Catholics leave due to Social teachings?

[Abu]

ExCatholicGuy #18
I left because I realized that I simply didn’t believe many of Catholicism’s essential teachings.

What teachings do you not believe and why?

 

[ExCatholicGuy]

What teachings do you not believe and why?

Really, it’s the entire concept of Christianity that I don’t find plausible - the idea that an eternal, omnipresent God (who I DO believe in) would make Himself physically present on Earth for just a brief period, in a limited geographic area, to a relatively small number of people. Why would such a God preferentially reveal Himself directly to such a tiny fraction of the world’s total population since the beginning, while expecting those of us who weren’t in the right place at the right time to believe in a man-made record of His words and actions?

 

[Tigg]

Really, it’s the entire concept of Christianity that I don’t find plausible - the idea that an eternal, omnipresent God (who I DO believe in) would make Himself physically present on Earth for just a brief period, in a limited geographic area, to a relatively small number of people. Why would such a God preferentially reveal Himself directly to such a tiny fraction of the world’s total population since the beginning, while expecting those of us who weren’t in the right place at the right time to believe in a man-made record of His words and actions?

And Christianity has spread throughout the world into the remotest regions of the earth. How did that happen? Christ gave his mandate to the Church to go forth on foot and spread the gospel at a time when there was no mass media or communication. Do the results of this in and of itself not strike you as powerful? Even facing death and persecution the message was promulgated against all odds. Man needs God and the recognition of the Savior in the hearts of man produced an unprecedented number of martyrs, saints and witnesses of the gospel message through the power of the Holy Spirit. And what of the Resurrection itself? Do you believe it fiction?

 

[ExCatholicGuy]

And Christianity has spread throughout the world into the remotest regions of the earth. How did that happen? He gave his message to the Church to go forth on foot and spread the gospel at a time when there was no mass media or communication. Does this not in and of itself strike you as powerful? Even facing death and persecution the message was promulgated against all odds. Man needs God and the recognition of the Savior in the hearts of man produced an unprecedented number of martyrs, saints and witnesses of the gospel message through the power of the Holy Spirit.

That is proof of belief, not proof of truth. Look at the impressive worldwide spread of the Mormon faith, sometimes in the face of violent persecution, in a much shorter time period. By your standard, that could be considered proof of Mormonism’s truth.

And what of the Resurrection itself? Do you believe it fiction?

I don’t think it happened.

 

[Tigg]

That is proof of belief, not proof of truth. Look at the impressive worldwide spread of the Mormon faith, sometimes in the face of violent persecution, in a much shorter time period. By your standard, that could be considered proof of Mormonism’s truth.

Well, we’ve hit on something that belongs in the philosophy section. But I like your answer because it illustrates to me why Catholics leave the Church. Not because of social teachings, nor much of any teaching, but simply because they have lost their faith - the supernatural and the essence of religion holds no meaning for those who cannot believe, and sadly, no truth can be had for them because it is simply free gift to either be accepted or rejected.

 

[Cojuanco]

If you want a concrete example, take the farm labor disputes in the 1970s. The poor migrant workers were protesting their maltreatment and unsafe working conditions against the large Catholic growers. Both the workers and the growers thought that the Church was on their side. The Church sided with the poor, and a majority of the growers who thought that the Church was on their side essentially left the Church in anger.

This. I also know that during the 50s, the Church integrated their Catholic schools in New Orleans. Some influential Catholics denounced this. The Church made it clear that they sides with the integrationists, and so many continued repudiating this to the point where they were excommunicated. One of them even refused to set foot in a Catholic church when her son got married.

 

[Abu]

ExCatholicGuy #25
I don’t think it happened. [The Resurrection]

Don’t you know that Christ proved that He is God?
The historian Eusebius in his Church history, 4.3, 1.2, tells us that writing about 123 A.D., apologist Quadratus cited those in his day who had been cured or raised from the dead by Jesus of Nazareth – prime witnesses – long after the miracles, crucifixion and death of the Son of God.

The vast gulf between Catholicism and any other religion is that the Catholic Church has been founded by a Divine Person who lived with a human and divine nature and claimed to be God, proving that claim by His resurrection. When God leads us through His Church, others fashion their own beliefs and morals.

Historically, there is no other comparable fact.

 

[polki]

That is proof of belief, not proof of truth. Look at the impressive worldwide spread of the Mormon faith, sometimes in the face of violent persecution, in a much shorter time period. By your standard, that could be considered proof of Mormonism’s truth.

I don’t think it happened.

You should consider looking into the scientific research of the Shroud of Turin, as well as the Eucharistic miracles. It doesn’t make me Catholic, but it does serve to strengthen my belief in the risen Lord.

 

[FAB]

Well, look at polling data from Pew. A significant number of Catholics in the USA say they disagree with the Vatican on gay marriage, contraception, etc.

Always remember that the Church operates under God’s law, not the latest popular culture.
As Catholics we are to follow God’s law and always resist secularism and relativism, keeping our minds on the greater things of Salvation and those things beyond reason .

Deacon Frank

 

[FAB]

Really, it’s the entire concept of Christianity that I don’t find plausible - the idea that an eternal, omnipresent God (who I DO believe in) would make Himself physically present on Earth for just a brief period, in a limited geographic area, to a relatively small number of people. Why would such a God preferentially reveal Himself directly to such a tiny fraction of the world’s total population since the beginning, while expecting those of us who weren’t in the right place at the right time to believe in a man-made record of His words and actions?

You sound like one of the lines that Judas sang in “Jesus Christ Super Star”
"why Ev’ry time I look at you
I don’t understand
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand
You’d have managed better
If you’d had it planned
Now why’d you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?

If you’d come today
You could have reached a whole nation
Isreal in 4 BC
Had no mass communication

Read more: Jesus Christ Superstar - Superstar Lyrics | MetroLyrics

God chose the time that he would be incarnate. The Faith he established has latest for over 2000 years. Which seems to me proves he knew what he was doing .

You make the mistake that many do of thinking like man, of trying to reduce God to your level and not letting God be God and then trusting wholly in his wisdom and the love he has for you.

Deacon Frank

 

[JB_Dugan]

It is a sad commentary that people do leave the Catholic Church.

A non Catholic friend gleefully brought my some statistics from his church showing that more people were leaving the Catholic Church than were reconciling back to the Church. I was disappointed see such facts that seemed to be irrefutable. Then I turned the page…

The answer to the question “WHY” was right there.

People leaving the Church gave reasons like: social teachings, dogma, homosexual relations, objections to birth control, stand on abortion, no women priests, Papal authority etc.

In other words these people were really “cafeteria christians”.

The answer to the question, WHY protestants reconciled with the Church was a shocker…

It was unanimous…SALVATION!

Do our ex-protestant brothers and sisters see something that our “turncoats” are missing?

I think so…BIG TIME

 

[Holly3278]

Unfortunately I think that some people do leave the Church because of the Church’s teachings on things like “gay marriage”, civil unions, and domestic partnerships for homosexual couples. The fact is that the Church has a very strong position on this issue and condemns all of those things as is put forth in this document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html

 

[Tigg]

An excellent article to be read in its entirety which states the essential choice……. God or autonomy. (Emphasis mine.)

If Jesus is, in absolute and eternal fact, the Incarnate God, then the choice for or against Him is the ultimate choosing.

We want proof…….yet, if we are clear-thinking and honest, refusing to blur the choices, we have to acknowledge, first, that there is literally no evidence against Jesus’s claim, only fuzzy assumptions like “miracles can’t happen” or “God wouldn’t work that way.”
All the same, people do reject the faith.

Evidence is not ironclad proof. We do not get to put our hand into Jesus’ wounded side. Nothing happens to us on the road to Damascus or D.C. It was all a long time ago. Theologians scatter their doubts about this or that. We live in a secular world (so like that of Imperial Rome), and the blare of the TV is much louder than the church bells…… Those who reject the faith are not, as C.S. Lewis once said, simply brave men who have logically accepted the defeat of their heart’s deepest longings for God. True, they may at moments have felt such longings, but, much more, they simply can’t be bothered to do God’s will.

The truth is that, apart from rare moments, we don’t want Christ in our lives. We don’t want a God who knows the thoughts of our hearts, some of them rather nasty. Above all, we don’t want to be creatures: we want to be autonomous, free of any outside obligations or judgment. When we reject Christianity, we, in fact, choose autonomy, as Eve did. That’s what we want: to be our own masters.

If we, not yet Christian or with only a shaky childhood belief, look into the faith, we probably feel the stirrings of an ancient and astonishing hope, but, at the same time, a fear that we don’t recognize to be fear — a fear of losing ourselves. So we pause; we hesitate; we sit on the fence, drawn and repelled, hoping somehow to find absolute certainty, which is never given. What we do not see with clarity is that we must choose — must choose — without that certainty either way.** If we refuse to choose, then we have chosen, against the faith. And we drift away.**

crisismagazine.com/1989/choosing-do-lapsed-catholics-lose-their-faith-or-do-they-choose-to-disbelieve

 

[AnimalSpirits]

Maybe social teachings can push people from Catholicism to some other form of Christianity. I suspect those of us who abandon religion entirely largely do so for more “fundamental” reasons.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

God chose the time that he would be incarnate. The Faith he established has latest for over 2000 years. Which seems to me proves he knew what he was doing .

I guess that the Buddha and the Hindu gods must have know what they were doing as well, if not more so, considering how long those faiths have been around.

 

[nuff_said_2013]

I think a lot of people leave the church also because of ignorance. They were never properly catechized. I certainly wasn’t even after 12 years in a Catholic school. There were so many “Thall Shall nots… and if you do you will go to hell.” I knew so many Catholics going to mass every Sunday and being very visible around the church, but some of the meanest people you would ever meet at home, my family included. There was always the feeling of "do this, don’t do that, but no explanation as to why. It was always, “Because the church says so.” That’s hard for a young person.
I found very few Catholics that were compassionate, understanding or caring. Even now as an adult I have a hard time with how many Catholics act. When I first came back to the church about 6 years ago, this was one of the first places I came, and unfortunately had many many bad experiences here while searching for the questions I needed answers for. It was so bad I was wondering why I wanted to come back to the Church if people were so mean. Of course not everyone was, but there were quite a few. I literally almost gave up because of some of the replies I’ve seen here. Even last year with that terrible tragedy in Newtown, CT with the massacre of those poor children, there were Catholics so bent on their own agendas, they were saying things such as, “Why are people so upset about the killing of the kids in Connecticut, yet not outraged at abortion?” I was appalled at the lack of compassion in that statement. It might have been true, but at the very least, insensitive.

I think the church needs to emphasize compassion, forgiveness, love they neighbor as thyself, fellowship, etc… They’re all just as important. I’m not saying to ease up on teachings at all, as I don’t believe it can or should, just get the message across with love rather than condemnation. I’m so happy for Pope Francis-- I think he is just the Pope the church needs right now.

Thank you so much for sharing your personal experience. I appreciate it.

 

[DMC12]

If the author of this post means what i think, i say its because the world seems to hate us pretty much.

we are the homophobic, the authoritarians, the fearmongers. well, you get the idea.

unfortunately many of us seem to contribute with that, like one uses already say. Too many “you’ll burn in Hell” and too few “God loves you and so do I”.

we cannot accept sin, but we must help the sinner, and lots of us seem to forget that.

but above that I think its the lack of good catechesis, we sometimes have, we live in a world where it’s said that contraception and abortion is the responsible choice, while we have catholics that have an irresponsible number of children, “proving” them right. they say that we discriminate the homosexuals, and some indeed do it. also they critisize us for being hypocrites, and sometimes we give them reasons with our lifestyles. so when in doubt a catholic might fall for those mistakes and indeed think that the atheist are right. for they look for inspiration in the wrong places.

so in my understanding, i dont know if we can call it our fault when someone leaves the Church, but I think we could do better to show the people what the Church truly is about.

 

[Abu]

AnimalSpirits #36
I guess that the Buddha and the Hindu gods must have know what they were doing as well, if not more so, considering how long those faiths have been around.

The fact of the Fall and the subsequent degradation of mankind, requiring the redeeming act of the Incarnation, the teaching and establishment of Christ’s Church, and the Crucifixion of the Son of God, shows the depths to which mankind descended and the kinds of spurious beliefs which were fabricated over thousands of years some having multitudinous gods and more recently, like Mormonism, promoting polygenism and their own writings.

We have seen the testimony of prime witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in post #28.

The social teachings are an intrinsic part of Christ’s mission but the faith and moral issues are the petard on which most are hoist due to personal failings and preferences which they may choose not to overcome. That’s where the help of the faithful is needed.

 

[Valeite]

I very much doubt it’s the Church’s social teachings because a great many Catholics of my experience (and I’m a practising Catholic) don’t even know them. This is down to incomplete or even non existent catechesis.

No, most Catholics leave the Church because they think secular life delivers all they need. Sad but true.

 

[hylandgl]

I believe that no Catholic who is well catechized would ever leave the faith. Sadly, many Catholics do not know the teachings of the Church. There is so much beauty, comfort, peace, joy, etc. in our wonderful Catholic faith that if one really knew and understood the teachings, that person would never leave. However, living the faith has to be a daily commitment, which requires prayer, asking for God’s grace, and living out Jesus’ teachings. It’s not always easy, but there’s beauty in the struggle.