With Pope Che at the helm, I would not be surprised if this trend becomes even more pronounced.
Come out, and fellowship with a good evangelical group for the “faith once delivered to the saints.”
Points missed by the headline:
1. “...left at sometime in their life....” Thus they stopped attending Catholic church, but resumed it later and apparently never renounced Christianity.
2. “...among the 52 percent who left the Church, about six out of 10 have returned at some point.” Again, they RETURNED.
Nuff said.
I once told a catholic priest I was a recovering catholic and his reaction was priceless, worth the price of admission at least.
I have NO doubts at all why the church of rome arose in the very same culture which gave us la cosa nostra and italian organized crime families.
Governments the world over follow the very same models of control.
I was 14 the last time I entered a church for other than tourist value.
As a christian, born-again, I consider catholics ostensible christians; Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are living proof of this.
I do hope Malachy’s prophecy is true and that this IS the last pope.
Well can’t be a “bad” thing....
POPE FRANCIS TAPS RICK WARREN TO SELL VATICAN SOCIALIST AGENDA TO AMERICAN CHRISTIANS
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=35402
Pope Francis Is to the Vatican, What Obama Is to the U.S.
http://www.raptureready.com/soap2/ungurean64.html
“I can destroy your Church.”
“You can? Then go ahead and do so.”
“To do so, I need more time and more power.”
“How much time? How much power?
“75 to 100 years, and a greater power over those who will give themselves over to my service.”
“You have the time, you will have the power. Do with them what you will.”
Then there’s a person I know. She’s an associate nun (not sure of the exact term), who supports abortion, divorce and any other liberal cause.
I’ve been disregarding Pew for a long, long time.
Just an unpatriotic, anti-religious, socialist collective.
Some writer missed a good play on words. “Pew Research Reveals Empty Pews” or similar.
Ping for your Intrest.
The article fails to mention that the Catholic Church on marriage and divorce, homosexuality, and faith in general follow Christ teachings 100% and do not waiver from the truth and proclaiming the Gospel. People will always fall short, but Christ told Peter that upon you I build my Church and it will prevail against the gates of hell. People and even Popes need salvation and all sin and require the sacraments and precious blood of Christ for redemption and there are no exceptions. The author of the article appears to be proud that people fall from their faith and adopt sinful choices for their lives. I would expect such as this based upon the source and would expect others to revel in attacking Christ's Church and make other statements that their church is superior to the Catholic faith. Those same other denominations that allow divorce and homosexuality in some cases in direct opposition to the Gospel.
I am proud to defend the faith and thank God for the graces given to me and pray for those that fall from grace and to the worldly views that temp many into a life destructive to families and children and harmful to their souls.
Perhaps the result of the Synod (divorced and remarried receive communion, inclusiveness for homosexuals, etc) will bring them back!
How does all of this affect the problem we are examining? It means that the big talk of those who prophesy a Church without God and without faith is all empty chatter. We have no need of a Church that celebrates the cult of action in political prayers. It is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it will destroy itself. What will remain is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who has become man and promises us life beyond death. The kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists; but the priest who is no specialist, who does not stand on the sidelines, watching the game, giving official advice, but in the name of God places himself at the disposal men, who is beside them in their sorrows, in their joys, in their hope and in their fear, such a priest will certainly be needed in the future.
Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge—a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so will she lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, she will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly she will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Alongside this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize her true center and experience the sacraments again as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.
The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystalization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism of the eveof the French Revolution—when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain9—to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.
And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already with Gobel, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.
From Ratzinger, Faith and the Future, 1970
It seems like we are right on schedule...
The Church must be purified.
As the then Cardinal Ratzinger predicted in his book "Faith and the Future"........
"From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge—a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so will she lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, she will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision."
When I am asked if I've been Catholic my entire life I say, "Not yet."
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Benjamin Franklin
Ping!
Our church keeps getting people. The church is packed more than it ever was.
Society is condemning organized religion- except of course, Islam. They don't take it very kindly- and that have weapons.
That's where people get us. We're so worried about offending people that we don't always stand up for what we believe in. And people are so concerned with getting ahead, they don't have time, when they are ahead, they haven't the inclination. Afterward, their religion was so little a part of their lives in the first place that it just falls by the wayside. The American dream has squelched the Faith's reality.
No wonder Jesus so loved the poor...