Again, the assumption is that people always leave the Roman Catholic Church for completely the wrong reasons, due to some defect in their understanding or human weakness.
Again, the assumption is that people leave because they are too prideful. Some may regret it. I can’t get into every person’s head or heart. Do you disregard the possibility that people can leave the Roman Catholic Church with humility and a well-informed conscience, not to mention an intellectual knowledge of what Roman Catholicism teaches?
What’s that supposed to mean?
The halls of Hell are lined with the skulls of bishops. I personally find the priest scandal in the Roman Catholic Church as a poor reason for leaving. The Protestants and Orthodox have their share of scandals as well. The media does tend to focus much on the Catholic sex scandal, but there has been coverage of abuse in certain Protestant churches, as well as, more recently, the fundamentalist LDS community.
The Orthodox have full and true sacraments (mysteries). They teach what has been believed always, everywhere and by all.
Many, many protestant ministers are also becoming Orthodox. Something like 60%+ Orthodox priests in the U.S. are converts, mostly I would think from Protestantism. Ever hear of Fr. Gilquist? He was a former head of Capmus Crusade for Christ and led 4,000 Protestants to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Your Western bias is here present–that is, if you mean the Orthodox are desperately seeking re-union with Rome.
The Orthodox Churches seek a unified Church as it was in the 1st millenium before the Great Schism. The Orthodox Church would like to see the Western Church return to her Western Orthodox roots, present in the 1st millenium. But this does not mean they consider their present ecclesiological situation defective, as the Western Church considers the Eastern Churches.
The Orthodox bishops are praying for unity, yes, but they are not for (or should not be for) a false unity, such as occurred at Florence. There are several problems that yet need to be resolved before receiving the Pope back into communion (to put it bluntly, from the Orthodox perspective; were such a union to occur, the Roman Catholics likely would see it vice versa as the Orthodox Churches returning to communion). I hope the Western Church and the Eastern Church commune once again, but I would like to see it done when the proclaimed faith of the two is the same.
Why would I bash the Catholic Church? I already am a Catholic in the Catholic Church. I mean this, seriously. Now, I don’t always agree with what the Western Church teaches, but does this make me anti-Catholic? I don’t accept the Western Church’s interpretation of Church history, but does that mean that I’m “bashing” the [Roman] Catholic Church?
Rome isn’t home for all Catholics either. Look at the Melkites, the Ukrainian Catholics, the Ruthenians, the Maronites, the Syro-Malabar, etc. Although in communion with the Roman Church, their home is not Rome but the Churches at or in Antioch, Kiev, Carpatho-Rus., Lebanon, etc.
