Posted on 05/17/2012 5:40:57 PM PDT by Gamecock
Any other institution that lost one-third of its members would want to know why.....
The number of people who have left the Catholic church is huge.
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.
Spiritual needs
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.
Becoming Protestant
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.
Lessons from the data
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.
Dear Sister,
I have witnessed Eucharistic miracles and the supernatural power of Christ in The Most Blessed Sacrament during prayer at Adoration,so don’t bother posting me with your made up theology.
I hope your food illness is better? I will pray for you at Adoration Tomorrow
IMHO,I wish you would take a break from FR because it may be consuming you and not allowing you to grow spiritually.
Both the bread and the cup are necessary parts of the communion service as commanded by Christ.Odd that Rome, who wants to take John 6:55 literally, departs from other literal commands.
Both the bread and the cup are necessary parts of the communion service as commanded by Christ.Odd that Rome, who wants to take John 6:55 literally, departs from other literal commands.
Funny thing is, most of us don't feel the "need" to tattle to the RM. He/she is more than adequate to do what needs to be done to keep order within the forum. That you felt no qualms about accusing another of lying, attributing motives and flagrantly breaking the rules only proves you must feel you are above them. You aren't.
(So I can attribute your leaving the Church at age 16 to an act of teenage indiscretion and defiance?)
You may not. Just like accusing people of lying you do not have the right to pretend to read anothers mind. I have always stated in my testimony here how old I was when God revealed the truth of the Gospel of the grace of God to me when I read John 10:27-30:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one.
The Holy Spirit opened my eyes and my heart to the truth of the Gospel that Jesus gives to us eternal life and we shall NEVER perish. I knew then and there that the truth I had been seeking all my life was found and I also knew I would not find that truth in the Roman Catholic Church. All these discussions over the years only reconfirm that my decision was the right one. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share it again.
Yes she is. See post 1282 and realize that the comment “what public health crisis broke out in Europe at the same time the Church restricted the cup to the laity? FYI - Bishops still have the authority to suspend the practice when public health is at risk. It happened in this country in some diocese during the H1N1 Pandemic scare.” is lame.
“when public health is at risk” my foot. When Bishops in the church say “Bread alone will do for Communion at most Masses.” It’s not because of “health risks”.
See post 1302.
And I never said the cup wasn’t present in the mass either.
I know it was.
What the Catholic church did was deny the laity participation in the cup as part of the communion service. It was NOT served for a very long time.
The communicants were not given the option to partake of communion as Christ established it. The communicants were denied participation in the part of the communion service which recognized the shed blood of the new covenant.
pnsn, greater is He who is in you, than he who is in the world.
Oops, that’s see post 1302.
First, I don't believe believe that there were plastic cups the Church could have used in response to the Black Death.
Second, you are again demonstrating either a profound ignorance of the nature of the Eucharist or are again projecting the symbolic grape juice into the Catholic Liturgy. The spillage, or misuse of even the smallest drop or crumb of the Host of either species is a sacrilege. To the Church is it far more serious to casually treat the remnants of the Precious Blood of Christ left in the little plastic than if you disrespected your dear Aunt Tillie by putting her body out on the curb for the Wednesday trash pick up. This is specifically addressed in the GIRM (General Instructions of the Roman Missal:
Paragraph 279 of the GIRM: The sacred vessels are purified by the priest, the deacon, or an instituted acolyte after Communion or after Mass, insofar as possible at the credence table. The purification of the chalice is done with water alone or with wine and water, which is then drunk by whoever does the purification. The paten is usually wiped clean with the purificator.
Peace be with you.
metmom said in her post #1183 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2885096/posts?page=1183#1183 that the Catholic Church removed the Cup which is NOT truthful because the cup of wine was ALWAYS consecrated at the Mass and drank by Priests-The rest of the congregation still received The full Christ in the Consecrated Host -which is the same full Christ in the Consecrated wine.
We consume the Whole Christ whether it’s in the Consecrated Host or Wine.
When you get your Master Catechist certificate or become a certified Canon lawyer get back to me and I'll entertain your opinion. Until please then try to limit your comments to things you actually know about unless you are asking an intelligent question.
Peace be with you.
LOL Yeah, right.
BTW It's very well known that when referencing another freeper you also ping that person.
In your capacity as a self declared expert on Church history, Catholic doctrine and Scriptural epignosis please explain how the laity not receiving the cup passes the "so what" test and what your specific denomination does to ensure that both species are made available at every weekly service.
It is rare that I get to ask questions of so accomplished a scholar. I would sincerely appreciate your thoughts on intinction and the precautions necessary to prevent Eucharistic abuses.
God Bless
Scripture is rather clear that it’s the individual responsibility of each person to partake in a worthy manner. The made up rituals of the RCC are no where found in scripture.
Am I to take this non answer as an admission that you and your denomination do not partake of the Lords Supper in any organized service and that your larger point is not that you personally find anything wrong with the Church withholding one of the species, just that you think you can use this as a gotcha?
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