Interesting article
“Almost half of those leaving the church become unaffiliated and almost half become Protestant.”
Well, we can be thankful that half those who leave have found a strong faith in Christ.
In my experience, I’ve observed that former catholics who come to saving faith in Christ become committed Christians. Starting on third base (for which they should be thankful to Rome), when they round home, they are on fire.
Priests like Reese and their “social justice” agenda have something to do with this phenomenon IMHO.
This does not compare to the losses the Catholic Church is experiencing underground in Latin America to so-called Evangelical groups that often have voodoo and cult elements. Not being a Catholic, I can only offer the advice that the church needs to rethink its strategy.
God works in wondrous ways ...
There are still some protestant denominations and many individual Churches that have not yet sold out to international Marxism. The Catholic church is completely infested with them, from top to bottom. Marxism is just another guise of Satan. Many former Catholics have seen this and just cannot take it anymore. Many current Catholics see it too, just just can’t bring themselves to believe it. At least that is my opinion.
Sort of depends on your reason for leaving IMO. Some people leave the Church due to sincere differences with key pieces of Church teaching or practice (the need for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, don’t accept the full-on opposition to all birth control, disgust at the mishandling of pedophile priests, etc.)
Others leave for more cynical/selfish reasons (did not like a particular priest or bishop, were not allowed to have an outdoor wedding, felt they got too much grief when they sought an annulment, etc.)
I doubt many in that latter group become productive or passionate members of any other church.
My wife was very active as a Catholic. She became protestant a few years before we met. This would have been her late 30’s.
And one of my former friends, a former deacon in a rather large AG church, at about age 42 dumped his wife and married a Catholic lady. He’s now catholic. At least, so he says.
If you count my 2 kids, my wife, and me, we have 20 years of Jesuit education under our belts.
This article is just about what one would expect from a Jesuit former editor of America.
IMHO, the Society of Jesus has been at the forefront of undermining Catholicism since Vatican 2.
The “best” by whose standards? Does weekly mass attendance make you best? Catholics who leave the church because they are more spiritually fulfilled by protestant services are ignorant of the beauty of the Church.
The catholic church is the original church founded by Christ and carried forward by Peter. All other denominations are offshoots. Where do protestants think the bible came from?
It is the responsibility of each parish priest and lay leader and parent to ensure that each generation understands the beauty of all the sacraments and the richness of catholic tradition. It is astounding that many catholics think an inspiring talk is of more value than the physical and spiritual consumption of our Lord. It is a failure of religious education ( one that I have seen personally) that children and teenagers don’t know the tenants of their own faith. Are these people asleep at mass? Biblical scripture is read at every mass and dissected and digested by the priests during their homilies and yet as catholics we do not stand up to the charges that we do not know our bible… ridiculous! We know our bible…what we don’t recognize is Christ’s real presence before us at mass. What a tragic failure!
Quoting from the Fishwrap again, I see. LOL!
There is no other way to Salvation, not infant baptism in any denomination not adult baptism in any denomination but by calling on the name of Jesus!
John 14:6; Romans 5:8; Romans 8:38-39; Romans 8:1-3; John 8:36.
People are looking for love and acceptance, not more demands and condemnation for falling short. Jesus Christ is who people are looking for because He bore the full judgement for all of our shortcomings so that through Him we are cleansed, healed, made whole and free.
Anytime someone comes to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, I say hallelujah!
One aspect of this that we often don't think about is the more that leave the RCC the more that are inclined to be conservatives. The USA will be lost to the left if conservatism doesn't grow.
The National Catholic Reporter. Talk about false advertising. There is nothing Catholic about this newspaper which has refused to remove the word Catholic from its name. It is a left wing rag. Kind of like reading Pravda in the old days before the fall of the USSR.
Why are Catholics leaving the church to become Protestants? Maybe it’s because estimates of as high as 50% of Catholic priests are homosexual.
(1) Many left the Church-- not due to doctrine or in a search for truth-- but for personal reasons. These include living in a sinful lifestyle like adultery or homosexual unions; maybe some priest or layperson was "mean" to them or didn't let them have their way in planning a marriage or funeral; they wanted to marry outside the Church and just went with the flow to their spouses church (or lack of same).
(2) Many were lazy and just found the moral and disciplinary laws of the Church too demanding. Heaven forbid they be troubled to attend an hour of Mass or holy day of obligation or go to confession occasionally. These are the type that say "the Church has too many rules" when what they really want is not to have ANY rules or imposition in their leisure time at all.
(3) People who say they left the Church for "doctrinal reason" are usually liars. Fact is, the average Catholic is so ignorant of their own faith they wouldn't know a theological fallacy if it fell on them. It's only after they have left the Church for one of the reasons above that they make up some kind of after-the-fact "theological" reason-- usually it's something they learned in their new church which, odds are, doesn't have a clue what the Catholic Church actually teaches. You only have to talk to most ex-Catholic Protestants for about 5 minutes to know that they didn't know anything about their Catholic Faith when they left it, and their new church has filled in the gaps with misinformation.
Like I said, this is based solely upon about 30 years of first hand experience, but it is borne out consistently again and again.
The term "Protestant" is used as if the Catholics in question are forsaking one Credo for another. They're not. The term "Protestant" does not signify a uniform, coherent system of belief. Some of the Catholics who are leaving are swallowing the lies of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Some are embracing the "prosperity gospel" of Osteen and Hinn. Some are becoming Baptists, some are signing up for Calvinism, some are joing the local storefront preacher and some are becoming Methodists.
In other words, they're being scattered to the four winds. They're cutting themselves adrift on a sea of individualism and subjectivism which are the two overriding characteristics of American congregationalism.
Good luck with that.
There's a simple way to measure this. As Catholics move into Protestant denominations (or vise versa) does that body vote more / less conservative?
Nothing is being lost.
The religion is called “Christianity”. And it’s not tiny, it’s big - vast in fact.
There are different ways of doing it.