Why Catholics are leaving the faith by age 10

[brooklynite]

Crux:

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Young Catholics are leaving the faith at an early age - sometimes before the age of 10 - and their reasons are deeper than being “bored at Mass,” the author of a recent report claims.

“Those that are leaving for no religion - and a pretty big component of them saying they are atheist or agnostic - it turns out that when you probe a bit more deeply and you allow them to talk in their own words, that they are bringing up things that are related to science and a need for evidence and a need for proof,” said Doctor Mark Gray, a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

“It’s almost a crisis in faith,” he told CNA. “In the whole concept of faith, this is a generation that is struggling with faith in ways that we haven’t seen in previous generations.”

Gray recently published the results of two national studies by CARA - which conducts social science research about the Church - in the publication Our Sunday Visitor. One of the surveys was of those who were raised Catholic but no longer identified as Catholic, ages 15 to 25. The second survey was of self-identified Catholics age 18 and over.

Doesn't sound like a "struggle" to me.

[riversedge]

1. Not surprised.

[rug]

2. Gee, you left out the full headline:

"Why Catholics are leaving the faith by age 10 – and what parents can do about it"

And the last paragraph:

“Yet, the Church has a chance to keep more of the young Catholics being baptized now if it can do more to correct the historical myths about the Church in regards to science,” he added, “and continue to highlight its support for the sciences, which were, for the most part, an initial product of the work done in Catholic universities hundreds of years ago.”

I wonder why.

BTW, if any 10 year old left his or her church before age ten, it's likely because the parents stopped bringing them

[brooklynite]

4. Why? Because I was focusing on the CARA analytical portion, rather than the editorializing...

...If you think that working to keep kids religiously indoctrinated is important, feel free to post an article of your own.

Fun fact: I walked out of Unitarian Sunday School - on my own- when I was 8.

[rug]

7. Sure you were, you were not editorializing your own slant at all.

You would never do that, would you?

If you cannot see the difference between education and indoctrination, you're on your own.

So, when you left your Unitarian Sunday school "- on your own -" when you were 8, did somebody drive you home or did you walk home all by yourself?

[1965Comet]

8. Huh?

His "slant" prevented him from including the self-help style ending of the title? I assume you are talking about an "anti-religion" slant, but it is unclear how that bias would prevent one from cutting off the end of that particular title.

Also, about kids leaving the church. Of course the parents stop bringing them, but I bet a lot of times they do it because the kid is bored and doesn't want to go. That's the way it went for me. If the kid actually wanted to be there, why would the parent say "no"?

[rug]

10. For starters, the source of the survey is dedicated to the Catholic "apostolate".

Its goal is always the description, measurement and improvement of the RCC. Unlike the OP's suggestion that even children are fleeing the irrational clutches of religion.

Children go to organizations, be it Sunday School, boy or girl scouts, or clubs at a planetarim, because the parents support it it, and more essentially, approve it. There is nothing per se sinister about that. But to suggest there are second grade freethinkers storming out of these activities, independently, is risible.

[1965Comet]

12. I still don't see the OP's slant

The article states that children are leaving for intellectual reasons. If the article itself is from a pro-Church website, that is all the more reason to trust its findings, isn't it?

I'm also not sure about your characterization of second graders. A kid could easily stop believing in a god at age 10, just like he or she could stop believing in Santa. If the parents pull him from church, isn't it most likely because he wanted to be pulled from church?

[rug]

14. Stick around, you will.

As to your last question, if the parents pull the child from religious education, it's more likely the parents see little value in it rather than the child. No child wants to go to school on Sunday (or Saturday).

[AtheistCrusader]

38. Especially to 'learn' about supernatural nonsense.

[rug]

42. Actually I was thinking of irrational intolerance.

[brooklynite]

11. So, are you disputing the statement that kids are leaving the Church?

Or are you disputing the reasons that surveyed children gave as to why?

Young people are leaving the faith. Here's why

Young Catholics are leaving the Faith. Multiple national surveys indicate that only about two-thirds or fewer millennials (those born in 1982 or later) who were raised Catholic remain Catholic as adults. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) recently conducted two national studies that provide some new insight into these losses. The first few results from these studies are being released for the first time in this article.

The reasons young people leave are complex and varied. However, there is an emerging profile of one of the most common ways this happens. Many historians and Catholic theologians will say the Catholic Church has no place in a “war” between religion and science today. Yet the Church does appear to be losing a related battle nonetheless. Some young Catholics have told CARA that they are leaving the Faith for science, believing that Catholicism is incompatible with what they are learning in high school or at the university level. CARA’s research indicates that this phenomenon may be more common now than in the past because those raised Catholic today are significantly less likely than previous generations to have attended Catholics schools where religion and science are taught side by side.

The first CARA study, commissioned by Saint Mary’s Press, involved a survey with a random, national sample of young people, ages 15 to 25, who had been raised Catholic but no longer self-identified as such. The second CARA study, made possible through funding from the John Templeton Foundation, involved a survey of a random sample of self-identified Catholics, ages 18 and older, and focused on matters of religion and science.

The interviews with youth and young adults who had left the Catholic Faith revealed that the typical age for this decision to leave was made at 13. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed, 63 percent, said they stopped being Catholic between the ages of 10 and 17. Another 23 percent say they left the Faith before the age of 10. Those who leave are just as likely to be male as they are female, and their demographics generally mirror those of all young Catholics their age. So why are they leaving?

https://www.osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/PapalVisit/Articles/Article/TabId/2727/ArtMID/20933/ArticleID/20512/Young-people-are-leaving-the-faith-Heres-why.aspx

[rug]

13. I'm disputing your spin: "Doesn't sound like a 'struggle' to me."

As to why some people leave the RCC in their teens, "The reasons young people leave are complex and varied", which neither the article nor you address, other than your snide remark.

Secondly, "children" were not surveyed. the first study surveyed young people between 15 and 25, the second surveyed adults over 18. Both groups were reflecting back, not giving answers contemporary with their actions.

At the end, the question, "So why are they leaving?" was not answered. Not even by your comment.

I don't mind criticism of religion. I simply prefer intelligent criticism, not lazy one line snark.

[AtheistCrusader]

24. bringing them... forcing them to go... so much mileage out of a simple word substitution.

Spin is a subtle thing.

[rug]

32. An entire clause is not a simple word substitution.

Not that it matters to an apologist.

The unsubtle spin was leaving it out.

[AtheistCrusader]

37. Personally i'd go with the more optimistic view, since this isn't LBN with a subject line rule.

[rug]

43. Personally, I don't care what you personally would do. I'll stick with the words.

Both posted and deleted.

[AtheistCrusader]

44. What deleted words?

[Girard442]

3. The greatest enemy of the theists isn't Satan.

It's the bullshit detector all humans are born with. Ninety-nine percent of religious indoctrination is aimed at turning it off.

[rug]

5. "Ninety-nine percent of religious indoctrination is aimed at turning it off."

I detect bullshit.

[DetlefK]

6. I was catholic and turned agnostic by approx. age 13.

My parents weren't that religious. Church was more a cultural thing than a faith-thing.

My first step towards Agnosticism was something my religion-class teacher tried to teach us. She showed us a scale ranging from "real" Christians to "lip-service" Christians. What really irked was in the middle of the scale:
Christians who go to church but don't do good deeds were supposed to be better Christians than those who do good deeds but don't go to church.
That seemed so wrong, it really repulsed, confused and disturbed me. That was the moment when I began turning away from religion. I don't remember my age, but it must have been 11-13.

It quickly lost any meaning to me and I became non-religious within months and years.

Years later, when I studied science, I gradually turned from non-religious to agnostic.

[rug]

9. Whatever she was teaching you was off.

That goes against the Beatitudes and corporal works of mercy.

[AtheistCrusader]

39. Which totally explains why the Catholic world practically shit itself when Pope Photo Op said

http://catholicvote.org/what-pope-francis-really-said-about-atheists/

Apparently there's some confusion, even among catholics. by what he said and the resulting 'who is better than whom' hierarchy.

[rug]

40. Er, no, not in the least.

The confusion here is not with the Catholic hierarchy.

[AtheistCrusader]

41. Oh, ok then.

[Dulcinea]

35. I was raised Catholic, too.

I stopped believing in it in my teens when I figured out their social agenda, especially concerning women. I felt my existence should be my choice to make, not just cranking out tons of Catholic babies and being obedient to a bunch of old men in Rome so they wouldn't have to be bothered with silly concerns like equality for women. Women were either virgin martyrs or had a baby every year. No thanks.

It also bothered me that going to church wasn't a choice. Why was it mandated? To put money in the collection plate, of course.

My best friend's mother fell on hard times & stopped giving money to the church. Our local parish called her & asked why she wasn't giving money. She told them. She stopped going to church after that because she felt that God didn't put a price on her religious devotion. She never went back.

Everything the Roman Catholic Church does has a financial angle. Everything. That's what drove me away.

[Act_of_Reparation]

15. More or less my story

I can't say I ever believed, but by the time I was 13 or so, I was through with identifying as a Catholic, and as a Christian.

But I don't think it is as simple as me having a finely honed bullshit detector. In the beginning, I wasn't as concerned with evidence or the need for proof as I was with the problems of Catholic morality and theodicy. I found nothing moral about original sin or the blood sacrifice that was supposedly our salvation. I found nothing moral about abstinence. I found nothing moral about the rampant homophobia. Every day, we were lectured to about the moral authority of the Church and yet everywhere I looked I saw intolerance and injustice.

[guillaumeb]

16. There is no doctrine that puts faith in opposition to science.

Many scientists are religious. Does the fact that they are religious mean that they are at war with their own beliefs?

Science deals with the natural world, and Christianity deals with how humans relate to the Creator and how those humans live the message of Jesus.

As to these pre-ten year olds, perhaps they are not developed enough to understand that there is no inherent conflict between faith and science.

The only "struggle" I find here is the attempt to fit this item into an agenda.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. The doctrine of resurrection, perhaps?

It's just the centre of Christianity, after all. Scientists who are Christians do have to engage in doublethink - believe Jesus arose from the dead, but also believe in the basic physics and chemistry of biology.

[guillaumeb]

19. Not double think, if I understand your use of the term.

But an understanding that one deals with faith, and the other deals with what is provable by scientific means.

The doctrine of resurrection is the idea that Jesus was reborn into another life in heaven.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. No, it's bodily resurrection, in the vast majority of Christian denominations

That he appeared to Mary Magdalene, and his disciples. It's not just "he went to heaven". It runs against basic science. The 'faith' has to be "God suspends physical laws occasionally". It's very much doublethink.

[guillaumeb]

21. Does basic science allow for coma?

And it is double think if one insists on making all believers literalists.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. The *doctrine*, which is what you mentioned, is that he died and was resurrected

after 3 days. For the Catholics, the subject of this thread:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a5p2.htm

They say it is 'fundamental' and 'essential' to the Catholic faith that he rose from the dead, in physical, touchable form. Catholics believe in many more miracles, but this one really is central to the concept of the religion. And it's also believed by the vast majority of other Christian denominations.

[guillaumeb]

23. To be presumed dead, and then alive.

I am not a Catholic, so I am not defending or disputing what Catholics believe.

[1965Comet]

27. It's not "presumed dead"...

Just look at all the bumperstickers saying "Jesus died for our sins", not "Jesus was presumed dead for our sins"...

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. There's no 'presumption' about it in Catholic and other churches, though

It was declared in an ecumenical council:

IF anyone shall say that after the resurrection the body of the Lord was ethereal, having the form of a sphere, and that such shall be the bodies of all after the resurrection; and that after the Lord himself shall have rejected his true body and after the others who rise shall have rejected theirs, the nature of their bodies shall be annihilated: let him be anathema.

http://www.comparativereligion.com/anathemas.html

The thread is about what Catholics believe, and why some children are leaving the Catholic church because it conflicts with science and the standards of evidence (or consistency) they expect.

[AtheistCrusader]

30. I think I see what is happening here.

When you said 'there is no doctrine', you may have had some soft usage of 'doctrine' in mind, but while there are SOME religions that have no doctrines at all, and there are SOME religions that have no doctrines that conflict with science, there are SOME religions that are guilty on both counts.

Specifically, the Roman Catholic Church is one such religious entity, whose doctrines conflict with science on a daily basis, and in the case of AIDS/HIV epidemic and the Church's doctrines on Condoms, not only is it anti-science, its killed millions. To do so, not only has it imposed this doctrine on followers, it has also lobbied and campaigned to make such things like Condoms completely unavailable, just so the lay member doesn't have the opportunity to ignore doctrine.

That's remarkably anti-science, and to many of us; it's evil.

THIS is Science.
http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/01/11/rsif.2011.0826.full

This is not.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22449314

[AtheistCrusader]

25. Speaking of bullshit detection up thread...

How about the doctrine that condoms are worse than pre-marital sex?

Oh, they don't say it in so few words, but the only time the Catholic Church supports the use of condoms, is in the case of married partners (man and woman, 'natch) wherein one of the partners has a communicable disease like AIDS/HIV, or in the case of male prostitutes. Starting in 2010.

The Church used to ban them outright. That's a decidedly anti-science doctrine.


And of course, high ranking catholics called for Ratzinger's resignation over even THAT allowance of condoms.

Look at this fucking shitshow:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_HIV/AIDS

[guillaumeb]

26. Surveys show that large numbers of Catholics admit to using contraception.

Which has nothing to do with the fact that faith and science are not mutually exclusive.

[AtheistCrusader]

28. You said Doctrine.

Not 'do as I say not as I do'.

Catholic doctrine is that condoms are evil, being in opposition to conception.

[guillaumeb]

33. And that doctrine has nothing to do with science.

Evil and good are not scientific terms.

[AtheistCrusader]

36. Sure they are.

Letting people die by the millions of AIDS/HIV rather than employ the use of condoms, is evil.

THIS is demonstrably good via peer review Science. Condoms SAVE lives, and kill no-one.
http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/01/11/rsif.2011.0826.full

As a society, we define survival and quality of life as 'good'. We turn to Science to see how we might further that and BINGO, condoms for societies that are experiencing an HIV/AIDS epidemic as an effective solve to the 'bad', which society often defines as applying to terms like abject misery and death.

If we make a HORRIBLE MISTAKE and turn to Catholic religious doctrine to solve same said problem, we get an answer that furthers the epidemic, and leads to more suffering and death on a scale we don't normally see outside open warfare between nations.

It is because that religious doctrine has nothing to do with science, that it continues to give the wrong, horrible, and deadly answer in defiance of plain, observable reality.

[trotsky]

31. So you've had this "there is no doctrine" claim of yours completely annihilated.

How about you just retract it? Oh yeah...

[Runningdawg]

17. It must be nice to quit church at 10

I "left" God when I was 4, the same night my father, a deacon, told me to STFU crying over the dead dog because dogs have no souls and won't go to heaven, that I should cry for all the Jews and Catholics who were going to hell.
I left the church when I turned 18 and not a minute before because up until that time all attempts at refusing to go to church had been met with threats of violence and being committed to an institution.

[zipplewrath]

34. No single reason

I'm dubious that a single reason can be found. At best one could collect reasons into categories that might seem related. But there are all manner of reasons. Some have to do with "blaming God" or the officials of the church for things that happen in their lives. Others become infuriated with perceptions of hypocrisy. For others, there seem to be little "answers" for the questions they have. It is the issue of "relevance". Especially for American Catholics, despite their faith, or belief in faith, they live their lives often quite at odds with the teachings of the church and that undermines the relevance to them. Much of the Catholic experience, especially at that age, is related to traditions and cultural habits. Those things can begin to become less meaningful and important at those ages.