Posted on 12/28/2013 3:59:04 PM PST by NYer
According to recent demographic surveys, it seems there are presently 30 million people in the U.S. who identify themselves as “former Catholics.” That figure is both surprising, and, for Catholics, disheartening.
Over the past 50 years or so, a profound change, other than that effected by Vatican II, has taken place in the Catholic Church. It might be described as the phenomenon of “vanishing Catholics.” The Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor, has identified four major challenges facing the Church today. First on his list is the exodus of young adults from the Church. According to recent demographic surveys, it seems there are presently 30 million people in the U.S. who identify themselves as “former Catholics.” That figure is both surprising, and, for Catholics, disheartening. It represents a little less than 10 percent of the total population of this country. It also means that had those persons remained Catholic, approximately one in three Americans would be identified as Catholic. Only two religious groups represent a larger percentage of the U.S. population: Protestants (cumulatively) and current Catholics.
This phenomenon is disheartening not only for bishops and priests, but also for faithful Catholics generally. Many older Catholics are saddened at the sight of their children and grandchildren abandoning the Church.
Questions naturally arise. What has caused such a massive defection? How might one account for this phenomenon? It hardly seems possible that any single factor could explain a phenomenon of such magnitude. Various reasons for people leaving the Church are well-known. Many of them have been operative from the earliest times of Christianity. In his first letter to Timothy, St. Paul reminds him that “The Spirit has explicitly said that during the last times some will desert the faith and pay attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines …” (1 Tm 4:1-7). In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul speaks of dissensions and divisions among the faithful (1 Cor 1:10-16).
From the first centuries up to modern times, there have been doctrinal differences (heresies) which led to great numbers separating themselves from the Roman Catholic Church. Many others have left the Church for what can be described as practical reasons, rather than doctrinal differences.
Among the latter, there are many who separated themselves from the Church because of marriage problems. There are those who left because they became greatly dissatisfied with inadequate preaching, uninviting liturgy, and minimal hospitality in their parishes. It seems worth noting that expecting church attendance and public worship to be therapeutically satisfying often leads to disappointment and eventual alienation.
Not a few have left the Church because of real or perceived mistreatment by bishops or pastors. Reactions have a way of becoming overreactions. An overreaction to clericalism and paternalism in the Church resulted in autonomy becoming absolute. Evelyn Underhill offered a helpful analogy in this regard. She likened the Church to the Post Office. Both provide an essential service, but it is always possible to find an incompetent and annoying clerk behind the counter. Persons who expect all representatives of the Church to live up to the ideals proposed by the Church will typically become disillusioned and leave. Persons with such expectations would have left the Church of the Holy Apostles.
Most recently, a cause for many leaving the Church is the scandal of clergy sexual abuse. This has been a stumbling block not only for those directly affected, but for Catholics generally. Because of the questionable role played by a number of bishops, their moral authority is diminished. The time when bishops could command is past. Now, they can only hope to persuade and invite. Loyalty to bishops had been widely identified with loyalty to the Church. As the former loyalty diminished, so did the latter.
Clearly there are times when the Church is more of an obstacle than a help to faith. At Vatican II, the Council Fathers pointed out that the Church is always in danger of concealing, rather than revealing, the authentic features of Christ. Often enough, members of the Church’s leadership have been guilty of a sin typical of many religious teachers—namely, being more concerned about preservation of their authority than about the truth.
While specific reasons can be cited, it is helpful to recognize several underlying attitudes that are operative. (1) There is an anti-dogmatic spirit which is suspicious of the Church’s emphasis on fidelity to traditional teachings. (2) There is the widespread belief that one can be free to ignore, deny, or minimize one or more received doctrines without feeling compelled to break with the Church. (3) There is also the belief that, guided by their own conscience, regardless of how that matches—or fails to match—generally accepted Catholic teaching, persons can develop their own understanding of what it means to be Catholic. Someone has coined a phrase that describes persons with those attitudes, calling them “cafeteria Catholics,” i.e., those who pick and choose what to accept of official Catholic teaching and ignore the rest.
Two questions arise in the face of the phenomenon of “vanishing Catholics.” One question is of a more theological and ecclesial level: are those departed to be considered heretics or schismatics? A second question arises at the practical level: how can those who have left be reunited with the Church? Regarding the first question, it is worth noting that, while speaking of dissension and division among the faithful, and of separation from the community of believers, the New Testament does not make a distinction between heresy and schism. Since the definition of the Pope’s primacy of jurisdiction, it is difficult to see how there can be a schism that is not a heresy.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§2089), heresy “is the obstinate, post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith, or it is, likewise, an obstinate doubt concerning the same.” Schism is “the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff, or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” The Theological Dictionary, compiled by Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, defines heresy as “primarily an error in matters of faith. The heretic takes a truth out of the organic whole, which is the faith, and because he looks at it in isolation, misunderstands it, or else denies a dogma.” “Schism occurs when a baptized person refuses to be subject to the Pope, or to live in communion with the members of the Church, who are subject to the Pope.”
In any case, given the variety of reasons for people leaving the Church, the degree of separation, and especially assuming good will on the part of those leaving, it is difficult to classify them as heretics or schismatics. Church authorities have the right and the duty to take measures against heresy and schism when those become evident. Clear denial of a dogma cannot be tolerated. But between this and a purely private, material heresy, there are many shades. Not every challenge to accepted theology is heretical. There are many partial non-identifications that endanger faith and unity but do not rise to the level of schism. Nor does every act of disobedience to human laws in the Church imply schism.
While speculative questions about heresy and schism are significant and need to be addressed, they pale in comparison to the practical question of how those departed can be reunited with the Church. That question is as complex as are the reasons for people leaving the Church. That question is further complicated when one addresses the question of the underlying attitudes that are operative.
Obviously, the Church must work at removing any obstacles to reunion. With Vatican II, that work was begun. The Council recognized the Church is semper reformanda, always needing to be reformed. The actual return of individuals requires something more than an adjustment in Church practices or new programs. It is a matter of God touching the individual with his grace.
A final question that can prove troubling is how the massive defection from the Church is to be reconciled with God’s providence. This is simply one of many instances in which we are challenged to believe in an omnipotent God, who is also a loving, provident Father. Providence is not an occasional, intrusive, manipulative presence, but one that is with us both in tragedy and in joy, in the joy that consists not so much in the absence of suffering, as in the awareness of God’s presence. To find the strength to experience calmly the difficulties and trials that come into our lives is a tremendous challenge. If, however, we are able to do that, every event can be “providential.” In a sermon on the feast of the Ascension, Pope Leo the Great said: “For those who abandon themselves to God’s providential love, faith does not fail, hope is not shaken, and charity does not grow cold.”
There can be a very subtle, almost imperceptible temptation to think we know better than God how things should be. We can be like the naive little girl, who, in her prayers, told God that if she were in God’s place, she would make the world better. And God replied: “That is exactly what you should be doing.”
What a cannard. Been there, heard that.
What else (after all else fails), CAN a protestant pastor say? That what our Lord *really* meant to say was, “...consuming His word”, as you now repeat.
Our Lord *is* the Word. His Body is the Word. He says clearly what He meant and many walked away who could not accept it. Jesus did not try to explain it to the departing followers, nor did He try to woo them back. Even the Apostles who stayed did not yet understand His words. They certainly did not, “consume” them. Instead, Peter simply answers, “to whom would we go?”. They stayed in faith.
What my priest lacks in charisma is returned in full by his hands alone in offering Holy Communion. No priest, no Eucharist. I pray for him, who is under attack always.
Yes.
If so, are these same Catholics in line for Confession?
Yes.
How often do you see them praying before the Blessed Sacrament or in the Adoration Chapels?
Often.
How often do you see them praying the Rosary?
Often.
The problems I've seen range across devout über-orthodox Catholics to liberal weenies. The problem is truly universal, hence truly "catholic".
What you fail to comprehend is that one best can exude love, wisdom, and holiness NOT by partaking in acts that do nothing to teach love, wisdom, and holiness, BUT RATHER by studying what the Lord actually had to say. It also comes having the discipline to perform RIGOROUS discernment that what you are doing, saying, or espousing actually leads people away from sin, instead of towards it.
There are a few good Catholic movements for teaching Bible Study (Jeff Cavins, for example), but they are noted more for their rarity than their popularity.
Regarding the rosary: I know first hand that it can help calm down a busy or angry mind. It can also lead one to treat women better, as one must focus on the grace of Mary, and hence of all women.
But I also know first hand that the rosary does absolutely nothing to inform one that espousing socialist politics, supporting lawbreaking by illegal aliens, and ignoring the horror of abortion are leading people to sin. Many of these acts - while not evil in and of themselves - can reinforce a psychology in some people that they have the wisdom of the Lord… when they clearly do not.
On this thread many people seem to have called attention to prominent hypocritical Catholics, like Pelosi and Biden, as driving them away from the Church. Another group point to the sanctimony of other less powerful people whose judgmental attitude is to blame. Both of these, however, really fail to see the bigger picture. The fault is not in any particular group of Catholics, per se, but rather with the Church itself. It is a living contradiction now, and until it comes to terms with what it is, what it really is, it will only get less and less relevant to the people who need spiritual food.
The real problem subsists, to use a good Catholic word, in tradition. Naturally, as a revealed faith it is one founded on tradition, but in Catholicism this goes even further. Other western Christian churches exist specifically by rejecting traditional elements of the Catholic faith, and therefore tradition becomes the point of contrast with other churches. Tradition, therefore, is really the lifeblood of the faith, and it is also the bane of the modern, and modernist, Church.
Catholicism is at war with itself. The Church today seeks to divide up tradition into some kind of arbitrary 'big t' and 'little t' concepts which, frankly, do not exist outside of ideological innovations seeking to remake the Church into some new and novel form, or those apologists who cannot accept the failure of this approach. Some desire to strip out all of what keeps the faith in direct connection with the historic Church, and to do this they invent these ideas. Unfortunately, more traditional people who cannot accept that an error was made, for whatever reason, fall into this pollyanna mode of excusing and excepting everything that was done and this just enables the innovators and plays right into their game. In all of this the faith suffers, and those who are struggling to work out their salvation are deprived of the tried and tested supports of the Church which helped form saints for centuries.
We now have churches which have no notion of the sacred. The music is profane and banal, with nothing of tradition about it. The language used is equally banal and ugly, and are performed and carried out without any regard for traditional notions of the sacred. The art is gone, or is unrecognizable in any sense of Christian meaning. There is no incense, because it is old fashioned. Basically, there is no beauty at all. We worship just as we do anything else, which means it is not worship at all because it requires nothing of us. It also gives us nothing. We come and go without any regard to anything but whether what we are doing is entertaining or at least not terribly inconvenient, and that is because it is no longer of any real substance to us. The Holy Name is flung around with disregard, and the altar is trampled by children during the rituals. Nothing done in our churches today is about God at all, and rather is all about us. And it is because it is no longer tied to any notion of tradition whatsoever. By defining tradition in such a way as to make it entirely optional we reduced our entire faith life to that which is least demanding to those involved. And this made it pointless for anyone who would either have benefited from it, or contributed to it in any meaningful way.
And this is the real dagger in the back of the faith. People who feel drawn to Catholicism, whether born to it or coming from without, do so because they, at some point in their being, understand the fundamental necessity of tradition in a revealed religion. Looking for the living Christ of history they, naturally, feel the necessity of a faith which is itself a participation in that history. And, that is as much as to say, they are looking for a faith which is traditional. But, of course, that isn't what the modern Church is anymore. That is a thing of the past now. And, for that reason they eventually drift away to other more comfortable, and perhaps less sanctimonious, innovations. The Catholic Church cannot continue to tout its historic foundations while simultaneously jettisoning everything historic about itself and continue to expect people to simply play along. Either the Church will wake up and realise it is killing itself with its anti-traditionalism or it will continue on the path to utter irrelevance.
D1212: An all too typical state of cecity seen here .
I used to wonder why so many RC's twist themselves into knots defending their church. A RC cleared it up for me he said "defending our church is defending our faith".
An Evangelical Christian would never consider their church their faith. Our faith is in Jesus Christ. Our churches are assemblies in which we worship and fellowship with other believers.
Watch how RC's twist all reporting of their new Pope so he doesn't seem to be so much of a lefty. One thing you won't see is them condemn him, or their church.
I believe you are mis-stating something here. WELCOME TO THE TRUTH. Check out this link:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-abortion-cries-out-in-vengeance-to-god-church-will-never-chang
Read the link: Here's the headline:
Pope Francis: Abortion ‘cries out in vengeance to God’; Church will never change teaching
Maybe because that is exactly what YOU said.
Your post 64: Why would you blame the person who is sick for being sick when the Catholic church teaches that it's a blessing?
I presumed NOTHING I responded to your post. Now a really mature person and a true Christian would apologize and admit their error.
No, it didn't. But that little Freudian slip of presumption tells me all I needed to know.
What Freudian slip would that be? Again I am due an apology, which a true Christian would have no trouble at all giving.
Beautiful.
God bless you too:)
You need to address that to Salvation and her claim that Ted Kennedy was excommunicated, you can argue Ted Kennedy’s soul with her.
I merely mentioned Ted Kennedy’s fantastic funeral.
The fact is we don’t know if Kennedy made a deathbed reversion and asked for forgiveness.
So we cannot make accusations or statements about him either way.
Thanks for your post.
I am sure you have seen it too over the past 20-30 years...With both parents working kids are not fully raised by their parents. Then they go off to a college the parents think adheres to their values. Add in the encouragement of the pursuit of mammon as a parent’s measurement of success for their children and the leaven is set in the lump.
If we were to start a thread for parents to brag on their adult children we would mostly get comments on how much money they make, where they live, how big the house is and how many and what type of cars. How many would pipe up to discuss the solid Christian walk of their child, or how they decided to join the ministry to serve others? Sure we would have some perhaps quite a few on the RF, but not many in the general public.
So all these influences have results, and the results show the Words of Christ are faithful and true, when he said we cannot serve two masters.
I am sure I will get quite a few comments on this so I will preface it by saying being successful and making money is not wrong, a sin etc. It is what we do with what is given each to his or her abilities.
Have you ever heard of Lepanto?
The Rosary kept the Muslims out of Europe — thus they don’t speak Arabic today.
The Rosary can and DOES work miracles. Never sell it short.
And the very defenders of the Roman Catholic church, the Jesuits led that charge to the hard left. I went to a Jesuit University “known” to be conservative and found the opposite.
“Doctrinal differences here.
The more I read of Scripture, the bigger difference between it and the teachings of the Catholic church I saw.
It finally reached a breaking point and the Word of God won out.”
Oh, GOOD. Thank GOD you have come to believe in John 6 where Jesus re-affirms over and over that the bread and wine BECOME his Body and Blood. Protestants “just don’t get it” and align themselves with Judas, who could also not accept this “hard teaching.” “unless you EAT my FLESH AND DRINK MY BLOOD YOU HAVE NO LIFE WITHIN YOU!” Praised be Jesus Christ, present with us today in the sacrifice of the Altar.
Accept no imitations.
“A RC would get far more out of listening to some good evangelical preaching than looking for spiritual life by physically eating. “
So you have chosen the NON-Belief of JUDAS over what Jesus explicitly taught? Seems to be a major LOGIC FAIL. What part of “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you” don’t you get?
Hint: If Jesus is God, and supposedly your protestant sect teaches that, then what He says is TRUE and who are you to question it?
My priest is an excellent preacher. I have no need for your silly suggestion. Why would I want to listen to another?
Sorry that should have gone to daniel1212
Do you know that people have survived on the Holy Eucharist for days upon days? No other food. Just the Eucharist.
Gem:Praised be Jesus Christ, present with us today in the sacrifice of the Altar.
1 Peter 3:18 NASB
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
Hebrews 7:26-28 NASB
For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.
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