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.]

HarleyD/ Campion/ Lorica:

Actually, as this article notes, none of those who left ever stated they went to Protestantism because they embraced Mainline Protestantism’s Doctrine of Justification, which tends to be Arminian in some cases {Methodist and Anglicans to some degree] or Luthers view or the heretical Calvinist penal substitution system of Justification.

This author’s describtion called eccesial consumerism says it all:

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/04/ecclesial-consumerism-redux/

But in some sense, all of those who left are defaco liberals in that they have elevated their own personal tastes to dogma and doctrine. The 81% statistic is striking in that they like a worship service that is more creative or fits their personal tastes. In other words, it is all about them!!

Pope Benedict in his great work “Spirit of the Liturgy [pp. 159-170]” lays out why this whole notion of worshiping as I see fit is actually heretical. Orthodoxy, as he notes actually has its roots in meaning the right way to glorify God, i.e. worship Him. Thus, the Liturgy of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are ultimately right worship of God. Everything else is less than that. How do we glorify God, by praying the Liturgy and living in communion with Christ’s paschal mystery, by participating in his Eucharist a [Thanksgiving to the Father] in which Incarnation leads to Resurrection.

The Pope notes that Liturgical Rite means the practical arrangements made by the community in time and space for the basic type of worship received from God in faith. So what are Rites and where do they come from, the Pope notes [p. 160] that Canon 6 of the Council of Nicea is a good starting point in that it notes “Three Primatial Sees”, Rome, Alexandria and Antioch and then shortly after Nicea in 325, Constantinople emerges as major center of Liturgical life as well.

All of the major Rites grew organically and had some uniformity over time. However, recently, as the Pope Notes, Rite has experienced dissolution and is now replaced by “CREATIVITY” of the community.

Before going into the “CREATIVITY” issue, the Pope makes several major points. First, it is important that the individual Rites have relation to the places “Christianity originated and the place the Apostles preached” [and it ain’t in evangelical protestant America]: they are anchored in the time and place of the event of divine revelation. Thus, the Christian faith can never be separated from the soil of sacred events from the “choice made by God”, who wanted to speak to us and become man in a particular time and place. Second, the Church can’t forsake her roots, she recognizes the true utterances of God in the context of history in time and place to where God ties us, and thus we are all tied together. Thus, Rites are not just products of inculturation, they are forms of Apostolic tradition.

Second, the Rites are not fenced off from each other but enrich each other [Rome and Byzantine had liturgical exchanges in the 1st millennium]. However, as the Pope notes, they elude the control of any individual, local community or regional Church. Unspontaneity is of their essence. In these Rites, the Pope notes, I discover that something is approaching me here that I did not create myself, which ultimately derives from Divine Revelation. As the Pope continues, he beautifully notes that this is the reason the Christian East calls the Liturgy the “Divine Liturgy” which expresses thereby Liturgies independence from human control

As the Pope continues, he points out that even the Pope can’t change the Liturgy by himself he is bound to the Tradition of Faith and that also means the Liturgy. So, Rite as he now more fully defines [p. 166] is the expression that has become form, of eccesiality and of the Church’s identity as a historically transcendent of liturgical prayer and action. Thus, Rite makes concrete Liturgy’s bond with that living subject, which is the Church, who then is characterized by adherence to the form of faith that has developed from Apostolic Tradition The Pope notes that legitimate development can occur but Rite “precludes spontaneous improvisation”.

The Pope then refers to Luther and notes that despite his “radicalization and reversion to Scripture alone”, Luther did not contest the ancient Creeds [which are fixed symbola of the faith expressed in Liturgy] and thus left Protestantism and inner tension that became the fundamental problem of Protestantism. With the move a more rigid sola scriptura and the influence of the various radicalization of the critical methods of scripture study, sola scriptura can’t provide a foundation for the Church and a commonality of faith. Scripture is Scripture only when it lives within the living subject which is the Church.

The Pope then notes in very strong words, that is why it is absurd that a not insignificant number of people today are trying to reconstruct the Liturgy afresh on the basis of sola scriptura. In these reconstructions, they identify Scripture with the prevailing exegetical opinions thus confusing faith with opinion. Liturgy manufactured this way is based on human words and opinions. It is a house built on sand and remains totally empty, however much human artistry adorns it [i.e. popular music, charismatic preaching style, auditorium style worship space with modern technology, etc.]

Only respect for the Liturgies fundamental unspontaneity and pre-existing identity can give us what we hope for: the feast in which the great reality comes to us that we ourselves do not manufacture but receive as gift. This means that “CREATIVITY” cannot be an authentic category for matters Liturgical. In any case, this is a word that developed within a Marxist world view. Creativity means that in a universe that in itself is meaningless and came into existence through blind evolution, man can creatively fashion and a new and better world

Thus the life of Liturgy does not come from what dawns upon the minds of individuals and planning groups. On the contrary, it is God’s descent upon our world, the source of real liberation. The more priests and the faithful humbly surrender themselves to the descent of God, the more “new” the Liturgy will constantly be and the truer and personal it becomes. Yes, the Liturgy becomes personal; true and new not through “tomfoolery and banal experiments with words”, but through the courageous entry into the great reality that through Rite is always ahead of

In closing, Pope Benedict documented this issue years ago and the fact that 81% of the folks who went Protestant went because the worship fits their personal tastes and creativity, etc, is basically heresy. It is all about them and how they “feel”

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The hidden exodus: Catholics becoming Protestants