Need help keeping teens in Catholic Church

[alarmman]

A friend attends a protestant church, however both of his teenage children have been raised Catholic and attend Sunday Mass. He wants to give them the choice of going with him to Sunday services at the protestant church, instead of Mass.

Teens are tremendously tempted by the secular world, especially when they enter college and are in need of the many graces provided by the Mass and the Sacraments.

What advice can I share with this well meaning but misguided friend?

 

[Cat]

I’ve successfully raised two daughters, so I feel a little qualified to speak to this question.

To be honest, I don’t know that there is a lot that you can do. You are a friend, not even a relative. Your friend is a Protestant. He won’t comprehend why Mass is important. To him, it’s just another “worship service.”

Do you have the ear of the teenagers? Are you someone that they like or love and trust? If so, you can talk with them and explain the important of attending Mass. Tell them that the Mass is the source and summit of life for Catholics. It is of supreme importance. It’s not just another “church time” or “worship service.” It is where we receive JESUS, the Lord of heaven and earth. Tell them that you love them and you don’t want them to miss out on receiving Jesus.

But you have to be oh, so careful not to undermine the father’ work! The kids may play him against you if they sense that they can get something out of either of you.

You really have no right to interfere with his child-rearing unless he is abusing his teenagers.

You can be a good example to the teenagers no matter what.

Here is something to keep in mind: it is a quirk of human nature that when something is forbidden, that thing becomes unbearably attractive. But when permission is granted, the thing loses its luster.

Why else is it that when we aren’t dieting, we really don’t care about deep-fat fried chocolate-covered Peeps? But when we are on a diet, we crave these sickening treats like a junkie craves heroin, and we will go to elaborate lengths to “cheat” and obtain these forbidden pleasures.

I don’t think it would be the end of their Catholic faith if the teenagers are allowed to make the choice. If they are forbidden to attend Protestant worship services, those services will take on the appeal of a wondrous, magical, mysterious Disneyland to the teens. They will crave these services, they will long to go, and they will do anything, even something wrong, to be able to go.

But if they are given permission to attend Protestant worship services, eventually they will lose interest because they will discover that the services aren’t a wondrous, magical, mysterious Disneyland, but just a very long concert and lecture time.

Of course, this is assuming that the teenagers in question have been raised in the Church, have a well-formed conscience, and have received excellent catechesis about their Catholic faith.

If not, well–start praying hard that the Lord will have mercy. This is just the beginning. College will make mincemeat out of them, just as it has out of many kids. Only after they’ve been “out in the world” for several years will they come to their sense and realize the foolishness of rejecting God.

Good luck. It’s great that you care enough to try to help. Kids need all the advocates they can get.

 

[BamaRider]

A friend attends a protestant church, however both of his teenage children have been raised Catholic and attend Sunday Mass. He wants to give them the choice of going with him to Sunday services at the protestant church, instead of Mass.

Teens are tremendously tempted by the secular world, especially when they enter college and are in need of the many graces provided by the Mass and the Sacraments.

What advice can I share with this well meaning but misguided friend?

I’m gonna assume the other parent is Catholic? Where is she in all this?

I’m thinking the only reason he wants to give them “choice” is to possibly sway them from the Faith.

 

[KingAlfred]

A friend attends a protestant church, however both of his teenage children have been raised Catholic and attend Sunday Mass. He wants to give them the choice of going with him to Sunday services at the protestant church, instead of Mass.

Teens are tremendously tempted by the secular world, especially when they enter college and are in need of the many graces provided by the Mass and the Sacraments.

What advice can I share with this well meaning but misguided friend?

I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I consider Catholicism a more ‘intelligent’ version of Christianity, which makes it hard for many to understand it, without the benefit of study, religious experience, and informed reflection. Sometimes the young, in not meeting this criteria, find the simpler, yet misguided Protestant approach, appealing. In time, most will return to Catholicism.

 

[Cat]

Our whole family was Protestant while our daughters were growing up. So I never faced the heartbreak of seeing my kids flee the Church. (We were actually kicked out of our Evangelical Free Church, so I didn’t blame my kids for ditching church.)

But I think??? that if I had been Catholic, a strong Catholic, and raised my kids Catholic, and they ditched Christ’s Church to head off to an evangelical or some other kind of Protestant church, I would fight for them.

I would first learn everything I possibly could about the sect that they were attending.

I would learn whole chapters of the Bible (mainly to impress my Protestant sheep-stealers), and I would make DARN TOOTIN’ SURE that I knew the Books of the Bible, in order, backward and forwards, so that I wouldn’t make a fool of myself when talking to knowledgeable Protestants.

And I would study and LEARN everything I could get my hands on about the Catholic Church. Hopefully I was doing that all along, all through the years, so I wouldn’t have to cram. But if cramming is what’s necessary, I would cram.

I would meet and talk long and earnestly with ex-Protestant converts, preferably those who came out of the sect that was stealing my kids. I would pick their brains, their hearts, and their souls, and enlist their aid.

And I would enlist the prayers of everyone I know, in the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant. I would call upon all the angels and saints, and ask St. Michael specifically to accompany me.

THEN–I would go in and get my kids out.

I would make an appointment with the pastor/youth pastor/sponsor, and I would tell them to leave my kids and other Catholic kids alone.

I would challenge them to a “theological duel”–they can name the place, time, and setting. If they want to make it a public spectacle, that’s just dandy. I’m would be up for it.

I would bring those ex-Protestant converts along–THEY know what my kids are falling into, and THEY want them out even more than I do.

I would make sure that I WON that duel, or maybe I should say, that the Catholic Church won that duel.

And I wouldn’t leave without my kids.

And I would do all this with love and reasonableness, as St. Paul describes. I wouldn’t flip out or be arrested for assault. I would simply be true to my calling as “mother” and rescue my kids from something that is only a shadow of true Christianity.

Maybe that’s just me. But I wouldn’t allow the Protestants to take my kids away from the Church without a FIGHT!