Why Do Catholics Leave the Church?

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JesusIsTheWay:
I am well aware what the Cathiloc Church teaches. I have studied it for quite some time. I am well aware of the origins, history, conflicts, and doctrine. I don’t mindlessly accept what i see at face value. I hear a teaching or read something someone says. And if the Bible says otherwise, I have to disagree with the teaching. It’s common sense to me. So please… enlighten me…

And my username is hardly the unofficialy motto of the RCC… isn’t it “Mary is the Way?” (false by the way)
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I think your final quote disproves your first statement that you are aware of what the Catholic Church teaches. Mary is important but not the way - and several threads on this forum will back me up on this. Read these and defend your position there; this thread probably isn’t the right place to start this discussion.

Kris
 
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JesusIsTheWay:
I am well aware what the Cathiloc Church teaches. I have studied it for quite some time. I am well aware of the origins, history, conflicts, and doctrine. I don’t mindlessly accept what i see at face value. I hear a teaching or read something someone says. And if the Bible says otherwise, I have to disagree with the teaching. It’s common sense to me. So please… enlighten me…

And my username is hardly the unofficialy motto of the RCC… isn’t it “Mary is the Way?” (false by the way)
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It was John Paul the Second, Early in his Papacy, even in it’s opening days that said, “Open wide the doors to Christ”. Further, He publicly began his papacy with the words “Praised be Jesus Christ”. Considering the avalance of volumes that Catholicism has produced on Christ, it is difficult to believe that we have forgotten him. A more appropriate criticism might be that many Catholics become too distracted by Mary, and can lose sight of the meaning of the Eucharist. But of course, this is also difficult to say because who besides God, knows the hearts of these people? It is a difficult position that you put yourself in, trying to tell whether someone elses faith is salvic, but to each his own.

I dofind it interesting that while you decry the Catholic Faith, you hold in your hands, probably daily I would assume, a CatholicDocument that is considered by the Church to be part of Tradion, the same that you reject.

The Bible was brought together by the Catholic Church after the Edict of Milan, Pope Damasus I, in the Decree of Damasus, at the council of Rome (a local council), set the contents of what would be considered Christian Scriptures. In the next decade and many times afterward, this was re-affirmed until Trent when it was Infallibly declared, once it was Challenged almost 1200 years later. This put’s your church and the Protestant confessions into an interesting situation, because Your faith comes from the bible in a manner of speaking. You base your faith upon what you find there, and your denominations base their existance off of what they believe it says, but you are taking up a position, with your faith coming from your interpretation of scripture that puts you in opposition to the Church from which Scripture was defined.

How do you reconcile this?
 
+veritas+:
Mary has nothing to do with our salvation? :ehh:
  1. All Christians believe in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, Emmanuel.
  2. God chose Mary to be the earthly mother of Jesus Christ, and she was honored by both angels and men (Gabriel, Elizabeth, St. John) because of her fidelity to her vocation.
  3. It was Mary’s fiat, her free will, in cooperating with God’s will, that allowed the Holy Spirit to come upon her so that she conceived Christ in her womb.
  4. The question of whether Christ would have been born anyway had Mary not cooperated with God is a moot point, she did agree and it was due to her agreement with God’s will that Christ did become man.
  5. Therefore, all Christians should acknowledge that Mary does play a huge role in our eternal salvation, and should, in fact, follow the example of the angels and her kinsfolks by honoring her (not worship her!) and her fidelity and love of our Lord.
+veritas+
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i believe that Mary played a crucial role!! She give birth to Jesus!! She accepted responsibility for what God asked her to do. I would never dispute that… my issue is praying to Mary for Salvation (or praying to her at all for that matter), which people do. Jesus said time and again that the only way to the father is through Jesus alone… no one else… Not- the only way to the Father is through the son…and oh yeah, the mother before that…that’s unbiblical…and that didn’t even start until 300 years after Christ after the Catholic Church had taken in some of the Christian doctrine and mixed it with the pegan doctrine it was worshipping at the time…
 
The Bible says, "John 14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Jonah 2:9
But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.

Acts 4:10-12
Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. [11] This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. [12] **Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. **

1 Thes. 5:9
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

or… how about this…

May 7, 1997 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist News Service, 1701 Harns Rd., Oak Harbor, WA 98277) - On May 7 Pope John Paul II dedicated his general audience to “the Virgin Mary” and urged all Christians to accept Mary as their mother. He noted the words spoken by Jesus on the cross to Mary and to John–“Woman, behold thy son!” and “Behold thy mother!” (John 19:26,27), and he claimed that in this statement “IT IS POSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND THE AUTHENTIC MEANING OF MARIAN WORSHIP in the ecclesial community … which furthermore is based on the will of Christ” (Vatican Information Service, May 7, 1997).

John Paul II underlined that “the history of Christian piety teaches that MARY IS THE PATH THAT LEADS TO CHRIST, and that filial devotion to her does not at all diminish intimacy with Jesus, but rather, it increases it and leads it to very high levels of perfection.” He concluded by asking all Christians “to make room (for Mary) in their daily lives, ACKNOWLEDGING HER PROVIDENTIAL ROLE IN THE PATH OF SALVATION” (Ibid.).

Interesting…

People, I do not make this up. My passion is the search for truth and the disproving of untruth…
 
Jesusistheway, on Mary and the saints, we pray to them so they pray along with us, for us, to God, it’s never been anything more than that. Mary is the mother of Jesus which makes her the mother of the church. She is the ark of the new covinent. I dont know what your mother means to you, but Jesus’ mother meant a great deal to him.What grusome acts? The crusades? The inquisition? If those are it then I would have to say the crusades were necessary as a defence against the violent spreading of Islam, bad things happened just like in any war. But the church wasnt to blame for hatefull greedy men who fought for them. And the inquisition was never condoned by the church. But if you had other things in mind I’d be curious.
 
My reasons for believing that people leave the Church are:
  1. Lack of understanding. It isn’t knowledge so much, but how everything fits together. I think that it is often a case of not seeing the forest for the tres.
  2. Lack of zeal. I think that we have often times failed to give people a compelling reason to care. We havent made our case as well as we should have. We haven’t established authority, the authority of the Church, early enough, and havent shown how it is the connective tissue that binds everything together. It doesn’t become a congruent faith, and therefore people find it difficult to latch onto. A faith that doesn’t move, that doesnt move you is as easy to carry with you as a limp body (to continue the analogy).
  3. Catholics have not really drawn the lines like we should have. Catholic culture is often times too much like secular culture. We haven’t really seperated ourselves in a meaningful way. We are really good at being in the world, but horrible at being Not OF the world. If the culture of the faith is the same as the culture of the world, who needs the faith? Faith should make us want to become what we should have been, what we were created to be, but If our culture keeps us mired in the clay, we see ourselves more as the mud than the breath of God.
 
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Timothy:
I dofind it interesting that while you decry the Catholic Faith, you hold in your hands, probably daily I would assume, a CatholicDocument that is considered by the Church to be part of Tradion, the same that you reject.

The Bible was brought together by the Catholic Church after the Edict of Milan, Pope Damasus I, in the Decree of Damasus, at the council of Rome (a local council), set the contents of what would be considered Christian Scriptures. In the next decade and many times afterward, this was re-affirmed until Trent when it was Infallibly declared, once it was Challenged almost 1200 years later. This put’s your church and the Protestant confessions into an interesting situation, because Your faith comes from the bible in a manner of speaking. You base your faith upon what you find there, and your denominations base their existance off of what they believe it says, but you are taking up a position, with your faith coming from your interpretation of scripture that puts you in opposition to the Church from which Scripture was defined.

How do you reconcile this?
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Well, once people started to read the Bible for themselves instead of accepting man’s tradition, it was bound to happen. It doesn’t matter who put them together. They were a direct translation of scripture right? Why would it matter?? It wasn’t until the Protestant Reformation that the Bilbe became a real problem to the RCC since it wasn’t until then that the finger was pointed at them as the bad guy. Did you know in the dark ages, if you had a bible and you weren’t clergy, you would be killed?? Who would dispute what the church said?? Not even nuns were allowed to read it untill a few decades ago!! The church put the scripture together, and I thank you for it. Without it, who knows where we would be. Let me tell you something… the Bible may have come from the Catholics, but it is not Catholic Material. The Catholic Church has, time and again, changed the laws over and again to fit their agenda… Even the Commendments were changed!!!

So how do you reconcile that?
 
I started a new thread for the secondary discussion after it was pointed out that two discussions in the same thread could be counter productive.

The thread is in this same forum and is titled “Mary is the Way?”

Jesusistheway, would you do us the honor of starting us off there?
 
JesusistheWay-You need to cite some sources for your “facts” you just gave. I know of no proven examples where some one was killed because he read the Bible. The only thing I do know is that yes, the Bible was chained to the pulpit - not to keep it from the people but to make sure it was always available to them and it was considered so valuable. Now that sounds like a Church who didn’t recognize the importance of scripture to me, or not?

Kris
 
JoaoMachado said:
1.The Priest said to “Go, to love and serve the lord”
  1. Because they turned off the lights after the Choir was done.
  2. Because they were serving donutsafter Mass.
Sorry, I could not control my self!!😃

Joao
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I was wondering how long those would take to come out!

Love it!
 
  1. Feeling alone…not making a connection with other members of the church.
  2. Lack of entertainment. So many “seldom” parishoners need to feel “fed” and/or entertained by the priest.
  3. Not understanding their religion.
 
No matter what “evidence” people come up with, no matter what the Church has done over the years, remember there is only 1 place that someone, be it sinner or saint, can receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. That place is at a Mass at a Roman Catholic Church. He commanded it in John 6 and at the Last Supper.

So unless Protestant ministers begin consecrating ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus, their way while well intentioned, is not the true way. It will always fall short. The Eucharist is what will always seperate Catholicism from any other religion.

I have seen it posted by others that some of the goings on in the Church disappoint them but what keeps them here is the Eucharist. As Peter said “To whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life.”
 
JesusistheWay wrote:
Well, once people started to read the Bible for themselves instead of accepting man’s tradition, it was bound to happen.
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When did people start to read the bible? The great majority of people back then could not read; or write.
It doesn’t matter who put them together. They were a direct translation of scripture right? Why would it matter??
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It does matter who put the Scriptures together. It also matters that they were transcribed without changing the context of the verses.
It wasn’t until the Protestant Reformation that the Bilbe became a real problem to the RCC since it wasn’t until then that the finger was pointed at them as the bad guy. Did you know in the dark ages, if you had a bible and you weren’t clergy, you would be killed??
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Can you provide proof of this?
Who would dispute what the church said?? Not even nuns were allowed to read it untill a few decades ago!!
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Again, please provide valid documentation.
The church put the scripture together, and I thank you for it. Without it, who knows where we would be.
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Well, at least you finally said something that makes sense.
Let me tell you something… the Bible may have come from the Catholics, but it is not Catholic Material. The Catholic Church has, time and again, changed the laws over and again to fit their agenda
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And what agenda is that?
Even the Commendments were changed!!!
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How so?
 
From Jesusistheway:
or… how about this…

May 7, 1997 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist News Service, 1701 Harns Rd., Oak Harbor, WA 98277) - On May 7 Pope John Paul II dedicated his general audience to “the Virgin Mary” and urged all Christians to accept Mary as their mother. He noted the words spoken by Jesus on the cross to Mary and to John–“Woman, behold thy son!” and “Behold thy mother!” (John 19:26,27), and he claimed that in this statement “IT IS POSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND THE AUTHENTIC MEANING OF MARIAN WORSHIP in the ecclesial community … which furthermore is based on the will of Christ” (Vatican Information Service, May 7, 1997).
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Since you have started quoting David Cloud I don’t even have to try to understand your thought processes. I already see how they were formed.

Mark
 
I don’t believe Catholics leave the Church over doctrine. Many leave because of :
  1. Marriage
  2. Re-marriage
    30 Birth control
 
Because I didn’t know my Faith and fell in love with the wonderful Protestant preaching. Thankfully when I was ready to leave I realized that I didn’t even know anything and so began to study. Thank God because I’m still here but no longer “unchurched.” By the way, I’m not a product of modern religious ed as I am 65. God has been very good. I think the Church was wise in the days when we couldn’t go to anything Protestant since we never heard their preaching. Thank God that all of those wonderful Protestant pastors are coming into the Church and teaching us what we (I) didn’t know.
 
I agree with the others, but would like to add one thing.
So many of the protestant services are highly emotional…they make people feel good (for a short time). It’s like Father Corapi. I love to hear the man speak and it makes me feel good, but listening to him is not the sacrifice of the mass, which can be dull if a person doesn’t grasp what is really happening.
I believe the loss of Catholics to Protestanism has a lot to do with our society today…Immediate gratification!!!
 
My experience?
1: Drift, disinterest, apathy
2: Rebellion against parents’ values
3: Not married in the church
4: Can’t find a good reason to stay–lack of spiritual conversion to Christ and His Church
5: Someone was rude, or someone was doctrinaire, or someone was a hypocrite–in short, disillusionment.
 
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