I can personally attest to this. When I left two different parishes, not one of them ever contacted me. In fact, I ran into the pastor from one of those parishes who struck up a conversation about the parish but never asked why I had left, nor did he invite me to return.
The pastor at my current parish, has called and personally visited all the previous parishioners. Many of them have returned. It does make a difference.
Threaten them with Hell Fire and Damnation like the Baptists do.
The Catholics that I know left because of the false doctrine of Rome.. I tried to stay after I was saved but the more I studied scripture the more I realized that Rome does not line up with it.. finally I had to go .
It is very easy to get an ‘annulment” from the church... Most of the people in the pews use or used birth control ...the church is full of gays..including a large part of their priests..
So those issues are non issues.. things like the mass, prayer to saints..a deified Mary,a non biblical priesthood and mass..those are marks of a man made church..not the church of Jesus Christ..so we leave
I left when they brought out the guitar music and the awful weekly missals with bad art and the sermons on the song “The Sounds of Silence.” That was about 1971. Luckily, we have many beautiful churches in New York City that still have the spiritual mystery and glamor that is so important to those of us who grew up in pre-Vatican II.
Some of left because the Church went squishy. Bad pop music and hand wringing sermons with liberal appeasements. I visit now and again, hoping the Church will snap out of it and return to the unpopular truth. Still waiting.
I’m reading Barron’s book “Catholicism” now, good book and I recommend it to both RC and Protestants who are curious.
I never left the Church; my bishop told me there was no place in the church for people like me (Conservative, Traditionalist). I have not been invited back by any of the succeeding bishops.
No one has yet posted what I believe is at the root of anyone leaving - no longer believing in the Real Presence. If you believe that then none of the other outer stuff matters.
A good follow-up question would be, “where did you go?” Did they quit Christianity altogether? Switch to a liberal denomination? Switch to a conservative evangelical denomination?
I’m not Catholic. Never have been. I wouldn’t mourn those who switched to a liberal denomination or quit because of doctrine. Molding doctrine to fit the believers is a lousy idea.
I’d also be less concerned about someone leaving my church because they found another church or another conservative denomination that fits them better. There are a lot of good churches out there ... maybe even a few that the Catholic Church could learn from.
Those that left the faith because of PR or something are recoverable.
SnakeDoc
Wife & I recently moved to Jacksonville, FL. We had been attending a WONDERFUL Maronite parish in SC that was very small with an incredibly active priest. I retrospect I wish we had carted the people & the church building down here with us.
We get to Jax & discover there are no small parishes. They are all very large. There is a Maronite rite parish close by but they speak 90% arabic & 10% english. There’s a Latin rite parish less than a mile from the house but the Pastor of the parish read with dripping disdain the Bishop’s letter about the HHS mandate. “How can I be bothered with such nonsense” was his tone as he read the letter.
We attended a Latin Mass on Sunday evenings at a Syriac Rite parish for a time. Finally we discovered a parish that brooks no BS on any level on any issue and we are grateful the Lord has led us there. Thankful we were able to make the journey!
Given that we are the Church whose primary objective is to be as much as possible a 1 century institution that Christ and the Holy Apostles built, I am surprised that anyone has stayed.
I’d worry if the crowd that Joel Olsteen has in his stadium shows up in my Church.
I find it hard to belive that no one mentioned the fact that homosexual pederast priests stained the reputation of the church as one of the reasons people left.
I would say that the message of Jesus as Che Guevara is a real loser. Try dropping that.
"But while men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat and went his way." - Matthew 13,25
That's why so many have left the Church and non-Catholic churches haven't fared a bit better than the Catholic Church. The majority of non-Catholic Christians in this country are every bit as messed up and lax as any of the lapsed Catholics so many people love to point at. Those who worship their Most High and Holy Self and constantly repeat outright lies aren't fooling anyone. Their little anti-Catholic games work hand in glove with the Secular Humanists in the King Barry crowd just like all the other disinformation and lies from the antiChrist crowd do.
There are a lot of folks who can't focus on anything but that they're not Catholic and lot of Catholics who can't seem to understand that it isn't all of their fellow Christians who are attacking the Catholic Church. The longer it takes for Christians in this country to unite and focus on Christ and Him crucified rather than on what divides them the more painful our return to being a Christian nation is going to be.
We left our church because our priest was a pretty open homosexual. After he left for being accused of being a diddler, they sent us another one. Finally the bishop was outed as well. Our diocese was spending more time and effort denying the facts, collecting money to pay off the lawyers, and just outright lying about the diddlers.
**many of the issues that led people to leave the church are indeed matters that can be addressed. Many of the respondents commented that they left because of “bad customer relations.” **
A good set of ushers/greeters solves this problem. Also Minisitry Fairs are of great importance.
If you see someone you don’t know, introduce yourself!