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.
Have you abandoned hope?
God gave us a sturdy boat (Grace) and a star to sail her by (the Church) and has prepared a banquet for us on the far shore (heaven). It is our journey to make and our duty to assist our fellow travelers. Faith and Hope are a trailing wind.
Peace be with you.
stpio:
>>Catholics follow the Church, her teaching on Scripture not private judgment as Protestants do. If you follow the Church, not one verse in Scripture (OT and NT) contradicts the other.<<
Oh really?
~ ~ ~
Sorry, I can’t do italics, so I’ll use caps.
“John 3:13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
Pope Pius XII solemnly defined in Munificentissimus Deus on Nov. 1, 1950, that the “Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”
That looks like a direct contradiction to me.”
YOU ACCEPT DIVINE EXCEPTIONS, YOU ACCEPT GOD TOOK ELIJAH
TO HEAVEN, BODY AND SOUL. WHY NOT MARY? MARY DIDN’T ‘ASCEND’, SHE WAS TAKEN TO HEAVEN BY GOD, ‘ASSUMED’ INTO HEAVEN.
“Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
And Catholics think that God commanded the brazen serpent which was a “graven image” but let’s see what happened to that.
2Kings 18:4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
Would Catholics crush the statues of Mary or any of the Saints into dust or have they become idols?”
GOD OBJECTS TO IMAGES OF false GODS, MARY IS NOT A GOD,
SHE IS THE MOTHER OF GOD. GOD LOVES WHEN YOU ARE REMINDED
OF HIM. AND OF THE SAINTS TOO, SEEING THEM HELPS YOU IN PRAYER. A STATUE LIKE A PHOTO IS AN IMAGE OF A LOVED ONE.
I LOVE THE SACRED HEART IMAGE, THE STATUE OF OUR LORD. IT
REMINDS ME OF HIS LOVE AND OF HIS VERY HEART BEING PIERCED.
please, you gotta let go of these two objections. The first, God can make exceptions and He does.
Surely you’re not trying to imply that the presence of Christ is symbolic are you? Doesn’t the RCC claim that it’s physically present? Are the bread and wine literal or what we would call in earthly terms symbolic (ie Spiritual)? Remember that the RCC claims the bread and wine literally turn into the flesh and blood of Jesus.
Again, I will invite you to become familiar with the phjilosophical terms property and substance used by the Church before really engaging in another one of these gotcha games in which the teachings of the church are grossly misstated as the premise of an absurd proposition.
The Church teaches that the Eucharist is "substantially" the body and blood in a very literal sense.
To extrapolate from this that the Catholic Church has the authority to "make it up as they go along" is foolish. The church father, Athenagoras, says:
As I said before, you can consent to believe whatever you are told by your self-entitled "infallible" magesterium is to be held as de fide, and you can trust your eternal salvation upon the decrees and musings of men who assert their authority over the Holy Scriptures but I will place my hope and trust upon the truth of God's word and agree with Irenaeus who said:
Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man
So you are saying that verse is talking about an “uncorruptible” false God? Do you really want to stay with your statement?
>> SHE IS THE MOTHER OF GOD<<
Could you please show from scripture that she is the “mother of God”? She carried God but she was the mother of His earthly form. Mary is no more “mother of God” than God is a descendant of David. Please show chapter and verse to show that Mary was the mother of God.
>> THE STATUE OF OUR LORD<<
Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man
This is how someone receives Him.
John 1:12-13 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Christ dwells in our hearts through faith, not in our stomachs or through our stomachs.
Ephesians 3:14-19 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Yea, they use the word “transubstantiation” which is derived from the Latin “trans or across” and “substantia or substance”. In other words they believe that the “bread and wine” are changed in substance into the literal flesh and blood of Christ. So Catholics must believe that they are literally eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ. And I am quite familiar with the philosophical terms property and substance used by the RCC.
It was adopted by the 4th Lateran Council (A.D. 1215), formalized at the Council of Trent (A.D. 1545-63), and was reaffirmed at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).
The concept of literally eating Christ’s flesh and blood is pagan materialistic methodology which God condemned often.
>> I have wondered, about the “altar call”, “born again” meaning of accepting Jesus into your heart one time as your personal Lord and Savior and you are saved.
Who came up with this belief? Who first wrote about it? I think it’s Evangelical, doesn’t come from traditional Protestantism.<<
Cynical Bear:
“Faith saves.”
~ ~ ~
You are dear CB but this is not an answer to my question about the “altar call”, on it’s history. Nor one example from Scripture the “altar call” is the meaning of “born again.” Where is the physical, the water?
Accepting into your heart Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour one time is not being “born again.” Further on in John 3, verse 22, Jesus went out and Baptized! Seee.... Protestant “born again” may be a moment of conversion but it is not Baptism as Jesus speaks about nor does it save you.
The examples, all private judgment, the in bold to defend Martin Luther’s “Faith alone.” The bolded spoke of being “perfected”, “sanctification”, “righteousness” and the verse, Paul stating FALSE works never save you, everyone accepts this. None of those words mean Salvation. And no where is there anything in God’s revelation that says “faith” alone justifies you.
John 3:16 is more example of private judgment to defend “faith alone.” That verse is taken out of context and isolated to make it sound like it’s all you need.
Luther tried to remove the Book of James, no wonder...
What of this verse from James?
James 2:24
Do you see that by works a man is justified; and NOT by faith only.
Surely he can’t be considered one of the fathers of the Catholic Church with a statement like that. After all, each individual can’t be left to understand scripture by themselves. That would be much too Protestant.
James 2:24
Do you see that by works a man is justified; and NOT by faith only.<<
How about we let Jesus answer that question?
“Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” John 6:28-29
>The Church teaches that the Eucharist is “substantially” the body and blood in a very literal sense.<<
Cynical Bear:
“Yea, they use the word “transubstantiation” which is derived from the Latin “trans or across” and “substantia or substance”. In other words they believe that the “bread and wine” are changed in substance into the literal flesh and blood of Christ. So Catholics must believe that they are literally eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ. And I am quite familiar with the philosophical terms property and substance used by the RCC.
It was adopted by the 4th Lateran Council (A.D. 1215), formalized at the Council of Trent (A.D. 1545-63), and was reaffirmed at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).
The concept of literally eating Christ’s flesh and blood is pagan materialistic methodology which God condemned often.”
~ ~ ~
Stop using Church writing to defend a mistaken belief.
A person “fully” receives the “risen” Christ, His body, blood, soul and divinity in the consecrated host.
How can that be? God wants everyone to believe in this
divine gift, He wants you to receive ALL of Him. Stop
thinking in the human way, think SUPERNATURAL.
IT’S NOT CANNIBALISM. You are limiting God, He wants you
to accept on faith He can do this friend.
I've explained it to you and I frankly do not want to play silly word games with you. Nothing you can say or do will alter the act of transubstantiation or the Church's teaching on it.
"ho artos hemon ho epiousios" (Τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον) - Matthew 6:11
Catholics want their eucharist and to eat it, too.
They claim that it has to be the literal, physical flesh and blood of Jesus that must be eaten to receive Him and have eternal life, but simply have no explanation at to why the host is still made out of wheat, looks like wheat, tastes like wheat, and why there's no blood and raw flesh that people are eating.
So they make up all this philosophical nonsense about what they call the *real presence* which is found nowhere in Scripture, saying that then the elements of the host maintain their actual physical state but the body of Christ is present in the Spiritual sense.
They want it both ways and it just doesn't work.
It's either real raw human flesh and real raw human blood or it's not; the elements are just symbols.
ROFL! The RCC says Catholics are “literally” eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ but when scripture is used they cry “not really”? I use the writings of the RCC to show hypocrisy contained in its own teachings. By repeating the mantra of the RCC those who take truth from scripture will not be swayed into believing the error of the RCC. >>IT’S NOT CANNIBALISM. You are limiting God, He wants you to accept on faith He can do this friend.<<
If Catholics keep listening to the RCC instead of scripture they are replacing God with the RCC. Don’t think for a minute that I will be deluded by the hypocrisy taught by the RCC.
That’s obvious. Not even scripture can change what the RCC teaches it seems.
And double speak doesn’t change what scripture teaches. Paganism is rampant in the RCC.
The physical actions do not cause the spiritual reality to happen.
Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Baptism does not save anyone because it cannot; it is not a blood sacrifice.
I don't know why you keep harping on *altar calls*. Nobody ever said that that is what saves someone and that is what the meaning of being born again is.
Sometimes people are saved at that time, but it is not the procedure which saves them, it's just where they happen to be when they have the opportunity to accept Christ's gift of salvation.
I was born again at work when I accepted Christ. I know people who were born again in their living room.
It can happen anywhere anytime someone decides to turn their lives over to Jesus and accept His free gift of salvation by faith.
Protestant “born again” may be a moment of conversion but it is not Baptism as Jesus speaks about nor does it save you.
If conversion does not save you, then exactly what are you being converted from or to or whatever?
If you're lost and are converted, the only option is to be saved. If you are converted, you are saved. It's the only thing a lost person can be converted TO.
>> SHE IS THE MOTHER OF GOD<<
“Could you please show FROM SCRIPTURE that she is the “mother of God”? She carried God but she was the mother of His earthly form. Mary is no more “mother of God” than God is a descendant of David. Please show chapter and verse to show that Mary was the mother of God.”
~ ~ ~
Accepting “Bible Alone” and this heresy is no where in Scripture.
I accept Jesus is a human person and He is God my Lord.
I think Protestants accept Jesus has two natures, He is
fully man and fully God. One can’t divide up Jesus Christ
incarnate. Elisabeth touched by God the Holy Spirit
exclaimed on seeing Mary her cousin:
“And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
Luke 1:43
Catholics actually use Scripture to teach transubstantiation and when pressed about the elements remaining wheat and wine, they say, oh, not really. Suddenly it's a spiritual truth, because the change isn't really PHYSICAL after all, it's the SUBSTANCE of it that is changed, but not really, but you see......
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