Posted on 12/30/2013 9:35:20 AM PST by RnMomof7
......"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.........
"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."................
"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.
" 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncronline.org ...
Except when it’s not.
Catholic population ........US Population......Percentage
1965 - 45.6m...............194.30 million.......23.47%
1975 - 48.7m...............215.97 million.......22.55%
1985 - 52.3m...............237.92 million.......21,98%
1995 - 57.4m...............266.28 million.......22.50%
2000 - 59.9m...............282.16 million.......21.23%
2005 - 64.8m...............295.52 million.......21.93%
2013 - 66.8m...............316.16 million.......21.13%
Just going by total numbers gives a false impression of growth when there is none.
So doing a fair comparison with the TOTAL population of the US, it goes to show that the actual percentage of Catholics in this country is slowly DECLINING.
Points for trying but a fail overall.
“These then are mostly your ex-Catholics.
Im still waiting to see the surveys or studies that would support your ridiculous claim...
Will you be posting your evidence soon?
“)Looks to me like the Catholic population is growing.”
Relocation of existing members from S. America, probably...
Have gone onto check about Cafeteria Catholics, Gays hammering away at the Church? Feminists wanting women priests? I was assuming you weren’t living under a rock. The Protestant Churches with some 35, 000 varied beliefs have all fallen into disrepute with the ordination of gays, lesbians, married women… the list of doctrinal perfidy is endless.
I won’t read the entire thread; it’s been discussed/argued before here for years.
Just noting that the 35-year-old daughter of our neighbors joined a fundamental evangelical church in TN, having been raised Catholic. Her dad studied for the priesthood, and he and his wife are still committed Catholics. Their daughter made a decision to read the Bible and discovered what is — and isn’t — in it, got saved, and she is raising her children non-Catholic.
This article is from a RC publication... as for Rome growing ..they count ALL baptized babies as RC whether they ever see the inside of a Roman church again... my guess is that you city is like mine ..empty Roman churches cutting services and combining churches
But no one will confirm the logic of the polemic behind the "we gave you the Bible" statement.
What a boatload of carp! When are FRoman Catholics here going to get tired of using these inane and easily debunked accusations against "Protestants"? It's as if everyone who isn't a Roman Catholic, but who nonetheless claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ, gets tossed into the imaginary pile yet their equally imaginary "perfect" religion gets placed on a pedestal as the shining exemplar of everything Jesus intended His church to be. All the perfidities get swept under the rug which has gotten MIGHTY lumpy over the centuries. There remain plenty of God-fearing, doctrinally sound NON-Catholic Christian assemblies out there in the world - as God has ALWAYS kept apart a remnant. Shall I educate you on the endless list of disrepute in the Catholic Church still available to the honest seeker - that even the Catholic Church in all her temporal might couldn't eradicate?
The Christian community has ALWAYS had to deal with false teachers, impure seducers, demons posing as minsters of righteousness, pretend shepherds who leave the flock to the mercy of wolves, they are springs without water, they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity. Those who are Christ's are aware of this and the Holy Spirit preserves us from their error when we flee to Him.
>> Shall I educate you on the endless list of disrepute in the Catholic Church still available to the honest seeker
Please, do tell... the threatening arrogance is getting tiresome.
What a nice way to say it. But I’m waiting for the fireworks farther down the thread.
You have reminded me of an altar call specifically for men that I experienced at my church a few years ago. The men were pouring toward the altar in droves and with great force before the pastor had even finished his call. What a sight to see.
You confuse doctrine with personal behavior and therein lies your problem. This is why the leading Anglican theologians such as Cardinal Henry Newman or the leading Lutheran theologian in the United States such as Richard Newhaus converted to Catholicism to say nothing of the thousands of theological scholars, who have spent a lifetime examining scripture, tradition and revelation and have converted to Catholicism.
http://beutel.narod.ru/write/convert.htm
That there a low-information non-Catholic Christians who are good and holy is not debatable. But as the famous English essayist Hillaire Belloc points out in his book “heresies,” all non-Catholic off shoots are heresies and Protestantism in particular spawned a “cluster of heresies.” His reasoning and explanation is unassailable.
Those who do not subscribe to the central tenets of Catholicism aka as the Catechism are cafeteria Catholics or Cino’s that rhyme with Rino’s.
Booooo!
I know for a FACT that Jesus didn't lie and He wasn't mistaken, so the only logical conclusion is that His church, His body, His bride, is MUCH greater than solely the RCC. There are, no doubt, many genuine Christians there, but not all Catholics are true Christians - just as not all Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, etc. are - church membership doesn't always translate to a genuine saving faith. Jesus said that the "gates of hell will not prevail against" His church. He meant it and He will continue to prevent those gates from holding up a sincere seeker of the truth from knowing it.
I think you are right!
The Holy Spirit
Your statement encapsulates where Catholicism goes wrong. You subscribe to the catechism rather than to God's Word.
Now it's *cafeteria Catholics*?
Which is it?
The Protestant Churches with some 35, 000 varied beliefs have all fallen into disrepute with the ordination of gays, lesbians, married women… the list of doctrinal perfidy is endless.
Not any which follow Scripture. The denominations which do those things are also the ones which have ABANDONED Scripture as the Truth and the word of God.
They fall into that error because they AREN'T based on Scripture any more.
Interestingly, I note that the Episcopalian church, which does ordain gays and women, is also the same denomination which the Catholic church will accept into ITS priesthood.
Not to mention with the number of Catholic priests who admit to being gay themselves, no Catholic is in any position whatsoever, to point any fingers about gay clergy.
It is completely irrelevant whether the men is ordained being knowingly gay or is allowed to remain in the priesthood after being found out to be gay, which the Catholic church allows for.
No non-Catholic denomination that I've ever encountered which has clergy who are involved in immorality, allows that minister to remain credentialed and in the pulpit. So number of denominations notwithstanding, those many denominations are doing a better job of cleaning house than the one Roman Catholic church.
Same thing happening here in CNY.
Either Jesus was wrong/lied OR the Roman Catholic Church, in and of itself, is not the ONE, TRUE Church Jesus established.
Indeed, and the error is not only in supposing "church" refers to one particular church, but that holding the faith - which RCs will respond their church has done despite the declension in both upper echelons of their church and the laity - simply refers to formal professions of faith.
For as James 2 - which RCs love to quote as if it vindicates rather than overall condemns their church - teaches, what you believe is manifest in what you do, and thus what you effectually convey and foster.
And what Rome most effectually conveys is that as one can be a Christian no matter how liberal, as long as a Ted Kennedy dies in her arms she will get them into glory (which is far more conveyed in her funerals which she gives to such, versus that they are lost) as she is the One True Church, with a Mary whose prayers are like commands to God, etc.
This is consistent and the culmination of what she fosters from early youth up, that of confidence in the Roman church for salvation, as well as personal merit (with some mercy expected due to the atonement) which she so much emphasizes, and thus the constant advertizing and often blind defense of her even here, as if it were one's home football team.
Then in condescension to us they attempt to wrest support for their traditions of men from Scripture, all the while being contrary to objective examination of the Scriptures in order to ascertain the veracity of what Rome teaches.
Thus Scripture is reduced to being a servant to support Rome, not vice versa, as if being the steward of Scripture made them the assuredly correct interpreters of it, which was an error the church began in dissent from.
While we contend for the faith based on Scripture being the supreme authority, and the church as one body made up all regenerate souls, and who thus live righteously, they assert what Rome says as fact because she says it, based upon the premise of her claim to assured veracity.
And while treating her most liberal souls as members in life and in death, her elitist claims extend to even disallowing that the most conservative group of Prot Christians even belong to churches, properly called!
We of course, disallow that Rome is the one true church, but is overall a false church with some true doctrines, which conclusion is based on Scripture, which presents a critically different church than one which preaches entrance into Heaven once one becomes good enough, thus supposing to regenerate infants by sprinkling, by ministers distinctively titled "priests" who give spiritual life via physically eating, and offering indulgences to get souls into Heaven, and praying to the departed, etc.
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