My friends were raised catholic educated in school catholic and 50% now non catholic. why are catholics . fallen away?

[7_Sorrows]

I am a convert, but I have many friends who are 15-20 years older than me and their children all attended Catholic schools in the 1950’s and 1960’s and their children are all non-practicing Catholics now. Very sad.

I think I read where 30,000 joined the Catholic church this Easter in the United States. I pray those numbers grow.

 

[Carmel]

I would add to that, the internet and the Godless media, plus the banishing of God from the educational system.

 

[Edmundus1581]

I am a convert, but I have many friends who are 15-20 years older than me and their children all attended Catholic schools in the 1950’s and 1960’s and their children are all non-practicing Catholics now. Very sad.

That undermines the theory that it is modern schools and teachings.

I have also known good Catholic families across the spectrum from that era till now, where parents and schools have made good efforts to raise the children in the faith, but half the children still left.

In my part of suburban Australia the fall-away rate after confirmation is over 90%. Most of the families hardly practice the faith at all, and just send the kids to Catholic schools because they think they’ll get a better education and, maybe, the parents have some sort of residual loyalty to Catholicism.

My own three children were brought up with a prayer life in the home and Sunday Mass attendance, however my ex-wife divorced me before they were ten and also left the faith, so after that it was my influence against hers, and I think they took the easier option of accepting her influence.

Perhaps that’s an explanation of why many leave. It’s just the easier option in a society where one can live a reasonably moral and comfortable life, and be applauded for material success, without the extra effort of religion.

 

[ConfusedLucy]

It’s not a new phenomena at all. My last parish had a very elderly congregation and there were many homilies about children leaving the faith, these “children” were in their 50s often with their own children. My own grandmother was a very devout woman with an active prayer life and it wasn’t enough to keep her kids in church.

 

[Carmel]

" The Catholic Church has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found hard and left untried "
G.K.Chesterton

 

[Genesis315]

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour.

Unfortunately with all the distractions our modern world has with none of the protections a society founded on the Gospel might have, there’s a lot more people who aren’t watchful and who make easy targets for the devil to snatch away from the Church.

These are people, though, who belong to Christ, but are imprisoned by the devil and sin. When our Lord talks about ministering to those in prison, besides the literal meaning, I think it also means these poor souls.

 

[Arbovirus]

The gift of faith is a mysterious thing. Why do some believe, and some don’t? There doesn’t seem to be a rational pattern… Sin is one thing…but why do some believe such and such are even sins to begin with, whereas others don’t?

 

[Magnificant]

For me Catholic school turned me off because of the bullying culture. At sixteen Catholicism was just “that religion that those awful people from schools families follow”.

Don’t look at the people who do negativities. Focus on your faiths. I admit that there are lots of Catholic hyprocrites, but don’t mind them. Just focus your faith on God. Listen to God, not to them. We will all be judged at the end of times.

 

[buffalo]

Terrible catechesis teaching God is only all merciful and forgetting the perfectly just part. No reinforcement from the pulpit when are kids are at Mass. Very few know what transubstantiation is. Teaching that all religions are the same are a few reasons.

A biggee: Youth want unrestricted sex and the Catholic Church teaches and expects chastity.

 

[PJM]

quote-=My friend’s were raised catholic educated catholic went to a Catholic school and now over 50% are fallen away . ?
Why do you think that happened?
[/quote]

Post Vatican II Catholic schools dare I say {often} these days are run by secular teachers; not vowed Religious; as was the case before 1965, hence the degree of Traditional Catholic Faith Education is at best waning.

I doubt seriously if one can attach significance to a “catholic grade school or even a catholic HS education” and the falling away from the the RCC.

I had 12 years of PRE_Vatican II education and I am the only one from my HS Class that I KNOW of is still a practicing RC.

I think the influence of a highly secularized and ever increasing immoral society and a A-MORAL government under the “leadership” {lack there off}, of the {previous} Democratic National Party with legislated Abortion {MURDER} “rights”; and what we are by legislation to term Gay same sex “marriages” and uni-sex locker rooms and toilets have FAR GREATER influence is an EVIL and perverse way; than do the failings of the Catholic School system, as sad as IT IS.

May God guide our life paths,
Patrick

 

[Elizabeth3]

I went to Catholic school 12 years. Here’s my story:

After 12 years, I never knew what the word Catechism meant.
I never learned how to pray the rosary.
Never learned church teaching on gay marriage, a big cultural topic in this day in age. There was no clear teaching from any Catholic teacher I had.
No recollection of any teacher picking up a Bible.
I thought apologetics meant to say your sorry.

I went to Catholic High School, two years of Catholic middle school and six years of CCD in elementary. I came out of High School not knowing the Real Presence. I thought it was symbolic. I almost left the Church but ended up reading Rome Sweet Home by Scott Hahn and was floored at what I didn’t know about my own Church.

 

[Elizabeth3]

Most of the families hardly practice the faith at all, and just send the kids to Catholic schools because they think they’ll get a better education and, maybe, the parents have some sort of residual loyalty to Catholicism.

Yeah. That’s my brother and SIL. The kids attend CCD but no one goes to Mass until there’s a First Sacrament to receive or the CCD kids are scheduled once a year to serve in some way at the Mass. My brother said he sends them to CCD because he thinks it’s important to help them learn good morals.

 

[KS_Housewife]

I must say, I unfortunately saw a lot of cliquishness and some bullying at my Catholic grade school growing up. I did appreciate that my education included religious instruction, and the opportunity to attend a school Mass weekly. I couldn’t understand why our instruction didn’t include more concrete instruction and direction about how to treat one another as Christians.

 

[brian_custer]

that is a very cogent explanation of the the status of faith in young people

i’ve gained insight by reading it

thank you…

 

[brian_custer]

these lost sheep will find their way back to Mother Church or they won’t

once “children” reach late teens, 20s, etc there is not much you can “tell” them

they will be faithful or they will not…

it is on THEM, not their parents

we laid the groundwork as best we could

spent tens of thousands of $ to put them through private catholic schools K-12

when we could’ve sent them to the sewer of public school; that we already pay for with our property taxes

 

[Pup7]

The Christian faith in general is for everyone if you want to get technical. I don’t see the Baptists or the Methodists or the Anglicans, for that matter, turning anyone away. If one disagrees with the tenets of a faith, then it’s not for them - no matter what the name of it is.

Just because we agree with it doesn’t mean it’s “for” everyone.

Few people of the younger generation sit for being lectured at. Not all priests are gifted in teaching in this arena. Maybe the priests need coaching and training on how to teach and be inspirational at the same time (?)

I went to a nondenominational service with my brother and his family on Easter Sunday - mostly because this is the first time in literally decades my oldest brother and I have lived close enough to each other to do anything together, and he asked me to come with them if I could. It’s my brother - it was the right thing to do. You’re right - there was no lecturing and no real teaching of any sort by the pastor. He was a good speaker, but there was no substance…and the place was packed.

In a way it worried me.

 

[KS_Housewife]

I believe many people fall away when they go through a divorce after marrying in the Church, and eventually they wish to remarry. I also think Catholic education is problematic in that it can be perfunctory in the classroom and not reinforced at large. As a young Catholic adult it is difficult to become included in a new parish community absent family ties or family in the parish school (given that these days one is unlikely to find a Catholic neighborhood which would reinforce socially one"s ties to the parish). That is when socially active and welcoming Protestant faith communities can become more appealing. Also, the pressure of social and cultural mores at odds with Catholic morals is significant, and often fellow Catholics fail to support and reinforce Church morals and values, such as premarital sex, Sunday Mass attendance.

 

[Pup7]

FrancisPio:

I went to Catholic school 12 years. Here’s my story:

After 12 years, I never knew what the word Catechism meant.
I never learned how to pray the rosary.
Never learned church teaching on gay marriage, a big cultural topic in this day in age. There was no clear teaching from any Catholic teacher I had.
No recollection of any teacher picking up a Bible.
I thought apologetics meant to say your sorry.

I went to Catholic High School, two years of Catholic middle school and six years of CCD in elementary. I came out of High School not knowing the Real Presence. I thought it was symbolic. I almost left the Church but ended up reading Rome Sweet Home by Scott Hahn and was floored at what I didn’t know about my own Church.

WOW.

My dad went to Catholic school in the 1930s and 1940s, 1st (there was no universal kindergarten back then) through 12th grades. I heard about all of that from him my whole life. He was taught all that stuff - in school. (Well, obviously not the gay marriage part, but you know what I mean.)

I didn’t realize that it was so different now. I assumed that Catholic school…was Catholic school.

 

[brian_custer]

i live in a 100% blue NE state of the USA; MANY of our parishioners wish Obama (with his 110% pro abortion agenda) could be president for life

meanwhile evangelicals (protestants) vote & fight the pro-life fight

it is a very troubling dichotomy…

 

[Arbovirus]

As a convert, I always envied those who got solid Catholic catechesis early on (my idea of Catholic school might be biased by the movie Sister Act). Maybe it doesn’t happen as often as I thought it did…