Posted on 09/06/2016 3:57:16 PM PDT by NYer
.- Young Catholics are leaving the faith at an early age – sometimes before the age of 10 – and their reasons are deeper than being “bored at Mass,” the author of a new report claims.
“Those that are leaving for no religion – and a pretty big component of them saying they are atheist or agnostic – it turns out that when you probe a bit more deeply and you allow them to talk in their own words, that they are bringing up things that are related to science and a need for evidence and a need for proof,” said Dr. Mark Gray, a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
“It’s almost a crisis in faith,” he told CNA. “In the whole concept of faith, this is a generation that is struggling with faith in ways that we haven’t seen in previous generations.”
Gray recently published the results of two national studies by CARA – which conducts social science research about the Church -- in the publication Our Sunday Visitor. One of the surveys was of those who were raised Catholic but no longer identified as Catholic, ages 15 to 25. The second survey was of self-identified Catholics age 18 and over.
In exploring why young Catholics were choosing to leave the faith, he noted “an emerging profile” of youth who say they find the faith “incompatible with what they are learning in high school or at the university level.” In a perceived battle between the Catholic Church and science, the Church is losing.
And it is losing Catholics at a young age. “The interviews with youth and young adults who had left the Catholic Faith revealed that the typical age for this decision to leave was made at 13,” Gray wrote. “Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed, 63 percent, said they stopped being Catholic between the ages of 10 and 17. Another 23 percent say they left the Faith before the age of 10.”
Of those who had left the faith, “only 13 percent said they were ever likely to return to the Catholic Church,” Gray wrote. And “absent any big changes in their life,” he said to CNA, they “are probably not coming back.”
The most common reason given for leaving the Catholic faith, by one in five respondents, was they stopped believing in God or religion. This was evidence of a “desire among some of them for proof, for evidence of what they’re learning about their religion and about God,” Gray said.
It’s a trend in the popular culture to see atheism as “smart” and the faith as “a fairy tale,” he said.
“And I think the Church needs to come to terms with this as an issue of popular culture,” he continued. “I think the Church perhaps needs to better address its history and its relationship to science.”
One reason for this might be the compartmentalization of faith and education, where youth may go to Mass once a week but spend the rest of their week learning how the faith is “dumb,” he noted.
In contrast, if students are taught evolution and the Big Bang theory at the same school where they learn religion, and they are taught by people with religious convictions, then “you’re kind of shown that there’s not conflicts between those, and you understand the Church and Church history and its relationship to science,” he said.
With previous generations who learned about both faith and science as part of a curriculum, that education “helped them a lot in dealing with these bigger questions,” he explained, “and not seeing conflict between religion and science.”
Fr. Matthew Schneider, LC, who worked in youth ministry for four years, emphasized that faith and science must be presented to young people in harmony with each other.
A challenge, he explained, is teaching how “faith and science relate” through philosophy and theology. While science deals only with “what is observable and measurable,” he said, “the world needs something non-physical as its origin, and that’s how to understand God along with science.”
“It was the Christian faith that was the birthplace of science,” he continued. “There’s not a contradiction” between faith and science, “but it’s understanding each one in their own realms.”
How can parents raise their children to stay in the faith? Fr. Schneider cited research by Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, who concluded that a combination of three factors produces an 80 percent retention rate among young Catholics.
If they have a “weekly activity” like catechesis, Bible study or youth group; if they have adults at the parish who are not their parents and who they can talk to about the faith; and if they have “deep spiritual experiences,” they have a much higher likelihood of remaining Catholic, Fr. Schneider said.
More parents need to be aware of their children’s’ beliefs, Dr. Gray noted, as many parents don’t even know that their children may not profess to be Catholic.
The Church is “very open” to science, he emphasized, noting the affiliation of non-Catholic scientists with the Pontifical Academy of Science, including physicist Stephen Hawking.
There is “no real conflict” between faith and science, Gray said.
“The Church has been steadily balancing matters of faith and reason since St. Augustine’s work in the fifth century,” he wrote.
“Yet, the Church has a chance to keep more of the young Catholics being baptized now if it can do more to correct the historical myths about the Church in regards to science,” he added, “and continue to highlight its support for the sciences, which were, for the most part, an initial product of the work done in Catholic universities hundreds of years ago.”
If you watch TV in the last few years, they always talk about “the universe.” “The universe provides.” Makes me sick.
You've never heard of hyperbole? No, it wasn't literally jammed down my throat, but it was done to a 10 year old boy who had no idea about what was going and really wanted no part of it. As a Protestant, the choice to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior is a decision made by each individual. It's not forced onto children who don't even have the maturity to understand what's going on. As a Protestant, my 17 year old grandson made that decision on his own. No one forced it onto him. It was his choice and his choice alone. That's how it should be.
Not going to happen. Ever. My dog tags say "Protestant" and my entire family are Protestants. There is no going back to the dark side.
If you’re so satisfied and happy and fulfilled and better off as a Protestant why do you lower yourself by attacking the Catholic Church? Your faith and Christ’s peace should make you rise above it all.
Why would anyone who has met the risen Christ want to give up a relationship with Christ for a man-made religious system?
Jesus didn't have much good to say about religion when He was here on earth.
Why would someone want to trace the Hope diamond for a rhinestone?
It's not practicing a *faith* that saves someone. No religious system saves anyone. A Person saves people.
A drowning man does not get saved because he took a life guarding class and knows how to be a good lifeguard, but because a lifeguard himself swims out and saves him. All the knowledge about how to be a good lifeguard is meaningless is someone is not actually going to do the saving.
Churches were never the means by which God meant people to find Him.
Jesus did precious few of His miracles in a *church* setting. Most of it was when He was traveling around the countryside going out to the people. Just like He told US to.
Go ye into all the world.
We're to take the good news out into a lost and dying world that doesn't know it needs Him or even wants Him. He DIDN'T say, *Build buildings you call churches and wait for people to come in and fill them up.*
People will never find God in church. All they'll find in church is religion and religion isn't God.
And *seem* is the operative word there.
We ALL need God's mercy, none more than another as we are ALL sinners and God's mercy is the ONLY thing any of us can claim to be eligible for.
Too many people conflate religion with God and the practice of a religious system of belief with a relationship with God.
This article is missing the point. Kids are not going to stay in the church because religion and *science* are somehow reconciled.
Blaming science is only blame shifting for the failure of the Catholic church to keep those born into it.
But I know this is a newsflash for most die-hard Catholics, a real brain strain, but rejecting Catholicism and it's false teachings is NOT by default rejecting God and His True word.
God ≠ Catholicism and Catholicism ≠ God.
*Sacred tradition* ≠ God's holy word and God's holy word ≠ *sacred tradition*.
The problem is, when people conflate those things and rightly reject a false religious system, they often throw out the baby with the bath water and reject God too because in their minds, the two are the same.
Not anywhere close......
Excellent analogy.
eh, pretty bummed this thread decended into all the previous comments when I was hoping some good information could be shared within it.
my 13 year old son who has gone to parochial school all his life recently told me he plans on leaving the church when he turns 18. I asked why and his reasoning was what he was learning in school goes against what he believes. I asked him to explain it and he said that at school he is being taught that his deeds are the key to heaven and that he must perform deeds, he says that faith and faith alone is the ticket to salvation. he said in a discussion of rapture, which was kind of hush hush, that he said rapture was a good thing and drew the scorn of his teacher and classmates, saying its not fair that only some people get to go and there are those left behind, even “good people”. he asks why they don’t cover or discuss Revelations and when he asks questions or tries to bring it into discussions he is shut down by the teacher. he also said they have a new history teacher this year who tells them to go out and try new and everything, saying he seems a bit too liberal for a parochial school. he asks why he has to call the priests Father, when 1) the only father is God himself and 2) his other father is at home.
he has this and next year before going to high school. I was going to try to move mountains to afford to send him to a good Catholic school but now feel I would be better off saving that money for college expense since he is at odds with Catholic teaching.
the kid is very bright, very intelligent. he does his homework and will perform research before forming his opinion. he says he finds himself in disagreements quite often with his classmates who I don’t feel he ever really bonded with. his birthday is pretty much the first day of school each year so we started him in K as fresh 6 year old instead of a 5 year old, his maturity is obvious against his classmates. he said a typical political discussion he recently had went kinda like this
Zach - like him or not, I think Donald Trump is the only choice an American who cares about his country can make.
Kid - you just like him because he is on TV. Hillary Clinton is better.
Zach - for starters we are Catholics and we must value the right to life over everything. Hillary is a lifelong supporter of abortion and Planned Parenthood which goes against everything our family, church and school is teaching us.
Kid - well you are a dummy.
The kid loves to talk about the 2 dreaded subjects, religion and politics. His classmates talk BFFs and Taylor Swift. I don’t think he is being challenged in the environment. I am also starting to think that perhaps he would be better off to go to public high school, armed with the knowledge that the forces of liberalism are strong there, that they will want to try to undo his previous 9 years of parochial teachings. he can go in and be the young conservative voice that is not afraid to speak up.
He also says that Pope Francis concerns him, Im right along with him there and the Pope has really been driving me from the church. I don’t see myself ever leaving the faith but after my son leaves parochial school and we aren’t obligated to the number of masses to attend each year I can see myself going to church less but personally reflecting more.
He has asked his mother who converted from being a Baptist if she would take him to a Baptist service some time. if anything, I would be inclined to take him to a Lutheran service but it does concern me that I sacrificed to send him to the school of my faith and it drives him away.
Such delusion is not going to help him.
Thank you for your dedication shown by 31.5 years of service to your country.
He needs to go to a conservative evangelical church, esp. if he leans toward Hillary. Which indicates a need for actual conversion. Get him on FR.
"Klaatu barada nikto"
Mr. Krull: What can they do, they're only people just like us.
George Barley: People my foot, they're democrats.
"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours."
--Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)
20 some years ago; we had a 14 YO come to our church "because he was curious about the music" he'd heard as he walked by.
The lad became one of our most evangelistic members.
(Wesleyan denomination)
As regards the oft-quoted Mt. 16:18
• Augustine, sermon:
"Christ, you see, built his Church not on a man but on Peter's confession. What is Peter's confession? 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' There's the rock for you, there's the foundation, there's where the Church has been built, which the gates of the underworld cannot conquer. — John Rotelle, O.S.A., Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine , © 1993 New City Press, Sermons, Vol III/6, Sermon 229P.1, p. 327
Upon this rock, said the Lord, I will build my Church. Upon this confession, upon this that you said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,' I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer her (Mt. 16:18). — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 236A.3, p. 48.
• Augustine, sermon:
For petra (rock) is not derived from Peter, but Peter from petra; just as Christ is not called so from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. For on this very account the Lord said, 'On this rock will I build my Church,' because Peter had said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On this rock, therefore, He said, which thou hast confessed, I will build my Church. For the Rock (Petra) was Christ; and on this foundation was Peter himself built. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. The Church, therefore, which is founded in Christ received from Him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in the person of Peter, that is to say, the power of binding and loosing sins. For what the Church is essentially in Christ, such representatively is Peter in the rock (petra); and in this representation Christ is to be understood as the Rock, Peter as the Church. — Augustine Tractate CXXIV; Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: First Series, Volume VII Tractate CXXIV (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.cxxv.html)
• Augustine, sermon:
And Peter, one speaking for the rest of them, one for all, said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt 16:15-16)...And I tell you: you are Peter; because I am the rock, you are Rocky, Peter-I mean, rock doesn't come from Rocky, but Rocky from rock, just as Christ doesn't come from Christian, but Christian from Christ; and upon this rock I will build my Church (Mt 16:17-18); not upon Peter, or Rocky, which is what you are, but upon the rock which you have confessed. I will build my Church though; I will build you, because in this answer of yours you represent the Church. — John Rotelle, O.S.A. Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1993), Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 270.2, p. 289
• Augustine, sermon:
Peter had already said to him, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' He had already heard, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not conquer her' (Mt 16:16-18)...Christ himself was the rock, while Peter, Rocky, was only named from the rock. That's why the rock rose again, to make Peter solid and strong; because Peter would have perished, if the rock hadn't lived. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 244.1, p. 95
• Augustine, sermon:
...because on this rock, he said, I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not overcome it (Mt. 16:18). Now the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). Was it Paul that was crucified for you? Hold on to these texts, love these texts, repeat them in a fraternal and peaceful manner. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1995), Sermons, Volume III/10, Sermon 358.5, p. 193
• Augustine, Psalm LXI:
Let us call to mind the Gospel: 'Upon this Rock I will build My Church.' Therefore She crieth from the ends of the earth, whom He hath willed to build upon a Rock. But in order that the Church might be builded upon the Rock, who was made the Rock? Hear Paul saying: 'But the Rock was Christ.' On Him therefore builded we have been. — Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Volume VIII, Saint Augustin, Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXI.3, p. 249. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf108.ii.LXI.html)
• Augustine, in “Retractions,”
In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: 'On him as on a rock the Church was built.'...But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,' and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' For, 'Thou art Peter' and not 'Thou art the rock' was said to him. But 'the rock was Christ,' in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable. — The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C., Catholic University, 1968), Saint Augustine, The Retractations Chapter 20.1:.
“...God’s Holy Altar, then you are - and ever shall be a Catholic.”
No free will?
Just because your parents did(or had it done) something to you when you were a child makes you a Catholic forever? Are all circumcised men Jewish too? Please what kind of God do you worship?
No,no,no. The kid is a rock ribbed conservative. He even gets into it with his grandmother who is a Hillary supporter. He hasnt a liberal bone in his body, comes from dad’s side.
You leave in your mind and just go through the motions if you still live at home.
Free will has nothing to do with it - The Sacrament of Baptism leaves an indelible mark on one’s Soul.
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