Christian Accountability

Although written 85 years ago, the following comments from John Stoddard in Rebuilding a Lost Faith by An American Agnostic still seem to hold true, although there are some notable exceptions.

"It is certainly easier to be a Protestant than a Catholic, supposing both are sincere and desirous of doing their duty. A Protestant keeps his spiritual books without an auditor. He can attend church or not, much as he pleases, so far as any reprimand from his minister is concerned; he may hold extremely rationalistic views, need not go to Holy Communion, and is not obliged to make any individual confession to which humiliation and penance are attached. So long as Protestants preserve an outward form of unity and make good contributions to the church's treasury, few questions ever will be addressed to them in reference to faith, still fewer in regard to morals.

In the Catholic Church, however, there are very solemn checks and balances in the accounts of all. The Mass, Holy Communion, Confession, Penance - these are awful sacraments, involving duties the neglect of which in the Catholic Church leads to momentous consequences, and by these solemn sacraments she holds the members of her fold as no other Church can do."