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Sy_Noe
Guest
Perhaps not. But if you have reasons far different than mine or others and my suspicion is you might, I still think you should be allowed to give them.
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WilT
Guest
You can say mostly all that you want all you have to do is tone down your opinions and try not to criticize Catholic things or people. There is a little eggshell walking to do. Remember people too can complain about you or things that you may say as well that can cause a penalty.
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shelby_sun
Guest
My little stupid reasons for wanting to leave the church would be the terrible homilies some priest give. I mean seriously some are just flat out horrible. Another reason is the music, at least at our church, it is torturous. I envy those church that sing that uplifting music that make everyone want to sing and dance for God. We had much better music growing up. It shouldn’t have to always be serious and proper, it should make people want to sing. Now those are no reason to leave the church.
The only time I have questioned staying in the Church is when I have come to this site and read people tell people they will not be saved for whatever reason. I believe only God knows and even though He is inspiring those in the Catholic Church and has for two thousand years we are yet to learn the total “truth” so I don’t like it when people say Jews won’t be saved of homosexuals won’t be saved. With God anything is possible through His divine love and mercy. I just try to follow where God is guiding me.
The only time I have questioned staying in the Church is when I have come to this site and read people tell people they will not be saved for whatever reason. I believe only God knows and even though He is inspiring those in the Catholic Church and has for two thousand years we are yet to learn the total “truth” so I don’t like it when people say Jews won’t be saved of homosexuals won’t be saved. With God anything is possible through His divine love and mercy. I just try to follow where God is guiding me.
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EasterJoy
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I tend to agree with C.S. Lewis’ take on it:
*"…people often misunderstand what psychology teaches about “repressions.” It teaches us that “repressed” sex is dangerous. But “repressed” is here a technical term: it does not mean “suppressed” in the sense of “denied” or “resisted.” A repressed desire or thought is one which has been thrust into the subconscious (usually at a very early age) and can now come before the mind only in a disguised and unrecognisable form. Repressed sexuality does not appear to the patient to be sexuality at all. When an adolescent or an adult is engaged in resisting a conscious desire, he is not dealing with a repression nor is he in the least danger of creating a repression. On the contrary, those who are seriously attempting chastity are more conscious, and soon know a great deal more about their own sexuality than anyone else. They come to know their desires as Wellington knew Napoleon, or as Sherlock Holmes knew Moriarty; as a rat catcher knows rats or a plumber knows about leaky pipes. Virtue—even attempted virtue—brings light; indulgence brings fog.
Finally, though I have had to speak at some length about sex, I want to make it as clear as I possibly can that the centre of Christian morality is not here. If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither…" *
–C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity, from Chapter 5 in Book III, “Sexual Morality”
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WilT
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Shelby sun, The Catholic Faith and Church is not ABOUT YOU (sorry to have burst your bubble). We go to Mass to give glory and praise to Jesus Christ who loves us, and that should be all! Whether you don’t like the priest homilies, crying babies, jabbering people or whatever it may be it’s not about them either and a poor reason to have left. You left for the wrong reasons and you approach your faith with all the wrong attitude and understanding.** We don’t go to mass to be entertained.** But to spend a holy mass hour with the Lord. I’ll include you in my daily prayers.
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WingsOfEagles
Guest
Re-read her statement. She hasn’t left and admitted those aren’t reasons to leave. They are just things she doesn’t care for and questions.
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WilT
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Thanks for the clarification. Although the reasons she gave in considering leaving the Church remain totally self centered and not Christ centered.
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schaeffer
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lol. I was attempting to have you clarify which of the two took priority. Loving God (as in the Mass) or being friendly with others looking to please them.OK, now could you please explain why the idea of being loving towards your neighbor sent you into such a tizzy about the Mass? I still do not understand where on earth that came from.
A Truce is fine. Our approaches may differ but our intent is good. I don’t see myself turning any tables upside down anytime soon
Well there IS the before and after Mass time, and maybe not doing it to LOOK pleasing, but because you genuinely care and want to share the truth and presence of Christ.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Catholics in the real world and on this forum not want to participate in practices that have NOTHING to do with particular doctrine because they don’t want to “look like a protestant”. If being charitable, welcoming, etc is too Protestant LOOKING for a Catholic, then by all means don’t participate in such behavior.
Again I am not speaking of anything related to doctrine or to the solemnity of the Mass. I am pointing out what Catholics themselves give as the source of their chosen behavior.
I don’t think Catholics are doing anything “wrong”. Do what you do, and either others see it as Truth and want to be on board or they don’t.
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EasterJoy
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I hope you are not implying that she needs your prayers because you find her objection to sloppy music and badly-delivered homilies unworthy of a good Catholic. Many priests object to just that thing. Are they surprised that this makes it more tempting to fail in the Sunday obligation? No, they are not. It isn’t an excuse, but falling to the temptation does not surprise them.
If we go to Mass to give glory and praise to God, what is the excuse for offering some of the worst music in all of Christendom? What is the excuse for being too cheap to employ musicians with proper training? What is the excuse for having a priest with an ill-prepared homily because he is so overwhelmed with work that the faithful ought to be doing?
You assume she is unhappy because she wants to be entertained, but perhaps she is picking up that when the Mass is badly done, it is just one symptom of a lukewarm attitude towards offering the Mass in general. That attitude scandalizes some of the faithful.
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Et_Cetera
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I’ve tried several times on here to list the reasons for why I left the Church, but I’m usually bashed, argued with, and disrespected, so I really don’t know that I want to do it again. I will say that this forum pushed me very far away. If I can find some free time, I would possibly be willing to do it again (I might even have an old post saved somewhere on my computer that I could use as a base.)
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shelby_sun
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Thank you Easter Joy, you worded that much better than I did, and you are absolutely correct. My feelings come from going to a wonderful parish where all are priest were a lot like Pope Francis. Their homilies drew you in and you could sit and listen to them for hours. I desperately miss my Jesuit parish, but I am very grateful I work at a Jesuit school.
Funny thing is Jesuit priest will tell you homilies should be no longer than 8 minutes and should not be boring!
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WilT
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christiantoday.com/article/pope.francis.churches.are.not.businesses/39641.htm
Our Holy Father Francis has stated that our Churches shouldn’t be run as a business. I agree.
Our Holy Father Francis has stated that our Churches shouldn’t be run as a business. I agree.
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Sy_Noe
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Uplifting music can be a way in which another gives glory and praise. The psalms even speak of joyful music and percussion. I think too many assume just because someone else doesn’t have the same taste in music or in homilies or even for instance in lets say something like the footwear they wear to Mass, then that person somehow is improperly catechized and does not understand the Eucharist as being central to the Catholic faith and to the Mass. I think everyone here most likely does. But music and homilies are part of that hour. And if a person is bored for a good portion of that hour with the music or homilies, or see people frowning at for instance their footwear or frowning at someone getting up from their seat to offer a sign of peace, all of that and more can tempt them not to return. Which seems to defeat the purpose if the desire truly is to have them keep coming back. It doesn’t have to be either/or. I realize they do not have a valid Eucharist according to the Catholic faith. But other faith communities manage to offer worship services with a variety of music, inspiring homilies and some even still manage to offer their Communion weekly. it can be done. There’s an Episcopal church nearby me that offers a wide variety of services from traditional ones to a solemn service of reflection to a Christian rock band. For whichever most speaks to the worshiper. So I have to ask myself if a God who walked the earth in sandals apparently doesn’t mind a variety of music according to the psalms, why would I? The answer is I don’t.
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Sy_Noe
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I understand as this forum can have the same pushing further away effect on me. I am grateful however for those seemingly to me to be the minority though who offer a different approach than you describe.
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EasterJoy
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If you read Pope Benedict’s thoughts on liturgy, then you know that objecting to bad music, bad homilies, and an entertain-me attitude are not mutually exclusive. There are many people who feel that it is pandering to an entertain-me-and-make-me-feel-good attitude that leads to banal music and squishy meaningless homilies, while an ardent love and a deep understanding of the liturgy and the Holy Scriptures leads one to highly value excellence in every part of worship, especially the music and the homilies!
As for Pope Francis, one of his favorite films is Babette’s Feast. See that film and tell me that he does not think that a loving liturgy will be an altogether excellent liturgy. His favorite music? Bach, Mozart and Beethoven…not composers who tolerated second-rate sacred music.
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EasterJoy
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The Jesuits (and the Dominicans) I know would say this: It is fine that my homilies could draw you in to ponder the Lord’s words for hours, but that was not my main intention, or at least not my only one. My question to you is this: Did my homily send you forth to do the Lord’s work for days?
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WilT
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My apologies EasterJoy for what you have said does keep people from being joyful in Mass and in our Faith.:tiphat::tiphat:
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shelby_sun
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Absolutely. The boys at our Jesuit school do many, many more hours of communities service than they are asked to do each year. They travel to extremely poor counties to care for the poor, sick, and dying. This year one group went to Peru to care for leaper victims, those with full blown AIDS, and terrible deformed children. The homilies our priest give are about helping others. The Jesuits motto is “Men for Others”. Some repeat the words in the Bible, others live it by example.
It is amazing to see teenage boys that actually love going to school everyday. They get excited about going to retreats and having community service days. Boys that go out of their way to get more service than they need. I am truly very blessed to have experience this kind of faith in my life and to be able to offer it to my family.
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Mummsie
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millstreet
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I’ll give you my perspective as someone who has “left the faith” and subsequently returned.
The primary reason people walk away is that they do not truly know what the Church teaches and, as importantly, WHY. How is this possible, you ask, when kids go through extensive religious education, we get homilies every week, and there are plenty of resources if we ever have questions? I can give a few connected reasons:
What can we do to help? Be there for them when they start inquiring, and also be more public as Catholics in battling the people who are defining Catholicism for latent Catholics. I love initiatives such as Catholics Come Home…more of that is necessary. I also think we need more role models to make Catholicism accessible to people, and what I mean by that is you need to see how it applies to your life, and that it doesn’t mean you have to be a card-carrying, publicly annoying “Bible-thumper” or “Jesus freak”. That’s what tipped the scales for me, having someone come into my life who showed me what living Catholic values could mean, in a way that I deeply respected. That’s what made me comfortable that it was okay to believe the things I did, that I didn’t have to be liberal to be smart, and that I couldn’t keep turning aside the values I held - I had to face up to them.
Sorry for the lengthy diatribe…as a revert of a little more than a year, though, a new parent, and someone who can’t stand being bombarded by the aggressive ridiculousness that is modern atheism and the smug inevitability that liberals project, I have been thinking about this a ton lately.
Cheers!
The primary reason people walk away is that they do not truly know what the Church teaches and, as importantly, WHY. How is this possible, you ask, when kids go through extensive religious education, we get homilies every week, and there are plenty of resources if we ever have questions? I can give a few connected reasons:
- They’re kids when the learn about Catholicism. Kids, especially as they get older, tend to tune stuff out. So while they remember the basics, the details probably get lost on a lot of them. And maybe we don’t, as teachers, really get too deeply into the “why” of things, either. Lastly, many kids don’t listen to homilies (nor do many adults!) and have millions of other things to do besides look up information. I seriously doubt a lot of Catholic kids are looking up why they aren’t supposed to masturbate. They just do it and feel guilty instead.
- Why are they not curious? I think in large part it’s because their parents maybe don’t do a great job in communicating the seriousness of the faith. To a kid, you have to think that God is a pretty abstract concept, so they learn the stories and probably believe a lot of them, but they don’t attach meaning to them or integrate it wholly into their ways of thinking. This is because they watch their parents, and either they’re not going to church every Sunday, or they’re not fully participating, or one is Catholic and the other transmits another set of beliefs (or non-beliefs) that leave kids confused. As Catholic parents we have committed to raising our kids Catholic (regardless of whether then other parent is not), but I think that there are many of us who either just go through the motions or don’t do it at all. So again, they know the basics, but they don’t really get what it means.
- If they don’t get what it means, and they’re not curious enough to find out, that leaves open the possibility that others around them are going to define it for them. And this is a major problem, since they are surrounded by kids of other faiths or no faith at all. This is increasingly prevalent as liberalism takes hold in society - it is a powerful force, and it has done a great job making people think that to be smart, enlightened people, they have to be liberal (I know this, I got sucked in). So people who don’t understand Catholicism, and people who may be hostile to Catholicism, are telling our kids what it means to be Catholic, and absent a strong counter-force, they have no choice but to believe it. And they get discouraged, and don’t want to be Catholic anymore, because how other people are defining the meaning is obviously not all that positive.
- Lastly, it is simply hard to be Catholic. I personally have always had Catholic beliefs, but I rationalized many of them away because the implications were too difficult for me to deal with. For example, I am strongly pro-life, but I always said to myself that while I might think that, it wasn’t for me to decide for others. I came to this conclusion because to think otherwise meant I probably had to do something about it, to be open in my anti-abortion stance and perhaps try to convince others, if not do more. This made me uneasy and it wasn’t until recently that I came to the realization that I couldn’t just walk away from what I believed, regardless of how challenging the implications for my life. That goes for many other values we hold as Catholics, too.
What can we do to help? Be there for them when they start inquiring, and also be more public as Catholics in battling the people who are defining Catholicism for latent Catholics. I love initiatives such as Catholics Come Home…more of that is necessary. I also think we need more role models to make Catholicism accessible to people, and what I mean by that is you need to see how it applies to your life, and that it doesn’t mean you have to be a card-carrying, publicly annoying “Bible-thumper” or “Jesus freak”. That’s what tipped the scales for me, having someone come into my life who showed me what living Catholic values could mean, in a way that I deeply respected. That’s what made me comfortable that it was okay to believe the things I did, that I didn’t have to be liberal to be smart, and that I couldn’t keep turning aside the values I held - I had to face up to them.
Sorry for the lengthy diatribe…as a revert of a little more than a year, though, a new parent, and someone who can’t stand being bombarded by the aggressive ridiculousness that is modern atheism and the smug inevitability that liberals project, I have been thinking about this a ton lately.
Cheers!
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