You're the Church. Young people are leaving in droves. What do you do?

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snarflemike

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What, if anything, might the Church do to slow or reverse this trend?
 
I always think the answer to all our problems is prayer. We, the elect, need to turn back to God with our whole hearts.
Let the nations be glad and exult *
for you rule the world with justice.
With fairness you rule the peoples, *
you guide the nations on earth.
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That doesn’t mean we do nothing. It means we pray & open ourselves to the Spirit & let Him guide us to His glory.
 
Be more and unapologetically Catholic. No dumbing-down anything. No pandering. Young people want authenticity.

I’m particularly, an emphasis on the intellectual tradition of the Church as a counter to the feels before reals secular culture.
 
snarflemike said:
What, if anything, might the Church do to slow or reverse this trend?
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Well, one thing we know for sure is that we can do, and are doing, a whole host of things to accelerate the process. A starting point would to stop doing those things.

However, I have yet to see anyone come up with any meaningful measures to reverse the process, except what Jesus told us to do in Luke 10:25-37.

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”

28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
 
  1. Remind them of the truth of Christ.
  2. Let them go.
  3. Pray.
At least one priest I heard said that the children of those who leave are the best evangelizers he has seen.
 
the worst thing you can do is dumbing things down and making everything easier. The Church has a message.to preach on should be rock solid on it’s message. Everywhere the Church tries to make things easier (North America\Europe) is where it is failing. There is no such thing in Africa and Asia where the Church is growing.
 
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Think about all the changes the baby boomers made. Then, undo those. We can start with those 1970s CCM songs in our hymnals. And rebuild some of those awful modernist experiments in church architecture. Also, the watered down catechesis — stop that.
 
Explain and teach the faith clearly and stick to it. Maybe pastoral approach can be looked at but the church is not a popularity contest and should not “change” to chase after people.
 
Contemporary Christian music… which is no longer all that contemporary anyway.
 
The church needs to clearly define its teaching on homosexuality. Define how we love the sinner while hating the sin. Youth go to college and meet peers who have same sex attraction and accept them. They believe the church is being unfair.

We need to be able to explain that we don’t make the rules, God does, while accepting the sinner.
It would help if we could explain where SSA comes from. It is not an easy fix!
 
I am a teenager. I attend a state school, encounter discrimination for being Christian. But I am just about as passionate you can get. The Catholic Church is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. The Pentecostal ecclesial community down the road led by the motorcycle riding megachurch pastor is not how they worshiped in the New Testament, or how God wishes us to worship.

One of the biggest issues in the Church is extremely poor catechesis. When I was confirmed into the Catholic Church in 2012 as a child, the only things I knew was that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and Pope Benedict XVI was our shepherd and leader of Christ’s Church on earth.

I learnt nothing about the trinity, or the Holy Spirit. It is only through my own study of the scriptures, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Roman Catechism that I have learnt my faith.

Catechesis is rather bad in the Church and needs to be improved. This is why people are leaving, due to poor instruction in the faith.

I am blessed to have found the truth in the Catholic Church. It is hard as a teenager to live by the Church’s teachings in this world that encourage us to do whatever we want, but I am proud to say that I support each and every doctrine of the Church.

Teenagers who know the faith do exist, but the numbers will grow smaller and smaller if catechesis stays as it is.
 
The Church is too concerned with fitting into the world. It (as in the hierarchy) want to be regarded as “hip”. Thus, they try to reach out towards the world and pander towards it. Oftentimes, ecumenism can be just another name for conforming. As the clergy continues to dumb down the teaching of the Church (as folks have mentioned above), they will lose the moral high ground. The sex scandals haven’t helped either. But that is the fault of the clergy for not staying true to the message of Christ. No compromise. Truth doesn’t work like that.

Don’t aim to please, aim for the truth.
 
catholic03 said:
Catechesis is rather bad in the Church and needs to be improved. This is why people are leaving, due to poor instruction in the faith.

I am blessed to have found the truth in the Catholic Church
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There was a time when I thought the same thing. Then after my 2nd conversion I started listening to the hymns & Psalms, Readings, & Gospel. I started paying attention to the liturgical calendar, started living the liturgy… & realized it’s all there. Always has been. I just slept through it.

You have been awakened. I pray the Lord helps you stay awake, to keep watch with Him.
 
The Church definitely has a long way to go in terms of proper catechesis for the laity.

Say what you will about the JW’s, but the way they teach their flock is one of the best I’ve ever seen. And everything comes from the top down. The problem in the Church, is that we have no uniformity on what to teach or how.

Not to mention that members of our own clergy have committed such horrific atrocities against the young, it’s no wonder they don’t want to sit in the pews and listen to someone, who they perceive to be wicked and potentially dangerous to them.
 
snarflemike said:
What, if anything, might the Church do to slow or reverse this trend?
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There are Catholics who recommend bringing back the Old Latin Mass making it available in every Catholic church. I think it is important though to continue the ecumenical outreach to the Eastern churches. Another problem is that many Catholics are rejecting the teaching on artificial birth control, and that the divorce numbers are not too much different from others. Perhaps it will be helpful to rethink the teachings on artificial birth control, divorce, and women priests. I do not favor SS marriage, but I notice that there are Catholic colleges with official publications offering congratulations to newly married SS couples who were alumni of the school. Also, perhaps allowance should be made for a married clergy as an option.
 
All good and valid points, but I’ll touch the 3rd rail. The hierarchy contributed to this by hiding, ignoring abhorrent behavior and protecting people who should have been grabbed by the neck and thrown into a police car.
Actions and inactions have consequences.
People lost trust and left. Many didn’t lose their faith, but they felt they couldn’t stay. I don’t really see a true effort to remedy this. Words and committees drawing up another plan isn’t going to change anything. The time for decisive action is long past due.
 
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