The Hidden Exodus: Catholics becoming Protestants

We all have heard stories about why people leave. Parents share stories about their children. Academics talk about their students. Everyone has a friend who has left.

While personal experience can be helpful, social science research forces us to look beyond our circle of acquaintances to see what is going on in the whole church.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life has put hard numbers on the anecdotal evidence: One out of every 10 Americans is an ex-Catholic. If they were a separate denomination, they would be the third-largest denomination in the United States, after Catholics and Baptists. One of three people who were raised Catholic no longer identifies as Catholic.

Any other institution that lost one-third of its members would want to know why. But the U.S. bishops have never devoted any time at their national meetings to discussing the exodus. Nor have they spent a dime trying to find out why it is happening.

Thankfully, although the U.S. bishops have not supported research on people who have left the church, the Pew Center has.

Pew’s data shows that those leaving the church are not homogenous. They can be divided into two major groups: those who become unaffiliated and those who become Protestant. Almost half of those leaving the church become unaffiliated and almost half become Protestant. Only about 10 percent of ex-Catholics join non-Christian religions. This article will focus on Catholics who have become Protestant. I am not saying that those who become unaffiliated are not important; I am leaving that discussion to another time.

Why do people leave the Catholic church to become Protestant? Liberal Catholics will tell you that Catholics are leaving because they disagree with the church’s teaching on birth control, women priests, divorce, the bishops’ interference in American politics, etc. Conservatives blame Vatican II, liberal priests and nuns, a permissive culture and the church’s social justice agenda.

One of the reasons there is such disagreement is that we tend to think that everyone leaves for the same reason our friends, relatives and acquaintances have left. We fail to recognize that different people leave for different reasons. People who leave to join Protestant churches do so for different reasons than those who become unaffiliated. People who become evangelicals are different from Catholics who become members of mainline churches.

The principal reasons given by people who leave the church to become Protestant are that their “spiritual needs were not being met” in the Catholic church (71 percent) and they “found a religion they like more” (70 percent). Eighty-one percent of respondents say they joined their new church because they enjoy the religious service and style of worship of their new faith.

In other words, the Catholic church has failed to deliver what people consider fundamental products of religion: spiritual sustenance and a good worship service. And before conservatives blame the new liturgy, only 11 percent of those leaving complained that Catholicism had drifted too far from traditional practices such as the Latin Mass.

Dissatisfaction with how the church deals with spiritual needs and worship services dwarfs any disagreements over specific doctrines. While half of those who became Protestants say they left because they stopped believing in Catholic teaching, specific questions get much lower responses. Only 23 percent said they left because of the church’s teaching on abortion and homosexuality; only 23 percent because of the church’s teaching on divorce; only 21 percent because of the rule that priests cannot marry; only 16 percent because of the church’s teaching on birth control; only 16 percent because of the way the church treats women; only 11 percent because they were unhappy with the teachings on poverty, war and the death penalty.

The data shows that disagreement over specific doctrines is not the main reason Catholics become Protestants. We also have lots of survey data showing that many Catholics who stay disagree with specific church teachings. Despite what theologians and bishops think, doctrine is not that important either to those who become Protestant or to those who stay Catholic.

People are not becoming Protestants because they disagree with specific Catholic teachings; people are leaving because the church does not meet their spiritual needs and they find Protestant worship service better.

Nor are the people becoming Protestants lazy or lax Christians. In fact, they attend worship services at a higher rate than those who remain Catholic. While 42 percent of Catholics who stay attend services weekly, 63 percent of Catholics who become Protestants go to church every week. That is a 21 percentage-point difference.

Catholics who became Protestant also claim to have a stronger faith now than when they were children or teenagers. Seventy-one percent say their faith is “very strong,” while only 35 percent and 22 percent reported that their faith was very strong when they were children and teenagers, respectively. On the other hand, only 46 percent of those who are still Catholic report their faith as “very strong” today as an adult.

Thus, both as believers and as worshipers, Catholics who become Protestants are statistically better Christians than those who stay Catholic. We are losing the best, not the worst.

Some of the common explanations of why people leave do not pan out in the data. For example, only 21 percent of those becoming Protestant mention the sex abuse scandal as a reason for leaving. Only 3 percent say they left because they became separated or divorced.

If you believed liberals, most Catholics who leave the church would be joining mainline churches, like the Episcopal church. In fact, almost two-thirds of former Catholics who join a Protestant church join an evangelical church. Catholics who become evangelicals and Catholics who join mainline churches are two very distinct groups. We need to take a closer look at why each leaves the church.

Fifty-four percent of both groups say that they just gradually drifted away from Catholicism. Both groups also had almost equal numbers (82 percent evangelicals, 80 percent mainline) saying they joined their new church because they enjoyed the worship service. But compared to those who became mainline Protestants, a higher percentage of those becoming evangelicals said they left because their spiritual needs were not being met (78 percent versus 57 percent) and that they had stopped believing in Catholic teaching (62 percent versus 20 percent). They also cited the church’s teaching on the Bible (55 percent versus 16 percent) more frequently as a reason for leaving. Forty-six percent of these new evangelicals felt the Catholic church did not view the Bible literally enough. Thus, for those leaving to become evangelicals, spiritual sustenance, worship services and the Bible were key. Only 11 percent were unhappy with the church’s teachings on poverty, war, and the death penalty Ñ the same percentage as said they were unhappy with the church’s treatment of women. Contrary to what conservatives say, ex-Catholics are not flocking to the evangelicals because they think the Catholic church is politically too liberal. They are leaving to get spiritual nourishment from worship services and the Bible.

Looking at the responses of those who join mainline churches also provides some surprising results. For example, few (20 percent) say they left because they stopped believing in Catholic teachings. However, when specific issues were mentioned in the questionnaire, more of those joining mainline churches agreed that these issues influenced their decision to leave the Catholic church. Thirty-one percent cited unhappiness with the church’s teaching on abortion and homosexuality, women, and divorce and remarriage, and 26 percent mentioned birth control as a reason for leaving. Although these numbers are higher than for Catholics who become evangelicals, they are still dwarfed by the number (57 percent) who said their spiritual needs were not met in the Catholic church.

Thus, those becoming evangelicals were more generically unhappy than specifically unhappy with church teaching, while those who became mainline Protestant tended to be more specifically unhappy than generically unhappy with church teaching. The unhappiness with the church’s teaching on poverty, war and the death penalty was equally low for both groups (11 percent for evangelicals; 10 percent for mainline).

What stands out in the data on Catholics who join mainline churches is that they tend to cite personal or familiar reasons for leaving more frequently than do those who become evangelicals. Forty-four percent of the Catholics who join mainline churches say that they married someone of the faith they joined, a number that trumps all doctrinal issues. Only 22 percent of those who join the evangelicals cite this reason.

Perhaps after marrying a mainline Christian and attending his or her church’s services, the Catholic found the mainline services more fulfilling than the Catholic service. And even if they were equally attractive, perhaps the exclusion of the Protestant spouse from Catholic Communion makes the more welcoming mainline church attractive to an ecumenical couple.

Those joining mainline communities also were more likely to cite dissatisfaction of the Catholic clergy (39 percent) than were those who became evangelical (23 percent). Those who join mainline churches are looking for a less clerically dominated church.

There are many lessons that we can learn from the Pew data, but I will focus on only three.

First, those who are leaving the church for Protestant churches are more interested in spiritual nourishment than doctrinal issues. Tinkering with the wording of the creed at Mass is not going to help. No one except the Vatican and the bishops cares whether Jesus is “one in being” with the Father or “consubstantial” with the Father. That the hierarchy thinks this is important shows how out of it they are.

While the hierarchy worries about literal translations of the Latin text, people are longing for liturgies that touch the heart and emotions. More creativity with the liturgy is needed, and that means more flexibility must be allowed. If you build it, they will come; if you do not, they will find it elsewhere. The changes that will go into effect this Advent will make matters worse, not better.

Second, thanks to Pope Pius XII, Catholic scripture scholars have had decades to produce the best thinking on scripture in the world. That Catholics are leaving to join evangelical churches because of the church teaching on the Bible is a disgrace. Too few homilists explain the scriptures to their people. Few Catholics read the Bible.

The church needs a massive Bible education program. The church needs to acknowledge that understanding the Bible is more important than memorizing the catechism. If we could get Catholics to read the Sunday scripture readings each week before they come to Mass, it would be revolutionary. If you do not read and pray the scriptures, you are not an adult Christian. Catholics who become evangelicals understand this.

Finally, the Pew data shows that two-thirds of Catholics who become Protestants do so before they reach the age of 24. The church must make a preferential option for teenagers and young adults or it will continue to bleed. Programs and liturgies that cater to their needs must take precedence over the complaints of fuddy-duddies and rubrical purists.

Current religious education programs and teen groups appear to have little effect on keeping these folks Catholic, according to the Pew data, although those who attend a Catholic high school do appear to stay at a higher rate. More research is needed to find out what works and what does not.

The Catholic church is hemorrhaging members. It needs to acknowledge this and do more to understand why. Only if we acknowledge the exodus and understand it will we be in a position to do something about it.

[Jesuit Fr. Thomas J. Reese, former editor in chief of America, is a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University in Washington. He is working on a new book: Survival Guide for Thinking Catholics.]

Yerah still waiting for the verse that says by Faith alone. Not a single verse says that.

Your arguement is with the people that misinterpreted the Bible for you and don't let you read it on your own.

Does your faith have works? How do you know that your faith is not dead?

You keep trying to put the burden of proof on me but it is on you becasue you mace the postive assertion, which I disproved with less than ten verses. You have yet to refute even one of mine.

And the reason is that you are terrified that the Catholic Church has the truth and your little cult well just isn't the Pillar and fouhndation of truth.

There is an astonishing amount of willful blindness involved in when claiming salvation by faith alone is only found in one scriptural reference and that it is contradicted in that reference:

Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, NOT of WORKS, lest anyone should boast.”

Romans 11:5-6 “Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.”

Galatians 2:16,21 “knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

Yes faith without works is dead, which means anyone who claims to have faith in Christ but does not produce good fruit does not have a genuine faith. James said in chapter 2 that he shows his faith by his works - his works prove he has faith. Therefore, the genuine faith comes first which leads to salvation and produces good fruit in the life of the believer.

“Works of the law” means something.

You can quote Scripture to try to negate other Scripture, but it’s not a very convincing argument.

If instead of caricaturing Catholics as Pelagian, an honest attempt to understand the Catholic view of the economy of salvation were made, then you would see why we do not believe that works (and certainly not “works of the law”) save us.

But where is the fun in that?

I’m not trying to negate other scripture...I’m showing that scripture clearly teaches that God’s grace alone is sufficient for salvation. If one has genuine faith then they will be declared righteous by the grace of God.

I’m also not trying to caricature Catholics, so quit trying to mind read, which is against the rules of this forum. I was merely responding to your post that implied that scripture doesn’t teach that salvation is by grace through faith and not of works.

They also cited the church’s teaching on the Bible (55 percent versus 16 percent) more frequently as a reason for leaving. Forty-six percent of these new evangelicals felt the Catholic church did not view the Bible literally enough. Thus, for those leaving to become evangelicals, spiritual sustenance, worship services and the Bible were key.

Yeah baby . . . yeah!!!

If you believe the Bible is inerrant and factual (instead of nothing but spiritual allegory), then the Catholic Church doesn't want you.

I'm sure the bishops will be quite happy to shepherd a smaller church so long as it's made up exclusively of higher critical and evolutionist intellectuals. Looks like it's going to be a leaner, meaner church after all . . . just one of the Left!

You have yet to demonstrate the genuine faith alone is all that is required for salvation. You claim that faith alone is refuted by scripture but haven’t backed up your statement. Are you claiming that James 2 refutes faith alone?? As has been pointed out - James is merely saying that genuine faith, and not a superficial faith, is needed in order to receive God’s grace.

Scripture is clear that salvation is a gift that can’t be earned. Noone can boast about earning salvation by the things that they do, only by receiving the grace of God and being born again can one enter the Kingdom of God.

Read what catholic scholar Thomas Leahy had to say about James 2:24

“As is clear from context, this does not mean that genuine faith is insufficient for justification, but that faith unaccompanied by works is not genuine” [Thomas W. Leahy, S.J. in Raymond Edward Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmeyer and Roland Edmund Murphy, The Jerome Biblical Commentary, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968), in loc.].

It seems that we are basically saying something similar....

You stated, “The fact is, if you understand James, that true faith is never alone.”

I agree 100% - true faith always leads to good works. The good works are evidence that one is a true believer. “Faith alone” really means “true faith alone”, which is always accompanied by works.

The works in and of themselves do not save a person, but merely demonstrate a person is a true believer. Therefore, salvation is by grace by true faith alone. Works don’t enter the equation for salvation - they only demonstrate that one has true faith.

What works were done by the thief on the cross? does answer your question.
The answer is none. He could not do any works, but he was justified by the Son.
I know you can’t answer that question.

Are you trying to save me or are you trying to defeat me?

Read what catholic scholar Thomas Leahy had to say about James 2:24 “As is clear from context, this does not mean that genuine faith is insufficient for justification, but that faith unaccompanied by works is not genuine” [Thomas W. Leahy, S.J. in Raymond Edward Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmeyer and Roland Edmund Murphy, The Jerome Biblical Commentary, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968), in loc.].

Please keep in mind that Raymond Brown is a Catholic in name only.

What works were done by the thief on the cross? does answer your question. The answer is none. He could not do any works, but he was justified by the Son. I know you can’t answer that question. Are you trying to save me or are you trying to defeat me?

I already corrected you, and am waiting patiently for yiou to show me a singl;e vesrse that says Faith alone is enough. You keep claiming the thief on the cross, but you don't show anything with the phrase "faith alone" and as I and other have shown time and time again the only time it is mentioned is to negate that false teaching you.

Try this: when Jesus Said "This is my Body" was it really his body or are you going to say the Bible is wrong about that as well?.

Now if you can't show me a verse that contains the phrase "faith alone" supporting you then don't bother responding.

I will acknowledge that the words “faith alone” do not appear if you can acknowledge that Ephesians 2:8-9 says “faith, not by works”

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9

Are you sure you’re saved?
Have you done enough works yet to get to heaven?

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9

Thank you for stating the Catholic Position So clearly. So when are you going to start RCIA classes? The rest of your post is a non sequitor and is being ignored.

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The hidden exodus: Catholics becoming Protestants