Young People Leaving the Catholic Faith

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Blessedwithfive said:
Many kids still have a Catholic identity. It really is up to the parents to prioritize. They go to public school and receive an excused dismissal early on Holy Days. They still have a meatless option at the school cafe. We started a “No games before noon” policy at soccer when I was team manager so all kids could attend religious services. Public schools have been very understanding. When it came to the Confirmation retreat, the kids in soccer were given an excused absence from practice so they could play the game the following day (otherwise they have to sit out for missing). The Catholic high school would not excuse the kids from practice and those kids skipped the retreat. Sad.
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They do? :confused:
 
Padres1969 said:
They do? :confused:
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They should. It’s my understanding that such is required by law.

(It was also the practice in the public schools I attended growing up, and it’s the policy in the school district I live in as well.)
 
pensmama87 said:
They should. It’s my understanding that such is required by law.

(It was also the practice in the public schools I attended growing up, and it’s the policy in the school district I live in as well.)
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Not seeing anything in my research that suggests it’s required by law. In fact the opposite seems to be true, that typically they’re not required to do so but if a district chooses to they’re legally in the clear.
 
Padres1969 said:
They do? :confused:
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Required by law. We also get the Jewish holidays off too. If 20% of the population is Jewish then the whole school is cancelled, and we have just over 20 percent. We do not have 20% Catholic so we are just given an excused absence. We also sang Praise HIs Holy Name at the choir concert. Public School in Connecticut. 🙂
 
Blessedwithfive said:
Required by law. We also get the Jewish holidays off too. If 20% of the population is Jewish then the whole school is cancelled, and we have just over 20 percent. We do not have 20% Catholic so we are just given an excused absence. We also sang Praise HIs Holy Name at the choir concert. Public School in Connecticut. 🙂
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Must be a regional or local thing. I’ve never heard of such a thing.
 
Padres1969 said:
Not seeing anything in my research that suggests it’s required by law. In fact the opposite seems to be true, that typically they’re not required to do so but if a district chooses to they’re legally in the clear.
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It may be that it’s not on the books, but any school that attempted to inflict penalties on a student for absences due to religious observance would probably be taken to court pretty quickly, and I would suspect they would lose.

The degree to which accommodations are made may vary. Our school district has off for the major Jewish holidays (I’m not sure about the 20% number in particular, but there is a sizable Jewish population here). I remember one Muslim family in my high school was dismissed early every Friday to attend worship services. That could be an example of a school making more accommodation than legally necessary, but I can’t see at all that a school could actually penalize students for following the tenets of a known religion (which can happen if absences are unexcused.)
 
I was asked to participate in planning for a social event … and they showed me the questionnaire they insisted everyone complete.

The doctrinal questions were so complex, it was no wonder no one showed up.

They asked me how we used to do it elsewhere.

It was social, so the test was if you could open a bottle of beer. [It was optional.] [And assistance was available.]

Our turnouts were huge.

For daytime events, I think we subsidized Dunkin Donuts.

Huge.

Plenty of volunteers.
 
Well, the modern church is filled with useless and limp wristed clergy and religious who are indifferent to the faith and would rather talk about “global warming” and littering or some other unimportant issue rather than life after death, sin, etc. Why would a young person want to stay in a Church whose leaders are modernist? That and the fact that we live in such a hedonistic time. It’s all about me. No one has time or patience to pray a Rosary, sit through Mass, deny themselves, practice restraint and.chastity. It’s easier to just let go and have fun. “Teen culture” is such poisonous trash. Since we are young we’re supposed to be “free” and have fun; let go and just float like a dead animal down to sewage river of teen culture’s hedonism. But it’s ok because life is all about making YOURSELF happy and doing things YOU want to do. Life is all about “loving yourself for who u are” and “loving ur body.” “Youre perfect” is all we hear from those stupid commercials. That’s why young people nowadays are so darn narcissistic and into themselves. It’s disgusting. This especially affects females, because those stupid commercials are mostly directed towards them. But even young men are self-loving. Instead of being humble and practising virtue, we want others to recognize our youth and beauty. Also, a lot of youth group programs are all about enjoying yourself. Listening to cheesy Christian contemporary music with insipid and cliche lyrics that have been sung a million and a half times while…well Well that’s my rant hehe.
 
Trying2overcome said:
Well, the modern church is filled with useless and limp wristed clergy and religious who are indifferent to the faith and would rather talk about “global warming” and littering or some other unimportant issue rather than life after death, sin, etc. Why would a young person want to stay in a Church whose leaders are modernist? That and the fact that we live in such a hedonistic time. It’s all about me. No one has time or patience to pray a Rosary, sit through Mass, deny themselves, practice restraint and.chastity. It’s easier to just let go and have fun. “Teen culture” is such poisonous trash. Since we are young we’re supposed to be “free” and have fun; let go and just float like a dead animal down to sewage river of teen culture’s hedonism. But it’s ok because life is all about making YOURSELF happy and doing things YOU want to do. Life is all about “loving yourself for who u are” and “loving ur body.” “Youre perfect” is all we hear from those stupid commercials. That’s why young people nowadays are so darn narcissistic and into themselves. It’s disgusting. This especially affects females, because those stupid commercials are mostly directed towards them. But even young men are self-loving. Instead of being humble and practising virtue, we want others to recognize our youth and beauty. Also, a lot of youth group programs are all about enjoying yourself. Listening to cheesy Christian contemporary music with insipid and cliche lyrics that have been sung a million and a half times while…well Well that’s my rant hehe.
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Well! :eek:
 
Maybe if we had higher expectations for our young people at least some would try to rise to them. Instead it’s almost like we expect them to disappear after confirmation and not reappear until they want to get married. Could church give them something (age appropriate for teens) to do instead of offering nothing outside mass.

I do get that it’s probably a bit difficult when its a church or parish with few people of this age group/life stage.

Also I wonder how many people have tried asking teens or young adults why they left and what stops them coming back.
 
Monte_RCMS said:
The reason why Karl Keating founded Catholic Answers is that … Catholics were starved for knowledge about Catholicism…
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Padres1969 said:
And I agree with your premise. I mean it does start with the parents. If they don’t believe, how are they supposed to translate that over to the children?.
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I totally agree.

The premise of the thread is that a third of young people leave the Catholic faith–but does it address the fact that plenty of them *come back? * I left–and returned. So have two or three of my children.

I left largely because after 12 years of CCD (70s and 80s) and even confirmation class, I felt I knew nothing about why I should be Catholic instead of Baptist or Mormon. I did some looking and reading on my own and learned why. But I did not learn it from the Church (I’m sorry to say) or my parents.

Yes, we went to church every week and said grace before meals. That was really about it. Yes, we went to Catholic schools sometimes, but honestly, I don’t feel my parents were living the faith. I didn’t SEE the Catholic faith lived. We never said the Rosary, we never prayed as a family, we were never, ever brought to confession, apart from first confession, my dad had porn around, they were very upfront about using birth control and not wanting any more kids.

Of my siblings, one came back many years later, and the ones hitting their 40s have spent years drinking and sleeping around, into tattoos and piercings, after being raised Catholic, and have shown no inclination to return to any faith at all.

I have tried to raise my kids with family prayer, the Rosary, confession, etc. My kids who are young adults stopped going to Mass only very briefly if at all, and at this point, they all go to Mass and to confession, and most if not all of them own and use Rosaries. Their faith matters a great deal to them.
 
holyrood said:
I totally agree.

The premise of the thread is that a third of young people leave the Catholic faith–but does it address the fact that plenty of them *come back? * I left–and returned. So have two or three of my children.

I left largely because after 12 years of CCD (70s and 80s) and even confirmation class, I felt I knew nothing about why I should be Catholic instead of Baptist or Mormon. I did some looking and reading on my own and learned why. But I did not learn it from the Church (I’m sorry to say) or my parents.
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I’m having a time finding it, but the studies that I’ve seen from Pew seem to suggest facing away or “back sliding” is common across generations with many returning at marriage or childbirth. Though that was for religious practice in general, not just Catholics

With delayed marriage and childbirth will the current generations return in similar numbers?
 
holyrood said:
I totally agree.

The premise of the thread is that a third of young people leave the Catholic faith–but does it address the fact that plenty of them *come back? * I left–and returned. So have two or three of my children.

I left largely because after 12 years of CCD (70s and 80s) and even confirmation class, I felt I knew nothing about why I should be Catholic instead of Baptist or Mormon. I did some looking and reading on my own and learned why. But I did not learn it from the Church (I’m sorry to say) or my parents.

Yes, we went to church every week and said grace before meals. That was really about it. Yes, we went to Catholic schools sometimes, but honestly, I don’t feel my parents were living the faith. I didn’t SEE the Catholic faith lived. We never said the Rosary, we never prayed as a family, we were never, ever brought to confession, apart from first confession, my dad had porn around, they were very upfront about using birth control and not wanting any more kids.

Of my siblings, one came back many years later, and the ones hitting their 40s have spent years drinking and sleeping around, into tattoos and piercings, after being raised Catholic, and have shown no inclination to return to any faith at all.

I have tried to raise my kids with family prayer, the Rosary, confession, etc. My kids who are young adults stopped going to Mass only very briefly if at all, and at this point, they all go to Mass and to confession, and most if not all of them own and use Rosaries. Their faith matters a great deal to them.
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Actually Pew has found at least in the US, of the 52% of all US Catholics (and former US Catholics) who’ve left the Church at some point, only 11% revert back to the faith. The remaining 41% either leave the faith completely or become that “cultural Catholic” category. Call it Catholic in Name Only if you will. If the study referenced in the OP holds any water, or at least the respondents responses hold any water (that only 19% could see themselves coming back for any reason), that percentage of Catholics who leave and never come back will likely increase in coming generations. Reversion is comparatively not that common even now.

pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/15/half-of-u-s-adults-raised-catholic-have-left-the-church-at-some-point/
 
HerCrazierHalf said:
I’m having a time finding it, but the studies that I’ve seen from Pew seem to suggest facing away or “back sliding” is common across generations with many returning at marriage or childbirth. Though that was for religious practice in general, not just Catholics

With delayed marriage and childbirth will the current generations return in similar numbers?
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I have some single male friends who just don’t feel welcome in church. Even if they were to later marry and father children they still have the hurt of the rejection they felt at church. With some of my other friends that stopped attending it just seems like they have been out so long I don’t know if it would occur to them to return. They can always marry outside of church or not at all.

I think this trend of people returning when settling down has encouraged people to have a head in the sand attitude about young people leaving. Not everyone is going to find a partner and start a nuclear family and besides parishes should include everyone, not just conventional families.
 
ConfusedLucy said:
I have some single male friends who just don’t feel welcome in church. Even if they were to later marry and father children they still have the hurt of the rejection they felt at church. With some of my other friends that stopped attending it just seems like they have been out so long I don’t know if it would occur to them to return. They can always marry outside of church or not at all.

I think this trend of people returning when settling down has encouraged people to have a head in the sand attitude about young people leaving. Not everyone is going to find a partner and start a nuclear family and besides parishes should include everyone, not just conventional families.
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Why don’t they feel welcome? Did they make efforts to start groups of their own? There wasn’t an over abundance of things for single men to do, but I volunteered where I was able, and simply went to Mass when that was all I could do. I had plenty of social interaction outside the faith.

This notion that we have to do more to keep folks happy may work for awhile, but they have to be taught why most of us stay in the faith, or else they will simply wander off again when things hit a dry period.

I find the notion that men would be disappointed in the faith and wander off (implying something in the faith was important to them else there would have been no disappointment) and never come back (implying it wasn’t that important after all) to be odd.
 
Maximilan_Kolbe said:
Why don’t they feel welcome? Did they make efforts to start groups of their own? There wasn’t an over abundance of things for single men to do, but I volunteered where I was able, and simply went to Mass when that was all I could do. I had plenty of social interaction outside the faith.

This notion that we have to do more to keep folks happy may work for awhile, but they have to be taught why most of us stay in the faith, or else they will simply wander off again when things hit a dry period.

I find the notion that men would be disappointed in the faith and wander off (implying something in the faith was important to them else there would have been no disappointment) and never come back (implying it wasn’t that important after all) to be odd.
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Obviously I can’t mind read but when we were at university we had the opportunity to be very active in our faith, the person I am thinking of was not a Catholic but he was very active, groups, readings, helping the pastors, you name it he did it. However when we graduated and moved on to our different locations we found that these sorts of things were done by the retired crowd, we were just expected to go to work and turn up on Sunday, it was a huge adjustment and I don’t think this guy was getting anything out of such a passive faith.

Some parishes or churches won’t have enough post-confirmation teens or post-school young adults to form specific ministries. A lot of people will disagree but I wonder if the answer could be to make links between other churches in the area and perhaps between them there may be enough minorities to form an appropriate ecumenical ministry for them. There is the risk of losing them to other churches but I have found the people who support me the most in my faith are non-Catholic friends, we may have disagreements but we all appreciate how important it is to practice our faith.
 
ConfusedLucy said:
Obviously I can’t mind read but when we were at university we had the opportunity to be very active in our faith, the person I am thinking of was not a Catholic but he was very active, groups, readings, helping the pastors, you name it he did it. However when we graduated and moved on to our different locations we found that these sorts of things were done by the retired crowd, we were just expected to go to work and turn up on Sunday, it was a huge adjustment and I don’t think this guy was getting anything out of such a passive faith.

Some parishes or churches won’t have enough post-confirmation teens or post-school young adults to form specific ministries. A lot of people will disagree but I wonder if the answer could be to make links between other churches in the area and perhaps between them there may be enough minorities to form an appropriate ecumenical ministry for them. There is the risk of losing them to other churches but I have found the people who support me the most in my faith are non-Catholic friends, we may have disagreements but we all appreciate how important it is to practice our faith.
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I agree with this last statement. Same for me, but I don’t agree with the first part. At least in my church, there are plenty of things for everyone to do. I just think we do a sucky job of inviting others to join. In my experience, people like to be invited to a ministry rather then volunteer
 
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