If anyone within the institution, those choosing to remain in it, wants to staunch the flow from the church, then there need to be loud, persistent calls from the faithful for the bishops to take a good hard look at themselves, their failed moral and pastoral leadership, and publicly apologize and repent.
Only then will lots of people consider walking back through the doors of Catholic churches.
They have given their flock the impression that to be Catholic is to vote Republican.
This has led to the shocking result that three times now, some 6 in 10 white Catholics have voted for Trump.
It's hard to find a better illustration of the abysmally failed pastoral and moral leadership of the U.S. Catholic bishops.
Ultimately, if we want to find someone at whose feet to lay blame for the huge disaffiliation of U.S. Catholics, we havee to look at the bishops and their failed pastoral leadership. For years now, the U.S. Catholic bishops as a body, almost all of them appointed by JPII and BXVI until Francis began changing the balance, have done everything short of standing on their heads to identify the church they lead with the Republican party.
They're sick of the cruelty, and they recognize that it's grounded in a cruel and frankly erroneous teaching dating from John Paul II and his doctrinal watchdog Ratzinger, who followed JPII as pope, which holds that LGBTQ human beings are intrinsically disordered.
The other overweening reason Catholics including younger ones report they are leaving: the abuse crisis in the Catholic church and its cover-up by the hierarchy.
That why has absolutely nothing to do with not being able to attend a Latin Mass or with lack of access to "traditional" markers of Catholic identity.
The primary reason younger Catholics are leaving the Catholic church, it has been reported in several well-conducted studies, is that they cannot stomach the cruelty of the Catholic institution's treatment of their LGBTQ friends and family members.
Catholic parents haven't accentuated Catholic identity, found strong markers of Catholic identity (hint: Latin Mass, "pro-life" politics, "traditional" sexual morality) to keep their children Catholic, these folks want to say.
But it has been known for some time now exactly WHY younger Catholics say they are leaving the church in record numbers. They report this to pollsters
There is a mass exodus of Americans in general from churches, with younger people until very recently at the forefront of that development. But disaffiliation has been occurring at higher rates in the Catholic church than any other church.
What's very interesting as I read commentary about these findings in right-wing (i.e., Trump-leaning) Catholic journals is that this set of Catholics want to blame parents for what's going on.
Right-wing Catholics want Leo to beef up the Latin Mass, give a high profile to "traditional" Catholic moral teachings — always, always about abortion and pelvic morality, and never, never about social justice, God's preferential option for the poor, etc.
It really is not a new finding that Catholics in the U.S. are leaving in record numbers. This has been known for some time now. Younger Catholics, in particular, are walking away.
A new study by two scholars is attracting attention because it says that 9 in 10 cradle Catholics are leaving the church in the U.S.
Right-wing Catholic publications (which is synonymous with Trump-leaning publications) have latched onto this study as a way to pressure Pope Leo to toe the right-wing Catholic line in various ways.
#Catholics #PopeLeo #churches #LeavingChurch
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https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/a-solution-to-the-churchs-biggest-problem/
Hi, my name is Jean. I was a mormon until I read real church history back in 2006. I am a wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother who loves to read and research topics of interest. I do a bit of proof reading on the side. Read my story to learn why I left the mormon church.
William Lindsey 
wasmormon