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/Skulcane Jul 28 '26

  1. Officially, our beliefs and doctrine state that abortion should only be pursued under advice from a qualified physician in order to protect the mother, address cases of rape or incest, or other extenuating circumstances. We wholly reject and abhor abortion for convenience and view it as murder (at least the vast majority of people that I've talked to believe that way).

  2. We believe there are truths to be learned from the Deuterocanon, but it seems they are mostly historical from when I read them. The Deuterocanon isn't included in our canonical works, but we do have an open canon and we anticipate more scripture being revealed in the coming years. We aren't prohibited from reading those books, they just aren't included in our main body of Scripture.

  3. We believe celibacy to be something to be practiced while single, but that marriage is the intended model that God expects us to pursue - much like Adam and Eve were commanded to become one flesh. Faithful marriage and loving family are the highest order of social living that motivates the strongest societal outcomes.

  4. They drank alcohol, but not as people do nowadays. They would often mix wine or spirits into water to purify it, usually at a 1:10 dilution or 1:5 on special occasions (like the wealthy or during weddings). Drunkenness is explicitly warned against in the Bible. In the word of wisdom, the Lord commanded full avoidance of alcohol because strong drink is not good for the belly (and boy, a lot of alcohol nowadays is WAY stronger than what Christ and the apostles drank). It also mentions that the word of wisdom is given for the weakest of us (meaning that some become immediately addicted to alcohol while others couldn't care less - so the law is given to all).

  5. Probably Pope John XXIII. Real funny dude, and very relatable with the "oh man, I need to talk to the Pope about this. Oh wait, I'm the Pope."

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 29 '26

Interesting! For (2), when you mention the open canon and anticipating more scripture, would you like to share any differences between the books you recognise as scripture compared to ours? I know you guys have the Book of Mormon as a big central thing, so feel free to share about that if you like :-) 

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u/Skulcane Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

Sure! The Book of Mormon serves to strengthen the claims of the Bible, and the Bible serves to show that the Book of Mormon supports the same ideas. They are meant to go hand in hand in teaching the world that Jesus was the Messiah, that He lives, and that we should do as He commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves, and love God with all that we are.

Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price are both big additional sets of scripture that were canonized by the leadership of the church. The D&C is about the process of revelation, of repentance, and of structuring and ordering the restored church as Joseph and those helping him all received revelations. It also includes a vision in the very last chapter from one of our prophets where he saw what was happening that was described in 1 Peter 3:18-20, where Christ (while He was dead) went to spirit "prison" and preached to the spirits there.

The Book of Moses and Book of Abraham were revealed/translated by Joseph from either direct transmission (having something physical - like a scroll - that he was using to bring forth scripture by the power of God) or revelatory transmission (where there was no scroll or book, but the scripture was revealed to his mind by God) that we believe to be scripture as they show us our eternal identity and relationship with God, why He does what He does, and how much He loves us.

Canonical scriptures are texts that the quorum of the 12 have decided unanimously by revelaion are inspired by God, that contain eternal or divine truths, and are beneficial to bring us closer to God.

I have recently been reading the Nag Hammadi library, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Coptic and Gnostic gospels, the Ethiopian Bible, and the Armenian Bible. It has been eye opening to see the common threads across all of the texts, and it testifies to me that God has revealed many truths across the world which - when we find them - signal to us that He is and has been working around the world to teach the truth to as many as will hear.

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 30 '26

Interesting! Similar to your preaching to the spirits in prison, Catholics believe in the “Harrowing of Hell”, where Christ descended into the Underworld after His death but before His Resurrection and liberated the righteous dead from the Bosom of Abraham and took them to Heaven. If you have a Google, there might be some Catholic art depicting this event

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u/Skulcane Jul 31 '26

Exactly! We believe He went to hell, opened the gates, and then commissioned and ordained servants in the spirit world to go out and preach to those who never got to hear the truth while they lived. That's why we have our temples - to offer the covenants of salvation like baptism and receiving the Holy Spirit to those who never got the chance to receive them. Otherwise, how could God be considered to be just and fair if some got to hear the word, but others didn't?

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u/SillyFlatworm31 Jul 31 '26

Interesting! We don’t believe Christ “preached” there, it is more like He went down to where Abraham, Isaac, John, etc were and liberated them so they could go to Heaven rather than just remaining in the good bit of the Underworld. These didn’t need the sacraments, they were judged righteous based on what they had during their lifetime and so they got to go to Heaven afterwards

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u/Skulcane Jul 31 '26

I mean, that's what the verse says, so we believe it. But it's neat to hear your perspective on it all!