Hi lisahiku - an interesting question! I am a revert, was gone from the Church about 30 years. The first 8 I was a total prodigal so that doesn’t apply to your question. The next 22 I was in evangelical churches - mostly nondenominational, but not all. About the people you know who went back - that could depend on many things. I can tell you things I struggled with, but what they may be experiencing could be different. I personally do not know any reverts who have gone back to non-Catholic churches once they’ve come home. As for me:
As a people-person I experienced loss because an involved sense of community was/is an emphasis in most evangelical churches. People were involved with each other’s daily lives fairly regularly; everything from praying for each other together comfortably, to guys helping each other with house projects, women making dinners for new moms, kids hanging out together, etc. Although there are pockets of that in Catholic parishes, it usually doesn’t involve the same numbers of people as you would see in an evangelical church. Because of the involvement level by so many - a large social network - there is a feeling of support in regular life to follow your faith confidently regardless of what the world may think. (I’m not saying everyone does that, or on the other hand, that it can’t create issues when you aren’t humble.) But there is a comfort level of discussing God and faith and being enthused about the same openly, that I miss. I’m not saying there are no Catholic churches with a strong sense of community in that way, but in my experience, it tends to be sporatic, or groups of people within the church on a smaller scale.
Also, since the whole “who is a REAL Christian” issue comes into play for evangelicals with Catholics, we suffered the loss of friendships, and those we didn’t lose, there was a definite change in - a cooling, That was very painful since some had been friends for such a long time. If you are a people-person, these things might be enough to draw you back to your old church, but I think that would only be because of the next reason -
IDid the people you know pray about and read and study on their own, talk to anyone or attend RCIA? My own experience and that of my husband was we felt a definite nudge from the Holy Spirit to return and did so before we had all our questions answered, but even tho we didn’t have all the answers yet, we were seeking them. Everyone’s journey back is different, but we both felt a strong enough pull back that we came back to the Church and basically trusted that the Lord would get us the answers we needed to satisfy questions we still had. And He has. But even that has been a journey - I knew I was supposed to be Catholic, but I was still not convinced about everything about that decision until last year, (obviously the big things I had settled earlier!), and I’ve been back over 9 years.
The real issue is this: if you believe this is the one true Church Christ first established, if you believe He said the gates of hell would not prevail against it, if you know that the Catholic church established the Bible, and all basic Christian doctrine which all Christian churches use for the most part to this day, not to mention is the only major Christian religion that has maintained moral integrity about social issues, and has the Real Presence of Our Lord, why, oh why, would you go back to “less than”? One of my dear old friends complained about how she felt Catholic priests weren’t good preachers compared to what she heard at her church. I said that some were and some weren’t - not all had the gift in the same measure. But, I asked her, “How do you top Jesus - God of the universe - appearing in person every Sunday on the altar to be with you during your service, and then allowing people to physically partake of His body and blood? I think that trumps even eloquent teaching in my book!”
So, I think tho there might be other issues, what do these people believe really? They might prefer some things over others, or be more comfortable with them, but when all is said and done, if they know what is real and trade it for something else, they will remain restless in heart.
