Catholics Come Home: Part 3
Over the last two days I have briefly shared a portion of my faith journey. During this retelling I have particularly focussed upon my ecclesiastical wanderings, mentioning some of the things which pushed me away from some congregations and drew me towards others.
As I mentioned in the initial post, this blog series was originally a talk I gave at my parish called “Catholics Come Home”. As part of my preparation I spent quite some time on the Internet reading the stories of those who had left the Catholic Church. It was a heartbreaking experience. A large number of the stories I read echoed my own. Many of the sentiments expressed were also very similar. It became clear that, more often than not, the reason someone leaves the Catholic Church is because of lack of pastoral care, rather than doctrine.
In the accounts I read, there were many complaints about the welcome experienced when attending a Catholic parish (or rather, the distinct absence thereof). Many stories were told of abysmal music and of incoherent, boring preaching. There were laments concerning the lack of community and the lack of ongoing Christian formation. There were also unfortunately quite a few incidents described where people felt poorly treated by priests, catechists and other parish staff. Careless words can cut extremely deep and have serious consequences..
