Why Are Laymen Leaving the Catholic Church?

The following notes are from a Catholic apologetics class:

Why do Lay-Catholics Leave the Church?

Today’s main topic was how Christ formed only one Church. The teacher asked the students for their opinion as to why they think Catholics are leaving the Catholic Church, interjecting prematurely that it’s because they’re being induced by Protestants.

The Teacher Said: Priests Cannot Be Fooled

The opinions given by the students were that Catholics are leaving because we don’t know God’s Word, and we don’t know God spiritually. The teacher said that this is why we laymen can easily be misled but that certainly priests can’t be deceived. Then one of the students brought up a question that made the teacher pause before being able to answer. The student explained that when he used to live in Los Angeles, he found out about a priest, even, that deserted the Church. His question then was, “How is it that something like that can happen?”

Ecumenism Makes Everything the Same

In order to answer the question, the teacher acceded that there’s confusion among priests with ecumenism, which she defined as the striving for unity among different creeds. She said that ecumenism is making them think that “it’s all the same,” adding that the Church strives to attain ecumenism with the historical churches.

The basis for this entire explanation was an anecdote that she had heard recently from a layman. She clarified that she wasn’t entirely sure of the truthfulness of that story, but that supposedly this layman went to Confession in order to tell the father that he had just abandoned the Catholic Church and that he was now part of another Christian denomination. The father’s reply was, “continue there my son; in the end, all of them [the churches] are the same.”

Piedrecita Answer: Irresponsibility of the Priesthood

In regard to the priesthood nowadays, we should be very aware of the priest’s duties and responsibilities (or lack there of, rather), which are in correlation to the laity abandoning the Church due to their own religious ignorance.

Our Priests Appear to be Good

In response to this contemporaneous controversy, we’ll give an example: When we go to the doctor either because of an illness caused by a bacterium or a virus-induced flu that’s bothering us, which even threatens us with our life, the doctor has to extirpate the illness at its root or source; otherwise, we won’t heal.

Whenever our pet is not well-fed due to our irresponsibility, it weakens and may even die of hunger or illness, and all this happens because we are, in fact, the source or root of the problem.

When we as parents neglect our children because of our irresponsibility, they may end up doing drugs, acquire vices, or even wind up in corruption. As parents, we drink liquor or ingest drugs and we tell our children for them not to, but we are the bad example. We as parents, nevertheless, make ourselves out to be and, in fact, are looked upon as good people within society, yet our irresponsibility, even with all these good appearances, has caused harm to our children. Even with all these indications of being good parents, we have torn our home apart.

Priests Represent a Corrupted Christ

In the Church, the priest represents the authority in the laity. The priest is the representative of Christ here on Earth, and if the priest or Bishop is irresponsible and corrupt, all of his family of laymen will be in danger of being hurt, struck, poorly educated, and corrupt like he is.

As an authority in the Church, the priest must be a proven expert and teacher having virtues and mastery of his doctrine so that he can be an example of holiness and moral rectitude before his sheep or laymen. When a priest acts contrary to his obligations, he becomes a sacrilegious priest and dishonors whom he represents…Christ.

Priests are a Shame and Pity

Sadly, nowadays we have many priests that are a real pity, priests who love to abuse their authority, thinking that we the laity won’t catch on to the follies and incoherencies they say in their sermons. We learn of such aberrations, for example, when they publicly command a layman to carry out a task, which they themselves had already indicated to be done; notwithstanding, they change their mind and publicly order this person to do the opposite, making the laity go through such embarrassment.

Corruption of the Priesthood Banishes the Laity from the Church

It’s awkward and embarrassing when in mid-homily, instead of giving a good sermon that edifies and instructs the people in need of God, for the priest to start singing a song by Rafael of Spain, and to top it off, he wants the entire audience to stand up and sing this pagan song like crazed people.

There’s cases in which a priest is loved by everyone in the parish because it so happens that this priest gives everyone hugs and kisses, and his homilies are a thing of beauty. He doesn’t offend anyone, and all is well. However, this priest, instead of correcting the visible errors and faults of the laity, on the contrary, gives them even more hugs and kisses. This priest is the typical wolf in sheep’s clothing, since he doesn’t correct himself nor does he correct anyone else, and the whole world is happy and content in the presence of Christ.

Priests are Positive and Christ is Corrupt

Being positive in everything and giving many warm hugs, humanly speaking, isn’t anything bad, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the Gospel. On the contrary, this could confound others and be interpreted as being part of God’s plan.

Our priests love to be masters of their audience, and they always like adding superfluous comments to the announcements that laymen give. They tactlessly and nonsensically belabor what has already been said in the announcements when no further commentary was needed on the matter.

The more serious problem is when a priest uses the priesthood as a shield in order to abuse by soliciting favors from the faithful, that is, favors which commit the faithful to being better friends with the priest and more loyal to his intentions within the parish. The priest may end up harming his faithful if they are people much too ignorant in religion. The layperson or faithful can think that whatever the priest says is good, yet in trusting him, they may end up being taken advantage of by the priest.

Priests get Corrupted

Nowadays we have such ignorant priests that they even desert the Catholic Church, and so it comes of no surprise for a Catholic priest to tell a layman who just became an apostate that everything is fine where he’s at in his new religion, since in the end “it’s all the same.”

Therefore, why are laymen leaving the Catholic Church? Isn’t it because of the deficiencies of the priesthood?!

Salvation Resides in All Sects and the Church has Failed

Now if Jesus Christ proved to be the true God and only God that has come to save us, and if the apostle Peter himself asserted that there isn’t, under Heaven, any other name given to man by which we may be saved, if He instituted only one faith, only one Church, only one means of salvation and to that people, only to that people, did He guarantee to be with until the end of the world, and if it was to this people that he handed over the keys to Heaven, how is it possible that any other creed can be the same? Moreover, how is it possible for any other creed to save us?

Thinking in this manner is the same thing as calling Christ a liar and assuring that Christ himself made a mistake and that his eternal plan of salvation, for his people or Church, is merely a story or fable.

However, the mass exodus of laymen going to Protestantism is a reality that was already inescapable. Fixing this problem bears a responsibility that lies with the laity just as much as it does with the priesthood of the Church itself. All of these laymen that have abandoned Catholicism are proof that their Church is failing them.

Peace and blessings to everyone.

Why are laymen leaving the Catholic Church? It’s because of religious ignorance that affects us all.
Sincerely,
Jesé Retoño
Editorial Piedrecita.
Translation by León Jesuita.

Author: Jesé Retoño - An Apocalyptic Wolf

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