Among Protestants who were raised Catholic, 71 percent said that their spiritual needs were not being met. Another 70 percent said they found a religion they liked more, while 54 percent said they just gradually drifted away. About half said they stopped believing in Catholic teachings, while 43 percent professed unhappiness with teachings about the Bible and 32 percent professed dissatisfaction with the atmosphere at worship services.
About 71 percent of unaffiliated former Catholics said they just drifted away from the religion, while about two-thirds said they stopped believing in the religion’s teachings. About 56 percent said they were unhappy with teachings on “abortion/homosexuality,” but the Pew Forum survey did not distinguish between the two issues. Another 48 percent professed unhappiness with Catholic teaching on birth control, while 43 percent said their spiritual needs were not being met. About 39 percent said they were unhappy with the way Catholicism treated women.
Fewer than three in ten former Catholics said the clerical sexual abuse scandal factored into their decision to abandon Catholicism, the Pew Forum reports, with Protestants slightly less likely than the unaffiliated to say so.
“While the ranks of the unaffiliated have grown the most due to changes in religious affiliation, the Catholic Church has lost the most members in the same process,” the Pew Forum survey report said. “Many former Catholics who are now unaffiliated, however, remain open to the possibility that they could some day find a religion that suits them; one-third say they just have not found the right religion yet.”
Archbishop of Washington Donald W. Wuerl, past chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Catechesis and next chairman of the Committee on Doctrine, said the report highlights the importance of Mass attendance among children and teenagers.
“Adolescence is a critical time in religious development and, as the poll shows, what happens in the teen years has a long-lasting affect. We have to help young people and their parents appreciate the importance of going to weekly Mass so teenagers know Jesus is there for them now and always.“
He also noted that only about two to three percent of former Catholic respondents named clerical sexual abuse as a factor when asked generic questions about why they left.
“Catholics can separate the sins and human failings of individuals from the substance of the faith,” he said. “Sexual abuse of a child is a terrible sin and crime, but most Catholic people, because of good personal experience with their priests in their parishes, recognize sex abuse by clergy as the aberration it is.”