That’s a big part of it. People are not taught the Faith adequately as children, and when they are adults and able to make their own decisions on whether or not to practice the Faith, they realize that it isn’t something they really *enjoy *doing, and nobody has given them a satisfying reason to do it anyway.
This could be a factor, but there are many people who want to stay Catholic who disagree with the Church when it comes to certain moral issues. I don’t think this really is that big of a factor.
There are some who fall off the train because, they say, that there isn’t enough community and “things to do” in the Church. That’s obviously not a big margin of them, but, hey, everyone counts.
Thank you BrianH, that was very informative.
Your opinion is valued and I think pretty close to the truth for most Catholics I know that fall away.
We thanks you for your post and thank you for your honesty. Wish you luck and will pray for you.
Lamb’s Supper by Scott Hahn should be required reading for all Catholics.
There is some real wisdom in both of these, and do you notice how they seem to correlate? Except for the people who have issue with something like contraception or perhaps a personal beef with a priest, I would speculate the above reasons account for just about all the rest.
So true
He has a few more too that should be included after that one.Thanks Drawmack, that was a good suggestion especially to tie in the Mass with Revelation. I have read the book and it is good. (a christmas present)
To really appreciate the book set aside a day and read it in one sitting. I read it while I was on a 16 hour bus trip.
Interesting question. Myself, I was raised in the Lutheran Church, although I now attend Mass every Sunday with my Catholic wife. My mother, however, was raised in a very Catholic family. She left the Church when she was in her mid-twenties to marry my non-Catholic father. My understanding is that in those days, getting permission to marry a non-Catholic was next to impossible - and there was no way my (unfortunately) anti-Catholic father was going to convert. Sadly, my mother had a very serious case of “Catholic guilt,” and she was tortured by her decision to leave the Church right up until the day she died. (A situation which my grandmother never missed a chance to aggravate, right up to the day that SHE died.) Interestingly, of my mother’s four siblings, only one remained a Catholic (although another returned to the Church very late in life).
havana1, can you please elaborate on this? I am not sure I understand what you mean when you say singles are ignored, and I would be interested to hear your views on how they are ignored. I don’t think I ever remember feeling ignored back when I was single, so maybe I’m not looking at the same things you are.