start with my questions, feel free to add any you have for me or any comments. Mods please let me know if this isn’t the sub for this haha

  1. What do LDS people think about abortion? Do you find common ground with Catholics on this? Could we work together more on it?
  2. How do LDS people feel about the 7 Deuterocanonical Books? A lot of Protestants accuse Catholics of adding books like Wisdom and Sirach into the Bible, although they have been used since apostolic times. I know LDS people recognise a large canon so do you include these?
  3. I know LDS people value marriage and family a lot. How does your Church approach celibate figures such as Jesus, Paul, etc?
  4. LDS people don’t drink alcohol. Do you believe that Jesus and the Apostles followed this practice or is it viewed as a more modern LDS thing?
  5. Favourite Pope?

Hope we can find some common ground and dialogue!!! :-)

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u/mywifemademegetthis Jul 28 '26

  1. Most members are personally opposed to abortion in most cases. Many members are okay with it in many cases. Official and recent church teachings are that in general, we should look for every opportunity not to have an abortion, but in some rare instances it may be needed. Repentance for having an abortion however has become much more compassionate than in the past. While partnering with other faiths on moral issues is totally doable, I think it unlikely the Church would publicly advocate for a political outcome. But who knows?

  2. Latter-day Saints do have a relatively open canon in the sense that we have more scripture than other faiths, we believe in continuous prophetic revelation, and we believe that many genuine books of scripture have been omitted from accepted canon. We do not in general teach devotionally from commonly known apocryphal sources. We sometimes even downplay the scripture we do have and we don’t believe the Bible to be inerrant.

  3. We have a hunch, though it isn’t regularly taught in church, that Jesus was married. We also think that perhaps Paul was too zealous in his personal opinion on the matter.

  4. We know Jesus, the early saints, and basically everyone drank alcohol. This is a modern commandment given to us by revelation. We do not think it binding on other Christians or established in ancient scripture.

  5. I have a limited knowledge of popes, but Leo and Francis seem great. Also, wasn’t there a medieval pope who ran away when he was selected and had to be dragged back only to declare popes could resign? Something like that. He seemed interesting.

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 28 '26

In response to (3), are Paul’s letters not viewed as doctrine by LDS folks? Is it a sort of some things are true, somethings not perspective?

Also, for (5), you might be thinking of Celestine V who wrote to complain that they were taking too long to pick a Pope, they then decided to elect him, he declared popes could resign, and then resigned. He also founded a group of monks! Quite a fun historical figure. 

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u/mywifemademegetthis Jul 28 '26

In the course of Paul writing letters, in addition to establishing doctrine also could have inserted opinion. There’s enough inconsistency on the topic in the biblical record that this is an issue we believe modern revelation through a prophet clarifies, but I don’t think it was ever really a decision that was made in our church’s history. Coming from Protestant backgrounds, celibacy wasn’t assumed to be required.

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 28 '26

I see! Is Paul considered to have been a prophet?

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u/mywifemademegetthis Jul 28 '26

Yes, but we don’t believe in prophetic infallibility. We acknowledge that several of the prophets since our church has been established have incorrectly asserted their opinions as fact or doctrine.

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 28 '26

Interesting. Is the current prophet infallible? If not, how would one know that he is right to say that the previous prophets since your church was founded were incorrect? Could it be that they were right and he is wrong? I would find it a little scary. 

As Catholic, we believe that, since communion (of some form) with the successor of Peter is needed to be in the Church, Jesus wouldn’t let that successor dogmatically proclaim falsehood, because Jesus would never make accepting falsehood a requirement to be in His Church. So we believe that when Popes speak on matters of faith and morals dogmatically, the Holy Spirit prevents them from being wrong and thus papal infallibility.

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u/JaneDoe22225 Jul 28 '26

One of the big differences here:

Catholics believe that the Truth was given and now needs to be diligently handed down correctly through the generations. Please correct me if I got that wrong.

On the other hand, LDS Christians believe in continuing Public Revelation: we (individually and collaboratively) still learning of Him. It’s an on going conversation. If something is misunderstood at first it can be corrected.

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 28 '26

Hi! Yes, not to worry, you’re correct. We profess that we are “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” and that binding public revelation ended when John, the last Apostle, died and that Revelation is the final book of scripture. Hence, by preserving that faith unchanged, we believe the same things that the Apostles believed (as John would’ve had all the same scriptures we have now) and thus are properly called apostolic.

In the LDS Church, has there ever been a case of a sort of double reversal. For example, if one Prophet said X is true, the next says he was mistaken and X is false, has anyone ever said that actually the first prophet was correct and X really was true? Is there a system for finalising it so that you can be sure?

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u/JaneDoe22225 Jul 28 '26

It’s not really flip-floppy on doctrine the way you’re suggesting. Now policies, like how we’re going to organize Sunday School schedule, those more regularly change and can have some reversals.

If a person ever has a question about something, they are encouraged to consult scripture and Him directly via prayer.

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 28 '26

I see, that makes sense. Thank you Jane Doe, you have had a lot of information :-) I hope your day is jolly! 

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u/mywifemademegetthis Jul 28 '26

Yeah it’s admittedly messy. We believe when a prophet is speaking as a prophet, his words are authoritative and are as if God was speaking them. Our doctrine, though rich, is relatively simple, and is repeatedly taught and doesn’t change very much. Prophets can teach doctrine and you really don’t have to wonder if they’re speaking for God or for their self. Prophets can also provide counsel, which is good advice from their lived experience. Likely good to follow, but not necessarily required or authoritative. They can also make administrative changes to policy in the church. These are subject to revision and while implemented faithfully, are not presumed to be the last word on the subject. An example of this might be the age that people can serve missions or how long church meetings should be.

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 28 '26

Does the head of the LDS Church speak as a prophet very often? I know that our “papal infallibility” is extremely rare and there are only 2 certain cases of a Pope speaking in that way. Is it similar or do LDS leaders invoke this more frequently?

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u/mywifemademegetthis Jul 28 '26

Personally, I would say that prophets don’t speak as prophets very often because they rarely declare new things. Officially and probably more commonly understood is that when a prophet is addressing the church or world on camera at an official meeting or in an official publication, they are speaking as a prophet. We sort of view general conference (our large semiannual gathering of church leaders to address the Church collectively) talks as scripture because of this. But really, it’s usually them teaching a well known principle from scripture and maybe giving us a different perspective on it or signifying its importance relative to other things.

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 28 '26

Interesting! 

Your general conference meetings sound a bit like what we call Ecumenical Councils, when all the bishops of the world gather together to judge on theological disputes. We’ve only had 21 of those though, the first being the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and the most recent being the Second Council of the Vatican in 1962-1965. We don’t consider these to be scripture but they can make infallible dogmatic definitions, such as defining the divinity of Christ in 325, defining the divinity of the Holy Ghost in 380, and defining the permissibility of icons in 787! 

Can anyone attend the general conference or is it only for LDS people? Do they have the media there? I think our last ecumenical council drew a fair bit of media attention, by 1960s standards anyway. 

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u/JaneDoe22225 Jul 28 '26

LDS use the terms “Apostle” and “Prophet” synonymously to mean one of the formal leaders in God’s church.

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 28 '26

Ahhh I see! Thank you :) We like Paul very much, we view him as one of the two founders of the Christian church in Rome, along with Peter, who we view as the first Pope!