Why is the West losing Christians?

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Mike_from_NJ said:
As people learn more they tend to choose what they think is the right faith, instead of just following with the one of their family or in their neighborhood.
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I suppose the bigger question is “What problem is faith the solution to?”
The other, which runs counter to Catholicism as I understand you guys, " Does this align with my values?"
 
Michael Voris also makes derogatory comments about priests he doesn’t like and speculates as to whether theyre living chaste or not. Point is, Voris is not exactly a very credible figure to cite. Or rather he lacks objectivity. And thus I will not be looking to him about the subject of homosexuality as a person that is a gay catholic abiding (sometimes struggling) by Church teaching
 
What do you think about the excuse about “the Church” (specifically the human institutions/dimension) not doing enough or failing to meet the pastoral and spiritual need and provide support and outreach thus causing many to become disconnected, drifting if not driven off or disenfranchised and for the masses not being reached in the first place? Like if only things were different or even better, they could have stayed but because of circumstances, it didn’t end up that way; like maybe the parents couldn’t afford Catholic School, the CCD program wasn’t the most effective, there were no ministries for that community (young adults, singles)? Am I overemphasizing how deterministic people can be (and leaving out their agency) and being rather vain (I think I am) in looking at the context on programs?
 
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Why is the West losing Christians?

Last Wednesday , the beginning of Lent , we were commanded by the Lord to repent and to believe the Gospel .

To the extent we obeyed or disobeyed that command is the extent to which we share the West’s loss of or gain of Christians .

When I come face to face with my Lord there will be no passing of the buck .
 
Why are more people turning to Buddhism and leaving Christianity including Catholicism? Here is an example of a comment by a Traditional Roman Catholic using the name of a great saint:
Aquinas11 said:
The crowd was like WTF this dude is nuts
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In Buddhism, there is the Noble Eightfold Path to enlightenment which includes using right speech to create a disposition leading to social and contemplative harmony. There are many facets to right speech such as abstaining from lying, and idle chatter. Right speech also includes the abstaining from abusive, vulgar, and obscene speech, including for example, the f word. Of course, what we see today, as exemplified in the quote above, is that many Roman Catholics and other Christians are going against the Buddhist Noble Path of abstaining from filthy speech. However, Russia is somewhat of a counterexample as there is a tremendous growth in the Russian Orthodox Church as more and more churches are being built and the seminaries are full. And Russia has begun to enforce a policy of censoring foul language in movies.
 
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It’s not “the Church’s” fault when people can’t be bothered to stop sinning and build a relationship with Christ. People shouldn’t need handholding to do this.

I also don’t have much respect for people who constantly blame institutions for their own shortcomings.
 
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edwest211 said:
Starting in the mid-1960s, strangers came to our neighborhoods. We were taught to welcome strangers but they abused our trust and good natures. They preached their idea of living: use illegal drugs, which they could supply, reject your parents and your Church. Have sex with anybody. The freedom being offered was designed to destroy families. Living with and having sex with your girlfriend was another false freedom.
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What you describe sounds like social engineering. The strangers were change-agents whose goal was to facilitate new attitudes and opinions. Maybe these people acted spontaneously to follow the zeitgeist. But there is also a good chance that the change-agents acted deliberately to achieve a goal. I’m on a quest to discover who initiated, directed and controlled the social engineering, which really took off in the 1960s.
 
People more frequently treat God as an object/genie than as a Person, not much different than how a person uses another person with lust, or how a person uses another person for profit.

When an area becomes calm and stable and prosperous, religion decreases because it fulfills less of an immediate need in people’s lives. There is also widespread propaganda pushing people away from Christianity. The average European (and increasingly, the average American also) grows up with a caricature understanding of the faith.
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
Protestantism, Catholicism…

Typically Catholic countries like Ireland are plummeting.

But if the Christian Faith corresponds to human nature and fulfillment, why would they leave?

I’m not talking about specific factors like scandal, sexual abuse, lack of catechesis, “Vatican II,” etc. I just mean more generally: If Christianity corresponds to the fulfillment of the human heart, why would anyone leave?

Where are they finding their transcendent purpose being fulfilled instead?
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The path is wide that leads to destruction.

But the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it
 
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AlNg said:
Right speech also includes the abstaining from abusive, vulgar, and obscene speech, including for example, the f word
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You just used the “f word”, per your own logic. And far more vulgar than my use which was merely a single letter and thus could be any word (e.g. “French” is very commonly used in that three letter acronym). In fact, the presumption you made that the letter in the acronym must be a vulgar word is a troubling projection of vulgarity on your part.

Right speech also forbids dishonest speech, which would include saying someone said a word they didn’t say. So in the process of calling out right speech, you hypocritically engaged in dishonest speech.
 
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AlNg said:
Why are more people turning to Buddhism and leaving Christianity including Catholicism?
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Because Buddhism facilitates sin since it doesn’t have an objective moral framework. You are the player and the referee. You call your own fouls.
 
Ireland’s Catholic Church has been hit hard by abuse of altar servers.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
Protestantism, Catholicism…

Typically Catholic countries like Ireland are plummeting.

But if the Christian Faith corresponds to human nature and fulfillment, why would they leave?

I’m not talking about specific factors like scandal, sexual abuse, lack of catechesis, “Vatican II,” etc. I just mean more generally: If Christianity corresponds to the fulfillment of the human heart, why would anyone leave?

Where are they finding their transcendent purpose being fulfilled instead?
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Honestly, I think is because of the errors Russia spread though the world via communism.

While the West won against economic Communism, I strongly believe that the communists are winning with “Cultural Communism”

The communists realized that they would never win over the West with economics. So they played the long game by affecting Western culture.

The vehicle they used was “progressivism and social liberalism” - but their MAIN vehicle was feminism.

Marx wanted to see a world where women worked; where kids were primarily raised in state controlled daycares, pre-schools, and schools; where women didn’t need a husband to be a mother; where sex was ok outside of marriage; etc.

Feminism (esp radical feminism) is serious cancer that leads to the loss of God. When feminism talks about eliminating the patriarchy, it sounds just like Marx when he wanted to destroy the patriarchy… and that patriarchy is/was the Catholic Church.

And as far as the Church is concerned, I strongly believe that the Communists did place a number of plants in the Catholic Seminaries around the world. I don’t know how many became Bishops, but some of the Bishops today from Germany make me think a few were successful in moving up in the Church.

My point - we are being attacked today by exactly what Our Lady of Fatima warned us of.

Feminism destroys the family and destroys the definition of marriage.

Afterall, what does matrimony mean? Well, let’s look at it’s latin root.
The Latin word for matrimony is matrimonium , which comes from combining mater , “mother,” with the suffix monium , “action or condition.” In the old days, matrimony was basically the same thing as making a woman into a wife and mother.
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So in other order, matrimony means “the condition of motherhood” or the “action of a mother”

We have LOST this in today’s world. Because so many married women no longer view motherhood as their primary role, we are losing our way.


God Bless
 
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Apathy. People just can’t be bothered any more.

Why?

Karl Marx called religion the opiate of the masses. He’s probably right. Put a shirt on a man’s back, a roof over his head and money in his pocket, and he finds he no longer needs God.

The fact that the various Christian denominations keep throwing Bibles at each other claiming theirs is the true faith isn’t going to convince anyone that Jesus Christ is Lord.

It’s been said that the faith grows from the blood of the martyrs. Perhaps there aren’t enough martyrs in the West; we’re too comfortable, too many shirts on our backs, roofs over our heads and money in our pockets.

Perhaps the real reason is none of the above, but it’s certainly not Communism, Feminism nor pedophile priests.
 
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That’s what it was. It appears the goal was to destroy the family and to destroy the purpose of dating. Add in illegal drugs and profanity, and now, a media that is sliding into the abyss.
 
The values of consumerism are at odds with the values of the Gospel .

The energy of consumerism draws people in the opposite direction the proponents of Christian asceticism endeavour them to travel .
 
Dedios said:
Perhaps the real reason is none of the above, but it’s certainly not Communism, Feminism nor pedophile priests.
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I wouldn’t say one is the cause of the other but they are part of a broader phenomenon.

Sometimes half-truths are worse than lies because lies ca typically be exposed as such whereas half truths are confused for truths because of the half that is true.

Western Christinaity is plagued by infighting and self doubt casuing wekaness from withion, which is reinforced by continuous attackls from outside. Churches are too much in defence mode, fighting off the ugly and hateful stuff that is hurled at them. they need to step beyond that and start saying what is good and right about Christianity.
 
I think people leave because they just don’t believe the narrative. Given what they know of science, history and their own life experience, the stories don’t add up.

If the stories don’t add up, they figure the theology based on the stories is bogus as well. Throw in the fact that many who do vehemently and sometimes violently claim to believe act in direct contrast to what they profess, it’s hard for people to accept that getting or staying on board has anything of value to offer.
 
edwest211 said:
Television before 1970 was clean and wholesome. A group of people decided to start presenting dysfunctional families in 1971. This was planned, and the worst was yet to come. The Catholic Church did what it could with movies.
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I don’t think the Catholic Church foresaw what was coming. Maybe if they had reacted differently back then they could have changed something. Maybe they could not. We don’t really know.

Sadly, I think many people still haven’t understood and still seek to defend those who are attacking the Church and who will not be satisfied until it is completely destroyed.
 
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