How would you stop the decline in faith?

[Ryan1]

Celibacy and virginity are witnesses to the Kingdom. What is wrong with such witnesses?

 

[Ryan1]

The faith needs to be lived as well as taught. Are parents living the faith as well as teaching it?

Not sure where I read this, but a priest was asked by a layman who had a family, regarding sexually abusive priests, “Who gave us such horrible priests?” His answer to her was, “You did.”

 

[Sedona]

You would first have to come to terms with why it’s declining before a strategy could be developed to stop the decline. This is a process that would require honest examination and perhaps some introspection. I have seen a lot of posts in this thread pointing to the sex abuse scandals, and while this may be one contributor, I would imagine it’s not the primary and certainly not the only cause. I doubt if this forum is a favorable environment in which that could happen because you’d have to find a lot of ex-Catholics to participate in the discussion. If there are a lot of those on this forum, they would have to be frank about their reasons and the committed Catholics among us would have to be open to examining the reasons they are given. I imagine that the reasons would be a lot more fundamental than priest predators, and a lot harder to come to terms with on an emotional level. Anyway, I would love to see a discussion like that.

All the best

 

[billsannie]

In the sense that in the Kingdom there is no marriage, I suppose so. But then the circumstances will be quite different from here. Overall, I’ve never been able to see it as such. What we have here is definitely not God’s Kingdom.

I was single for a long time, and had friends who were religious sisters. But even then, I never thought of sisters or nuns as examples of the single life. I admired them, but their lives were just too different from mine to emulate in any very complete way.

Most people are married or aspire to a committed relationship. Married priests could set a very useful, and needed example of holiness in the kind of lives most people lead, rather than being a symbolic harbinger of what is to come, but not here and not now.

 

[billsannie]

Celibacy is a beautiful sign when practiced by those to whom this gift is given. But as St. Paul acknowledged, this gift is rare.

 

[ConcernedConvert]

I would consider revisiting traditional values, liturgies and practices.

 

[ZMystiCat]

Married priests could set a very useful, and needed example of holiness in the kind of lives most people lead

They already do that. By remaining faithful while celibate, they offer an example of how one can aspire to chastity when single, which is the one thing everyone has in common whether they remain single or get married. Even married couples may need to refrain from sex for a time to remain faithful.

Furthermore, the priest’s relationship with Christ should also be a model for married couples, since priests are “married” to Christ, and their way of tending to the needs of their flock should set an example of how to love one’s own children, hence the term “Father”.

But as St. Paul acknowledged, this gift is rare.

He didn’t say it was rare. He said some had the gift and others didn’t.

 

[godisgood77]

I don’T necessarily feel there is a loss of faith… I believe that organized religion is in the decline due to the corruption of the institution… loss of religion is maybe a better way to say it. I meet many non-Catholics who have faith, but do not subscribe to organized religion.

I think the way to address that is to remove corruption from the hierarchy and return to a place of credibility in the clergy

 

[Damian]

As someone who does not adhere to this religion, here are somethings that would get me to attend church.
1: Foundational identity in line with a life that matches with the current century that we live in.
2: Reference texts and lessons on how to live the good life are updated with the current secular sociology instead of dogmatic holy texts.
3: Professionally trained psychologist are the life coaches, not priests.
4: All hierarchy of the church leadership is open to all the sexes and mandated to have a 50/50 gender and if possible race, split in all decisions with no single leader as the head.
5: All financing of the church is publicly posted
6: All groups affiliated with the church is publicly posted
7: Leadership in the church is through random selection of qualified individuals
8: No life time appointments of leadership
9: All conduct of its members, regardless of rank, are subject to the law for prosecution
10: Any texts that suggest or promote violence, sexism, tribalism, violation of child rights, minority rights, women, animal rights, etc. are to be stricken from the texts and the people that brought in these verses are banded from leadership positions for life.

As to the idea of “faith”. I don’t see why faith is a virtue. You can literally hold any belief claim about reality through faith, regardless of the actual evidence or lack of evidence about that claim to reality. This is not a pathway to understanding the truth of reality but a wish for reality to be what we would prefer it to be instead of what reality actually indicates it to be. That truth about how people use the word “faith” will always cause people’s internal model of reality to not match the actual experienced truth of reality.

 

[SeriousQuestion]

So all of those changes would make you believe all the teachings of the Catholic Church?

 

[Borealis2]

Sounds like a complete waste of time. What’s the point of that list, when it has absolutely zero to do with religion and everything to do with ‘social reform’? We’ll stick with the truth instead.

 

[Augustinian]

What I think you are failing to realize is the nature of religion in general, not just the Catholic Church.

Religion is based upon the idea of passing on a faith passed from Almighty God, not about making up one’s own rules based upon what you think is “fair”.

If Almighty God wants men to serve as priests, that’s just the way it is, no matter how “unfair” someone thinks it is.

 

[billsannie]

No. Just no. I have yet to see a priest have a relationship with his church that in any way resembles a half-way decent marriage. I even knew one priest who seemed to dislike women. At least, he was very friendly with men but visibly shrank and tensed up whenever a woman came near.And I have never seen a priest who was like a good father. They rarely even know the names of most of their parishioners, much less anything about their lives. Even less so now, I would think, since with so few priests they have very little time.

The marriage concept is a mystical concept that was only used of all priests as an after-the-fact justification for a celibate priesthood, which itself was an answer to a practical problem.It’s invisible and, except perhaps for the priest, imperceptible. It’s not a model for anything except on a mystical level.

You are right about St. Paul. But the gift does still appear to be rare.

 

[AlNg]

One way to stop the decline in faith might be to have more reverent worship in Church, such as you see in the Russian Orthodox Church. I realize that there are a lot of Roman Catholics who really like worship where you “let loose” and “abandon care to the wind”, but there might be some Roman Catholics who prefer a more restrained type of worship. Please see:

 

[ZMystiCat]

I have yet to see a priest have a relationship with his church that in any way resembles a half-way decent marriage.

First, I said the relationships with the priest and his parish is more like that of a father, not husband.

Second, I was speaking in terms of what it should be like. Yes, there are priests who do not live up to their vocation well, but it isn’t like no married priest is ever going to set a bad example of being a husband or father to his children.

And I have never seen a priest who was like a good father. They rarely even know the names of most of their parishioners, much less anything about their lives. Even less so now, I would think, since with so few priests they have very little time.

And my experience has been the exact opposite. I even visited a parish where the priest was assigned as the only priest at two different parishes (two small towns not far from each other). It was clear that he was like a father to the parishioners at the one I attended.

The marriage concept is a mystical concept that was only used of all priests as an after-the-fact justification for a celibate priesthood, which itself was an answer to a practical problem.It’s invisible and, except perhaps for the priest, imperceptible. It’s not a model for anything except on a mystical level.

Marriage in general is very mystical. It’s a sacrament reflecting a union between Christ and his Church, as Paul explains in Ephesians 5. While we may understand that from a doctrinal level, the way that a priest’s relationship with Christ should be is a way to make that a bit more visible that the relatively abstract concept that it currently is. Sure, that can still exist with a married priest - as it does with those priests in the Church who are married - but the example is already there and not in need of married priests to attain.

You are right about St. Paul. But the gift does still appear to be rare.

I’d imagine it is at least less than those who are called to marriage, but with marriage, that should be a one-to-one relationship. A single priest can serve many parishioners.

 

[Damian]

I don’t see how the teachings of the catholic church would survive that filter. I can however find value in a church that met those criteria regardless if they used parables to get the point across. I don’t have to believe the parables are actually true to get the point of the message.

 

[EricF]

If I want the church to grow, the ONLY thing I can do is try and set a better example of Catholicism. I can only control me. I can preach at and evangelize someone until the cows come home, but if I am not setting a good example of what being a Catholic is, then I am like a clanging cymbal. Just annoying noise.

 

[AlNg]

…subjugate the power of the state to the authority of Rome, and give the Catholic Church a favored protected status amongst religions while still allowing a freedom of personal worship but not allowing proselytizing by other faiths.

It might be difficult to get some states to go along with that. For example, I would be surprised to find out that Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Yemen, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Japan, China or Russia would agree.

 

[Augustinian]

Give temporal power back to the church and launch another inquisition to oust heterodox clergy, subjugate the power of the state to the authority of Rome, and give the Catholic Church a favored protected status amongst religions while still allowing a freedom of personal worship but not allowing proselytizing by other faiths.

Probably wouldn’t work very well here in the United States. We have freedom of religion here.

 

[Inquisitor85]

Give temporal power back to the church and launch another inquisition to oust heterodox clergy, subjugate the power of the state to the authority of Rome, and give the Catholic Church a favored protected status amongst religions while still allowing a freedom of personal worship but not allowing proselytizing by other faiths.

How would you get that to work in non-catholic majority nations?