The Catholic Church is worried because people are leaving the church…
That might be a good thing from an atheist perspective except the people are “join[ing] Pentecostal and other evangelical movements” instead.
“We shouldn’t begin by asking ourselves what is wrong with the Pentecostals, but what our own pastoral shortcomings are,” [Cardinal Walter] Kasper told the gathering, noting that such evangelical and charismatic groups count 400 million faithful around the world.
Why are people leaving the Catholic Church?
Where to begin…
Maybe people are sick of seeing the priests raping children. And then seeing the Church look the other way.
Or because the whole notion of the Pope being infallible seems archaic. Then again, so does the idea of having a Pope in general…
Or maybe because they watched a couple hours straight of EWTN. That’ll do the trick every time.
It’s not any better that the people leaving the fold are substituting one set of rituals for another. Evangelical churches often just make things worse. They’re no better when it comes to the issue of homosexuality. They’re the main reason we have such awful sex education in this country as well as so much confusion regarding evolution.
They do have better marketing skills, though. And admittedly superior sermons on the whole — sermons that make you think and question what you’re doing with your life. The potential to do good for other people and the community is there as well, if the pastors are convincing enough…
Perhaps there’s another reason this exodus is even an issue for the Catholic Church.
As submitter infideljoe writes,
Profits must be down.
It’s true. Churches are losing money. Catholic schools are losing students.
If they don’t reverse this trend, they’ll only have God on their side. And something tells me Church leaders wouldn’t be very satisfied with that…
[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]