Why so many Catholics becoming Orthodox?

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Not to excuse to them but there are sex abuse scandals in every church, the Orthodox are no different. You just hear more about the CC as it’s much bigger, even none religious organisations like the Scouts if America were plagued with it.
 
For me I think it is the loss of the Latin Rite (yes, yes it’s still said but isn’t universal). It should have been kept if only to be said once a month or even said in English. Also their priests dress as priests, which I think makes a huge difference. However the OC has huge problems itself but I think it’s easy to romanticise it from the outside.
 
Probably because as has been alluded to above, the EO never felt the need for a Vatican II-type reorientation, and they present themselves as having not really changed in thousands of years (not really sure if that’s true but that’s what they believe), and this appeals to traditional types. I’m sure the liturgy is very beautiful, no need to fear folk guitar arrangements, felt banners, etc.
 
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He should know better. It’s one thing for a layperson to convert as they might not have been properly catechised but he no such excuse and is now is schism.
 
We have a few former Catholics in my parish (Orthodox), but they are not the type who write bad things about Catholicism on the Internet. We are, in fact, quite hesitant to baptize or chrismate Christians who speak badly about their former community, since we need to know that the person/family approaching us are serious and not motivated by anger or frustration.

I also know at least one former parishoner who left us in order to become Roman Catholic, but he is still a friend of our community. I suppose people will always make changes, for as long as we are free to do so.
 
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Have you some statistics, reports, etc. or is this simply anecdotal?
 
Anecdotal.But which concerns me the most are the conversions from the CC to the OC of fr.Gabriel Bunge and fr.Constantin Simon.I am a catechumen myself in the Catholic Church ( I have already announced my local Catholic parish about my conversion intention).
 
Not to be too nit-picky but since you were baptized Orthodox you aren’t a catechumen…you’re not even a candidate. you just need to make a confession and you are Catholic…and in your case you’d be enrolled in the Romanian Catholic Church regardless of whether or not you attend one. you can petition to formally switch to the Latin church but, well, good luck with that…they don’t like for Eastern Catholics to switch.
 
Hmm,I am following a Roman Catholic parish in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest.I haven’t been in an Eastern Catholic Church in my life.
 
I understand where you’re coming from. However, Catholic canon law is pretty clear about the reception of Orthodox Christians…they are automatically enrolled into the corresponding Eastern Catholic church. This really will only matter if you choose to be ordained or get married. There are also people who would say that you are also bound be the laws of your particular church of enrollment (so different holy days of obligation and fasting requirements/days etc.). Personally I think that’s ridiculous but then again I also think that the Catholic Church as a whole is overly legalistic.
 
I mean, Catholics who leave but still want to be Christian gotta go somewhere–it’s either usually evangelical or Orthodox these days. And there are way, way more Catholics than Orthodox, so it’s only natural that there would be more former Catholics than former Orthodox. Like others have said–and it’s probably due to the circles I find myself although I did grow up near a heavily EO area–I’ve met more converts from EO to Catholic than the other way in real life.

But I get why some can see the grass as greener on the other side in a certain narrow sense in this particular snapshot in time.

Some have mentioned Dreher, and he displays a pattern I’ve seen in a few other Catholic to EO converts online and in real life. His public commentary remains almost exclusively focused on the Catholic Church. It seems like he never really left and deep down he still is/wants to be Catholic. I know of a couple other EO converts who act the same way. They remind me of the those in St. John Bosco’s dream of the two pillars who he describes as “having retreated through fear of the battle” that end up returning when things calm down.

I have never seen a convert to Catholicism who remains so interested in the state of the church/religion they left as certain ex-Catholic EO converts are with Catholicism.
 
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Angel_Gabriel said:
I also think that the Catholic Church as a whole is overly legalistic
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This is the kind of thing that frustrates me as I think it is an unfair comparison based on some strange stereotype that the EO’s are not legalistic. If anything, they are moreso.

What do you think of the legalism of the EO Churches and how to do you find it different? They have a major schism among them right now due to legalisms. Their proposed pan-Orthodox Council in Crete crashed and burned due to legalistic, juridically-related fights. Historically, this has caused them similar issues, especially related to liturgical law. Fortescue describes some examples in his Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Eastern Churches (the separated ones in this case):
The second characteristic, a corollary of the first, is the intense conservatism of all these bodies. They cling fanatically to their rites, even to the smallest custom — because it is by these that the millet is held together. Liturgical language is the burning question in the Balkans. They are all Orthodox, but inside the Orthodox Church, there are various milal — Bulgars, Vlachs, Serbs, Greeks, whose bond of union is the language used in church. So one understands the uproar made in Macedonia about language in the liturgy; the revolution among the Serbs of Uskub in 1896, when their new metropolitan celebrated in Greek (Orth. Eastern Church, 326); the ludicrous scandal at Monastir, in Macedonia, when they fought over a dead man’s body and set the whole town ablaze because some wanted him to be buried in Greek and some in Rumanian (op. cit., 333). The great and disastrous Bulgarian schism, the schism at Antioch, are simply questions of the nationality of the clergy and the language they use.
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(the earlier Old Believer schism over a few words and gestures is another example)

If anything, the Churches of the West going all the way back have been more flexible when it comes to law approving and adapting rites (which is why there has always been more diversity in the West to varying degrees), adapting other disciplinary canons for new times and circumstances both through continual papal and concilliar action, etc., etc.
 
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snarflemike said:
…The Spirit of Vatican II (perhaps the most failed experiment in all of Catholic history, and I’m talking about “The Spirit of” part).
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Exactly. Thank you. Have to agree with the liturgies and catechesis too.

Nor can I. Love your post as well.
 
Genesis315 said:
This is the kind of thing that frustrates me as I think it is an unfair comparison based on some strange stereotype that the EO’s are not legalistic. If anything, they are moreso.
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For sure there are legalistic types in EO. However the EO churches use the concept of economia and they also tend to define very little. Mostly it’s a let’s set the bar high and talk with your spiritual Fr. type of attitude. Legalism mostly seems to rear it’s ugly head on the internet (I’ve often mentioned Hyperdox Herman). Jurisdictional issues are a problem in Catholicism as well. For me I see it as both churches have issues but ultimately it comes down to having a good spiritual home at the local level. I prefer Orthodox spirituality. I find it healing in a way Latin spirituality wasn’t. I have struggled with scruples in my past (OCD) as well as religious obsessions.
 
Genesis315 said:
I’ve met more converts from EO to Catholic than the other way in real life.
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Interesting. Also, the EO seem to be rather divided. For instance, it is usual to hear a Romanian EO say he’d rather attend Catholic Mass than step into a Russian EO Church. Politics seems to be front and center among the EO.
 
I like how you all talk about what Canon Law says etc,but here there are so many former Orthodox now Roman Catholics so. In my Roman Catholic parish there are many Orthodox who just come here and attend the Mass.
 
Yes that’s incredibly common here as well. It’s really only an issue if you are intending to be ordained or to get married. And that’s only b/c they will ask for your baptismal certificate etc.
 
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