A friend recently posted the article below with comments in somewhat of despair and frustration. He is a devout practicing Catholic, meaning he takes the Church and ALL of her teachings seriously. He doesn’t just pick and choose from it like a menu at a fast-food restaurant. I will have the number 1 please:
Church on Sundays, but hold the no sex until marriage, and light on the regular confessions they give me a headache.
There is nothing new here…we constantly here from Catholics and Non-Catholics alike why people are leaving Catholicism for another Christian denomination. It has little to nothing to do with modern buildings, congregations or otherwise. After-all this started with Martin Luther in the late 1500s.
The fact is, as we move more and more towards an— individualistic culture— the focus on what is objectively true has no bearing. In fact, the very idea of objective truth has become a medieval idea like the Church buildings described in the article. What is important is subjective (self) truth. In other words, you become your own authority.
That is at the heart of individualism. Protestantism —with its Bible only multi-denominational— you don’t like this one go to the next one or start your own Church, is very appealing to the individualistic follower. He gets to be his own authority while still feeling like he is Christian. In short, they allow you to feel good being in sin.
With that said the Catholic Church could, of course, do a better job forming its adherents. Many self-proclaimed Catholics do not go to Church regularly, at least they do not feel the obligation to attend Sunday Mass (a mortal sin). They rarely go to confession and they practice contraception and pre-marital sex at similar rates than those outside the Church. In short, most Catholics do not even understand what Catholicism is. I know, I was one of them for a long time. What drew me back is the same thing that draws thousands of others who have lost their way— it’s true.
I suspect what will draw people to Catholicism will not be bigger screens, the promise of more prosperity, better pancake breakfasts, or more modern buildings centrally located. No, what will draw people will first have to be the decision to accept the truth. The truth, however, is not a popular word these days, at least not when it comes to morality. We like truth when it comes to what we should eat, what causes cancer, and other things that will make our physical body last longer and look better, but not when it comes to what will make our souls live forever.
So today its Pentecostalism tomorrow it’s Joel Olsteen prosperity Gospel and the next day? …well you get the idea. The simple fact is Christ said: “I am the way the truth and life” . He never wrote a thing, instead, he taught 12 unscrupulous knuckleheads about his truth and promised them the keys of the kingdom. Ironically he also prayed that his Church be one. “I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.” Nothing about I hope they learn to read the Bible and interpret it correctly.