www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Why do Catholics or Orthodox convert away from the Church?

Here is the truth:

1. Catholics bought into the Capitalism of America. They turned from holiness to moneyness in America. They were seduced by the easy wealth for those who would simply get a job and work. Things were so much better here than in Ireland, England, the Ukraine,(name your country) and if the boss said to work on Sunday, they did. No one wanted to risk losing that job by refusing Sunday work. Capitalism is the enemy of spirituality. We embraced it.

2. Catholics for some reason listened to the voices of the enemy when the Masons came around. How many millions of Catholics have, for some reason, ignored what the Church taught on the Masons and joined their evil association? Why?

3. Catholics, unlike the Protestants and other heretical groups in America, did not learn to evangelize. Fr. Thomas Loya and I were were discussing the Byzantine church in American and he made this statement to me: "If the Byzantine church in America doesn't learn to evangelize, it will be gone in 50 years."

I couldn't agree more with this assessment. WHERE were the Byzantines when I was searchin for the truth? The JW's came to my door until they realized I knew how to defend the Trinity, then they left. The Mormons did also. As a Fundamentalist and then a Calvinist, I went out on 'Witnessing Night" faithfully to serve Jesus (so I thought). Where were the Byzantines.

HOLED UP IN THEIR LITTLE ETHNIC GHETTO -- along with the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox, whom I never saw at my door either.

There's a Fundy assembly in Hershey PA with somewhere around 8,000 members. It is estimated that well over 50% of them are X CATHOLICS!!!! This should be an ABSOLUTE SCANDAL to the bishops of the Church. My priest wondered aloud how they did such a thing and grew so big.

It's because they teach people from the pulpit that A.) people are really going to hell without Christ B.) you are helping them there if you do not witness to them. C.) Christ will hold YOU accountable for their souls D.) we are going out witnessing this Thursday night. You need to be there if you love Christ.

Get it?

Most of the people I see in chuch on Sunday can't wait to hit the doors when the Liturgy is over. They can't even stick around for coffee and donuts. Where is the community? Where is the sense that we are all in this together?

4. The Church has been her own worst enemy. How do we attract people to the Church when the Church A.) will not discipline rebels within Her walls? B.) is lacking in holiness as evidenced by the recent sex scandals C.) places constant impediments in the way of men who want to serve the Church as priests and deacons. D.) does not wish to suffer for the faith as our Early Fathers suffered.

The world is looking for a faith that transcends this world and makes people DIFFERENT. That is precisely why Mother Theresa gained such a great following, even among those professing no religion at all. They saw Jesus in her. How many people can say the same thing about me? How many can say that about the Church?

These are just my opinions, for what they are worth.

Monk, For you as well, "let not your heart be troubled". Irish's advice is good but I wonder along with you why we are as insular as we are. I'm a convert. My church does some reaching out, but it is mostly priest driven. Still, I wonder if soup kitchens quite get to the point. How might we share the bread of heaven as well as the bread of earth? The government already does a great deal of the latter. I don't think copying them is the total answer. I would be happy if the Church did all of the sharing both of the bread of earth as well as the bread of heaven. It seems to me that is what we are supposed to do. Right now we seem to limit ourselves to earthly sharing or no sharing at all. But I'm not really discouraged. I just keep plugging away.

Monk, I gather you are a jazz fan.

I'm in the Dallas area, and while Catholics do a great deal of "soup kitchen" social work... they are greatly outnumbered by the Protestants...

But along with Theophan's comment: go by yourself, as an Eastern Catholic, and feed the poor, visit the prisoners, vistit the sick and elderly, etc Don't evangelize with words but rather with your deeds. (Now if I would just do what I wrote...)

IR and Theophan, thanks. The fact is, I do. My sadness is that I have to go 'across the street" to do so. Sorry, but I think the fact that there is an underwhelming sense of this outreach in our Rite is academic; we've been around plenty long to care and organize. The next question is this, of course: "well Mr. Smarty-pants why don't you organize something like this?"
The short answer is I don't feel confident in my skill to do so and I don't know that our predominately elderly parish would/could give a toss. May be a cop out I know, but what I think I really hunger for is a appetite for this coming from clergy and hierarchy. I love our profound spirituality, don't get me wrong; I just don't know why outreach is not a salient expression in our Rite. Yes IR, you picked up on the play of words: I am a jazzbo.

There may be more to comment on, but I have not read the remaining comments.

...hmmm, I do find find it interesting that in my posing this question, the reflexive response presumes I am not already involved in such outreach and am figuratively only crying in my beer, or that I should get my fix of organized Christian charity at a Latin Rite church. Brothers, I believe the latter only begs the question. In my view on this point size does not matter, ahem.
And I realize you don't know me well, but I would think it a curious arrogance on the my part to raise a concern like this with the force of a rhetorical question. If I was so concerned about social outreach, it's not a quantum to think its importance to me would dictate what I do in my life,either through a religious or secular organization. Did I really give you the impression that I'm just sniping for the sake of sniping? Why would anyone on this forum of passionate opinion so transparently set themselves up as a straw man?

While I agree that we should make a better effort to share "the bread of life" with others not of our Faith, I am put off by the sentiment that the mundane hard bread of life part is of a lesser concern, as our government does enough of this already. Oh really? Is Jesus directing his comments to governmental bodies in Matthew 25?
In my largely white collar neighborhood we have have folk who secretly are having a hard time making ends meet, and it isn't necessarily because they insist on having a Beamer they can't afford, or buying too much house. What inspires me about Christianity as I understand it is having a receptivity to the subtle spectrum of suffering and dealing with it in some way: prayer, alms;both in my view, and not just during Philips Feast and the Great Fast.

Lastly, perhaps now I am indeed sliding a little into some kind of spiritual arrogance with these admonitions; I don't mean to, and if so, forgive me. This forum does stir up passions, for good and for bad sometimes.

Monk, I think you misunderstand my comment about bread. So be it.

sorry Carson. It is probably so. Disturbance in the protein is my plea. That or a yeast inflection.

Anyway, I like your moniker. A jazz fan I see.

Thanks. Yup, jazz but big time fan of other genres as well. Now, if only I listened as consistently and carefully to points of view as I do to music....my apologies for the bad riffing on the points in your post, Carson.

I wish I understood better why we aren't big on missions. I know the one excuse/reason that has been given that explains a bit of it but I'm unconvinced. The one I've read is that we are or have been intimidated by the Latins not to do missions outside our ethnic borders. Maybe. It still sounds more like an excuse.

Regarding soup kitchens, I think they may be effective for the homeless but I still think we need to do it differently than the Government does. I think much of government welfare is done for political power over those they make dependent. We ought to be in the business of treating people as humans of sacred worth. We've given over most of welfare to the government. That ought not to be. We should be in charge of all welfare and all education. We must figure out how to really help make people as strong as they can be without government interference and without making excuses that the Latins crimp our style.

Hey, everybody: REJOICE! What a relief: Christ came to call hypocrites, of whom I am the first. OK - so I'm a hypocrite. There are worse things. Most of us are hypocritical in one way or another; to some degree or another. Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants are among the hypocrites.

Now what's really bad is to remain content to be hypocritical; to grow complacent in our hypocrisy; to be BLIND to our own hypocrisy. Christ came to summon the hypocrites to CONVERSION, not confirm them in their hypocrisy. And we'll never get finished with that kind of conversion - at least, not in this life.

As Lenin said, "Two steps forward, one step back."

Here's a head-banger:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheism

an alternative to supernatural Faith...

Why do you think you are a hypocrite or why do you think someone thinks you are and why should you care about the latter? Anyway, you shared what your non faithful friends said. You did not share what you thought, at least that isn't the way I read your comments. I think that your observations are spot on. I don't think our priests and teachers always explain the truth very well and I certainly think that the world fills or tries to fill our minds with many lies. It is difficult to keep our spiritual and intellectual balance. Those who fall away are to be prayed for and encouraged to return to faithfulness and we are always to work to remain faithful to the truth and to communicate the truth.

Si,

I don't think the Wiki article is perfect. The only real non theistic religion is Buddhism. It isn't exactly atheistic nor agnostic. It just says that any concept is temporary, even the concept of a universal, and so one is to empty ones mind of all concepts. In the end this is the most prominent and most problematic of all Buddhist concepts. Google Anatta sometime and you will be confronted with thousands and thousands of articles that speak of not only non existence and nothing but of no permanent soul. Frankly, while Buddhism is fun to discuss, it is practically worthless. Even Buddha assumed that his ideas would be superseded within 500 years of his life. They were indeed but not so much in India but in a little country a bit west of there.