When do you become a member of the Catholic Church?

Answer 1

A Catholic becomes a full member of the Church at Baptism and receives all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are:

from The Catechism of the Catholic Church, second edition, English translation 1994

III. The Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit

1830 The moral life of Christians is sustained by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are permanent dispositions which make man docile in following the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

1831. The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. They belong in their fullness to Christ, Son of David. (Cf. Isa 11:1-2) They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them. They make the faithful docile in readily obeying divine inspirations.

Let your good spirit lead me on a level path. (Ps.143:10)

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God . . . If children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. (Rom 8:14, 17)

Please note, if the explanation has a I. or II., etc., it means that there is more than one definition for that word and that given below is only the specific definition for the Gift of the Holy Spirit.

Mr Attwater's book, A Catholic Dictionary was last edited in 1949 and thus uses pre-Vatican II terms such as "Holy Ghost" for the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

from A Catholic Dictionary, edited by Donald Attwater, Second edition, revised 1957

Gifts of the Holy Ghost, The VII, are wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety and the fear of the Lord (Is. Xi, 2). These gifts are habits by which the intellect (first four) or the will (last three ) is disposed and ready to receive and act upon the light and assistance of the Holy Ghost. They must be distinguished from the virtues (which dispose the faculties to acts recommended by reason), and from the actual grace which they receive; they reside permanently in the soul with habitual grace and are lost with it.

Wisdom. I. As a gift of the Holy Ghost, is a perfection of the understanding enabling the just man to judge of all things according to divine standards, to take "God's point of view." This does not imply any extraordinary mental analysis, but a contemplation of things in God. So it is that an uneducated person can often make (and even communicate) a judgment more in accordance with the mind of God than that of a trained mind which lacks the gift of wisdom.

Understanding. II. As a gift of the Holy Ghost, understanding helps towards a better understanding of the mysteries of religion and a consequent greater attachment thereto, especially when confronted by difficulties, as expressed by Cardinal Newman's phrase "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."

Counsel is a gift of the Holy Ghost and a fruit of prudence enabling one to see what is the right course in a given case and urging us to pursue it.

Fortitude. A cardinal virtue and one of the gifts of the Holy Ghost whereby man is inclined to face those evils which he most dreads and to resist the motions of mere recklessness; it involves the control, not the absence of fear. It is "to enter upon arduous tasks [whether spiritual or temporal] with as good a will as upon matters that are easy, that you may not bow beneath adversity nor be lifted up by prosperity. It is humility without pride in success or despair in failure." Potentially allied to this virtue are magnificence, magnanimity, patience and perseverance.

Knowledge. II. A gift of the Holy Ghost which enables us to appraise the spiritual value and utility of created things.

Piety (Latin pietas, affectionate dutifulness). I. The gift of the Holy Ghost, which makes us duly affectionate and grateful to our parents, relatives, and country in particular, and to all men, but especially the saints, insofar as they belong to God.

from The Catholic Catechism, by John A. Hardon, S.J., Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY; Imprimi Potest: Daniel L. Flaherty, S.J., November 8, 1974, Nihil obstat: Daniel V. Flynn, J.C.D., Censor Librorum,Imprimatur: +James P. Mahoney, D.D., Vicar General, Archdiocese of New York, December 13, 1974

The seventh of the gifts, and yet first in the rising scale of value, is the fear of the Lord, which confirms the virtue of hope and impels a man to a profound respect for the majesty of God. Its correlative effects are protection from sin through dread of offending the Lord, and a strong confidence in the power of His help.

Unlike worldly or servile fear, the gift of fear is filial because based on the selfless love of God, whom it dreads to offend. In service fear, the evil dreaded is punishment; in filial, it is the fear of offending God. Both kinds may proceed from the love of God, but filial fear is par excellence inspired by perfect charity and, in that sense, inseparable from divine love. When I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, my fear, though servile, is basically motivated by the love of God, whom I am afraid of losing by my sins, since heaven is the possession of God, and hell is the loss of Him for eternity. To that extent, even servile fear cannot be separated from supernatural charity. On a higher plane, however, when the object of my fear is not personal loss, though it be heaven, but injury to the divine majesty, then the motive is not only an implicit love of God, but also love to a sublime degree. And this is the scope of the infused gift of the fear of the Lord.

Answer 2

You become a member of the Catholic Church when you are baptized. Also, you become an adult/full member of the Catholic Church when you receive the sacrament of Confirmation.