{"id":22997,"date":"2012-06-27T09:09:06","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T15:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/?p=22997"},"modified":"2012-06-27T09:13:14","modified_gmt":"2012-06-27T15:13:14","slug":"why-to-quit-the-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/2012\/06\/27\/why-to-quit-the-catholic-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Why quit the Catholic Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bigthink.com\/daylight-atheism\/todays-reasons-to-quit-the-catholic-church?page=all\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">At Daylight Atheism, <\/a>Adam Lee offers numerous reasons and links that all lead to the same end point. It’s time for the thinking Catholics to stop being Catholics. Here is Adam’s opening paragraph: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Over the last few years, it’s become increasingly clear that there’s no longer any place in Roman Catholicism for any but the most conservative and doctrinaire members. The signs of a top-down ideological cleansing are too obvious to ignore, including the Vatican hierarchy’s using the Eucharist as a bludgeon against politicians who show too much independence and cracking down on nuns for being suspiciously feminist. People, especially young people, are leaving in droves, and the FFRF has been helping them along with billboards and ads urging progressive Catholics to quit the church (I can’t tell you how much I love “Put Women’s Rights Over Bishops’ Wrongs”). Even the executive editor of the New York Times, hardly a voice of radicalism, is in agreement that liberals can do more good outside the church than in. And liberal Catholics who aren’t leaving feel compelled to articulate why not, a clear sign that they’re feeling the pressure as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I have some Catholic friends, most of whom are extremely frustrated with their church. Some of them have almost no respect for Rome, but they still call themselves Roman Catholic because they treasure the community offered by the local church they attend, and they enjoy the ritual, including the music. I’ve often wondered why they don’t quit the church and start their own church. I realize doing this would be a lot of work, but I can’t fathom being a member of a church that, even for those who believe the religious claims, antagonizes, betrays, embarrasses and patronizes its members. In my hometown of St. Louis, a Polish Catholic Church called St. Stanislaus Church <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stltoday.com\/lifestyles\/faith-and-values\/court-sides-with-st-stanislaus-in-dispute-with-st-louis\/article_a29b9b29-ef5f-5167-ba42-ca017ba8f366.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">broke off from the Roman Catholic Church<\/a> (leading to contentious litigation). It will be interesting to see whether any other Catholics follow suit. <\/p>\n<p>For individuals who are wanting to leave on their own, the Freedom From Religion Foundation offers <a href=\"http:\/\/ffrf.org\/publications\/freethought-today\/articles\/suitable-for-framing-ffrfs-debaptismal-certificate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">De-Baptismal Certificates. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bigthink.com\/daylight-atheism\/todays-reasons-to-quit-the-catholic-church?page=all\">At Daylight Atheism, <\/a>Adam Lee offers numerous reasons and links that all lead to the same end point. It’s time for the thinking Catholics to stop being Catholics. Here is Adam’s opening paragraph: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Over the last few years, it’s become increasingly clear that there’s no longer any place in Roman Catholicism for any but the most conservative and doctrinaire members. The signs of a top-down ideological cleansing are too obvious to ignore, including the Vatican hierarchy’s using the Eucharist as a bludgeon against politicians who show too much independence and cracking down on nuns for being suspiciously feminist. People, especially young people, are leaving in droves, and the FFRF has been helping them along with billboards and ads urging progressive Catholics to quit the church (I can’t tell you how much I love “Put Women’s Rights Over Bishops’ Wrongs”). Even the executive editor of the New York Times, hardly a voice of radicalism, is in agreement that liberals can do more good outside the church than in. And liberal Catholics who aren’t leaving feel compelled to articulate why not, a clear sign that they’re feeling the pressure as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I have some Catholic friends, most of whom are extremely frustrated with their church. Some of them have almost no respect for Rome, but they still call themselves Roman Catholic because they treasure the community offered by the local church they attend, and they enjoy the ritual, including the music. I’ve often wondered why they don’t quit the church and start their own church. I realize doing this would be a lot of work, but I can’t fathom being a member of a church that, even for those who believe the religious claims, antagonizes, betrays, embarrasses and patronizes its members. In my hometown of St. Louis, a Polish Catholic Church called St. Stanislaus Church <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stltoday.com\/lifestyles\/faith-and-values\/court-sides-with-st-stanislaus-in-dispute-with-st-louis\/article_a29b9b29-ef5f-5167-ba42-ca017ba8f366.html\">broke off from the Roman Catholic Church<\/a> (leading to contentious litigation). It will be interesting to see whether any other Catholics follow suit. <\/p>\n<p>For individuals who are wanting to leave on their own, the Freedom From Religion Foundation offers <a href=\"http:\/\/ffrf.org\/publications\/freethought-today\/articles\/suitable-for-framing-ffrfs-debaptismal-certificate\/\">De-Baptismal Certificates. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}