Winning back fallen away Catholics

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Correct, we should try not to discriminate. Do you disagree?
How do you describe Christ’s Church? If his Church is infallible then you must somehow distinguish its fallible adherents from the Church’s infallibility. Even though some of those fallible adherents are leaders which make horrendous mistakes.
 
BoomerangToo said:
I don’t think it’s possible to win them back.
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Finally, someone said it out loud. If you are talking about a directed, overt approach to win back those who have left and are vitriolic in their antagonism toward the church, leave them where they are. I think it is time to concentrate on the young, and I’m talking about pre teen Catholic children. We can’t use the same old tired teaching of the past, but have to fine new ways to “teach the children well” as Crosby Stills, and Nash said. Doing the same things we have done in the past and expecting different results with the children nowadays is, well, insane. (yes I said it) If the RCC simply continues the way it is going it is going to shrink more and more. No stopping that.

Edited to say: And please don’t offer that going back to 1940 with the old Latin Rite and ways of the day, is the solution. It isn’t! Might work for a few, but for the 10’s of thousands who leave every year, that approach is ‘whistling past the graveyard’.
 
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Its the context with which you made the statement. On the other hand, my apologies if you were not making the statement in jest.
 
True enough, I agree. Although I also believe that once a Religion makes a comprehensible claim within a self defined frame of reference one can reason to a conclusion of its truth or falsity within this framework. Of course there will always be those who will, no matter how solid the conclusion is, refuse or be incapable of accepting anything which apposes their established world view. Ce qui sera sera…alas such is the nature of mankind and the eternal quest for absolute truth. Personally I have established a reference frame which believes the Christian God exists and the canonical bible is his testament and Jesus existed and made revelations about this God. I then work within this reference frame to attempt to make reasonable conclusions concerning the reality it presents. I’m not sure how adept at exegesis you are but in the verses your speaking of in Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, and Luke 21:32 Jesus never makes the claim that the generation he is talking about is the current one. Sometimes the Characters in the bible are used as literary devices to speak to the future not the present. At the time it may be claimed that the apostles thought that his return was imminent within their lifetimes, though they never made that claim explicitly themselves, they may simply have misunderstood him as Jesus had pointed out at other times. Given the verses as presented I see no reason to make a conclusion of failed prophecy here. The problem here is with this one there is no way to make a definitive conclusion except when and if it is ever validated since Jesus gave no solid time of fulfillment. The only thing he said was God only knows when the end will come.
 
How do you know your more catechistically qualified than those who left the Church? Is it simply because you haven’t left the Roman Church?
 
Christ’s Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. It is the Catholic Church. And the Catholic Church does distinguish between the infallibility of its members and the infallibility of the church itself
 
The best thing to keep children in the faith is having a devout mother and father, living in the same house, instructing their children, eating meals together, praying together, and going to Mass together every Sunday. These families are getting very rare. 😟
 
You hear a lot of testimonies from people who came back that involve a bad understanding of sorts.
 
joeybaggz said:
We can’t use the same old tired teaching of the past, but have to fine new ways to “teach the children well” as Crosby Stills, and Nash said.
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setarcos said:
How do you know your more catechistically qualified than those who left the Church? Is it simply because you haven’t left the Roman Church?
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I was responding to the comment above by Joeybaggz, not commenting on my personal abilities to catechize others. How do you know I haven’t left and returned to the Church?
 
Food is for everyone. Since when are cannolis more catholic than bagels? Lol
 
SacredHeartBassist said:
Since when are cannolis more catholic than bagels
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I ate bagels in college, and had to curtail by consumption during the Jewish Passover holiday- they didn’t bake them during passover as it would be a violation of their religious norms
 
And just because bagels started off as a Jewish food doesn’t mean a food is exclusively Jewish lol

I can eat kebabs as a Catholic too
 
BoomerangToo said:
The best thing to keep children in the faith is having a devout mother and father, living in the same house, instructing their children, eating meals together, praying together, and going to Mass together every Sunday. These families are getting very rare. 😟
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Wish I could like this more than once. It’s really the crux of the matter.
 
setarcos said:
True enough, I agree. Although I also believe that once a Religion makes a comprehensible claim within a self defined frame of reference one can reason to a conclusion of its truth or falsity within this framework.
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And reasonable people will come to different conclusions, especially when the claims of evidence are not definitive.
Of course there will always be those who will, no matter how solid the conclusion is, refuse or be incapable of accepting anything which apposes their established world view.
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By the same token, there are those no matter how flimsy the conclusion is, who will not be swayed to refuse accepting anything which opposes their established world view.
Ce qui sera sera…alas such is the nature of mankind and the eternal quest for absolute truth. Personally I have established a reference frame which believes the Christian God exists and the canonical bible is his testament and Jesus existed and made revelations about this God.
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And I have no problem with that. You are a reasonable person and other reasonable people have come to the same conclusion. The main thrust is that there are reasonable people who have done the same introspection, studied the same claims, and reached a different conclusion.
I then work within this reference frame to attempt to make reasonable conclusions concerning the reality it presents. I’m not sure how adept at exegesis you are but in the verses your speaking of in Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, and Luke 21:32 Jesus never makes the claim that the generation he is talking about is the current one.
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I don’t want to bog down the topic of fallen away Catholics (and in turn why they are no longer convinced by Catholic/Christian claims), but I do want to touch on this briefly. There’s a reason why the term this generation. If you want to say that Jesus is referring not to this generation but to the generation where all those things happen, then let’s take this prophecy to its logical end: “The generation that sees these events will not pass away until these events happen.” That’s not a prophecy, that’s a tautology. Allow me to make similar predictions:

The generation that sees the first female US president will not pass away until that generation sees the first female US president.
The generation that invents a nuclear fusion reactor will not pass away until that generation invents a nuclear fusion reactor.

One reason some non-believers distrust claims of truth from the religious is these word games. It almost requires a disrespect of language to accept them.
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Sometimes the Characters in the bible are used as literary devices to speak to the future not the present. At the time it may be claimed that the apostles thought that his return was imminent within their lifetimes, though they never made that claim explicitly themselves, they may simply have misunderstood him as Jesus had pointed out at other times. Given the verses as presented I see no reason to make a conclusion of failed prophecy here. The problem here is with this one there is no way to make a definitive conclusion except when and if it is ever validated since Jesus gave no solid time of fulfillment. The only thing he said was God only knows when the end will come.
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There are other references in the Bible about Jesus’ imminent return (although the passages you gave should be more than sufficient). The fact is whether you believe those passages make a claim of prophecy or only appear to, you have to admit that it’s quite reasonable for some people to look at them and determine these are failed prophecies and are to be ignored (as directed in Deuteronomy 18:22)
 
Nothing to do with catechesis. It’s statistics. Of every 1000 12-14 year olds that will be confirmed this year, in ten years, over 70% of them will have turned their back on the church. And it isn’t because they don’t like the donuts after mass. The Catholic Church is on longer relevant in their lives, if it ever was in the first place.
 
If you equate the Roman Church with Christ’s Church you still need to elaborate. One what? One Church? That imparts no information as to what Christ’s Church is. What do you mean by holy? Infallible? If so then its fallible members cannot be a part of its definable characteristics lest they impart fallibility to the holy Church. Catholic? I hope your using the term as a description not as a title. Apostolic? I don’t think Jesus had in mind the kind of Apostolic succession that the leadership of the Roman Church has manipulated to its advantage and justification of its sins.
Again I say, if Christ’s Church is holy and infallible yet has as its members fallible human beings which the Roman Church distinguishes from Christ’s infallible Church then you either have to redefine Christ’s Church to include fallibility or you must have a separate definition of Christ’s Church apart from its fallible members. So how do you define Christ’s holy Church without its fallible members?
 
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