Is anyone else a former Catholic, and if so why did you decide to change?

Question

I was born and raised Catholic and for the past 10 years or so I've questioned it all including Christianity in general. I am so confused. Anyone else feel the same way?

Answer 1

Actually yes. I was born and raised Catholic. I had a lot of questions about the faith and no one would answer them. They danced around them for a long time. Then one priest convinced me to go back. Turns out he was a child molester. I am no longer a Catholic. I am Kemetic Orthodoxy. It is weird how Catholics do things that they deny all the time isn't it. I mean they pray to the Virgin Mary but they say the don't. They pray and praise Jesus but they say Jesus and God are the same thing. How can the son be the same as the father? He can't. They have all these saints that they pray to and they say they don't. Kemetic Orthodoxy and Catholic religion is a lot alike actually. It wasn't hard for me to change over. I think the hardest part was you don't do the sign of the cross and you don't say Amen after wards when you pray.

Answer 2

I would like to say that I have had the opposite experience. I was technically Catholic all my life but I wasn't raised to go to church. I didn't believe in anything but a Higher Power for most of my adult life. I was very okay with that. My three children got older and started down the wrong road. My life got even worse and it was one crisis than another. One day a friend said "why don't you try praying the rosary?" So one morning I did pray it and I don't even know if I really prayed it correctly. Later that day I had a religious experience so profound that I have been changed forever. I wasn't in a church and no one told me this would happen. In fact I had to ask someone what happened to me and they said it sounded like the Holy Spirit came to me. It was like I stepped out of time for a while, although it really only took a few seconds. Something told me that Jesus Christ died for me and he loves me. I have been following him ever since which has been through the Catholic church. I actually teach CCD. If you had told me before this I would be this way I would have laughed. On Sunday I stayed home and read the paper. I am now such a believer. I have felt his love and it is amazing. He loves us so much I really don't know if there are words to describe it. I hope I helped you in some way - peace.

Answer 3

I was raised Catholic and practiced until a few years ago, when I was apalled at the choice of a new Pope. Then, for some reason the child molestation thing and cover up of that started to bother me. I am so over the male domination of the Roman Catholics. I still have faith in God or a supreme being, but organized religion is not for me.

Answer 4

Truly understanding all the fine points of the Catholic faith is a lot like trying to understand a computer program ... there's lots of details that are difficult to properly correlate, and if you get a few key concepts wrong, everything seems to crash.

It took me five years of constant, full time study and practice to figure it all out.

All I can tell you is that there's no faith on the planet earth that is more complete, more consistent, more biblical, more truthful, and more Christ centered than the Catholic faith.

Everything the Catholic Chruch claims to be, is.

Everything the Catholic Church teaches has to stand up to close scrutiny, according to scripture, church tradition, the church's official teaching office, and according to God, himself.

The Catholic Catechism is the finest and most complete to be found anywhere. It explains. It provides footnotes and research citations. It is consistent with the life of the church from the earliest times, and it's understandable.

Catholic scholarship is also unparalleled in terms of quality, quantity, continuity, truthfulness, and universality.

Catholic worship is without compare, and is literally timeless. No where else on earth is it possible to encounter the risen Christ, in the flesh.

The Catholic hierarchy and priesthood possesses the authority to do what they do directly from God.

Catholic sacraments are valid, and they truly dispense grace, which provides true peace.

Others will attack it, but I'm betting they never took the time to really study what the church teaches, from someone who really knows how to teach it.

If they did, they would lilkely have no choice but to choose Catholicism for themselves. I know I did.

Like most spiritual things, it also seems strange, even peculiar, but so is God. So is the way he saved us. So is the Bible. So is heaven and hell.

But since faith is the primary requirement for any Christian, one who has faith doesn't need to understand everything. They can simply choose to accept it on faith.

The key to my breakthrough wasn't just scholarly. It was only when I became truly active in the faith community, working and praying with other Catholics, that I was finally able to correlate Catholic beliefs and principles, with action.

I learned by doing, as all Catholics have, from the very beginning, and that's really when all the confusion finally went away.

I saved all my research materials and other documentation on my computer, so now I have a complete Catholic reference library on a CD.

If you would like a copy, send me an email with a shipping address and it's yours. No charge, of course.

Answer 5

I was born, bred, and educated in the Catholic church. My children were baptized in the church and I have indoctrinated them in that faith through religious education classes. HOWEVER----I want nothing to do with the church or with any organized religion whatsover. My husband insists that our daughter complete RE until 8th grade, which is fine, but she is then allowed to make her own decisions. I gave up on the religion some time ago. I have too many unanswered questions. I am frustrated by the lack of communication and by the lack of accountability im the Chic regarding all of the recent scandals. I am tired of being lied to. I am tired of the Catholic church crying about the persecution it is experiencing, about the lack of money, etc. etc. Sell off the Vatican artwork! I am tired of hypocrisy and self-righteousness. I am tired of the catholic church living in the Dark Ages when it comes to birth control, priests' celibacy, woman serving as priests. I am just plain tired.

I hope you get some answers.

Thanks for the great question.

Answer 6

I was raised Catholic, forced to attend church until confirmation.
The experience left me with a bad taste, so I turned my back on God for over 10 years, finally returning to Him this year when I found a relevant church. This place didn't feel like church at all, it made sense, and coming back to God was the best thing I've ever done. I have never been this happy in my entire life.

You probably need to find a better church, one that actually makes sense in todays world. In the meantime, I'd like to invite you to listen to some of the past messages from my church:
http://www.eaglebrookchurch.com/resources/messages.html

Answer 7

I was raised Catholic and sent to Catholic school from 6th-12th grade. In 9th and 10th grades I began to seriously question why I was a Catholic. My conclusion was that I had believed in Catholicism because that is what I had grown up with and what my parents and peers believed. Now that I think for myself, I don't believe in any religion or a higher power. I guess I just "grew out" of religion. It was a fairy tale I believed as a child, but now it just seems foolish to me.

Answer 8

I'm a former Catholic who went to years of Catholic school. The more I researched all the religions, I found they were basically the same. Most of them borrow from the same philosophies. And since most of them offer dogma that conflicts with itself, I gave up.

All in all, I'm sure there's a bigger power out there, but a human's mind is too limited in it's understanding to comprehend it, and that's good enough for me. I'll stick to what Karl Marx said: "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

Answer 9

i was also raised Catholic. After thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that god does not exist and religion is therefore unneccesary. There are a few things to think about catholicism that in particular make it look like a bad religion: The Vatican is rich. Why dont they give all their money to the poor? For religions in general why cant women be priests? Why do they oppose using condoms when condoms are preventing aids and other stds?

Answer 10

My parents and brother are Catholic, and I am an atheist. I decided this a few years ago. I also question everything, but I'm not really confused about it anymore, that is religion, everything else in life I am still confused.