Posted on 12/30/2013 9:35:20 AM PST by RnMomof7
......"The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life has put hard numbers on the anecdotal evidence: One out of every 10 Americans is an ex-Catholic. If they were a separate denomination, they would be the third-largest denomination in the United States, after Catholics and Baptists. One of three people who were raised Catholic no longer identifies as Catholic.........
"Thankfully, although the U.S. bishops have not supported research on people who have left the church, the Pew Center has.
Pew’s data shows that those leaving the church are not homogenous. They can be divided into two major groups: those who become unaffiliated and those who become Protestant. Almost half of those leaving the church become unaffiliated and almost half become Protestant. Only about 10 percent of ex-Catholics join non-Christian religions.
This article will focus on Catholics who have become Protestant. I am not saying that those who become unaffiliated are not important; I am leaving that discussion to another time."................
"Nor are the people becoming Protestants lazy or lax Christians. In fact, they attend worship services at a higher rate than those who remain Catholic. While 42 percent of Catholics who stay attend services weekly, 63 percent of Catholics who become Protestants go to church every week. That is a 21 percentage-point difference.
" Seventy-one percent say their faith is “very strong,” while only 35 percent and 22 percent reported that their faith was very strong when they were children and teenagers, respectively. On the other hand, only 46 percent of those who are still Catholic report their faith as “very strong” today as an adult.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncronline.org ...
And a large percentage of those leaving do so because the other churches approve serial adultery (i.e., divorce and remarriage.)
The local non denom Pentecostal mega church is over 50% former Catholics. And more than half of them are there because of divorce and remarriage.
My church is full of ex catholics.
What’s amazing is that the guys are guy guys. Part of it is that the pastor of my church is a man’s man. So he attracts men.
Why did these men fall away however, from the catholic church. My WAG is that they were afraid of exposing their children to Catholic priests. The catholic church has experienced way too much bad publicity in the last two decades.
The same problem inheres to the liberal protestant churches. But everyone knows which protestant churches are liberal. So its easy enough to stay away from them. And indeed they are losing numbers steadily.
Its may be tougher to sort out which catholic churches are conservative and which are liberal. So rather than live with doubt, the guys just leave the catholic church.
Why are Catholics leaving the church to become Protestants? Maybe it’s because estimates of as high as 50% of Catholic priests are homosexual.
many individual Churches that have not yet sold out to international Marxism. The Catholic church is completely infested with them, from top to bottom. Marxism is just another guise of Satan. Many former Catholics have seen this and just cannot take it anymore.
...........
The root and branch of the apostacy in the catholic church is the same as in the liberal protestant churches. the marxists have a low view of Christ. That is they believe that Jesus was fully Man but not fully God.
Same thing is going on in the liberal protestant churches. they too take the low view of christ. They believe that Jesus is fully Man but not fully God.
Please educate yourself. What you say is totally untrue. So you might want to confront the source of your false information.
Pope Benedict sent emissaries to all the seminaries to clean them out.
Now, seminaries are overflowing with straight young men who want to serve only the Lord.
I can send you all my links, if you don’t believe me.
Applicants to the seminary must now take a two day pschye exam, have multiple interviews at the seminary. Even parents are interviewed.
Recommendations are also needed from the parish priest and others who know the applicant.
Who knew?
***knew
Of course, the watered down Theology-—with Marxist ideology-—destroys Truth.
When the Catholics were taught the Truth (AB Fulton Sheen time and before)-—the Church was strong-—but with the “Church of Nice”-—we have eliminated the reason for it. It is irrelevant in an evil world..... since it has been “modernized” to the weakest elements of Protestantism and meaninglessness.
They no longer teach the Truth with the sword of Jesus in the parishes. It is totally emasculated and homosexualized (feminized).
There are some great priests-—true-—but they are marginalized or replaced by the wishy-washy-—pillsbury boys.
There is some truth in what you say. St. Benedict was trying to clean out areas but he was thwarted (and resigned). What was THAT all about?
Fr. Oko’s report outlines the Smoke of Satan inside the Vatican and I haven’t notice the purge in the most highest areas where the mis-Theology trickles down to confuse and blur the Truth.
The remark by the present pope about “good Marxists” is particularly troubling. How ignorant can a pope be of that evil ideology when popes for a century have been condemning that evil, dehumanizing ideology for a hundred years in encyclicals. Marxism is total dehumanization-—the opposite of Christian Theology. You do realize there is no God in Marxism and they reduce all men to slaves-—programmed animals without agency.
Why the change? Ideas matter. Truth matters, and the CC used to be so clear on Good and Evil. “Good Marxist” is an oxymoron and confusing to the masses.
Sorry for sloppy editing-—meant Pope Benedict XVI. : )
Who Jew? (shrugs shoulders)
God?
The KJV came from Antioch, not Alexandria.
(1) Many left the Church-- not due to doctrine or in a search for truth-- but for personal reasons. These include living in a sinful lifestyle like adultery or homosexual unions; maybe some priest or layperson was "mean" to them or didn't let them have their way in planning a marriage or funeral; they wanted to marry outside the Church and just went with the flow to their spouses church (or lack of same).
(2) Many were lazy and just found the moral and disciplinary laws of the Church too demanding. Heaven forbid they be troubled to attend an hour of Mass or holy day of obligation or go to confession occasionally. These are the type that say "the Church has too many rules" when what they really want is not to have ANY rules or imposition in their leisure time at all.
(3) People who say they left the Church for "doctrinal reason" are usually liars. Fact is, the average Catholic is so ignorant of their own faith they wouldn't know a theological fallacy if it fell on them. It's only after they have left the Church for one of the reasons above that they make up some kind of after-the-fact "theological" reason-- usually it's something they learned in their new church which, odds are, doesn't have a clue what the Catholic Church actually teaches. You only have to talk to most ex-Catholic Protestants for about 5 minutes to know that they didn't know anything about their Catholic Faith when they left it, and their new church has filled in the gaps with misinformation.
Like I said, this is based solely upon about 30 years of first hand experience, but it is borne out consistently again and again.
What you wrote is completely true. There is an EXTENSIVE screening procedure now in place to weed out seminarians to the priesthood who might corrupt the Church. I have also noticed in my own archdiocese the new seminarians are much older and have had much more real life experiences before deciding to enter into the priesthood-—obviously a positive development.
I do honestly believe the Church needs to review its policies on mandatory celibacy. Mandatory celibacy is a relatively new development in the Church. There is NOTHING in scripture or in the teachings of Jesus mandating an all male celibate priesthood. The first 40 popes at least were married men. Until about the 12th Century the overwhelming majority of priests and bishops were married men. Mandatory priestly celibacy was introduced in the Middle Ages to confront rampant corruption and nepotism in the Church at that particular time. The policy should be reviewed. We have a number of married priests now serving in my archdiocese (mostly converts from the Episcopalian Church). They are just as fine as the single celibate priests.
Most of this increase due to hispanic immigration ( both legal and illegal) no doubt.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.