The subconscious exodus: Catholics condign Protestants

Viewpoint

The number of people who have left the Cosmic church is huge.

We all have heard stories well-nigh why people leave. Parents share stories about their children. Academics talk nigh their students. Anybody has a friend who has left.

While personal experience tin can be helpful, social science research forces us to look beyond our circle of acquaintances to see what is going on in the whole church.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Faith & Public Life has put difficult 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 3rd-largest denomination in the United States, after Catholics and Baptists. One of 3 people who were raised Catholic no longer identifies every bit Catholic.

Any other establishment that lost one-third of its members would desire to know why. But the U.S. bishops have never devoted any time at their national meetings to discussing the exodus. Nor have they spent a dime trying to find out why it is happening.

Thankfully, although the U.S. bishops have not supported research on people who take left the church, the Pew Center has.

Pew's data shows that those leaving the church are non homogenous. They can exist divided into ii major groups: those who become unaffiliated and those who go Protestant. Almost half of those leaving the church go unaffiliated and almost one-half become Protestant. Simply about x percent of ex-Catholics bring together non-Christian religions. This commodity volition focus on Catholics who have become Protestant. I am not proverb that those who become unaffiliated are non important; I am leaving that discussion to another time.

Why exercise people leave the Catholic church to go Protestant? Liberal Catholics will tell you that Catholics are leaving because they disagree with the church building'south teaching on birth control, women priests, divorce, the bishops' interference in American politics, etc. Conservatives blame Vatican 2, liberal priests and nuns, a permissive culture and the church'southward social justice agenda.

One of the reasons there is such disagreement is that nosotros tend to think that everyone leaves for the aforementioned reason our friends, relatives and acquaintances accept left. We fail to recognize that unlike people go out for different reasons. People who leave to join Protestant churches practise and then for different reasons than those who become unaffiliated. People who become evangelicals are dissimilar from Catholics who go members of mainline churches.

Spiritual needs

The principal reasons given by people who leave the church to become Protestant are that their "spiritual needs were not being met" in the Catholic church building (71 percent) and they "found a religion they like more than" (lxx percent). 80-i percentage of respondents say they joined their new church considering they enjoy the religious service and style of worship of their new faith.

In other words, the Catholic church building has failed to evangelize what people consider fundamental products of religion: spiritual sustenance and a expert worship service. And before conservatives blame the new liturgy, only 11 percent of those leaving complained that Catholicism had drifted too far from traditional practices such as the Latin Mass.

Dissatisfaction with how the church deals with spiritual needs and worship services dwarfs whatever disagreements over specific doctrines. While half of those who became Protestants say they left because they stopped believing in Catholic instruction, specific questions get much lower responses. Only 23 percent said they left because of the church's teaching on abortion and homosexuality; merely 23 percent because of the church's didactics on divorce; only 21 pct because of the rule that priests cannot marry; just 16 pct because of the church's instruction on birth control; just xvi pct because of the way the church treats women; but eleven percent because they were unhappy with the teachings on poverty, war and the death penalty.

The data shows that disagreement over specific doctrines is not the master reason Catholics go Protestants. Nosotros as well accept lots of survey information showing that many Catholics who stay disagree with specific church teachings. Despite what theologians and bishops think, doctrine is non that important either to those who become Protestant or to those who stay Catholic.

People are not becoming Protestants because they disagree with specific Catholic teachings; people are leaving because the church does non meet their spiritual needs and they find Protestant worship service better.

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 pct of Catholics who stay attend services weekly, 63 percent of Catholics who go Protestants become to church every week. That is a 21 per centum-point divergence.

Catholics who became Protestant besides merits to have a stronger organized religion at present than when they were children or teenagers. Seventy-i percent say their faith is "very stiff," while only 35 percent and 22 percent reported that their faith was very stiff when they were children and teenagers, respectively. On the other hand, only 46 percent of those who are still Catholic report their faith every bit "very strong" today equally an adult.

Thus, both equally believers and equally worshipers, Catholics who get Protestants are statistically meliorate Christians than those who stay Cosmic. Nosotros are losing the all-time, not the worst.

Some of the common explanations of why people exit practice not pan out in the data. For example, merely 21 pct of those becoming Protestant mention the sex abuse scandal as a reason for leaving. Only 3 pct say they left considering they became separated or divorced.

Condign Protestant

If you believed liberals, most Catholics who get out the church would be joining mainline churches, like the Episcopal church. In fact, almost two-thirds of former Catholics who join a Protestant church join an evangelical church. Catholics who go evangelicals and Catholics who join mainline churches are two very distinct groups. We need to accept a closer look at why each leaves the church.

Fifty-4 percent of both groups say that they but gradually drifted away from Catholicism. Both groups also had almost equal numbers (82 pct evangelicals, fourscore percentage mainline) saying they joined their new church considering they enjoyed the worship service. But compared to those who became mainline Protestants, a higher percent of those becoming evangelicals said they left because their spiritual needs were not being met (78 percent versus 57 percent) and that they had stopped believing in Cosmic teaching (62 percent versus 20 percent). They besides cited the church's teaching on the Bible (55 per centum versus 16 percent) more oftentimes equally a reason for leaving. Twoscore-six percent of these new evangelicals felt the Cosmic church building did not view the Bible literally enough. Thus, for those leaving to become evangelicals, spiritual sustenance, worship services and the Bible were key. Simply eleven percent were unhappy with the church's teachings on poverty, war, and the capital punishment Ñ the same percentage every bit said they were unhappy with the church building's treatment of women. Opposite to what conservatives say, ex-Catholics are non flocking to the evangelicals because they recollect the Catholic church is politically too liberal. They are leaving to become spiritual nourishment from worship services and the Bible.

Looking at the responses of those who bring together mainline churches also provides some surprising results. For example, few (20 percentage) say they left considering they stopped believing in Cosmic teachings. However, when specific issues were mentioned in the questionnaire, more of those joining mainline churches agreed that these bug influenced their decision to leave the Catholic church. Thirty-one pct cited unhappiness with the church building's educational activity on abortion and homosexuality, women, and divorce and remarriage, and 26 percentage mentioned birth control as a reason for leaving. Although these numbers are college than for Catholics who become evangelicals, they are still dwarfed by the number (57 per centum) who said their spiritual needs were not met in the Catholic church.

Thus, those becoming evangelicals were more generically unhappy than specifically unhappy with church educational activity, while those who became mainline Protestant tended to be more specifically unhappy than generically unhappy with church building instruction. The unhappiness with the church building'south didactics on poverty, state of war and the decease penalty was equally low for both groups (xi percent for evangelicals; 10 pct for mainline).

What stands out in the data on Catholics who join mainline churches is that they tend to cite personal or familiar reasons for leaving more frequently than practice those who become evangelicals. Forty-four percent of the Catholics who bring together mainline churches say that they married someone of the organized religion they joined, a number that trumps all doctrinal bug. Merely 22 percent of those who join the evangelicals cite this reason.

Perhaps afterwards marrying a mainline Christian and attending his or her church's services, the Catholic found the mainline services more fulfilling than the Catholic service. And even if they were equally attractive, peradventure the exclusion of the Protestant spouse from Catholic Communion makes the more welcoming mainline church attractive to an ecumenical couple.

Those joining mainline communities also were more probable to cite dissatisfaction of the Catholic clergy (39 per centum) than were those who became evangelical (23 per centum). Those who join mainline churches are looking for a less clerically dominated church.

Lessons from the data

At that place are many lessons that nosotros can acquire from the Pew data, but I will focus on only three.

First, those who are leaving the church for Protestant churches are more interested in spiritual nourishment than doctrinal issues. Tinkering with the wording of the creed at Mass is non going to help. No one except the Vatican and the bishops cares whether Jesus is "one in being" with the Father or "consubstantial" with the Father. That the hierarchy thinks this is important shows how out of information technology they are.

While the bureaucracy worries well-nigh literal translations of the Latin text, people are longing for liturgies that impact the heart and emotions. More creativity with the liturgy is needed, and that ways more flexibility must be allowed. If yous build it, they volition come up; if you do not, they volition find it elsewhere. The changes that will get into upshot this Appearance will brand matters worse, non ameliorate.

Second, thanks to Pope Pius XII, Catholic scripture scholars accept had decades to produce the best thinking on scripture in the globe. That Catholics are leaving to join evangelical churches because of the church teaching on the Bible is a disgrace. Too few homilists explain the scriptures to their people. Few Catholics read the Bible.

The church needs a massive Bible education program. The church building needs to acknowledge that understanding the Bible is more important than memorizing the catechism. If we could become Catholics to read the Sunday scripture readings each calendar week earlier they come to Mass, it would be revolutionary. If you do non read and pray the scriptures, you are not an adult Christian. Catholics who become evangelicals empathise this.

Finally, the Pew data shows that two-thirds of Catholics who become Protestants do so before they reach the historic period of 24. The church must make a preferential option for teenagers and young adults or it will continue to bleed. Programs and liturgies that cater to their needs must have precedence over the complaints of fuddy-duddies and rubrical purists.

Current religious didactics programs and teen groups announced to have little effect on keeping these folks Cosmic, according to the Pew information, although those who nourish a Cosmic loftier schoolhouse do appear to stay at a higher rate. More research is needed to detect out what works and what does non.

The Catholic church is hemorrhaging members. Information technology needs to admit this and practice more than to empathise why. Just if nosotros admit the exodus and sympathize it volition nosotros exist in a position to practice something most it.

[Jesuit Fr. Thomas J. Reese, former editor in chief of America, is a senior swain at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University in Washington. He is working on a new book: Survival Guide for Thinking Catholics.]

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