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.”
Amen!
I found Jesus and did it and am free. HE made me free and whom the Son sets free is free indeed. (John 8:36)
I trust God enough to take Him at His word and do not need a *priest* to tell me so I can be sure. It's a sure sign that someone does not trust God when they have to rely on people to tell them.
Why believe it when a priest tells you but not when God tells you? THAT is a lack of faith.
Oh, one of the blood of trails types. Your arguments are borderline Gnostic that American Evangelicals have the orthodox faith.
Your beliefs are fundamentally anti Incarnational and Gnostic. Christ became and found a Church which is the visible sign of his presence down thru the centuries ordered thru space and time.
Respect is a two way street.
Physician, heal thyself.
It wasn’t a gotcha question. The James as the lead elder of the Church of Jerusalem was not the disciple and apostle James.
Nor was he James the Lesser.
He was still another James.
There are many aspects of modern Catholicism that fit the Gnostic label far better, it’s apparently a mystery religion to quite a few, Fatima and Medjugordje ( however that’s spelled) spring immediately to mind.
Why do you and how can you deny her regeneration? You can’t so beam meet eye.
Ahhh, good history leasson. I forgot about Al Smith running for president. He was indeed a Catholic. My main point remains. the Republican party of the early 20th century was very Nativist and viewed Catholics with suspicion and disdain. There were large segments of Protestant America, including clergy, that were responsible for a resurgent KKK which had in its sights Blacks, Jews, and Catholics.
The Democratic party at the time fought the nativist anti-Catholic sentiment and Catholics flocked to the Democratic party. Al Smith was indeed one of the major influences but it was also FDR and Truman. It really wasn’t until Reagan that the Reagan Democrats sort of moved to the Republican party. While they were not laissez faire capitalist, they were socially conservative and supported Reagans Cold war policies vs. the Soviet Union. You can say that is what brought me out of the Democratic party in the 80’s
Fatima is an approved apparition.
I have offered free copies of the CD to numerous protestants. Each of them has run in the opposite direction as fast as they could offering only the feeblest of excuses.
So what spiritual illness leads a 3 year old child to get leukemia?
Go back and read all of my posts. I am not going to play “gotcha” games.
Those are private revelation and are not binding on the faithful. You are 100% wrong. Fatima is a private revelation. It is approved in that it does not contradict any public revelation and does not contradict doctrine. However, nothing in private revelation can result in a Doctrine of the Church. In addition, someone can accept or reject Fatima and be a Catholic in good standing. See Official Catholic teaching on this question in the CCC paragraph 66 and 67
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s1c2a1.htm#III
Gnosticism is an inherent denial of the Incarnation of CHrist, ie. he only appeared to have a physical body. In so much as Gnosticism is implicit in many non Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, one only has to look at their ecclesiology. The Church is the Body of Christ and thus its characteristics are linked to CHrist himself, True God and True Man. The Church then has both a visible and spiritual reality. It is the Community of all the Baptized, those on Earth an those in Heaven. So the Church is like a sacrament a visible sign of God’s presence on Earth. This notion that the Church is an invisible community of believers [which is a Protestant conception of the Church] is implicitly Gnostic
Maybe you can help. Looking for the epistle that says “foolish Galatians, don’t you remember to pray the Rosary every day.”
It is when faced with Scriptural substantiation and other evidence that refutes the claims of Rome to be the rep. of Christ and literally physically feed him to the masses that they resort to such nonsense as this.
It is Rome that leans toward Gnosticism, and teaches historical events of Scripture were fables and folk tales, and makes a mockery of the church as being the body of Christ, and imagines it turns a wafer into Him.
Thanks for admitting your lack of argument.
Romans 8:28-39 NABRE
We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?
Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us. Who will condemn? It is Christ [Jesus] who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: “For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I went to Church and was “born again” like all good evengelicals. Then for the next 45 years or so I would go to church, sing and shout, and go home and listen to Hank Williams gospel music and get drunk. I was a heathen in every sense of the word. But no one could tell me that because I would say I knew Jesus because “I was born again”,
and I could do what I wanted to do because me and Jesus had a good thing going and I didn’t need anybody to tell me what it was all about.
Well I didn’t know Jesus, and it was not until I became a Catholic in 2008 that I know how ignorant I really had been of our Lord and Savior. I became Catholic and finally knew I had found a home and after looking all my life for Jesus I had finally found him. And the precious Eucharist is where I find my strength. Praise God. I am finally at home in the loving arms of my savior. He strengths me and with him at my side all things are possible.
Yada yada. Do you ever have anything original to say than resorting to imaginative psychological ad hominem attacks and bare assertions, even defending what is really a wafer god.
Let me know when you have an actual argument rather than looking silly promoting your elitist church.
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