Why do Catholics leave the church?

Ever since my daughter’s copy of “The Rolling Stone” magazine arrived with Pope Francis’ smiling face on the cover, Dr. Hook’s 1970s song, “Cover of the Rolling Stone”, has been playing in my head.  I keep wondering if Francis “bought five copies for his mother.” 

According to the song’s lyrics, making the cover of “The Rolling Stone” epitomizes success, beyond any amount of money or other material goods.  Therefore, in today’s world of spirtu-tainment approaches to faith, I wondered if church attendance was sky-rocketing with a Francis “bump.” 

As luck would have it, that same week the local parish bulletin published the diocese’s October, 2013 Mass count numbers.   In 2013 6 of the 10 diocesan counties experienced their all-time lowest Mass attendance since the history of Mass-counting began.  Overall diocesan Mass attendance was down year to year in 2013.  These reflect similar findings of a Pew Research study which indicated 2013 U.S. Mass attendance dropped.  Furthermore, between 2000 and 2013 my diocese’s overall geographic population grew 3% yet diocesan Mass participation dropped 28%.  At my parish we rattle around like B-Bs in a shoebox.

Evidently Francis alone cannot reverse the multi-year downward participation spiral.  Why not? 

Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) conducted a survey about Mass attendance.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell an accurate story because CARA limited respondents’ choices for reasons they miss Mass to the following:

Busy schedule or lack of time

Family responsibilities

Health problems or a disability

I don’t believe missing Mass is a sin

Conflict with work

Inconvenient Mass schedule

I’m not a very religious person

There are glaring omissions from that list.  CARA’s survey provided more insight as to their sincerity for understanding the issue than on the issue itself.

The Pew Forum conducted a more insightful study entitled, “Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.” which inquired why people changed religions and to what religion they migrated.  This 2009 study indicated that former Catholics number as one of the largest religious demographic groups with an almost even split between ex-Catholics becoming unaffiliated versus joining another denomination.   Here’s a summary of the most common reasons for leaving the Catholic Church.

 

Responses from a 2013 Vatican survey about marriage, family and sexuality are also trickling into the public domain.  Regardless of country, common themes repeatedly appear that strongly align with the Pew Forum study’s top reasons for leaving the church.  Therefore, it would seem many remaining Catholics are “at risk” for departure since their frustrations mirror those of already departed Catholics.  It would also seem urgent to address these issues.

It’s been 5 years since the insightful Pew Forum study.  How are the departure reasons being addressed?

To slow or reverse the exodus, church leaders embarked on a “New Evangelization” campaign.  This seems to consist of telling people with whom they disagree that they are wrong and/or damned but delivering the message with a perky smile, modern lingo and perhaps a “friendly” handshake or over an adult beverage.  I suspect that just more regularly and stridently, or even more “kindly” and colloquially deriding people will only lose not regain members.  The statistics seem to support my assertion.

“New Evangelization” tactics seem based on incorrect assumptions that lapsed Catholics don’t know church dogma or scripture and just need these screamed or sung at them in bars, Jesus pep rallies, and other spiritu-tainment venues until the person wakes up and says, “Hallelujah, I’m going back to church.”  However, study after study reveals Catholics do know dogma and just disagree with, if not outright reject facets of it.  Church doctrine espouses this practice as a way of fostering the organization’s continual maturation but many church leaders reject it.  Furthermore, many Catholics left the church because of familiarity with gospel teachings and belief that the hierarchy strayed too far from those teachings.  Floating amongst all this is a lot of “us vs them” mentality.

Strongly fueling the “us vs them” mindset is the hierarchy’s belief that it has cornered the markets on truth and correctly interpreting scripture.  Insistence on supreme “listening-to-God” qualities creates an impasse perhaps beyond resolution.  It is impossible to be just “us” - one integrated Body of Christ - as long as any individuals or factions believe they serve a superior versus a different function within the body.   The Spirit is violated and faith in the Holy Trinity is replaced by worship of the organization itself via making adherence to “tradition” more sacred than truth or love.

If church leaders sincerely want lapsed Catholics back, it’s time to quit before getting farther behind in the infallibility game.  It already has pinned the institutional church into what the hierarchy perceives is an inescapable and what others perceive is an intolerant extremist corner on homosexuality, birth control, treatment of women, divorce and remarriage as well as abortion – the top reasons people leave the church.  In the past 5 years there have been increased political lobbying expenditures and activities, excommunications, threats of excommunications and job terminations pertaining to all those topics.  I suspect if the Pew Forum survey were taken now, the top departure reasons would be even more pronounced.    

Continuing down the list of departure reasons, we hit the sex abuse tragedy.  The institutional church refuses to address the clergy abuse scandal in an effective way that holds bishops accountable and works towards institutional reconciliation.  Instead it continually tries to downplay the scandal’s impact and existence despite scandal after scandal unfolding and the recent publication of a scathing U.N. report.   

Right after sex abuse we hit clergy celibacy.  A simple stroke of Francis’ pen reinstates the practice of married clergy because no theological reason prevents it.  Why hasn’t this happened? 

We finally arrive at topics associated with clergy’s personal charm and Mass quality.  The cardinals did select a personally charming pope, charming enough to make the cover of The Rolling Stone.  Aside from that, there’s a reversion to the Council – not the Second Vatican Council but the 1500s Council of Trent.  Seminarians seem dipped in heavy impenetrable wax coatings of Tridentine philosophy which features weak biblical scholarship, fears the God-created world, promotes misinformation about human biology, sexuality and psychology and further fosters an “us vs them” relationship with the laity.  Significant investments were made to re-translate the Mass but this was done to adopt more Tridentine-esque language and aura despite about 90% of former Catholics saying the church’s departure from old traditions had absolutely nothing to do with their departure from the church.

Help me understand how re-entrenching on things that caused people’s departures while “fixing” things that didn’t is going to bring people back?  Is there an ounce of sincerity in lamentations about missing those who’ve left if even the simplest reforms are not made?

Please note that Francis’ laudable favorite topic of poverty is pretty far down the list of reasons people leave the church.  Perhaps laypeople and religious sisters living Catholic Social Doctrine already defined the Catholic experience enough on this topic that finally having a pope aligned with it just doesn’t move the attendance needle.

Piecing this together makes sense.  Addressing Catholics’ lesser concerns by electing a more personable, poverty-minded pope does not negate ill effects from neglecting people’s most impacting concerns. 

Where do we go from here?  How do we work as “us” when groups continue to foster “us vs them” mentalities?  Is the Body of Christ – the church - really dismembered or just in diaspora?

"Don't Surround Yourself with Yourself..."

It is early morning Day Four of my Italy tour.  As mentioned in previous blog articles, I joined a tour group being led by the chancellor of my diocese.  We are in Florence now having already visited Assisi and with Rome yet on our itinerary.

As would be expected of a trip that costs thousands of dollars, the people in the group have incomes which support paying that kind of money for a trip.  That statement can be read as us having precisely zero poor people in the group and having several very wealthy people in the herd.  I am probably amongst the minority in that I have at least experienced poverty, growing up in a very low-income home.  I am definitely in the minority in that I am not a member of America’s Republican Party.

Many people on the tour are huge fans of Cardinal Tim Dolan.  Some have moved beyond admiration of the man to adoration and adulation of him.  These people are stunned and incredulous when they learn I do not or for that matter that anyone might not share their opinions of him.     

A telling conversation came about during Day Two’s lunch with some of Tim’s biggest fans in the group.  Their statement was that “everyone I talk to loves the man.”  Yet my reply was, “I know many people who dislike him.”  We will return to this thought momentarily.

Later that same day I read comments Tim made during the recent U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB’s) Fall Convocation.  When asked if the American bishops and the church needed to do anything differently to align better with Pope Francis’ stated desire to be “a poor church for the poor”, Dolan replied, “Can I think of anything new?  I don't think so. I like to think that this is an affirmation of the good things we are doing."  He went on to highlight that most complaints he hears from the people he interacts with are that the bishops emphasize social justice, government cut backs, and the poor too much.

I sent a link to an article about Dolan’s statements to one of the people participating in our conversation – one of the people who said that everyone he talks to loves Dolan.  I highlighted Dolan’s statements about what he hears from the people with whom he communicates.  The common theme between Dolan’s statements and those of my lunch companions was the concept of confining reality to the sphere of “the people I talk to…” 

With whom do Dolan and the Republican Catholics speak?  The rock group “Yes” has a profound lyric in the song, “I’ve Seen All Good People” which advises, “Don’t surround yourself with yourself.”  If one speaks exclusively to those with whom one agrees, growth becomes difficult if not impossible and there is a grave danger of elevating common opinion to the unwarranted status of “unmitigated fact.”

Quite simply, having a “poor church for the poor” requires understanding poverty and the church. 

Let’s start with the second item first – understanding the church.  One must acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of “the church” does not attend Mass and a near majority no longer even considers themselves Catholic.  So, if Dolan and the people with whom I had lunch earlier this week wish to know what “the church” thinks of either Dolan or the hierarchy’s behavior, they must begin not by understanding the views of the pious but with understanding the viewpoint of the church’s majority – those who do not or rarely darken the threshold of a Catholic Church.  They must seek out those with whom they disagree rather than surround themselves with themselves and declare their shared opinion a universal fact.   

Since the disenfranchised and marginalized are the majority of the church, these voices should be the majority of voices whose opinions we thirst to understand.  Sadly, I’m unsure if this demographic group ranks as high as getting even token slivers of the hierarchy and pious circle's bandwidth.  Also, there is a distinct difference between talking with and listening to people.  So we must ask if we are merely "talking" or sincerely listening to the disenfranchised and marginalized.   

Similarly, to determine if one is doing enough for the poor, the place to begin is by talking with and listening to the poor rather than the wealthy.  Very few wealthy people understand poverty so they are not the best or sometimes even credible spokespeople for it. Also,  I see a disturbing trend where people of economic security believe they actually are the poor and thus believe they already know and represent the poor’s opinions.  My little tour group and the U.S. bishops are only symptomatic of the global pervasive trend wherein the hierarchy allies with the wealthy more than the poor – where it communicates with the wealthy more than with the poor.

Many of my friends and relatives have questioned my sanity for joining this tour group because they knew there would be few if any people with similar spiritual outlook to mine.  Side note of good news: so far I have found two others of similar views to mine.   Anyway, my friends and family are correct in that many things the other group members find exhilarating I find stomach churning…be it the commercialization of St. Francis’ poverty, the opulence of shrines erected in his honor, the distracting opulent ornamentation of cathedrals, etc…  

However, I try to live the legacy of my parents – don’t surround myself with myself. I joined this trip to try to understand better the division in the church.  I can’t understand it by only talking to people who see the world as I do.  I can’t understand it by only listening to people who see the world as I do. 

I have been listening a lot and find it fascinating that people can read the same scripture and theology yet come to such different conclusions.  I find it fascinating that people can declare others' views as "wrong" versus being in disagreement with their opinions yet feel they do not judge.  I find it fascinating that people who want to follow Jesus - a guy who instructs us to "be not afraid" - not only harbor fear themselves, they want others to share their fear.

Unfortunately I have not yet sensed that those having the most different mindset from me have any interest in understanding my viewpoint as much as correcting what they believe are my grievous errors.  Perhaps they emulate their hero Dolan, who surrounds himself with himself, relying upon the views of a small minority of the church and allowing those opinions to bounce around in a confined echo chamber to the point of ultimately declaring those viewpoints as “universally held objective truths.”  Maybe this approach is considered part of the "New Evangelization"...spreading the "good news" of telling other people how wrong they are? 

I do ponder how much the ultra-pious, uber-orthodox crowd listens – really listens – to the poor and marginalized (that would be the majority of the church) versus surrounding themselves with themselves.  But with money comes power and so perhaps they feel they needn’t listen to the majority. 

But, the question I leave you all with is this: do you surround yourself with yourself?  In many respects Jesus advised his disciples against doing that.  

By the way, the clergyman with initials "T.D." that I most admire is Fr. Tom Doyle not Tim Dolan.