JohnStrachan
New member
Why did you leave? Where did you go? Do you yearn to return? If so, what has to change (in your heart or in the life of the church) to make that possible?
To all Roman Catholics in exile
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laylow
Guest
Quite simply…no longer believe.
Is there a reason to go somewhere?
No. Although, I sometimes miss the music and the smell of the incense.
I’m not sure there is anything. Probably a personal revelation, Thomas-style.
JohnStrachan
New member
Just so everyone knows, this is my story:
I left the RC church in 2008 and joined the Anglicans. I was an “all-in” Catholic - even went to seminary in the late 80’s. Got married and started using NFP - used it for seven years and timed the conception of 4 children (though first one miscarried).
Around 2005/6 I began to feel “empty” in my faith. As a Grand-Knight with the K of C I was subject to back stabbing and personal attacks that were very hurtful. My parish priest did not stand up for me. I felt abandoned.
Some deep-seeded animosities I had toward the church also came to a head. I was angry that the church did not accept any responsibility for clergy abuse of minors and that the RC church in Canada would not accept responsibility for abuse of first nations people. I was troubled by the way the church rejected people in same sex relationships as well.
In addition, my own experience of abuse in the seminary by a fellow seminarian still caused me pain. When I brought the abuse to the attention of the seminary rector he was dismissive - suggesting that because the activity didn’t involve penetration that it wasn’t really abuse. His exact words were “Patrick was just letting off a little steam.” I put the experience in a little box in my brain and forgot about it.
People in the church have let me down. And leaving the church has impaired relations with my father who claims I have “lost the faith.” I have not lost my faith. I go to church, am engaged in ministry, teach Christian ed. via Alpha, study and read the bible, pray, and try and bring my children up to be good Christians. I feel I am a better Christian now then when I was RC. And yet, I miss the RC church.
Every six months or so I get this nagging feeling of wanting to return. I miss the identity and the rigour. I miss having a church that actually stands for something. I love what the RC church represents even though people within the church have let me down. I love being “all in” - totally immersed in the daily rhythm.
But each episode of wanting to return is followed by a reaffirmation of why I left and why I feel at home in the Anglican church.
I left the RC church in 2008 and joined the Anglicans. I was an “all-in” Catholic - even went to seminary in the late 80’s. Got married and started using NFP - used it for seven years and timed the conception of 4 children (though first one miscarried).
Around 2005/6 I began to feel “empty” in my faith. As a Grand-Knight with the K of C I was subject to back stabbing and personal attacks that were very hurtful. My parish priest did not stand up for me. I felt abandoned.
Some deep-seeded animosities I had toward the church also came to a head. I was angry that the church did not accept any responsibility for clergy abuse of minors and that the RC church in Canada would not accept responsibility for abuse of first nations people. I was troubled by the way the church rejected people in same sex relationships as well.
In addition, my own experience of abuse in the seminary by a fellow seminarian still caused me pain. When I brought the abuse to the attention of the seminary rector he was dismissive - suggesting that because the activity didn’t involve penetration that it wasn’t really abuse. His exact words were “Patrick was just letting off a little steam.” I put the experience in a little box in my brain and forgot about it.
People in the church have let me down. And leaving the church has impaired relations with my father who claims I have “lost the faith.” I have not lost my faith. I go to church, am engaged in ministry, teach Christian ed. via Alpha, study and read the bible, pray, and try and bring my children up to be good Christians. I feel I am a better Christian now then when I was RC. And yet, I miss the RC church.
Every six months or so I get this nagging feeling of wanting to return. I miss the identity and the rigour. I miss having a church that actually stands for something. I love what the RC church represents even though people within the church have let me down. I love being “all in” - totally immersed in the daily rhythm.
But each episode of wanting to return is followed by a reaffirmation of why I left and why I feel at home in the Anglican church.
W
Wife.of.Gabriel
Guest
Left for the Greek Orthodox Church because I mistakenly believed that in 1054 ad, the Catholic Church left Orthodoxy, not that the Orthodox Church got excommunicated for leaving Orthodoxy. God-Willing, our family will return officially to the Catholic Church in April this year after over 16 yrs. Please pray for us that we’ll all revert, my husband, me, our 2 adult daughters, our adult son, our teenage son and 7 yr old daughter.
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Limoncello4021
Guest
Has Jesus also let you down? Seek the Church that He founded and in which He is constantly present in the Holy Eucharist.
JohnStrachan
New member
Jesus has never let me down, just people.
M
Mary888
Guest
But if you came back to RC will you meet the same people who disappointed you before?
JohnStrachan
New member
No, I wouldn’t. But there are bigger issues at play here that need to be reconciled on my part if I were to come back. I believe very strongly in: married clergy, female clergy and synodical-lay governance. The RC church’s response to clergy abuse and treatment of aboriginals here is Canada is an embarrassment. For the church leadership to gain credibility she must change: infuse the authority of the church with meaningful lay engagement and surrender the statehood of the Vatican - not likely in my lifetime.
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powerandglory
Guest
This really resonated with me. I have been away for years. I was abused by a priest and felt even more abandoned when his superiors just did a nice little shuffle and sent him off to another country as a missionary. Over the years, every single time I thought about coming back to the RC some new, worse case of abuse crops up in the media and I feel that same old anger and hatred rising up to derail me.
About 6 months ago, I had a vivid experience of God while visiting a RC church. It left such a deep impression on me that I knew I had to return, though the road back would be hard. I’ve spent a lot of time in silence with God, and one thing I can tell you is, without Him I have no center.
Two days ago I learned that I was not the only victim where I grew up. For a moment I thought that anger and hate would rise up again and it started to but I realized; God is separate from the sins committed by His people. The sins of others, the abuse, the horrible crimes; all of this hurts Him even more than it hurts us.
My faith is weak and shaky and I have years of sin to try and root out, but with His grace, I am succeeding a little more this time. If you really want to return to the church, go spend some time in front of the Blessed Sacrament: you and God. Let Him speak in the silence and show you the way.
O
OKComputer
Guest
When I left the church I gotta admit, the priest scandal really bothered me. I felt like I couldn’t trust the leadership in the church with my child, so how could I trust them with my salvation? Sure, we’re all humans but I couldn’t imagine how the true church of Christ could let this happen.
I bounced from a Lutheran church to the LDS church to no church.
I’m now a lukewarm Catholic. I’ve had a drama filled personal life so I’m sort of afraid of commitment! I attend church sometimes, go to confession sometimes, etc.
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CatholicSooner
Guest
God bless you for sharing your story.
I don’t have much to add as I have never been in that situation, however, what happens when you get betrayed or let down in the Anglican faith? Will you move somewhere else? And then what?
At some point, it will be clear that the terrible things you experienced are a result of the fallen man and not the Church. Scripture is full of these failings. And these failing will continue and get worse as time goes on.
So it is up to us on how we deal with them…do we let them defeat us or do we see the light of Christ shining through the darkness?
Also remember that Jesus is the Church yet he had terrible things happen to him as well.
God bless you brother…I will be praying for you.
I don’t have much to add as I have never been in that situation, however, what happens when you get betrayed or let down in the Anglican faith? Will you move somewhere else? And then what?
At some point, it will be clear that the terrible things you experienced are a result of the fallen man and not the Church. Scripture is full of these failings. And these failing will continue and get worse as time goes on.
So it is up to us on how we deal with them…do we let them defeat us or do we see the light of Christ shining through the darkness?
Also remember that Jesus is the Church yet he had terrible things happen to him as well.
God bless you brother…I will be praying for you.
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Episcopalian
Guest
I ended up abandoning the Church because I felt that the Church abandoned me, since I was gay.
The whole organization was very lukewarm when it came to it’s affirmation as me being a child of God and it didn’t do anything to mitigate the comments, and mindset that so often pervaded it’s attendees.
It happened so often that my most devout friends would distance themselves from me, or make disparaging comments about gay people with me in the room, or even tried to convert me to being straight that I felt enough was enough.
There was a deep seated problem if the most loyal church members would aggress against me and my feelings, even though I maintained chastity, that something wasn’t right.
That’s what made me mad and was the biggest problem I had with it.
But then it’s like thinking about different doctrinal or dogmatic things:
The whole organization was very lukewarm when it came to it’s affirmation as me being a child of God and it didn’t do anything to mitigate the comments, and mindset that so often pervaded it’s attendees.
It happened so often that my most devout friends would distance themselves from me, or make disparaging comments about gay people with me in the room, or even tried to convert me to being straight that I felt enough was enough.
There was a deep seated problem if the most loyal church members would aggress against me and my feelings, even though I maintained chastity, that something wasn’t right.
That’s what made me mad and was the biggest problem I had with it.
But then it’s like thinking about different doctrinal or dogmatic things:
- I don’t believe in transubstantiation
- I believe priests should be able to marry
- I believe that women can be priests
- I believe that saint veneration is stressed to much in the Catholic Church
- I think the church is too legalistic and loses the true message of God and rather follows a strict rubric on how when and where to worship
- I believe being gay is ok and that acting on your feelings, provided it’s in a meaningful relationship, is fine.
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DisorientingSneeze
Guest
This thread has some really interesting questions. Thank you for answering them with your personal stories. I’m so sorry to hear about the things that have happened to some of you, and I know saying that is a far cry from an adequate response.
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Episcopalian
Guest
For me, at least, it was just a paradigm mismatch. I knew I didn’t belong but luckily I found my true home in the Episcopal Church.
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Limoncello4021
Guest
I’m Catholic and love Catholicism for precisely these reasons. We cannot compromise on the sin of homosexual activity, the refusal to recognize “gay” marriage, the grave evil of killing babies. If you’d like to compromise with the world on these and many other things, chose any one of the other watered down Christian religions out there. I thank God the Church upholds and defends the standards set by Jesus Christ, who never compromised with what people “wanted” over the Truth.
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TOmNossor
Guest
Hello,
I left ignorant of what Catholicism was due to the beam in my eye and the liberal parish in which I grew up.
I looked around because it was all just different flavors. I attended again because the Catholic flavor was fine. I then became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I came to Catholic Answers because I discovered that I was ignorant of the teachings of the Catholic Church and today I am either not ignorant or “invincibly ignorant.”
I find problems with Catholic truth claims, but it is the inability to explain the Book of Mormon or the Restoration intellectually from a Catholic perspective that leaves me a LDS. After this (logically and temporally actually, but I mean logically), I have a testimony that God wants me to be a LDS.
Charity, TOm
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DisorientingSneeze
Guest
The church doesn’t call for pitchforks, when it comes to abortion. It calls for prayer to end abortion. It calls for ministry to support mothers in need. It calls for counseling and retreats for the healing of post-abortive women. The figurative pitchforks are coming from people who are understandably horrified by what abortion is and does. It’s a lot like the clerical abuse scandal in that it brings about the full spectrum of possible reactions in people.
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DisorientingSneeze
Guest
Have you found any faiths outside of LDS that do explain them intellectually from their own perspective? I want to say I’ve seen Catholic Apologetics material about Mormonism, but I haven’t read any of it and I trust you have and found it lacking.
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HopkinsReb
Guest
The Catholic Church has married clergy.
If the Catholic church started to “ordain” female “priests,” it would, at that point, no longer have reason to exist, as it would have contracted itself on its teachings, thus proving itself fallible and causing its entire ecclesiology to collapse.
Why in the world would this be necessary “for the church leadership to gain credibility?”
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TOmNossor
Guest
There are universalist paradigms that explain the BOM as just another of many revelations from God.TOmNossor:
Have you found any faiths outside of LDS that do explain them intellectually from their own perspective? I want to say I’ve seen Catholic Apologetics material about Mormonism, but I haven’t read any of it and I trust you have and found it lacking.
The Bahai faith generally views Joseph Smith as a “Seer” which allows a divine source for the BOM.
I have read the CA documents. I don’t remember that they try to explain the origins of the BOM, only that there are problems and that no Catholic should pray to know if it is true. I agree in part with both halves, but at the end of my weighing of the problems and positives, I determine the BOM is not explainable via some naturalistic explanation.
Charity, TOm
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