Question Corner: Would it be wrong for a Catholic to attend a nondenominational praise and worship night?

Q: The nondenominational church near my house offers praise and worship nights with music. I’ve been interested in attending, not because I want to convert, but because I like that style of music and any opportunity to join in prayer with others. Would it be wrong for a Catholic to attend this event? Am I putting my soul at risk or opening the door to the devil? (Tacoma, Washington)

A: I think this is primarily a pastoral question rather than a theological or canonical one. That is, there is nothing official in the Church’s teaching that would forbid you from attending a non-Catholic Christian praise and worship night, but whether this is a good idea would depend on the specifics of the particular circumstances.

In general, the Catholic Church is interested in promoting the unity of all Christians, and part of this is recognizing what all Christians have in common. This is why non-Catholic Christians who wish to become Catholic are not technically said to be “converting” to Catholicism, but are rather “entering into full communion.” And non-Catholic Christians who have already been baptized with water and a formula invoking the Trinity are not “re-baptized” upon becoming Catholic, because the Catholic Church recognizes the fundamental validity of all truly Christian baptisms.

In a similar vein, there is nothing to prohibit a Catholic from praying together with non-Catholic Christians in terms that are mutually acceptable to both sides. For example, there certainly wouldn’t be a problem with a Catholic and a Protestant saying the “Our Father” or a grace before meals together. It also wouldn’t be an issue for a Catholic to, for example, attend the religious wedding service of two non-Catholics at a Protestant church.

There are some limits to prayer in common, however. Essentially, Catholics cannot pray in any way that would deny a truth of the Catholic faith. For instance, a Catholic should not participate in a Protestant “communion service,” since non-Catholic teachings on the meaning of holy Communion are different from our Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, and a Catholic “receiving Communion” in a Protestant service would be a tacit denial of our doctrine of the Real Presence.

With respect to your specific question, if you were approaching the praise and worship night as a sort of devotional concert experience, to me this doesn’t seem like this would be a problem.

You might need to be more cautious if the praise and worship night was more along the lines of a Sunday service or other occasion where the church’s leadership was intending to teach the Christian faith according to its own understanding.

Even here, this might not present much of a concern for you if you are a mature adult who is well formed in your own Catholic faith. But as a matter of honest personal discernment, if for whatever reason you feel that you are not as well-catechized as you ought to be, you might not want to put yourself in a situation where you are going to become confused about what the Catholic Church teaches or what we all must believe as Catholics. Likewise, I would be hesitant to let a minor child or teenage Catholic attend a non-Catholic praise and worship night by themselves, as they are still growing in their Catholic faith and are therefore much more impressionable.

Since many non-denominational Christian churches in the United States tend to lean towards an Evangelical Protestant spirituality — and since many if not most Evangelicals share with Catholics a lively sense of the need to cling to Christ and shun the forces of evil — I think it’s highly unlikely that attending an Evangelical praise and worship night would, as you put it, “open a door to the devil.” Although in theory, this might be more of a real concern if the non-denominational church in question was not in an Evangelical or conservative mainline Protestant tradition, but instead had some New Age leanings.

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