First, get your house in order
In response to the article about the local ad campaign to attract lapsed Catholics [“Ads aim to bring lapsed Catholics back to the fold,” NWThursday, Feb. 18], I see little prospect for success. I served as a Catholic priest for 15 years and my current wedding ministry has brought me into contact with hundreds of inactive Catholics.
Why have so many Catholics —32 percent according to the Pew Report — left their church, including many who were raised in devout Catholic homes and attended years of Catholic school? In 1968, Pope Paul VI ignored his own hand-picked commission of theologians, doctors and laypeople and condemned artificial birth control.
And so began 40 years of bad teaching on stem cells, fertility, a return to a married clergy, ordination of women, disingenuous acceptance of gay unions, opposition to condoms — even in AIDS-riddled Africa — and a retreat from the collegial vision of the church enunciated by Vatican Council II.
Time and time again I have met with inactive Catholics who simply cannot subscribe to these outmoded teachings and the exclusively male clerical leaders who promulgate them. Add to that the scandal and failure of bishops to discipline flawed priests who sexually abused minors and the difficulty in finding a parish with meaningful preaching and vibrant liturgy.
Although I still love the Catholic Church, like any good host it needs to get its house in order before it invites company in for dinner. I find it unlikely that a slick advertising campaign centered on nostalgia will be effective. Too many central issues remain unresolved. The church must reform itself before it invites disillusioned Catholics to return.
— Patrick Callahan, Seattle
Left the fold because religion a ‘myth’
I was intrigued with the article about lapsed Catholics because I am a lapsed Catholic. But I didn’t leave the Catholic Church because of the sex scandals, the church’s treatment of women or the church’s stance on homosexuality, birth control or abortion. Any one of those would have been reason enough to forswear Catholicism.
I left the Catholic Church when I realized that all religion is mythology. Catholicism — and all Christian offshoots such as Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, pick your faith — are all religions built on myth rather than reality, created when humans could not comprehend their world except through superstition.
The fact that each religion has a written document should be neither surprising nor persuasive. Reading the Bible, the Koran, or the Book of Mormon requires a massive suspension of disbelief. From burning bushes to virgin births to ascensions into heaven, these documents are just as fantastical as the Iliad and the Odyssey. No advertising campaign could ever convince this lapsed Catholic to return.
Rather, each day’s world events reinforce the truth that reality trumps religion, that despite most religions’ perpetual insistence to the contrary, there is no all-loving God looking after us. Look at the world the various religions have created; It is replete with predatory behavior, discrimination against women and homosexuals, violence against unbelievers — or different believers — a sneering hatred of scientific thought and greed.
Such behavior is indicative of a lapsed humanity. Lapsed Catholics should be the least of our concerns.
— John Scannell, Sammamish