The media recently publicized a national exit poll of ex-Catholics on why they left the church. About a third of U.S. adult baptized Catholics have departed, making their number the third largest “denomination” after Catholics and Baptists. This question regularly arises in my parish discussion group: “why are we losing so many?” The poll’s answer: the church is “not meeting my spiritual needs.”
What sort of needs? I would like to know since we are hemorrhaging at a fearsome rate. Something must be wrong to explain such losses. Most go to either mainline or evangelistic Protestant churches. Moreover they do not leave because of a faith difficulty with this or that doctrine. Doctrine seems to matter little. My discussion group volunteers the idea that many leave because of disagreement over birth control or divorce or gay marriage or sex outside of marriage or married or female priests. In the past decade a new entry on the list of complaints is the outrage of priest violators of youth and bishops reassigning them.
But these familiar objections do not seem to address the issue of spiritual needs not being met. Let’s start somewhere. Do such needs include the elaborate music ministries one often finds in Protestant worship, where fast-moving music with drum-assisted backbeat propels enthusiastic singing? Such music is exhilarating and no doubt explains in itself why some attendees go to church at all. But if that is the case, are people going to church for entertainment? Worship music can exhilarate. Praying with one’s emotions has always been good, as witnessed by the sheer beauty of monastic chant, where few would charge that monks seek secular diversion.
Do such unmet needs include freedom from sermons on chastity? Is there any connection between the documented fall-off of those in their teens and 20s and the report last year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that 40 percent of U.S. females between 16 and 25 have some sexual disease, implying that their male partners have a comparable rate? It is not serious detective work to conclude that young adults would balk at attending a church that preaches traditional morality, even if surveys report that females generally dislike the promiscuity but fear not finding a husband.
On a similar note, the high number of couples living together without benefit of clergy really applies here. Overwhelmingly their reason is that they believe this field-testing of the relationship will help them avoid what they have good reason to fear: divorce. Half of all U.S. marriages end there. Moved by peer pressure — something very influential at that time in people’s lives — they believe that they can get to know each other so well that there would be less likelihood of the heartbreak of divorce.
However, studies by the CDCP have found that those who anticipate marriage this way suffer higher break-up rates. For one thing, they cannot argue in this situation. When there is conflict, the kind that needs air-clearing argument, they hold back, knowing that there is no tie that keeps the other who shares the rent. So they swallow grievances to the point of antacid. Another reason is that since the two are already comfortable conspiring to break one of society’s lower rules about cohabiting, they are predisposed to break one of its higher ones on marriage permanence.
If these are some of the “unmet spiritual needs,” I can see why we suffer departures. Would you like to hear a couple of my needs? One is seeing the parents at church who send their children to our religious education efforts in the parish. Many seem to want the discipline and the non-diversity of a Catholic parish but cannot bring themselves to accompany their children to weekend Mass. They seem to feel that this is what the admittedly expensive school tuition entitles them to: school personnel are to be the bad cop while Mom and Dad get to be the good cop. Then too we have too many religious education teachers themselves absent. Is such shallow Catholic membership the springboard for many defections?
When we priests hear children’s confessions, we are hamstrung by the child’s feeling guilt for having missed Mass. I kid them, asking if they are old enough to drive the family car. I have to help them see it is not their fault, but I do not want to impugn parents, some of whom have good alibis.
When we the church relearn who Jesus is, we won’t have enough seats to accommodate members.
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