Why the Lack of Support & Exodus from the Church

Status
Not open for further replies.
N

NoelFitz

New member
In a previous thread, which elicited a good discussion, the lack of support for fellow-Catholics in US public life was discussed. Now I want to raise the issues of the amount of highly respected non-practicing Catholic in public life in the US who are vilified, and also for the great exodus from the Church.

As an Irish Catholic my perceptions may be wrong, but it seems that many practicing Catholics in public life are not supported and respected (e.g. Tim Kaine, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden) while non-practicing ones are (e.g. Mike Pence, Neil Gorsuch, Sarah Palin, Melania Trump, Jerome Powell). If it is because Catholics reject Catholic teaching, why is this so?

It has been noted that if considered a religion the third most numerous religion in the US is non-practicing Catholics, terms such as ‘ex-Catholic’ and ‘lapsed-Catholics’ are derogatory. Why is there such a flood, especially of young educated white males, but also females? Why do the clergy, especially senior ones, appear to attack prominent Catholics, rather than support them? it seems destructive to attack your own in public. The Catholic Church is more than an anti-abortion lobby group. Jesus Christ is important, as is peace, justice, support for marginalized, love of God and neighbor. It seems the Church does not constantly condemn divorce or contraception. It appears it can live with divorce, using the fiction of annulment, and the 50th anniversary of Humanae vitae will be mainly ignored, as most Catholics have rejected contraception.

Has the negative views of bishops added to the loss of Catholic commitment? Why do so many Catholics forsake the one true faith?

We should remember Benjamin Franklin, and hang together rather than separately.

with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; (Eph. 4:2-5 NAB)
 
I believe that we see these people not practicing because of irreverence in the Liturgy.
 
Let’s go down your list:

Joe Biden - My father was a huge fan of Biden for decades going back to the 1980s. I think Biden is OK. If he ran for President again I would likely vote for him, for Dad’s sake. At some point I happened to meet someone who knew the Biden family personally so I got some inside information which I will not share here. However, I did think Biden showed poor judgment by actually performing two gay civil marriages himself. I am fairly “progressive” about civil gay marriage and would have understood if he had been a guest at the gay weddings performed by someone else (heaven knows there’s no shortage of judges, etc. to do these), but there was no need for him as a Catholic to be actually performing them in direct contravention of Church teaching. Especially when he did it twice.

Nancy Pelosi - I used to like her, but somewhere along the way she turned into a pretty vicious pro-abortion shrew. I stopped liking her.

Tim Kaine - Touts his Jesuit affiliations while running on a pro-abortion ticket of a candidate whose campaign had previously gotten in trouble for bashing Catholics in the e-mail. The disgust I felt made me realize that the old “I’m a Catholic but I’m pro-choice because I can’t force my morals on others” just wasn’t working for me anymore. He seems very insincere and his son got arrested in a violent counterprotest, which did not improve my opinion of Dad.

Mike Pence - I’m not a Republican and I’m also not a fan of Catholics who leave the Church for a Protestant faith. He is on the correct side of the abortion issue, it’s ironic that the Catholic VP candidate was not, and also the Pence kids seem to be well behaved, or at least I haven’t heard of any of them being arrested in a violent riot yet.

Neil Gorsuch - I have no idea what religion he even is and don’t much care. He was clearly qualified to sit on the bench and was even endorsed by Neil Katyal, who has the opposite political bent, and further is an old acquaintance of mine and whose judgment I greatly respect. I don’t care if his personal religion is Catholic or atheist or Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, that’s not the criteria for putting someone on the federal bench.

Sarah Palin - I think she is mentally unbalanced and have thought so since the early stages of her candidacy. Her entire family seems to be dysfunctional also. I’m glad she did not win any high elected office, God forbid McCain had become terminally ill with her in the VP chair.

Melania Trump - All I see is a woman trying to cope with a role she likely did not expect when she married her sugar daddy, and also trying to be a decent mom to her son. I feel sorry for her because she seems to get undeserved abuse constantly from those who don’t like her husband. I am not concerned with whether she is Catholic or not. I think she dresses very nicely.

Jerome Powell - I have no idea who this person is, I haven’t been watching the news. I google and see it’s some Federal Reserve guy, who cares, they are mostly interchangeable cogs.

I hope this clears you up regarding my views.
Pax Christi
 
You are kidding?!?!?!? Nancy Pelosi, who openly defies her Bishop? Same with Joe “Tailgunner” “abortion for all” Biden. Tim Kaine maybe.

Cultural Catholics who rape and pillage Church teaching are not faithful in any respect - respect being the operative word.
 
The OP is confusing being “practicing in the Faith” and “practicing in the Church”. Kaine, Pelosi, and Biden may be “practicing in the Church” but they have left the Faith.
Pence sometimes goes to Catholic Churches, but often goes to Protestant ones. But he still holds to the Faith, even though perhaps he is in attendance at the Catholic church as often as Kaine, for instance. I don’t know about Gorsuch, Palin, or Melania…in any event they have not opposed the Catholic Faith, as Biden, Pelosi, and Kaine have.

Being in the Catholic Faith is more important than being in the Catholic Church, at least as measured by Sunday attendance. I have known lots of Catholics who attend Church on Sunday who have more or less left the Catholic Faith.
 
Last edited:
commenter said:
The OP is confusing being “practicing in the Faith” and “practicing in the Church”. Kaine, Pelosi, and Biden may be “practicing in the Church” but they have left the Faith.
Pence sometimes goes to Catholic Churches, but often goes to Protestant ones. But he still holds to the Faith, even though perhaps he is in attendance at the Catholic church as often as Kaine, for instance. I don’t know about Gorsuch, Palin, or Melania…in any event they have not opposed the Catholic Faith, as Biden, Pelosi, and Kaine have.
Click to expand...
Since when does sometimes attending (if ever perhaps in the case of some of the aforementioned people) constitute holding to the faith? The faithful are to attend each week for the most part.
 
Last edited:
Sy_Noe said:
Since when does sometimes attending (if ever perhaps in the case of some of the aforementioned people) constitute holding to the faith? The faithful are to attend each week for the most part.
Click to expand...
Biden and Kaine are reported to be regular churchgoers. I sometimes attend one of the churches where the Bidens go. Haven’t actually run into him at Mass yet, but that’s probably because I do not go there on Sunday, only on weekdays because they have a good homilist, lovely building and the only noon Mass near my work.
 
We don’t “support” our fellow Christians by ignoring their public actions that harm them, as well as harming others. If a Catholic in a public position promotes legal abortion, that hurts them. It is like excessive drinking. We can’t judge the person who does that, but we can judge their actions hurt themselves and others. Biden, Pelosi, etc, may be better Catholics than I am, but they are harmed by this particular stance. We “support” them by changing their minds and actions on this.

Abortion is not the only issue, but it is much larger than other issues.
 
NoelFitz said:
The Catholic Church is more than an anti-abortion lobby group.
Click to expand...
Well, I personally see that as the problem–a large group DOES think of the church as an anti-abortion lobby group. (You can see them in this thread…) There is another thread going on (Do Catholics still support Trump), and you can see the anti-abortion thinking in action there: for a large group, if you are not fanatically against choice, you are supporting an intrinsic evil. For these people, being anti-choice trumps (intended pun…) everything else. In other words, if a candidate had a pro-choice position, but also was against the death penalty, wanted to fund worldwide charities to help children in danger of famine and disease, had a plan to end wars, etc. etc. they would still be against them because of the pro-choice position. They are single-issue voters, despite the USCCB instructions that you shouldn’t be. If you criticize their position, you are supporting abortion and intrinsic evil. End of argument.

Beyond this, a large group of Catholics sees Pope Francis and the USCCB in particular as supporting left-wing, Democratic policies. So if that’s the Church’s position, they’re against it. Of course you could easily point out that Jesus himself had a host of sayings that would make Marx and Engels proud, but they ignore those.

As for Catholics becoming ex-Catholics or lapsed Catholics, my own opinion is that they have almost no knowledge of what the Catholic church actually teaches. This is why the off-the-cuff remarks by Francis are always greeted by surprise–even though Francis is not saying anything new at all.
 
Last edited:
Crocus
I read ‘Palin was “baptized Catholic as a newborn” as her mother, Sally, had been raised Catholic.’ .
 
EliRotello,
Yours is the first constructive post in this thread. Thank you.
You may be correct and for my part I should try to be more reverent at Mass, both participating in the congregation and as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion.
 
Tis_Bearself
Thanks for your post. I like it.
But I think of the pope saying ‘who am I to judge?’.

"Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.
_ (Matt. 7:1-2 NAB)_
 
guanophore
the negative views I consider are the focus on sin not love.

0Scarlett_nidiyilii
A practicing Catholic is one who attends Mass.

po18guy
Is your language helping Catholicism?

commenter
The greatest issue is love not abortion. Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life.

There are two ways, one of life and one of death; but a great difference between the two ways. The way of life, then, is this: First, you shall love God who made you; second, your neighbour as yourself; and all things whatsoever you would should not occur to you, do not also do to another. (Didache)

Erikaspirit16
Your post is excellent. I am grateful.

Your thoughtful views are constructive and helping build up the Church.

You wrote: As for Catholics becoming ex-Catholics or lapsed Catholics, my own opinion is that they have almost no knowledge of what the Catholic church actually teaches.

If those leaving the Church do so due to ignorance, am I not partially to blame?

Please could I hear some views of why so many leave the Church?
 
Erikaspirit16 said:
Of course you could easily point out that Jesus himself had a host of sayings that would make Marx and Engels proud, but they ignore those.
Click to expand...
We ignore the socialist interpretation of those things because they are inherently materialistic and do a disservice to those who are not wise enough in their faith to ignore them.

Basically, everything in your post was wrong. You are wrong.
 
NoelFitz said:
But I think of the pope saying ‘who am I to judge?’.

"Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.

_ (Matt. 7:1-2 NAB)_
Click to expand...
If these were just ordinary citizens, who worked at the bank or ran the local hardware store, then I would be out of line by “judging” them.

However, they are POLITICIANS. They rely for their careers on the support of the people. I need to “judge” someone in order to decide whether to vote for them or support their platform. And your own posts contain implicit, as well as some explicit, “judgments” all over the place. You constantly post these long ponderings about why all the Catholics don’t support candidates just because said candidate is a Catholic and you make it very clear that you yourself like all these Catholic candidates such as Kaine, Pelosi and Biden. You just cannot seem to get your mind around the fact that someone may dislike or distrust some or all of these candidates or even like or trust Mike Pence (or the elephant in the room, Donald Trump).

Politics is basically one big giant judging match. If it was not, then the parties would not run individual candidates - they would only run platforms of issues and then some interchangeable faceless cogs would carry out the issues. Instead the parties run men and women who package and present themselves in a way that they think will attract voters. Everything these people do is designed to attract a favorable “judgment”.
They drag their own families into that by presenting their spouses and kids as part of the “package”, so the way their family behaves gets “judged” too. If their kids act up then that suggests to me that Mr. or Ms. Candidate cannot even manage their own family, much less the state or the nation, and that perhaps they should be at home addressing Junior’s bad behavior rather than on the road campaigning or in Washington for extended periods of time.

Your own posts are extremely “judgy” in suggesting that Catholics are somehow falling down on the job by not supporting people like Kaine, Pelosi and Biden, whom you clearly like. This too is a “judgment” because it’s quite clear from your posts what you think people “should” do.

So maybe take your “judge not” and consider the political context where we are asked to weigh issues, look at candidates, and make “judgments” at the polls constantly, and then while you’re at it, look in the mirror.
 
I am not a political expert at all. But I try to observe a Politician’s moral standards, and base my respect ( or lack of respect ) on their revealed standards which reflect their character. Anyone can self identify as a Catholic … It’s not prudent to side with someone purely because of a label. Clearly, there are many prominent Catholics who have sold out their faith in exchange for popularity & power in the Secular Humanist population. Both Left and Right wing politics harbor non-Catholic policies, and that is making support of any Political Person more and more difficult for a Catholic with a conscience.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top