CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- With so many saying they have abandoned their childhood faith because of science, the Church in the United States has an urgent mission to engage the culture, said one expert.<\/p>\n\u201cThe new evangelization is as needed as ever,\u201d Dr. Matthew Bunson, EWTN Senior Contributor, concluded from a Pew Research study on \u201cChoosing a New Church.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Catholics we need to be very much aware of the immense dangers that are emerging, culturally, when we lose a sense of God,\u201d he added, saying that \u201cdialogue with culture is absolutely essential now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pew study, released Tuesday, shows that among the \u201cnones\u201d \u2013 those currently not a member of any religion \u2013 around eight-in-ten were once raised in a particular religion. About half of those explained their departure from their childhood faith by saying they simply didn\u2019t believe anymore, and some mentioned \u201cscience\u201d as a reason for their unbelief.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a scientist now, and I don\u2019t believe in miracles,\u201d one respondent was reported as saying. Others cited \u201ccommon sense,\u201d \u201clogic,\u201d or \u201clack of evidence\u201d as reasons for their unbelief.<\/p>\n
The \u201cnones\u201d have been growing in number quickly, from an estimated 36.6 million in 2007 to an estimated 55.8 million in 2014, Pew reported in 2015. \u201c35% of Millennials (those born 1981-1996) are \u2018nones,\u2019\u201d Pew said. Some identify as atheists or agnostics, others say their religion is \u201cnothing in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s numbers showed the \u201cmainline Protestant\u201d ecclesial communions in a \u201cstate of total collapse,\u201d Bunson noted, especially among \u201cyoung people in particular\u201d who said they stopped believing in their religion because of reasons such as they \u201cdiscovered evolution in college.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us need to be much more aware of how susceptible young people are to what is now a relentless cultural message of scepticism, of cynicism, and outright hostility,\u201d he insisted. \u201cAnd it cuts across all areas of life today, from morality and sexual identity to science, to the basic perception of how the world functions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we need to have a much stronger Catholic ethos that prepares young people for that level of hostility,\u201d he said, \u201cespecially in college.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, the numbers of people dropping out of institutional religion show that many believe there to be \u201can apparent, irreconcilable conflict between faith and reason, between science and the Church,\u201d Bunson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s incumbent on us then, in the area of apologetics but also in evangelization, to help people in what is the age of not just skepticism, but the age of cynicism, to understand the faith, to explain the faith, and to live the faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among other findings of the Pew report were that, among Catholics who were searching for a new \u201ccongregation\u201d to attend, 36 percent admitted to considering another denomination or religion.<\/p>\n
That number, while high, was actually the lowest among the different religious identities, Bunson noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a certain fidelity to remaining Catholic while looking,\u201d he said, but the overall numbers of people considering a change in religion \u201cties into the wider phenomenon of the spiritual quest that we see across the board\u201d that \u201cpeople are much more open to changing denominationally, which I think from a Catholic standpoint is very disturbing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among Catholics who were looking at changing to a new parish, the important factors listed were \u201clocation\u201d (76 percent), \u201cfeeling welcomed by leaders\u201d (71 percent), \u201cquality of sermons\u201d (67 percent), and \u201cstyle of worship\u201d (63 percent).<\/p>\n
Among those who listed \u201cquality of sermons\u201d as an important factor in their decision, Catholics were actually much lower than Evangelical Protestants (94 percent), Mainline Protestants (87 percent) and Historically Black Protestants (92 percent), Bunson said.<\/p>\n
This may be because \u201cCatholics seem to have either lower expectations regarding sermons, or because as Catholics we are much more sacramentally-oriented, that they are willing to put up with a sermon that\u2019s less than stellar,\u201d Bunson said, especially since the Protestant communities traditionally \u201cplace a greater priority on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Pope Francis has specifically exhorted priests to make sure their homilies \u201care not boring.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHomiletics,\u201d Bunson said, \u201cis something that has been stressed for a while now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPope Francis is absolutely right, and I think Pope Francis has his finger on this very neatly, that when we\u2019re creating an environment that brings Catholics together, where they feel welcome but they feel also that they\u2019re receiving a nourishing form of preaching,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
More than seven-in-ten Catholics listed location as an \u201cimportant\u201d factor in looking for a new parish. The numbers showed \u201cthe relative ease that Catholics have in finding a new location to worship,\u201d Bunson continued, that \u201ceven in the face of parish closings and clusterings, Catholics still feel a ready access to a faith community, to worship, and obviously, then, to the sacraments.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Washington D.C., Aug 25, 2016 \/ 09:02 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- With so many saying they have abandoned their childhood faith because of science, the Church in the United States has an urgent mission to engage the culture, said one expert.<\/p>\n
“The new e…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\n
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