After 12 years, it is time

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rachelbane

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I hope this won’t be too depressing of an email to read, but I am really interested in everyone’s thoughts about how to decrease the pain I am about to cause my family.

I am a cradle Catholic who went to Catholic school, and had additional studies in the faith at home, we went to church every week and prayed as a family before meals and before leaving for the day. In high school, I had some concerns by the silence I felt when praying, and some questions, but nothing too major. In college I began taking comparative religion courses, and that’s when the serious breakdown in my faith began. I spoke with priests, attended religious retreats, and researched, but Catholicism made less and less sense to me over the years. I realized that I can no longer truthfully say that I am Catholic - agnostic is more of an accurate description, and I am teetering on atheism. I do not believe that my faith/belief is a choice, (Mother Theresa didn’t choose to have a crisis of faith, for example) as my mind simply won’t let me believe something that doesn’t make sense to me, even though I’ve chosen to take actions to attempt to fix that. (I’ve researched, prayed, and asked God for help etc… this is not something I’ve taken lightly). I only realized that I couldn’t continue to call myself Catholic since I didn’t believe in the core principles anymore. I wouldn’t choose to purposely hurt my family, but living a lie is worse I think, (especially when children will be involved). I’m not doing this to get a free hour every Sunday, I’m doing this because it doesn’t make sense to me anymore.

My family has suffered multiple traumas over the past 5 years so I have put off adding this to their list, as I know my parents and one of my siblings would be devastated to learn that I am no longer Catholic. But my husband and I are TTC and I can’t wait any longer and keep avoiding the issue. Things are calm now so I need to do this sometime in the next few months before I get pregnant as we won’t be baptizing him or her or raising as a Catholic. (We will be trying to teach our children about many religions and let them decide.)

So here is what I am asking - I want to know how I can phrase this to my family in a manner that will hurt them the least. I figure I will tell them that they have been wonderful parents to me, and that they have raised me well in the faith (I don’t want them to feel like failures that I am no longer Catholic), and that I don’t want them to be hurt, but that after years of study, I can’t understand how Catholicism is the truth, (and this isn’t a ‘phase’).

I acknowledge that there is a possibility that I will be cast out of the family, and that tears me up inside. I don’t want my family thinking that I’m doomed and going to hell. I also don’t want them to change anything about their own lives on account of me - for example, I want them to keep praying before meals (I will just bow my head in silence). I don’t want them to feel they need to hide anything about their faith nor do I want to try to ‘deconvert’ them. Any advise is appreciated to help me lessen their hurt.
 
I’m not in the habit of helping people disown the Catholic church but I do want to commend you on your concern for your parents reactions to your disbelief.

Faith is a gift. I imagine you’ve already done this but it doesn’t hurt to ask God for faith. Mother Teresa went through years of not feeling Gods presence but she still believed in Him and she still gave her all to further His kingdom. Oftentimes we forget that we need to believe in God even when the “feelings” just aren’t there.

Assuming that after reading my post you still don’t consider yourself Catholic I think the best way you can handle telling your folks is telling them that you respect them and their faith but you’re finding it hard to believe. It might help if you have specific things you’re finding hard to believe. Explain to them that this isn’t something new, it’s something that you’ve been struggling with for quite some time (If you’re close with your family they probably already suspect). It sounds like you have the right idea to basically passively participate in the outward expressions of the faith (such as bowing your head during grace) go to church with them on major holidays (don’t receive communion!) Love your family and give them time to let the reality of you leaving the church sink in. Things will probably be awkward at first but be patient with them and hopefully they’ll be patient with you.

I’ll say a prayer for you!
 
Be calm and be kind. If you feel there may be a possibility in the future that you could believe differently, then tell them that too.

I hope you’re family doesn’t push you away.
 
You can’t “phrase it” or spin it or make it pretty so they accept it. Deal with it, inflict the pain you are going to inflict and move on - they will.

At the conclusion simply ask for their prayers.
 
First I am not sure what you mean when you say you and your husband are TTC. What does TTC stand for?

Also, I too do not like to encourage someone to leave the faith. However, since you asked in a respectful way, I will hopefully be just as respectfull in my comments.

First my heart bleeds for you because it must be horrible to fear being rejected by you family for having a different opinion. However… and this is where I have to word things carefully. Perhaps your ‘not believing in the Catholic faith’ has something to do with how your parents practiced the religion. They are sinners just like the rest of us. I am sure they did the best they knew how but they could have made mistakes. To pray together as a family is a very Catholic thing to do. But… it could easily become a rountine thing on the surface so they can put a check mark under ‘prayed today’

I have touble believing a family (that is truly a good Catholic family) could instill the fear in their children that if they leave the faith they will be shunned from the family. True Catholics know that God is respecting your free will and they must also,

Good catholic parents are sad when their kids leave the faith but not because of what their kids do. They are sad because their kids did not receive the gift of a strong faith. They love their children no matter what and their door is always open. Are you positive this isn’t how your parents feel?

If on the other hand they do see it as you deserving to be kicked out of the family, here is my opinion\advice. I think the reason you can not believe in the religion is because you saw the hypocracy in you home growing up. Ask God to show you what HE is really like and to take away the false image your parents gave you

God Bless

CM
 
First, let me say I feel great empathy for you and your struggles with Faith. We all face those times when what we believe is severely challenged. I personally have gone through very traumatic times during the past seven years – caring and losing both of my parents in law and my mother, losing my job after 26 years, multiple health issues of my own and it goes on and on. There were times that I wondered if God abandoned me – and I felt lost. However, I kept working at it – kept trying to understand what was happening and I think, in the end, all these trials have cemented my Faith.

I am unsure how old you are but my crisis of Faith started when my husband and I were struggling with a young family. As time went on, I started to see events in my life as confirmation that God was not there. It was later after growing up in my Faith, that I understood He was there all along and that it was I who would not see.

I have known many Catholics who have experienced this kind of struggle you are describing. I think if you need to tell your family, then do it with sensitivity and concern for their hearts. Reassure them that you won’t completely shut out the potential for changing your mind – as life goes forward and you experience more on this Earth, your beliefs can and probably will adjust some.

I will pray for you and your husband and for your family. As much effort as you have described in your search for the Truth, I have Faith that one day you will find what you are looking for. God bless you.
 
Sounds like we share a similar struggle. The difference is that I’ve chosen to stick it out because if there’s anything I’m sure of, it’s that I know and understand a lot less than I think I do. Moreover, the world is exponentially more absurd WITHOUT the faith.

Here are a couple of resources that helped keep me from jumping ship:
  1. Peter Kreeft’s lecture on C S Lewis’ book, “Till We Have Faces.” basic synopsis: we can’t see God face to face until we’re ready and prepared to do so.
    peterkreeft.com/audio/16_cslewis-till-we-have-faces.htm
  2. The book the lecture isbased on.
Best of luck. I’d say I’d pray for you, but, well, I’m not much of a praying man these days.
 
I think TTC means tired of this ****.

What I think is most telling is how she had to come to a Catholic message to find help to leave the faith. Why arent there atheists boards that deal with this? Surely on an atheist board there would be many people in a similar situation that would know how to deal with it. It isnt easy for Catholics to tell someone how to leave the church and give up their immortal soul. It is like a liberal who used to be conservative asking fellow conservatives how to embrace liberalism.
 
TTC = Trying to Conceive. Hence her mentioning that it wouldn’t be an issue with the family unless/until they tell them they’ve decided not to baptise the baby.

By the way - how do you hope to teach your child about various faiths, as you say you want to, and then accept whatever faith THEY may choose, when you personally believe in none of them? Isn’t that a bit … well … pointless and stupid? Like saying ‘I’ll teach them about Superman, and if they want to believe that he really exists when they’re older, well, that’s fine and dandy’?

Trust me, if you have no faith I can almost guarantee that they won’t either, or if they do it will be in spite of your efforts to teach rather than because of them.
 
Dear sister,

Your soul is in danger and so are those of your yet to be conceived children, so I will not measure my words.

As someone who was an atheist for 15 years, let me tell you what I learned. Atheism was initially attractive because it promised total freedom from moral constraints and because it made me the supreme being of the universe by default. But like all of Satan’s promises, those were lies. Once I plunged into atheism, I gradually came to realize that it is just a dark pit of despair. Worse yet, the only thing it will ever lead to is another dark pit, an eternal one.

Since you did not make this clear in your post, I would like to ask you: what is it that you have trouble believing, the fundamentals of Christianity, such as the existence of God, and the divinity of Jesus Christ, or particularly Catholic elements of the Faith, such as the refusal to ordain women and the prohibitions against abortion and contraceptives?

If it is the fundamentals, I urge you to watch the following video, which for me was the first step in climbing out of the pit of atheism once I had asked God for help:

youtube.com/watch?v=b9f2n0xPZ3k

I know that scientists claim that near-death experiences are a delusion of the dying brain. But there are many elements in NDEs that belie their assertion. Watch and judge for yourself.

I would also recommend that you read, or better yet, listen to the audiobook of Dinesh D’Souza’s “What’s So Great About Christianity?” In this outstanding work, the author demolishes the case made by the so-called New Atheists, who are simply miserable men in search of someone to share their misery.

If, on the other hand, your crisis of faith originates because you cannot “swallow” the more dogmatic and conservative positions of the Catholic Church, and think you know better, then I respectfully submit that you are indeed a believer, a believer in the Church of Yourself, in which you are the infallible deity. That is how I got started on the path to atheism. Instead of going down that same path, ask God not only for faith but for humility as well.
 
Why don’t you talk about it in the context of the doubts Mother Teresa went through? Or maybe you can find some other saints/famous Catholics who doubted at some point in their lives.

It could be a good starting point. I realize you feel like this isn’t a phase and is forever, but it would be easier for your family to compare you to the doubts saints went through, and initially hope you will return. Even if you never return, it would still be easier on them, and might make it less likely for them to judge you and say that you’re doing it so you can be “free from moral restraint” as a poster in this thread said.
 
rachelbane said:
I hope this won’t be too depressing of an email to read, but I am really interested in everyone’s thoughts about how to decrease the pain I am about to cause my family.
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Hello Rachel,

Another poster was quite correct about the presence of secular/atheist boards where many of us are willing to share with you our experiences with family members after leaving faith behind. My best recommendation would be to share your situation on the secular lifestyle subforum of FRDB, one of the longest-standing atheist communitites on the web.

But I’d be happy to share a synopsis of what I’ve seen, mixed with my own experiences.

First, even with the best of intentions and the most careful planning, breaking the news to your family can go horribly wrong, so you need to prepare yourself for rejection. I have a niece I haven’t been allowed to see in 15 years because of my sister’s reaction to my announcement. I haven’t had as much as a picture of her since she was 3 years old. This could happen to you. too. I know of much worse rejections, especially when one’s social circle is closely interwoven with one’s church community.

On the other hand, I still have a very good relationship with my brother’s family, despite the fact that he is a very conservative Lutheran minister. There really is no way to tell ahead of time how well or poorly different members of your family will react. Their reaction is really more about their feelings than it is about your loss of faith. Some family members will not be able to dissociate your rejection of their religion from a more general rejection of themselves.

If there’s one thing I’ve gleaned from my own experiences and the stories of others who’ve been through the same ordeal, it’s that you should take careful stock of what price you’re willing to pay to give up “living the lie.” This is not the best of all possible worlds. There are consequences far more severe than having to put on a false face for the sake of family harmony. Ask yourself what your family really needs to know about your faith decisions, and share no more than that bare minimum, meanwhile making it abundantly clear that your feelings for them are not contingent upon anything other than your family relations. My brother is still my brother.

Good luck to you.

As ever, Jesse
 
The other obvious alternative is just not tell them. The only person who needs to know is your husband.

If your parents/siblings/others would be upset by your loss of faith, why do they need to know? They can just think of you as a lapsed Catholic/cafeteria Catholic when they see you stop attending mass etc.

Why do you feel like you have to tell them?
 
rachelbane said:
I hope this won’t be too depressing of an email to read, but I am really interested in everyone’s thoughts about how to decrease the pain I am about to cause my family.

So here is what I am asking - I want to know how I can phrase this to my family in a manner that will hurt them the least. I figure I will tell them that they have been wonderful parents to me, and that they have raised me well in the faith (I don’t want them to feel like failures that I am no longer Catholic), and that I don’t want them to be hurt, but that after years of study, I can’t understand how Catholicism is the truth, (and this isn’t a ‘phase’).
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Dear Rachel,

If you are less then 40 then it likely is a phase. I am pushing 50 and am finally exploring my faith. I was born a Lutheran and have been looking at the Catholic church. In fact I am in RCIA and will be confirmed someday. The above being said you might as WHY?

Well I am an INTJ if you have ever taken an Meyer’s Briggs test. Basically I am a very skeptical person. I am a Computer Science major, career military and have seen a LOT of things in this life that leads one to ask WHY.

In my 20-35 I would say I as an Agnostic. Never really an Atheist because it makes no scientific sense. Absolute nullity cannot beget motion. So if the universe or multi-verse was here. The first question is how? Then the next question is how did movement start? Every object that has motion was pushed into motion by another force. What was the first force? Newton’s law of motion states that an object put in motion was done so by an equal force. So what caused the big bang?

In any event you are likely going through a period of time in your life of exploration, like a lot of people, and in time you will look for meaning. I had a friend of mine that was a Doctor someone I would have never thought believe in God. He was VERY pragmatic told me something that sparked my search a couple of years ago. He said that “IF” he were to buy into the Darwinian thoughts that certain things would have to be present. DNA not one of them as it is too much like a blueprint, which exudes design, because it is ordered, but even more then that he said simply that Darwinism punishes death. That if it were true your body would fight to the VERY last second screaming pain because that would push it for escape in the Jaws of some beast. He told me why would nature give a gift in death? Why would a person that is dying have a flood of endorphins to ease death? It makes no sense in a Darwinian system. On the other hand the ONLY way that this could make sense to him is a gracious higher being. He said he struggled with this for YEARS while going through medical school and he could not resolve this issue any other way.

I tell you these things because when you were 6 did you recognize the Phase of life you were in? I certainly did not. I missed most of my phases until after I left them. I would tell you that I am currently in a Phase of questioning and wonder. I wonder at the circle of life as I watch my 20+ year old children and teens go through the same phases that I went through, albeit with different twists, but pretty much the same. I now am smart enough to ask my remaining parent about the phases she is going through. I wish I would have been smart enough to ask my Pops before he left, but hind sight is 20-20.

In any event I would predict that by the time you get to my age you will likely be watching children and asking yourself is this it? If their is no higher order why not act like animals and take what I can, have more kids, put more DNA out there? The thing is that the older I get and the more I read the more I realize some of these old Priests were and are pretty darn smart. If you have not read Humanae Vitea I would tell you that it was written when I was like 5 and during a period of time when the Pope was ridiculed for his backward thoughts. What is funny now, well not really funny, is he was SPOT on and predicted what was going to happen. You can search on 30 years after Humanae Vitea and read an article by a Dr. that spells out everything and if you read it with an open mind and ponder you will ask yourself “How could he have known” Why did it matter? It may lead you to go farther down that road of asking.

All I know is that telling your family now is probably too early. Why say anything? Wait until your are 40 and see what happens? You might just surprise yourself. You know one thing is certain. Even if you find that you cannot believe, which I think you will later, when it comes time to raise your children what values will you use? I can honestly tell you if you try and use values based on mans laws your children will be lost.

Man made them and he or she can break them… fundamental fact of life. Look in the mirror and ask yourself did any of your upbringing restrain you at all? I would venture to bet some did. If not then you have probably already been doing things that you regret as that old testament is a pretty good instruction manual on how NOT to catch diseases, from trichinosis to herpes and aids. If you follow the teachings it is pretty hard to catch these ills.

I wish you luck in your search. I would say that the longer you wait the more lonely you will get. You will start looking for love in all the wrong places and you will end up learning some pretty hard lessons, but sometimes that is just what life throws you. I would caution that it is probably not necessary to distance yourself from you family and the main reason why is because IF and a pretty big IF all this stuff is real the evil force could do no better then to try and distance you from a place of refuge, so from a Darwinian point of view why would you give up your shelter? It would make no sense.

I hope you come back soon it took me a LONG time to get here. I did not have the luxury of your upbringing, but thank God I made it.

God Bless.
 
I forgot to mention. Just because you are married does not mean you are still not needing love? And if you try and let your kid decide what religion to pick they will pick Pagan and you will watcht them self destruct. Look around you open your eyes to the youth and MTV what religion do you think they will pick?

If for no other reasons… your child deserves the same Sunday school that you had. Or I suppose you can offer Madonna’s Material world…

Take care and honestly you might want to go talk to a Priest. If your husband is not giving you support then he could be part of the problem? What kind of family values does he want to teach? You really need to define them before you have kids or it might cause problems.

Good luck… I will pray for you…
 
Thanks to all for the replies, and LilyM is correct, TTC = trying to conceive. Thanks for the links, they are both pretty long it seems so I’ll look at them after work.

Elsport1 - yes, I have asked for faith, and thank you for your insight

Judechild - I will

Julian - yes, that’s what I was thinking at the beginning, but then I received the advice that I should emphasize that this situation is not the fault of my parents, since they may think of themselves as failures, which I had not initially thought of. That’s why I’m looking for any other insight which will help make the news any less hurtful to them.

cmscms - the fear is there because it has been given as a threat before, so I am not sure if something would cause it to be enforced, which is why I’m preparing myself for that possibility. I try to ‘plan for the worst, hope for the best’. I would agree that my parents did the best they could. They weren’t scholars on the subject, and didn’t rigorously engage me themselves on questions in the past (would mainly refer any questions out), but I don’t fault them for that. Yes, I am hoping that family love will persevere through this.

Pamm - I agree, I want to be as sensitive as possible, and yes, you never know what the future will hold! Thank you for your help.

Mjs - I know this thread may come off strange, that’s why I said right away that I hoped it wasn’t too depressing, but I really am posting it for the good of my family. I’m not looking for help on how to leave the church; that’s basically been done already. I’m looking for how to decrease pain that I will be bringing to my family. As my family is Catholic, getting the thoughts of other Catholics makes sense to me.

Lily - good question - I’m not fully sure yet! I was thinking of sending them to classes in multiple religions, then I was thinking of each week/month having them learn about a new religion, but I really don’t know yet what would be the best way. I just want them to know that if they delve into faith A, faith B, or none, I will support their learning.

fkjuliano - atheism is not that attractive to me; its rather depressing actually to think that life may mean nothing in the end, and its been distressing losing God in my life. I’m not doing this because I want freedom, I’m doing this because nothing else makes sense to me. I don’t want to derail the thread, but what put me on the path to where I am today, in incredibly simplified manner, was problems with the old testament/the issue of faith&salvation/how incredibly complex and involved other religions are, how devoted others are that non-christian religions are the truth (each of them say “only our religion has xyz which is why we are correct”), which lead me to question how I was so sure that the religion I was born into, Catholicism, was correct/history and psychology of religion/troubles of reconciling an omnimax God with the Bible, and a lot of my questions were met with “God’s ways are higher than ours, who are you to question God, etc” which can be used to justify any religion out there. All this led me to lack the ability to see how any religion sticks out as the correct one when they all were appearing very similar to me. For a while I thought of myself as agnostic, and God was just very uninvolved with the world. But an uninvolved God is very similar to no God at all, which is why I’m teetering on atheism.

Flying - that’s an interesting thought, I will look into that more

Iao tzu/flying - thanks, I’ll look into that. I have been ‘living the lie’ for a while mostly by omission… but when we start having kids, if I don’t baptize there were be questions, and if I were to baptize them, then it would become an extravagant facade, as there would need to be Catholic school, and first communion, and confirmation, and I am not comfortable having my child go through that, because I want them to be searching for their path from the start, because I don’t have the answers.

Jeff - I guess you can take the stance that as long as you aren’t dead you could still be in a phase. What I mean is that this isn’t something that has happened in a week’s time. The only thing I do know as a fact is that I don’t have all the answers 😉 But I’ve been seriously working on this for years. The part about endorphins surprised me because I know a lot about hospice and how painful and traumatic death often is. I found this health.howstuffworks.com/human-nature/emotions/happiness/science/endorphins.htm And yes your questions are part of what keeps me agnostic instead of atheist. I have already talked to priests about my issues, but yes, I keep searching as I agree it is a lifelong journey. And no, I am not positive about how the daily details of how I will conduct the religious teachings of my child yet, but I want to show them there is a lot out there, and to keep an open mind about anything.

I feel like I need to tell my parents prior to having children coming because I will quickly get questions about when baptism will be. I feel uneasy about baptizing my child in a religion I don’t know is the right one, if there is even a right one out there. For those of you who recommend I wait, how would I respond to those questions I will get?

Thank you all for your advice, there is a lot of wisdom in these posts.
 
rachelbane said:
Iao tzu/flying - thanks, I’ll look into that. I have been ‘living the lie’ for a while mostly by omission… but when we start having kids, if I don’t baptize there were be questions, and if I were to baptize them, then it would become an extravagant facade, as there would need to be Catholic school, and first communion, and confirmation, and I am not comfortable having my child go through that, because I want them to be searching for their path from the start, because I don’t have the answers.

…
I feel like I need to tell my parents prior to having children coming because I will quickly get questions about when baptism will be. I feel uneasy about baptizing my child in a religion I don’t know is the right one, if there is even a right one out there. For those of you who recommend I wait, how would I respond to those questions I will get?

Thank you all for your advice, there is a lot of wisdom in these posts.
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As I understand it, quite a few people who call themselves Catholic don’t attend church (except maybe on Christmas), don’t send their children to Catholic school, don’t have first communion or confirmation and so on.

These are considered cultural Catholics, lapsed Catholics, cafeteria Catholics and so on.

Maybe it would be better for your parents to think of you as a lapsed Catholic than an unbeliever?

You could always also say that you think your children should decide for themselves what religion to belong to, without coming out as an unbeliever. It’s conceivable that some Catholics could hold the view that their children should choose for themselves.

If your parents ask when the child will be baptized, you could say something along the lines of when the child grows up s/he can decide.

You could also go ahead and baptize the child, but leave it at that.
 
The best way, I think, to reveal departure from a family belief system, is to avoid attacking that belief set.

Better to say you have had a crisis of faith, and no longer sense the divine within the church. You might express a need for considerable time, away from the chirch, to explore and settle your spirituality.

By avoiding anger and criticism, you may defuse arguments, before they begin.

That said, I wish you peace in your spirit, as you continue your search for understanding.
 
Julian0404 said:
You can’t “phrase it” or spin it or make it pretty so they accept it. Deal with it, inflict the pain you are going to inflict and move on - they will.

At the conclusion simply ask for their prayers.
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No, they will not “move on”. Your parents will be hurt and will remain in that pain until the day you return to Christ.

They will pray for your immortal soul - because you are playing fast and loose with both your soul and that of your child.

Engage with apologists, read, pray, study and stay with God.
 
In a talk I was listening to by Scott Hahn, someone asked him what they should do when their child leaves the church and says they no longer believe. Since one of the main things we are to do in this life is to help our children and spouse get to heaven, it can leave a lot of grief on a mother or father’s soul. His answer: “Just keep praying for them and then thank them…for they are the ones who will make you a saint! And increase your own faith in God.” As a mother, who sees her college age daughter starting to make choices of not going to mass etc, I can now understand how Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother feels when we don’t choose God when making our decisions on this earth. It certainly makes the story of the Prodigal Son hit home and moves your soul in a personal way. I only wish I had started to pray EVERY DAY for my child when she was just a baby…trying to make up for that today! I feel that she will come back…I trust Jesus will help her find her way home and that she will not go to far away from him. Below is a blog you might like to browse…great insights from a young lady (writes extremely well) who wasn’t raised in a religion and was an atheist and her journey. Sometimes we have to go through the dark periods in order to grow…The fact that you care about your parent’s response is good…but it will be hurtful for them to hear.

conversiondiary.com/2006/12/on-having-proof.html
 
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