65 million Catholics on church teaching

[Pentecost2005]

mvinca:

Actually, if experience shows anything, attendance and collections would go way up.

My pastor is complaining about decreased collections. I suggested, among other things, substantive orthodox preaching. Maybe that would wake up our congregations, most of whom appear to be going through life in some sort of stupor.

 

[cathgal]

Nohome:

If I may be so bold, those statistics show how ignorant the clergy is about its flock. The RCC boasts having one billion members, but with numbers like this can they really say that? It’s likely more along the line of 250 million.

I suspect it is too late. The RCC lost the past two generations, ramping up education now will do no good if the parents of these children have no interest in the faith. It will take the RCC a century to build up the base of truly faithful.

Nohome

Too late for parents but not the children who are in Sunday school. Where the children are being educated in the faith, that’s where it should start. We can’t correct the mistake of the past but we can do something about the future. However long it takes to revive the orthodoxy of the faithful, it got to start somewhere for it to have hope. It also help to have orthodox and knowledgeable teacher. If it doesn’t begin with a teacher, no use.

Also, what’s being taught to the children should be revised. I’m not exactly sure what is taught in catechesis class these day, but when I was a young child, I remembered being taught the basic. Like one God in three persons and Jesus became man and died for us and why. The 7 sacraments and so on. These teachings will not help the children to be a faithful Catholic when they become adult. When they’re out in the secular world, problems will arise. Such questions like:

Why am I Catholic?
What’s the difference between Catholic and protestant?
Does it matter what I believe cuz the protestants don’t believe the same thing and they read the bible too?
Why is Catholicism so strict?
Why do I have to follow the teachings of the Church? It all made up by a bunch of men.
Why be Catholic when I can be a protestant and makes my life easier?
All religions are the same right? They all have something good to offer.

It is these questions that alot of Catholics pick and choose. What they were taught as a child thru confirmation was not enough. If what they were taught can answer these questions, I believe they would grow up to be a strong and faithful Catholics.

If any of you have children, nephews or nieces who are in catechesis, ask them these questions. If they can’t answer, then you have a good idea what kind of Catholic they’d be. I know cuz I’ve been there.

 

[Eileen_T]

otm:

Good idea, lacking onlyl one part.

How do you get them to come in the first place?

You find 3 or 4 who are interested to start with, get them hooked and then suggest they find someone else to bring. Maybe show them a DVD of Fr John Corapi.

I have found that when I start talking about the Faith with young people and explain the reasons why we believe what we do, they are usually interested. Many are hungry for more than the wishy-washy stuff that they have been taught.

 

[geojack]

mvinca:

Actually, if experience shows anything, attendance and collections would go way up.

Could you give an example of what that experience was? I always have heard that but have yet to see it. I live in a very liberal diocese and have never seen a church move more to orthodox teaching. Only more liberal.

 

[mvinca]

geojack:

Could you give an example of what that experience was? I always have heard that but have yet to see it. I live in a very liberal diocese and have never seen a church move more to orthodox teaching. Only more liberal.

I used to live in a liberal diocese, well, maybe I still do, I haven’t been in my new one long enough to know…

But in my old diocese, orthodox catholics all flocks to one of a few churches, the ones with orthodox teaching. They flocked to the priests that were telling the hard truths. I saw these parishes double in size when these priests (or deacons) first came there.

From another perspective, those Catholics that are just there because they think that is what they should do, might just put in a dollar or two because that is what their parents did when they were growing up. Those people who want to be there probably put in about 5% of their income. Imagine how much more money you could get with half of the people. But what ends up happening is you get double the people and more money per person.

As a disclaimer, I could see this dynamic not working as well out west, where you can’t shuffle to another church to get an orthodox priest.

 

[dmelosi]

The most important piece of information that I saw in the survey was that only 42% of the people surveyed thought that “The teaching authority of the Vatican” was highly important.

I draw the parallel here with the 10 commandments on the first commandment as the most important…then the others fall into place.

If you believe in this church authority all of the other issues suddenly become also highly important.

I would bet that the 58% that do not think this to be highly important are mostly cradle Catholics.

I am a cradle Catholic and have only studied the faith for the last several years. Every person needs something for them to trigger that first big step to learning and understanding their faith. I think that once people understand the fact that the church is the authority and why will make people take the step in the right direction.

 

[Angels_Watchin]

Eileen T:

This is a scandal. It is time to take the beam out of our own eye before trying to remove the splinter from our neighbour’s. The re-evangelisation of our fellow Catholics should be a Priority One for us.

I suggest house meetings/groups to study Apologetics, based on cell groups where, once trained, leaders will go out and form new cells.

What other ideas are there?

Sign up with good websites listed below (to be on their mailing list) and email copies to your friends at church - after mass, get email addresses to share church info, Get 5 new email addresses every week, Set up an email account to just handle this stuff, (incoming and outgoing)

then copy articles, church documents, etc, from this forum, and from www.supportourdiocese.com(get on these email lists) www.thelaity.com www.rcf.org www.crcoa.com and www.zenit.org There’s a new one just getting started at www.saveourchurch.net that looks like a “positive” thing - includes what SHOULD be done, rather than just what SHOULD NOT be done.

These are a few good places to start.

Have friends at other parishes get email addresses, also, and just keep forwarding and informing.

God bless,
Angel