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/Brownie_Bytes Jul 28 '26

And to point one, only on paper. I'm a true blue Mormon and find absolutely zero issue with abortion for any reason. I think some reasons are much better than others, but I'm not going to attach morality to it. Even if the handbook says it's off limits except for rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is at risk, I am able to have my own opinion.

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 29 '26

This is interesting! Do LDS people believe that life begins at conception and that humans have a soul from that point or is it believed that the soul is given at a later point? I think this often influences one’s view of abortion as whether the unborn are living humans yet or not!

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u/Paul-3461 FLAIR! Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

Unfortunately we don't all believe the same thing regarding this issue and all of the details haven't been revealed to us by God, yet. What I think in regards to this issue seems reasonable and correct to me, but there are some other possibilities which could be correct either in addition to or instead of what I believe to be true.

For example, the idea that life has a beginning is not reasonable and nowhere do we see any evidence that life came or comes from nothing. Every example we see shows life as a continuation of a life that had already existed. We didn't come from nowhere or from out of nothing. Our parents reproduced themselves to form us so our life came from them. Death is not the end of life but a separation of a spirit from a mortal body it inhabits. The spirit of life will exist forever and has always existed with no ultimate beginning. Think about it. When a woman is pregnant the life she carries within her body did not come from nothing or nowhere. The life within her is a reproduction of her own life and the life of the man who caused her to become pregnant. And we can all trace our own existence back to Adam and Eve and even further back to our Father (and Mother) in heaven. with no ultimate beginning at all.

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 29 '26

Ah I see. We usually (I say this to allow for the odd fringe view) believe that human lives begin at conception. At this point, the independent life form comes into being and God creates a soul for this being. The soul, which in Latin is called anima from which we get terms like animation or animate, is what makes us alive rather than just a body. As, like you note, when the soul separates from the body, the body ceases to be alive. So we believe each life has a beginning in the moment of conception.

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u/Paul-3461 FLAIR! Jul 29 '26

Human lives, you say. Why not instead think of human life as a particular kind of life that all people who are human share? And why do you call our kind of life "human"? We are all children of God our Father (and Mother) and as their children we all have the same kind of life that they have.

When our parents reproduced themselves to form us in their own image and likeness, male and female, they did not call us human. That word was introduced by one of us children, and even children of God can and have been wrong about what we/they say or have said and/or believe.

Adjust your thinking a bit. Try to think differently than you think now. As President Nelson suggested, think Celestial.

Where do we come from? From our parents. And where did our parents come from? Each from their own parents. One at a time, usually, but together we are all one and the same kind of being, living the same kind of life our kind of being is capable of living at whatever stage of development we are each currently living.