Significant Other Losing Faith...HELP!

[AdriannaJean]

Hi Everyone,

Recently my boyfriend went to Peru with a Catholic organization to build a school and came back a changed man. The Church there is very different from where we live (Canada) and the people are very superstitious (they take that as a part of Catholicism) and the priests and bishops don’t seem to have their heart in their work. He described it as going back in time to the Middle Ages when being a priest was a way to ensure you’re fed, not a calling from God. The Church seems to put no effort into Catechesis so the people remain uneducated about their faith and the prevailing mentality that is encouraged is that blind faith is better. Now he won’t come to Mass anymore and says he has a lot of thinking to do. Any ideas on how to help him come around?

 

[puzzleannie]

How much time did he spend in Peru. And how many Catholics, how many priests, how many bishops, how many parishes did he come to know in his time in Peru? My guess is very few. Ask him how logical it is to form an opinion about the health of the Church in the entire country based on his limited experience. If he spent all his time in a parish, in say, Detroit which was languishing, would he then make a judgment about the Church in Detroit, in Michigan, in the US based on that experience?

If he thinks A) it would be a good thing of the Church were strong in Peru, and B)that the Church is not now very strong in Peru, the logical response is NOT, well I will not be part of the Church any more. The logical response is, I will do everything in my power to make the Church stronger.

 

[cmscms]

The only thing you can do to make him come around is pray to God for him and everyday set a good example by becoming a better Catholic. Nagging will get you NO WHERE.

If he chooses to leave his faith then you need to decide if you can still be his girlfriend (not an easy decision)

One thing I have always found very odd, is someone who has a bad experience and then leaves the church. I have to wonder before he went to Peru how strong his faith was. Did he really go for the faith, or was it an excuse to take a trip?

I know a lady who told me when she lived in Montreal, she worked downtown beside a Catholic church. During lent she went to mass everyday on her lunch hour. When all the sex scandals came out, she became disillusioned and no longer goes to church. I really wonder before the sex scandals what she was doing in church. Did she not receive any comfort at mass? Was she there for the priest’s reputation or to serve God.

Everyone knows a lot of politicians are crooks yet they hold on tight to their right to vote.

I will never understand people who let other ‘poor’ catholics take away their faith

CM

 

[stanncie]

I’m sorry this happened to your boyfriend. I’m from Peru and I lived there until I was about 12 years old.

I could tell you that what your boyfriend witnessed is not true everywhere. Sure there are people with superstitions but maybe he also failed to see the differences between that and cultural issues. The culture there is very different than the one in North America. It’s like Protestants who criticize us worshiping statues when they don’t even bother to find out the truth.

I went to Catholic school in Peru and to this day I remember what those nuns taught me. I could tell you I was very well catechized for a child. I fell away from the church for around 10 years. Still, those seeds that were planted as a child were still there. When I returned to the church as a young adult, it was fairly easy as far as catechesis. I see now that everything I was taught was orthodox and true. I go to a young adult group at my church and ever since I started i could tell I knew as much or sometimes even more than the people that had been at the group for 2-3 years. Most of them had a closer relationship with God than I do but I knew more about the faith than they did.

I tell you this because your boyfriend cannot generalize about everything. He might indeed have seen some ‘blind faith’ but this is not the case everywhere. There is a lot of poverty in Peru, much worse than most people in the first world can imagine. When you are barely surviving you don’t have a lot of time to read the catechism you know?
I think he needs some perspective.