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Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.

Does a person returning to the Church need to go through RCIA?

Question:

If a Catholic is returning to the active practice of the faith after having been a member of a different religion, say, Fundamentalism, is he obliged to go through RCIA first or just go to confession?

Answer:

It depends on the person’s state at the time he left the Catholic Church. If he had been catechized and had received all the sacraments of initiation–baptism, confirmation, Eucharist–then he will normally be able to return by going to confession, mentioning the fact he had joined another church, and being absolved.

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