Survey reveals why Catholics leave Church, including because of watered down teaching

  • Thread starter Thread starter JohnR77
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
As recent Popes like to say, the Church grows by attraction. The full, unadulterated and unchanging truth along with beautiful liturgical worship, good works, and holy lives that reflect it are what attract souls of good will in this ever changing world.
 
Last edited:
Not very useful, when it doesn’t even give any numbers from the survey results.
 
Sorry, but I put no faith in LifeSiteNews. I put my faith in Pope Francis and the Roman Catholic Church! 🙏🙏🙏
 
I have been saying this for years. Clerics need to preach on the things that are truly hurting families such as Contraception, homosexuality, gender identity,IVF, and marriage. Also core teaching are very important especially the Real Presence, the Total Innarancy of Scripture, the existence of hell, angels and demons, mortal sin, heaven. If all we hear is political left talking points and below average homilies it’s not hitting home. It suffices for those who come to mass daily or weekly because we love Jesus so much we can tolerate it, but for those that are outside or not practicing it doesn’t help them.
 
Last edited:
I was just out in Brazil and I met hundreds of Brazilians who had left the Church for evangelicalism and pentecostalism, so many of them said to me that they left because the Catholic priests were involved in liberation theology and didn’t practically demonstrate how they could connect with God and that they experienced healing and miracles in their current ‘churches’ and a God who was very real. They were surprised that I as a Catholic had personally prayed with many people and had seen many people miraculously healed. I think watered down teaching is an important factor but it is not about just teaching people authentic Catholic teaching it is about making the person of Jesus real and accessible to the people and for on going proclamation of the kerygma so that true interior conversion really takes place in the heart of people in the congregation. Yes we encounter Jesus in Holy Communion but we must also properly prepare people through proclamation so they are also properly disposed and receive the graces of this Sacrament.
 
So my question is this: for those who leave the Catholic Church because it is “watered down,” where would you go? If the Catholic Church is considered too strict and too rigid by some, where are these people leaving to go?
 
I think they leave because they feel they have been lied to. At least that is what the ones I know say.
 
I think we need to take a few things into consideration:
  1. The survey involved just 256 people. That’s not much of a figure to extrapolate anything from.
  2. While the site says they polled people who were baptized as Catholic and no longer attended mass, it doesn’t say how those people were found. We know there are many different types of people who fall into those criteria, and the results can be heavily skewed if only one or two types of people are questioned. I think it’s safe to say that the answers would differ greatly if the pollster got participants who frequent an anti-Catholic website as opposed to ones who still self-identify as Catholic even if they no longer attend mass.
  3. I may have missed it, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but I didn’t see what the specific wording was on the questions asked. I know this is more of an informal poll than say Pew Forum, but it’s still important that we know that the questions were neither leading nor confusing.
As a final thought let me just add:
I think that’s funny. The people who leave the Church, generally don’t know the Teachings of the Church. If they did, they wouldn’t leave.
Click to expand...
While that might be the case for a few, I find that most people look hard and deep before making changes in religion. As far as the people I know they both understand the teachings of the Church and disagree with them.
 
The ones I know definitely search far and wide. They struggle. They deal with family issues as a result of their leaving. It isn’t a lazy decision based on “not putting God first”, as some say.

Not only do they invest all that leading up to their decision to leave, many continue their ardent search after they leave. They understand it to be a life-long process and are always searching and learning. Their faith in God often remains in tact.

I belong to a group of ladies who meet regularly to support each other in their quest for knowledge in this realm, so I know what I am talking about.
 
IMO those who leave choose themselves over God. For if they prayed for guidance with a truly open heart, they would know the fullness of Truth is in the Church Jesus himself founded.
 
I wouldn’t tell them that. Not if you are hoping they come back.
 
I was a traditional Catholic convert for 12 years and had gone deep into the theology. I still abandoned the Church for 3 years for Eastern Orthodoxy and for many months for Protestantism (Reformed Calvinism).

Here’s the bottom line- faith is a gift of the Spirit. And opinions are not faith. And just because something seems reasonable, it does NOT mean you have the gift of faith. You can know the ins and outs of the theological minutia of Augustine and Aquinas and Molina, and that is no proof of faith, nor is it necessarily pleasing to God.

In fact, you can neither earn nor merit faith. But it is a God-given internal disposition to obey and submit to the revealed word of God. One good evidence you might have it is you believe doctrines you would despise from a human level but absolutely love simply because God SAYS SO. And then you realize our opinions don’t matter compared to his SAY SO.
 
Let me throw a follow up question out there. If you left, why did you? How do you look upon that decision now?
 
It says in the article that
only deep commitment will withstand the constant attrition of the secular media, friends, college professors, government policies, and so on.
Click to expand...
Sometimes you have Catholic Churches packed with College professors because they’re far more likely to actually study what their faith is.

Those who are close to me have left because they’ve experienced abuse. They returned because they’ve taken the time to study the church’s teachings.

If you’d actually want to read the details of the study, you’d have to buy it on Amazon. Who knows about the methodology of the survey. LifeSite can pretty much say what they want because few people who read the article will buy the book on Amazon.
 
Those I know that left Catholicism did so because they just felt they couldn’t commit to it anymore. Secularism and faith are clashing head on and secularism won out on those that left. The actual problem each of them had with the teachings varied but they refused to be hypocrites…believing something other than church teachings…and felt they had to be true to themselves rather than put on a false face and continue pretending to accept the church.

Everyone I’ve talked to about leaving had different clashing points but all of them insisted that staying was lying to themselves, family and fellow churchgoers. I have no idea how one can fix that? They all were deeply involved in trying to determine the truth. These are intelligent people and all understood the ramifications. I can’t vouch for their complete understanding of doctrine but I’m pretty sure they felt they did.
 
This isn’t a surprise. Despite the source, the phenomenon is well known. Though some will not believe regardless of how well catechized they are, theological liberalism makes it worse. Whereas theological orthodoxy resists secular trends and guards the flock against wolves, theological liberalism throws the flock to the wolves.

I initially thought LSN was citing some bad survey but I was happy they were citing Stephan Bullivant, who’s a great sociologist.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top