Lapsed Catholics Explain Why They Leave the Church

[Annabelle_Marie]

*Country Singer is the only person who can help herself. If she believes in God, the Sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus’ teachings and has the WILL, she can do it! If she chooses to listen to that “voice” which can never be of God, then it is her right to do so. God gave us free will to choose between good and evil. It is our choice! It is Country Singer’s choice!

God bless Country Singer and give her strength.

Cinette*

Just because people leave the Catholic Church does NOT necessarily mean they leave God. That is totally wrong. If that was true then no Protestants are with God…and surely you don’t mean that…

My concern for Country Singer right now is not her becoming Catholic again…but making peace with the Church…it’s heartbreaking that. Even more heartbreaking that someone could yell out like that at communion and the priest would not stop it or preach about the total wrongness of doing that!

Country Singer…I would encourage you that if there is a parish nearby that has a Catholics Can Come Home Program that you would do so…just to heal your anxiety…even if you never come home…you need to heal. Either that or have your husband scout out a good parish with a good priest…and both of you go talk to him. You do need to work through the anxiety…like I said…even if you never become Catholic again…just for you to heal…where you are right now is not healed…My prayers are with you.

 

[Cinette]

Just because people leave the Catholic Church does NOT necessarily mean they leave God. That is totally wrong. If that was true then no Protestants are with God…and surely you don’t mean that… When I said what I said I was referring to the Eucharist. I was away from the CC for 27 years and only because I was ignorant of the teachings.

My concern for Country Singer right now is not her becoming Catholic again…but making peace with the Church…it’s heartbreaking that. Even more heartbreaking that someone could yell out like that at communion and the priest would not stop it or preach about the total wrongness of doing that! The person who yelled that was demonic in my view! I am surprised that the priest didn’t intervene.

Country Singer…I would encourage you that if there is a parish nearby that has a Catholics Can Come Home Program that you would do so…just to heal your anxiety…even if you never come home…you need to heal. Either that or have your husband scout out a good parish with a good priest…and both of you go talk to him. You do need to work through the anxiety…like I said…even if you never become Catholic again…just for you to heal…where you are right now is not healed…My prayers are with you.Mine also.

 

[wynnejj]

Country Singer, Wow! Your story is so incredible that I’m having trouble processing it. A complaint to the archdiocese resulting in your name publicized. Catholic men treating you like a prostitute, women throwing garbage at you and, heckling you at the communion rail. However, I don’t understand your story in light of the light banter on this thread that you initiated…

[thread=454221]Anyone ever feel like leaving the Church?[/thread]

 

[Elizabeth502]

Just because people leave the Catholic Church does NOT necessarily mean they leave God. That is totally wrong. If that was true then no Protestants are with God…and surely you don’t mean that…

Again I’ll respond, though it’s not addressed to me, only because this addresses Country Singer’s post indirectly. No, a Catholic leaving the Church does not “leave God” entirely. But he or she does leave the fullness of grace, and there is no replacement for the sacraments. That’s obviously why so many people convert from Protestantism to Catholicism - - as they begin to sense more fully that their faith tradition is insufficient. This is clearly laid out in all the Journey Home episodes on EWTN.

Again, sacraments, for the baptized Catholic, are the source of healing, and one of the sources of healing for those previously damaged in some way within the institution of the Roman Church. If the sacraments are perceived to be “a source of pain” on a regular basis, then the pain is not within the sacraments but within the person receiving them.

If someone administering those sacraments literally engages in this behavior:

this woman screamed during Communion “don’t give it to that w****!”

…if this “woman” was a Eucharistic minister, I’m curious as to why/how this did not create a scene since this supposedly occurred in public. That would have been quite an event (the “screaming” during distribution of communion). The priest couldn’t have helped but notice if a Eucharistic minister was that audible, and regardless of his sanctity or lack of it, would normally never have countenanced such behavior in the future. She would have been dismissed as an EMHC.

Country Singer…I would encourage you that if there is a parish nearby that has a Catholics Can Come Home Program that you would do so…

Already addressed. I brought that up in my previous post. Many parishes have these programs. However, what she may need more, as a first step, is the outreach to those abused by priests which many dioceses have…so that she may become disposed to a Home-Coming program…so that she may be able to approach the sacraments again. There are local networks, some of which are connected to national networks (but they don’t have to be), and all offer support groups, counseling referrals, etc.

Finally, the notion that one could only approach one parish church has never been true in the Roman Church. That’s one of the key elements of our Catholicity. I have parish-shopped for years, and particularly did so during a period of time when I also was tentatively coming back. A parish which is headed by an insensitive or emotionally detached pastor, and/or includes lots of rude Mass attendees/lay ministers, is not a parish I would ever visit repeatedly, perhaps not even a second time. There are lots of parishes out there, most of which are not dominated by people on power-trips.

As for this comment:

It is to easy to sugar coat when you’ve never been in that situation.

The poster assumes that she is speaking to people unacquainted with her situation, first of all, and that (second of all), anyone who had been abused (or traumatized in some other serious way) is also not able to return.

where you are right now is not healed…

Definitely. That’s the important point here. And it’s particularly clear from these comments:

5 women (including me) are connected by the actions of one evil priest. He is thankfully dead now. But the pain will be there…And I will always associate the Catholic Church with that pain.

Because you’re giving him the power to continue to hurt you, even after death. :bighanky: That’s the kind of thing that only professional counseling can address – the kind designed for this particular syndrome.

I could put myself through horrible emotional pain and be Catholic, or I could move on.

…except that you have not moved on. :console:

 

[CMatt25]

With all this talk about sacramental healing, do we even know whether every lapsed Catholic maintains a faith in them following whatever experiences along their journeys led them to become lapsed to begin with? Journey Home and EWTN episodes have been mentioned. But there obviously are also Catholics who become lapsed, non practicing, nominal who stay at home. Others may attend or join other faith communities. True they are not experiencing the fullness of God’s grace according to Catholic faith. But perhaps at least for where they are on their faith journeys, they are experiencing God, if not fully, but in a way due to their own varied personal experiences, some quite traumatic such as Country Singer’s, in which they did not experience Him before. Sometimes I just wonder if we have a tendency to put the problem too often on the person who is lapsed, saying they’re the only ones who can help themselves, or the pain remains because it is within them, or because they allow it to be, and not more on the experiences they endured. In the case of a change in or loss of faith, shopping every parish within miles, can help to the degree that there are indeed different “feels” to individual parishes. But I’m not sure in every case it will make a difference. Since every parish maintains in the end the same faith which the lapsed may or may no longer have.

 

[wynnejj]

Type of lapsed Catholics?

1. Raised Catholic, but never believed. Left Catholicism shortly after leaving the nest. Reasons may include atheistic, agnostic, deist, or simply a belief that the Judeo-Christian story is mythological.
2. Believe but will not comply. Could be some kind of addiction where the complaint becomes “But God, you made me this way.”. The full set of rules seem impractical in the real world, conventional wisdom says they are overbearing and maybe psychologically damaging … most especially the rules that restrict one’s sexuality.
3. Love most Christian social principles, trouble with some especially those that relate to certain personal weaknesses, and maybe wishy-washy on the inerrancy of the full Catholic message.
4. Really question the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. Taste & see senses say it is just bread & wine, therefore the message of the Last Supper is simply symbolic in nature suggesting that every time you sit down to eat, you are to remember Our Lord’s sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. Statements about eating the Body and Blood of Our Lord are metaphorical, referring more to incorporating - digesting and assimilating - every word that comes from the mouth of Jesus. Behaviors of believing Catholics may cause disbelief in the Real Presence.

(I should mention that there are those that truly believe in the Real Presence, but wondered about whether the Roman Missal, 2nd edition, translation into English rendered the Consecration invalid and therefore, sought out a traditional Latin rite.)

 

[Annabelle_Marie]

Type of lapsed Catholics?

1. Raised Catholic, but never believed. Left Catholicism shortly after leaving the nest. Reasons may include atheistic, agnostic, deist, or simply a belief that the Judeo-Christian story is mythological.
2. Believe but will not comply. Could be some kind of addiction where the complaint becomes “But God, you made me this way.”. The full set of rules seem impractical in the real world, conventional wisdom says they are overbearing and maybe psychologically damaging … most especially the rules that restrict one’s sexuality.
3. Love most Christian social principles, trouble with some especially those that relate to certain personal weaknesses, and maybe wishy-washy on the inerrancy of the full Catholic message.
4. Really question the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. Taste & see senses say it is just bread & wine, therefore the message of the Last Supper is simply symbolic in nature suggesting that every time you sit down to eat, you are to remember Our Lord’s sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. Statements about eating the Body and Blood of Our Lord are metaphorical, referring more to incorporating - digesting and assimilating - every word that comes from the mouth of Jesus. Behaviors of believing Catholics may cause disbelief in the Real Presence.

(I should mention that there are those that truly believe in the Real Presence, but wondered about whether the Roman Missal, 2nd edition, translation into English rendered the Consecration invalid and therefore, sought out a traditional Latin rite.)

That does not even encompass all the lapsed Catholics…their stories are too varied to put into a 4 point “bullet” list…

 

[wynnejj]

That does not even encompass all the lapsed Catholics…their stories are too varied to put into a 4 point “bullet” list…

Fair enough. However, when discussing what to do to reach lapsed Catholics, there has to be some kind of discussion about what kind of lapsed Catholic that one is talking about. I think that is what Cmatt25 mentioned in terms of an individual’s faith journey. I was more or less trying to lay the groundwork to respond to a proposed remedy to say that maybe it might not be appropriate for a type lapsed Catholic. What is really important to distinguish is the level of unbelief (if that’s the issue) - Is it your basic belief in Jesus? Is it your basic belief in the Holy Eucharist? Is it the infallibility of the Pope? Is it a people / environment issue that is troublesome?

Even though the specifics of why one leaves the church / sacraments are quite varied, I do think that they fall into certain broad categories that are useful for general discussion about outreach.

 

[wynnejj]

With all this talk about sacramental healing, do we even know whether every lapsed Catholic maintains a faith in them following whatever experiences along their journeys led them to become lapsed to begin with?

Yes, there are those who were raised Catholic and never questioned the faith in the early years, but as they grow older and the questions change with age and conventional wisdom differs, one begins to wonder about the church’s “unconventional” wisdom. Sometimes reason seems to conflict with faith. Saint Anselm’s approach would be to keep the faith first, then all your searches will be guided to a truth that is not at odds with reason.

To discuss evangelical outreach to lapsed Catholics, one has to have some kind of idea of the basic questions that are being asked in this day in age.

 

[CMatt25]

Fair enough. However, when discussing what to do to reach lapsed Catholics, there has to be some kind of discussion about what kind of lapsed Catholic that one is talking about. I think that is what Cmatt25 mentioned in terms of an individual’s faith journey. I was more or less trying to lay the groundwork to respond to a proposed remedy to say that maybe it might not be appropriate for a type lapsed Catholic. What is really important to distinguish is the level of unbelief (if that’s the issue) - Is it your basic belief in Jesus? Is it your basic belief in the Holy Eucharist? Is it the infallibility of the Pope? Is it a people / environment issue that is troublesome?

Even though the specifics of why one leaves the church / sacraments are quite varied, I do think that they fall into certain broad categories that are useful for general discussion about outreach.

I was also including along an individual’s journey any negative experiences they might have encountered along the way. But we seem to agree with Annabelle Marie that what brought forth pain and potentially a change of faith and belief is quite varied among the many stories. Peace.

 

[wynnejj]

I was also including along an individual’s journey any negative experiences they might have encountered along the way. But we seem to agree with Annabelle Marie that what brought forth pain and potentially a change of faith and belief is quite varied among the many stories. Peace.

Yes, that should be added. If someone constantly slaps you, and says “I love you, because I am a Christian” after every slap, one has to be confused. If the argument is that because of the sacraments, I love you more than I could without the sacraments, then one has to be highly confused. In fact, one might come to the erroneous conclusion that the abuser is being poisoned by the sacraments.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Sometimes I just wonder if we have a tendency to put the problem too often on the person who is lapsed, saying they’re the only ones who can help themselves, or the pain remains because it is within them, or because they allow it to be, and not more on the experiences they endured.

The “we” is inappropriate. The Catholic Church Universal has included herself in responsibility for healing the pain of lapsed Catholics in the following categories:

(a) Those suffering from the sense of “exclusion” by being divorced Catholics
(b) Those suffering from disaffection because of a variety of issues (doctrine, confusion, doubt, prolonged absence from participation)
(c) Those suffering from some post-abortion sense of rejection/loss/guilt
(d) Those suffering from SSA but searching for a faith-filled compliant “place” within the Church
(e) Those suffering from the trauma of clergy sexual abuse

There are a variety of outreach avenues (named ministries) established in parishes and dioceses, including with the blessing of the Vatican, for just about any personal issue which afflicts a lapsed or potentially disaffected Catholic.

As to the issue of “pain,” no one is “blaming” anyone. The reality of pain, however, is that it is a psychological dynamic that will not “go away” without being addressed, including in some cases with professional treatment. And trauma falls into the category of a need for professional treatment. The charitable thing is not to confirm people in their pain but to acknowledge their pain (which many of us have) and then lead them to healing. The Catholic Church is in the healing business, which is why she has established various outreach ministries, many of which include professional counseling referrals and networking among those avenues.

Merely affirming the pain, and telling people they’re doing the right thing by staying away from healing sacraments, is not an act of charity. And thus that is not the Church’s approach either.

In the case of a change in or loss of faith, shopping every parish within miles, can help to the degree that there are indeed different “feels” to individual parishes. But I’m not sure in every case it will make a difference. Since every parish maintains in the end the same faith which the lapsed may or may no longer have.

No one said that or implied that. It is merely another healing element in the path back toward reclaiming the baptized Catholic’s rightful access to a life of sacramental grace, which is not possible in Protestant faith traditions, which lack that fullness of life, whatever else those alternatives may provide.

 

[PPeterson]

Not that this offers much consolation, but remember: It was a human being who assaulted you. It was a human being who did not take your accusations seriously and embarrassed you by releasing your name. It was human beings who ostracized you. It was human beings who tried to take advantage of your “promiscuity”.

It was not the Church who did any of these things. The Church is a perfect organization made up of imperfect people. You should not hate the CHURCH because of what PEOPLE did to you.

I have trouble with this line of reasoning. Does that mean that when the imperfect people who make up the church feed the poor, care for the sick, etc that the church shouldn’t get any credit for it? If the church is not responsible when it’s members do evil, how can it claim credit for when it’s members do good?

 

[Tampa_Dave]

Until recently, I was a lapsed Catholic. I gradually drifted away during my college and law school years. My wife, a devout Catholic of recent French Canadian descent, raised our daughters in the Church while I ambitiously pursued my law career in Washington, DC. The decades passed…

What inspired my return to the beloved Church of my youth? The Obama administration issued the HHS mandate! Catholic institutions in America were ordered to violate Church dogma by providing contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients in health care policies. My unexpected emotional reaction revealed a hidden but deep love and appreciation for my Catholic faith. Thus inspired, I returned to the Church and immersed myself in daily prayer, weekly Mass, Catholic films and literature.

 

[Cinette]

Until recently, I was a lapsed Catholic. I gradually drifted away during my college and law school years. My wife, a devout Catholic of recent French Canadian descent, raised our daughters in the Church while I ambitiously pursued my law career in Washington, DC. The decades passed…

What inspired my return to the beloved Church of my youth? The Obama administration issued the HHS mandate! Catholic institutions in America were ordered to violate Church dogma by providing contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients in health care policies. My unexpected emotional reaction revealed a hidden but deep love and appreciation for my Catholic faith. Thus inspired, I returned to the Church and immersed myself in daily prayer, weekly Mass, Catholic films and literature.

*Welcome back home Tampa! Yes, as you grow in prayer and in Faith and learn more about the Catholic Church you will discover real beauty - the Church is Truth and Beauty which is exciting and capturing.

Oh and by the way… thank you BO! God has a sense of humour. Each of us has a different conversion story. Sometimes it can be the most mundane thing that can trigger something in us. I wish you well.

Cinette*

 

[Tampa_Dave]

Thank you for your kind reply, Cinette. I am happy to be an active member in the Church again. It can only get better with time!

 

[Annabelle_Marie]

Until recently, I was a lapsed Catholic. I gradually drifted away during my college and law school years. My wife, a devout Catholic of recent French Canadian descent, raised our daughters in the Church while I ambitiously pursued my law career in Washington, DC. The decades passed…

What inspired my return to the beloved Church of my youth? The Obama administration issued the HHS mandate! Catholic institutions in America were ordered to violate Church dogma by providing contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients in health care policies. My unexpected emotional reaction revealed a hidden but deep love and appreciation for my Catholic faith. Thus inspired, I returned to the Church and immersed myself in daily prayer, weekly Mass, Catholic films and literature.

Welcome Home!

 

[Tampa_Dave]

Its great being back! Mass was awesome this weekend (Divine Mercy Sunday).

 

[CMatt25]

The “we” is inappropriate. The Catholic Church Universal has included herself in responsibility for healing the pain of lapsed Catholics… reclaiming the baptized Catholic’s rightful access to a life of sacramental grace, which is not possible in Protestant faith traditions, which lack that fullness of life, whatever else those alternatives may provide.

Whether it is appropriate or not depends on who was being included in “we”. It’s not for you to determine. “We” for instance could also include any persons either not fully faithful to, nor even of the Catholic Church, if they comment as well on lapsed Catholics. And yes according to the Catholic faith, Protestant faith traditions lack fullness. Of course it is not impossible if someone is lapsed in belief, that they may not hold to that belief.

 

[rlg94086]

Whether it is appropriate or not depends on who was being included in “we”. It’s not for you to determine. “We” for instance could also include any persons either not fully faithful to, nor even of the Catholic Church, if they comment as well on lapsed Catholics. And yes according to the Catholic faith, Protestant faith traditions lack fullness.** Of course it is not impossible if someone is lapsed in belief, that they may not hold to that belief.**

Ya think?

Of course, non-belief has no bearing on the Truth. As Catholics, we desire all to know Jesus Christ in a very intimate way that is impossible in the Protestant churches. We pray that they will come home and be in full communion.