I used to be Catholic too (yeah right)

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graceandglory said:
Mom4Truth,

This is the age of information. Type a question into Google and you can get an answer. Several years ago, I did that, and started learning Catholic apologetics.

Our Church knows that you can’t just get the faith by osmosis. It must be shown to you. I didn’t meet a faithful Catholic until I was homeschooling and met a faithful orthodox Catholic family through that venue. (They are now my children’s Godparents, btw)

We have a system set up where parents say they will raise their children Catholic. Then if they are unable or don’t for whatever reason, we have a set of two godparents. If that doesn’t work, then we have Sponsors at our Confirmation.

At any point in there, when I was sharing some of my thoughts, back when I was a teenager, and still in communication with all of them, any one of them could have stepped up to the plate to show me the truth of the Catholic Church.

Not one of them did. I was an on fire Christian, and would have made a good Catholic missionary, or even considered a vocation, and as a young single woman, I might have even visited some communities of Sisters. No one, not even my priest when I went to talk to him, said anything. No, I talked to two different priests. I had some questions about apologetics that I didn’t know how to answer that I heard from evangelical friends in high school. I asked my mom, she didn’t know how to answer. But she did do the next best thing. She had me write my apologetics questions down and drove me to visit the priest. I stood at the door of the rectory, getting cigarette smoke in my face, and the priest didn’t even know what a brown scapular was.

I’m not omniscient. I was very teachable and the church failed. I asked my questions and I didn’t get any answers.

I share my story because I am not alone. Thousands of young Catholics who love Christ and love Mary and want to be faithful Christians and live converted lives, leave the Church every year.

Jeff Cavins, a Catholic author and apologist, has a very similar story to mine, that he writes in his book, My Life on the Rock. He even became a protestant pastor before reconverting to the Catholic Church.
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But today there is so much bible study, you can even do it on line. Remeber all roads lead to Rome.:highprayer:
 
rinnie said:
But today there is so much bible study, you can even do it on line. Remeber all roads lead to Rome.:highprayer:
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Yeah, I visited my parish’s womens’ bible study last week.

SInging the praises of Richard Rohr they were.
Quoting from Thomas Merton rather than St. Teresa of Avila. :roll:

Yes, all roads lead to Rome. I believe that in my heart.
Some of us take longer to get Home than others. And yay for the “older brothers” who never leave home.😃
 
g & g,

Ah-ha! I get it now. However, now that you know you encountered people who didn’t know what you needed to know, you can stop blaming the Church for having failed you. I believe that everything is part of God’s plan (Dvine Providence). Perhaps there was some reason these people didn’t know the things they did and could not share it with you. Maybe YOU sparked something in THEM - to keep looking. Anyway, you’re home. That’s something to be thankful for. Now you can let it go, right?

Blessings & Merry Christmas!
 
mom4truth said:
g & g,

Ah-ha! I get it now. However, now that you know you encountered people who didn’t know what you needed to know, you can stop blaming the Church for having failed you. I believe that everything is part of God’s plan (Dvine Providence). Perhaps there was some reason these people didn’t know the things they did and could not share it with you. Maybe YOU sparked something in THEM - to keep looking. Anyway, you’re home. That’s something to be thankful for. Now you can let it go, right?

Blessings & Merry Christmas!
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Hi Mom 4 Truth!

I don’t know where you’re getting my need to “let something go.”
There is a reason for my zeal for what Pope John Paul 2 called the New Evangelization. I have a zeal that others don’t have to see to it that: #1 My own children are properly catechized, even if I have to do it myself.

#2 My Parish is evangelized and converted.

#3 Non Catholics I know are explained the truth of the Catholic Church, and

#4 Former Catholics are invited to come back home.

As a protestant I was a missionary evangelizing people to get saved and come to a personal relationship with Christ. Pope Benedict even writes for the need that all of us come to a personal relationship with Christ and are converted.

Perhaps you might be mistaking me for some bitter X Catholic who blames the Church. God has a divine plan, yes. Some Catholic have been abused by the church, don’t tell them to “get over it” until you share with love the truth of the Catholic Church. It might take a long time for some.

I love what Archbishop Fulton Sheen says:
“There are not more than 100 people in the world who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive to be the Catholic Church.”
 
My parents wanted to give us girls a religious upbringing. Why the Catholic Church I do not know, though I believe a lot had to do with the neighbors, who were Italians and Catholic. No disrespect intented.

We went to Church and I remember feeling good about the church. I remember going to a number of catholic schools and the nuns, some I did not like, some I did. I remember some goods times and some bad. I remember confession for the 1st time and how good I felt. While I know I participated in communion the first time, have pictures, I’m afraid I have no memory of it. Then one day my parents stopped going. Why I’m not sure. And of course, my sisters and I eventually stopped going as well.

Years passed, life went on. No committment to any church. I married, not Catholic, my husband was Christian Reform. I never converted. No desire, part of me never gave up my basic Catholic teaching or at least I was too afraid to give it up and everything about his church was so bland, so out of touch for me.
But still I did not search out the Church. My children were taught within his faith, simply because my faith was not strong and I saw no reason to not to let them have a church of their own.

Now I’m looking to find something more in my life. Something that I could relate to, that might fill a need for me. I’m not sure if the church is the answer or not. But if I return to church, I would like to try the Catholic church. Why I guess because my memories of the church call to me. Because I never stopped thinking of myself as Catholic. Is that wrong?

Do I say I used to be Catholic… but now you say yeah right!
Given that should I even try???
 
sakay said:
Now I’m looking to find something more in my life. Something that I could relate to, that might fill a need for me. I’m not sure if the church is the answer or not. But if I return to church, I would like to try the Catholic church. Why I guess because my memories of the church call to me. Because I never stopped thinking of myself as Catholic. Is that wrong? Given that should I even try???
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Certainly try! Everything is in God’s time. Listen to that call inside which draws you back home. Catholicscomehome.org is a great place to spend some time considering your return. Good information and resources at your fingertips.
Do I say I used to be Catholic… but now you say yeah right!
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It sounds like you aren’t one of ‘those’ some would say ‘yeah, right!’ to. The “yeah, right” response goes to those who flaunt their rejection proudly, knowing it would cause pain to practicing Catholics to hear such a statement.

From what you’ve described you used to be Catholic, you don’t know why you stopped practicing. You don’t know why your parents stopped. You never felt the call before to pursue Catholicism and you kept the peace with your husband and children by practicing their faith.
 
g & g,

I absolutely do not mean any disrespect. What I am trying to get at, or at least understand, is that it “seems” that you are blaming the “Church itself” for having failed you, having failed teach you things you think you needed to know. That’s what I’m saying to let go of. All of us are on some kind of search for the Truth, and I think it’s unfair to blame only THE CHURCH for not giving us what we need. We are all “called” to search at some point in our lives and that prompting is by the Holy Spirit. So, I’m not insinuating anything other than what I have just explained. Anyone who has left the church is always welcomed back. God always wants us back - no matter what.

Merry Christmas!
 
Here’s my two cents.

Why are there so many people who say they used to be Catholic?

85% of young adults who go to college practicing their faith STOP by the time they graduate senior year. 48% by the end of the freshman year (Gallup Poll, 1985).

Speaking in hasty generalizations - Catholic formation and theology as well for that matter has just been horrible since around the 1950’s. Our idea of outreach and evangelization is coffee and donuts after Mass.

Anyone who wants to dispute this is fine to do so but just remember that most Catholics believe in abortion and virtually all believe in contraception. We have no one to blame but ourselves for our own lack of formation, lack of evangelization, and lack of love of Christ.

Really, the only question is what are we willing to do about it. Are we going to join in the battle or not, fight or sit on the sidelines?
 
Dismas2004 said:
Here’s my two cents.

Why are there so many people who say they used to be Catholic?

85% of young adults who go to college practicing their faith STOP by the time they graduate senior year. 48% by the end of the freshman year (Gallup Poll, 1985).

Speaking in hasty generalizations - Catholic formation and theology as well for that matter has just been horrible since around the 1950’s. Our idea of outreach and evangelization is coffee and donuts after Mass.
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The days of being able to rely on “family tradition” are long past us. The modern day college environment is absolutely poisonous to faith of any kind - attacks, doubts, and skepticism are paraded as “thinking for yourself,” while agreeing with the tenets of any religious system other than some form of Westernized Buddhism, or else some form of modern-day paganism, is labelled “brainwashing” - the Catholic Church is attacked at random, whether the subject under discussion in the classroom has any relevance at all (I attended a half-hour lecture on the subject of optics one time, and the presenter managed to work in no less than three “obviously the Catholic Church is wrong and superstitious and dangerous” statements into the lecture, even though there was absolutely nothing about the topic he was discussing that called for any mention of any sort of religion whatsoever.

After being bombarded with this sort of thing for six-eight hours a day, it’s no wonder kids come out of there with their faith ripped to shreds.
Anyone who wants to dispute this is fine to do so but just remember that most Catholics believe in abortion and virtually all believe in contraception. We have no one to blame but ourselves for our own lack of formation, lack of evangelization, and lack of love of Christ.
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Really, the only question is what are we willing to do about it. Are we going to join in the battle or not, fight or sit on the sidelines?
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What we need to do is keep on evangelizing ourselves, and teach our kids to keep on evangelizing themselves - remind them that conversion isn’t a one-time event, but a life-time project - that the skeptics are out there, that they’re noisy, and insistent, and that that’s okay - they don’t become right just because they’re loud, or because they keep on repeating themselves. And that just because someone is an expert on optics, or whatever the subject may be, does not make him an expert on anything else, especially not a religion that he probably hasn’t had any contact with since he himself was a youth - if ever.
 
graceandglory said:
Yeah, I visited my parish’s womens’ bible study last week.

SInging the praises of Richard Rohr they were.
Quoting from Thomas Merton rather than St. Teresa of Avila. :roll:

Yes, all roads lead to Rome. I believe that in my heart.
Some of us take longer to get Home than others. And yay for the “older brothers” who never leave home.😃
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Or Rome:thumbsup: I couldn’t resist!
 
jmcrae;

I couldn’t agree more. The mission organization I work with gave out 25,000 copies of a book called Made For More by Curtis Martin. This was just one part of our outreach efforts to reach these college aged adults.

If you get a chance - check it out, it is a great tool/gift for RCIA, adult formation, those that have strayed away fromt he faith etc…

In it, Curtis leads the reader through a series of questions and allows them to decide for themselves that they are Made For More than this world has to offer. He does this by leading the reader to affirm that Christ really is God, The Scriptures are the inerrant Word of God and many other truths of our Faith.

I’m I trying to sell the book? Nope, it has changed many lives already. If you give it five minutes - it will change your life too.

If you know any students - in the US, they can get a free copy by going to the website www.madeformore.info. I’m sure we could arrange something for those in Canada if the shipping was paid for.
 
MarcoPolo said:
My experience with those who have left the faith overwhelmingly fall into one of two categories:

a) Obviously did not understand Catholic teaching. (whether from poor catechesis or their own fault may vary)

b) Had an underlying personal issue with the Church (i.e. Church was a threat to their sinful lifestyle, they couldn’t get an annulment, can’t submit to authority, etc…)

There are surely some who understand Catholic teaching and leave, however, in good faith, for the path the Lord has set out for someone may take strange routes before they end up finally in His arms. 🙂
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I find similar stories around me. Great post!
 
Dismas2004 said:
jmcrae;

I couldn’t agree more. The mission organization I work with gave out 25,000 copies of a book called Made For More by Curtis Martin. This was just one part of our outreach efforts to reach these college aged adults.

If you get a chance - check it out, it is a great tool/gift for RCIA, adult formation, those that have strayed away fromt he faith etc…

In it, Curtis leads the reader through a series of questions and allows them to decide for themselves that they are Made For More than this world has to offer. He does this by leading the reader to affirm that Christ really is God, The Scriptures are the inerrant Word of God and many other truths of our Faith.

I’m I trying to sell the book? Nope, it has changed many lives already. If you give it five minutes - it will change your life too.

If you know any students - in the US, they can get a free copy by going to the website www.madeformore.info. I’m sure we could arrange something for those in Canada if the shipping was paid for.
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That sounds really good - I"m betting the kids in my Youth Group would eat it up. What would be the minimum number of books you could send at a time, and what do you think the shipping would cost? 🙂
 
Absolutely! I would suggest start off with confession at a Catholic Church that fits your personal profile. It is a great way to return. I’m praying for you sakay. :gopray2:
sakay said:
My parents wanted to give us girls a religious upbringing. Why the Catholic Church I do not know, though I believe a lot had to do with the neighbors, who were Italians and Catholic. No disrespect intented.

We went to Church and I remember feeling good about the church. I remember going to a number of catholic schools and the nuns, some I did not like, some I did. I remember some goods times and some bad. I remember confession for the 1st time and how good I felt. While I know I participated in communion the first time, have pictures, I’m afraid I have no memory of it. Then one day my parents stopped going. Why I’m not sure. And of course, my sisters and I eventually stopped going as well.

Years passed, life went on. No committment to any church. I married, not Catholic, my husband was Christian Reform. I never converted. No desire, part of me never gave up my basic Catholic teaching or at least I was too afraid to give it up and everything about his church was so bland, so out of touch for me.
But still I did not search out the Church. My children were taught within his faith, simply because my faith was not strong and I saw no reason to not to let them have a church of their own.

Now I’m looking to find something more in my life. Something that I could relate to, that might fill a need for me. I’m not sure if the church is the answer or not. But if I return to church, I would like to try the Catholic church. Why I guess because my memories of the church call to me. Because I never stopped thinking of myself as Catholic. Is that wrong?

Do I say I used to be Catholic… but now you say yeah right!
Given that should I even try???
Click to expand...
 
jmcrae,

No minimum order - shipping varies depending on weight (# of books) and destination. Send me an email with how many you think you’d like and where they’d go and I will find out for you. Please include anything that my family and I can pray for - for you and your family.

mom4truth,

Thanks for the encouragement. God bless you - feel free to send me your prayer intentions as well.

Everyone,

Feel free to send me any prayer intentions - we’d be honored to pray for them for you.
 
There are so many wonderful posts here. And I think we are comming all to the same conclusion. Most people who left the faith never really understood it. But when they roam they seem to come back.

Some take longer than others. But what other CHurch can claim what the Catholic Church claims and be able to hold up to it.?

When Jesus left us the CC he left us himself. He promised never to leave us orphans and he kept that Promise. Jesus Christ, the Man who always keeps his promises:thumbsup: He said his Church would prevail and it has done just that. Look how many have come and gone, but the first is still standing! Awesome:clapping:
 
One statistical note - the number of parishes in the US is declining, not increasing(USCCB.com.) While some may be coming back - I would speculate that most are not and it’s unlikely - if they have children - that they are coming back either. Most parishes that are closing are on the coastal regions, with the East coast getting hit the hardest.

At NYU - their Newman center isn’t being used anymore so they rent it out to Muslims.

On Long island, at St. Matthew’s - the priests never returns calls or emails from one of it’s parishoner’s nephew. Good thing he’s not considering the priesthood. Getting the cold shoulder from a religious is one of the surest ways to limit vocations and give a GREAT impression of the faith community there.

In Jersey, 7 parishes are being combined into 2 (no reference other than word of mouth.)

There are so many great and faithful Catholics on the East coast - but they are drowned out by the thousands of unformed and mediocre Catholics.

The West coast is at the crest of their liberal agenda and is just stating to experience difficulties. We’re visiting family right now int he Seattle area and this has been my experience:


  1. *]So many liturgical abuses I’m not really sure I was in a Catholic Church.
    *]During a homily - the priest said he skips of part of the reading from the Colossians - because it’s not up to date and he doesn’t beelive it anymore.
    *]A homily based soley on experential knowledge instead of the word of God - (would have been OK if it wasn’t contrary to scripture.)
    *]I admit, I wear jeans to Church sometimes on Sunday, not often, but occasionally (not making a judgment call here - just an observation). However, I’ve never seen so many shorts, jeans, mini-skirts, and see-through shirts revealing bras anywhere in my life, especially on children under 18 years of age than in Church on Sunday.
    This is the state of our culture. Our college aged students need to be evangelized yes, but our priests and ourselves first!

    1. *]
 
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