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(from April 18, 2011) The hidden exodus:Catholics becoming Protestants
National Catholic Reporter ^ | Apr. 18, 2011 | Thomas Reese

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 ...


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Charismatic Christian; Evangelical Christian; Mainline Protestant; Other Christian
KEYWORDS: bornagain; catholicism; evangelicals; gospel; protestantism; rome; salvation; trends
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To: fidelis
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

The same can be said for those who leave evangelical churches. But if anything, there is less reason for such to leave Rome, as such are treated as members in life and in death. How was Ted Kennedy treated?

Many were lazy and just found the moral and disciplinary laws of the Church too demanding...These are the type that say "the Church has too many rules"

Moral and disciplinary laws too demanding?! Are you longing for thinking of the day of the Inquisition and all its means? The majority of RCs can hardly be said to find moral and disciplinary laws of the Church too demanding, as it abounds with liberals. Back in the 60s i remember my mom saying how strict the RC church was, in support of it, as were devout practitioners, yet while having a high moral code in our family, Catholics where in and out of church in an hour, could smoke, drink, even had their own KoC barooms, and could work and play on Sunday, etc., and had no home devotions outside of the Lent rituals, and less faithful had no problem getting the sacraments. That was being strict.

In contrast, we had some Nazarene neighbors, also with kids, and they were gone to church most of the day, and the kids could not even play on Sunday, and no drinking etc. That was what seemed strict to me, and today if i lived by Catholic rules i would have a lower standard of conduct.

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.

Actually, while the average Catholic is very ignorant, as that is what Rome breeds, most who leave Rome for evangelical churches do not do so much as due to doctrinal reasons, but do so because of the spiritual deficiency they found in Rome, myself being one of them.

Only 20% of former Catholics now evangelical were unhappy about Catholicism's teachings on abortion/homosexuality (versus 46% of those now unaffiliated); and 23% also expressed disagreement with teaching on divorce/remarriage; and only 12% were dissatisfied with teachings on birth control.

And 46% of evangelical converts from Catholicism said the Catholic Church did not view the Bible literally enough. And if they ever read their study notes in their NAB beginning in 1970, they would have even more reason.

Like I said, this is based solely upon about 30 years of first hand experience, but it is borne out consistently again and again

But which is largely meaningless as regards these reasons being exclusive to Catholicism, while what is abundantly evident is that being liberal, divorced, etc. is not much of a hindrance for Catholics, as some here have testified.

And it is my 40 year experience as a born again, former RC, that Catholics are overall not only liberal, but far interested in talking about Christ, salvation and things of the Bible, except to promote their church. If that.

61 posted on 12/30/2013 3:46:49 PM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: paterfamilias

Interesting comment given that the current pope is a Jesuit.


62 posted on 12/30/2013 3:49:28 PM PST by MeganC (Support Matt Bevin to oust Mitch McConnell! https://mattbevin.com/)
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To: Alex Murphy; RnMomof7
There's a simple way to measure this. As Catholics move into Protestant denominations (or vise versa) does that body vote more / less conservative?

This may help:


63 posted on 12/30/2013 4:07:59 PM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion; Steelfish; armydoc
You will notice no citations were posted to back up that claim!

I indeed noticed, and thus supplied what is documented.

Also relevant,


64 posted on 12/30/2013 4:19:45 PM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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Comment #65 Removed by Moderator

To: longfellowsmuse
The new testament of KJV of the bible completed in 1611 after the reformation was based on the translations of Erasmus a Dutch roman catholic priest and a Greek scholar who used greek byzantine era texts to create the “Textus Receptus”

Read this and/or watch this if you dare. The Catholic bible and the KJV are two different bibles. God's Word was refined 7 times like silver, and this matches the KJV from Antioch, not Alexandria.

Psa 12:6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

1. Tyndale

2. Matthew's

3. Coverdale's

4. Great Bible

5. Geneva

6. Bishop's

7. KJV

66 posted on 12/30/2013 4:26:44 PM PST by Partisan Gunslinger
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To: daniel1212
that Rome was/is the instrument and stewards of Scripture,

If true, then some of the Catholics here failed that humility test from St whatever that was posted. Rather than receiving the honor of of being God's instrument in perpetuating the Scripture in humility there is a tendency to brag. As if God who could raise up children for Abraham from stones couldn't have raised another to safeguard His Word. With such a relationship, it is amusing to find so many touted doctrines that have no origination in Scripture, or required the stretching of the same until it is unrecognizable.

67 posted on 12/30/2013 4:52:20 PM PST by xone
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To: daniel1212
Catholic Scripture Study Bible - RSV Large Print Edition


"We are compelled to concede to the Papists
that they have the Word of God,
that we received it from them,
and that without them
we should have no knowledge of it at all."

~ Martin Luther




68 posted on 12/30/2013 4:55:45 PM PST by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: VermiciousKnid

That’s great news, VK. Praise God. :)


69 posted on 12/30/2013 5:53:22 PM PST by fidelis (Zonie and USAF Cold Warrior)
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To: piusv

Exactly. I love the Catholic Canon-—Love St. Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, Boethius and the solid philosophy/theology behind the Catholic Canon that came from them and Pope Pius X and many others. Every word in the Canon was argued for centuries-—and using the Bible to analyze Good and Evil and the “truths” that the Bible intended to convey. Debated since the Churches inception and only debate can lead to the Truth as Socrates stated—outside of Revelation.

We need people to be taught Catholic Theology-—esp. the “priests”. Many, like in my parish, contradict themselves constantly, with “good Marxist” type “thinking-—which eliminates Reason-—and this Marxist concept of “social” justice as if Justice needs an adjective. They should realize with subsidiarity and the Natural Family—that government “welfare” destroys the soul—and is NEVER charity. It is force and theft and our paper advocates these “social” programs which are government run.

Blurring the truth is evil..... exp. to the little boys and girls-—with this altar girl thing, which is sickening.....to confuse children and Natural Law—foundation of Catholic Theology and Truth.

Catholic teaching used to be clear and concise. Truth is Truth-—and you NEVER beat around the bush about sin and evil which the “church of nice” has been doing since Vatican II when they took out the worship of God and inserted their kumbaya worship of man.

Really makes me mad when I think about the destruction of the 400 year Tradition of the CC (Marxism)-—the silliness-quasi-religious feminization of the Church is pure evil. And Bella Dodd wrote about the Marxists homosexuals in the 30’s and 40’s who were deliberately placed into seminaries to work their way up the structure to control “policy”. Looks like they have total control now (the Marxist homosexuals).


70 posted on 12/30/2013 6:20:29 PM PST by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature = Just Law)
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To: Salvation

Sure the Catholic population is growing because the Latin America countries are 99% Catholic and they reproduce like rabbits. All the while infiltrating into this country.


71 posted on 12/30/2013 6:49:36 PM PST by Old Yeller
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To: Steelfish; aMorePerfectUnion
Ex-Catholics are mostly gays and what are known as “Cafeteria Catholics” They are willing to rejoin on “their” terms.

Well, there's a watertight argument.

If you can't win with the facts, slander your opponent when baseless and unprovable accusations.

What a way to warm the hearts of non-Catholics to join the RCC.......

72 posted on 12/30/2013 7:01:28 PM PST by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith....)
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To: metmom

None of this is unprovable. The phenomenon of cafeteria Catholics is well known and much of this has been written about them. And of course Gays and Lesbians and the Feminists find the Catholic Church as the last bulwark against their perversity. Schools, colleges, the professions and media were all successfully brought into the Sodom and Gomorrah orbit where their lifestyle and liberalism was now orthodoxy.

Finally, the Anglican and Protestant Churches began to genuflect at their demands as well to say nothing of the Black Churches and their pastors. The Catholic Church like the Rock of Gibraltar has a Catechism that instructs homosexual conduct to be an intrinsically disordered evil. These then are mostly your ex-Catholics.


73 posted on 12/30/2013 7:27:47 PM PST by Steelfish (ui)
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To: RnMomof7; RichInOC; Prince of Space; JoeFromSidney; TNMountainMan; alphadog; infool7; Heart-Rest; ..

Looks to me like the Catholic population is growing.

Catholic population (The Official Catholic Directory)
1965 - 45.6m

1975 - 48.7m

1985 - 52.3m

1995 - 57.4m

2000 - 59.9m

2005 - 64.8m

2013 - 66.8m


74 posted on 12/30/2013 7:29:36 PM PST by narses (... unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.)
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To: Salvation
We are compelled to concede to the Papists that they have the Word of God, that we received it from them, and that without them we should have no knowledge of it at all."

So i will ask you the question i have asked thrice in 3 days without a reply,

So your argument is that Rome was/is the instrument and stewards of Scripture, and thus they are its assuredly correct interpreter? Articulate. As for the quite, I am sure i told you as well as others that you should check out such quotes for context, rather than uncritically parroting other ignorant RCs. For if you knew the polemic behind it, then you would realize it avails you nothing.

75 posted on 12/30/2013 8:32:19 PM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: xone

And i am waiting for an answer as to what this stewardship assertion is supposed to prove.


76 posted on 12/30/2013 8:35:14 PM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: daniel1212

I guess the argument is, if you don’t trust the Catholic Church, then you cannot trust Scripture therewith.


77 posted on 12/30/2013 8:48:48 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: RnMomof7

I grew up Catholic, but it never made much sense to me. The first time I heard salvation preached in a Baptist church, it all came together for me.

I believe that the many denominations are a sign that our God is a big God that can be worshipped in many ways, as long as The Word is in the center of it. Some folks are going to be mighty surprised at the some of the people they meet in Heaven.


78 posted on 12/30/2013 8:53:11 PM PST by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
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To: RnMomof7

That certainly makes sense. Someone who would intentionally leave a faith tradition they were born into - and which probably all if not most of their family remains there - wouldn’t leave unless they thought they were leaving for something better. The apathetic people don’t bother leaving. For some, leaving is because they no longer believe in ANY of the tenets and for others, probably the majority, because they find a more excellent way. I know that was my reason and most all the people I know, as well. When I read the truth of the gospel from John 10:27-30, I immediately knew I was hearing the truth that I had been searching for. I also knew it was NOT something that my born-into religion taught. It was the Holy Spirit who shined the light into my heart.


79 posted on 12/30/2013 11:45:15 PM PST by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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To: Steelfish
None of this is unprovable.

It's not provable either and you have posted NOTHING to support your assertion. No stats, no links, nothing.

Therefore, we can consider it the baseless opinion that it is. No one is obligated to take unsubstantiated opinion with any degree or seriousness.

80 posted on 12/31/2013 1:02:40 AM PST by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith....)
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