Leaving Church
InsideCatholic recently did an interesting survey of the reasons Catholics (and, for that matter, Christians in general) leave the Church by asking several prominent Catholics (bishops, professors, lay authors, etc.) for their opinion on the reasons and solutions. I think the bishop of Baker, Oregon, Robert Vasa, gives us the most acute explanation:
“We, as Americans, tend to look for rational reasons for action or for failure to act. There is inherent in the question a search for ‘reason,’ but perhaps it is reason itself, cut off from faith, that is precisely the cause of the abdication of the Catholic Faith. Have we not, after all, made the concept of assent to the truths and teachings of the Catholic Faith much more a matter of reason than faith? Phrases like ‘I just cannot believe that’ manifest a great confusion between reason and faith. What we believe as Catholics is certainly reasonable, but raw reason, without any input from Faith, would of necessity reject a vast majority of what the Church believes and teaches. Modern man finds faith unreasonable and therefore unbelievable.
In America there is a very strong notion that what we believe must make perfect sense to us, and that we are somehow automatically absolved from believing that which does not seem to be rational.”
May 14, 2008 at 10:49 pm
[...] mentality. The often stimulating After Existentialism, Light, for once, I think, gets it wrong in this post on why people leave the [...]
May 16, 2008 at 5:26 am
Perhaps it is because modern man (both male and female) quite rightly cant accept the ridiculous idea of the “resurrection of christ”, which in this day and age is really just another silly urban legend. And certainly nothing upon which to build a truly mature human life.
And meanwhile every fear saturated meat-body really does die and mumbling about “jesus” when you are on your death-bed will make no difference whatsoever to your rising fear.
May 16, 2008 at 10:06 am
Sue,
Well, I welcome you to the barbaric world of theo-blogs, where we believe such craziness as God coming in absolute love to, yes, die on a cross. I suppose you have problems with that part too, so I am not surprised that you also find the resurrection unintelligible. For my part, I am content to be among the “children” to which the Father reveals his love, while the “wise of the world” stumble.