How can I move from such a dynamic soul-winning church that I am in now into such a seemingly dead church seemingly full of untransformed people?
Before I became Catholic, I asked myself the same question, because I'd heard all sorts of horror stories about how dead the Catholic Church was, and since I'd known several Catholics who were as worldly as any pagan, I believed them. So as I became more and more convinced that the Catholic Church taught the truth, I thought, "But Lord, they're all so dead." And then I remembered His words: "What is that to you? You follow me." And I realized that it really wasn't important whether the guy in the pew next to me was living the faith, it was important whether I was. It was as if the Lord was saying to me, "You need to follow the truth, even if you're the only one who does."
Happily, my fears turned out to be unfounded. I've met plenty of on-fire Catholics since I've joined the Church, and I've found several local parishes where the faith is truly lived and preached.
A girl that I am friends with, who has little knowledge of the theological issues between Catholics and Protestants said simply, "I am not a Catholic because they don't emphasize a personal relationship with Jesus." I am sure that many committed catholics such as yourself have vastly different experiences, but you must admit, the problem of simply going through the motions with little understanding of the significance seems rampant in the Church. Am I being unfair?
Yes. As I said, you're comparing the best Evangelicals with the worst Catholics. But I do think it's easier to be a nominal Catholic than to be a nominal Evangelical. Catholicism is an embodied faith. It's very physical, expressing itself through signs and meaningful rituals and practices. Ideally, those practices are joyful ways of expressing the interior reality of God's grace in our lives. They give form and substance to the reality of our faith. But if that reality isn't there, it's still possible to go through the physical motions of the faith because of habit, or whatever. In other words, it's possible to mistake faith's expression for faith itself, as if the outward signs of our faith, and not the reality they are meant to express, are what's important. That does happen, and it's a shame, because going through the motions won't get anybody to Heaven.
On the other hand, Evangelicalism is largely devoid of physicality. It is a religion almost exclusively characterized by intellectual commitment. Therefore, if you don't have that commitment, there's nothing else there, so you leave. This is good in the sense that it focuses on the primary importance of belief and conversion of heart, and because it's more difficult to fool yourself into thinking you're a "good Christian" when you're not, but Evangelicals really are missing something by not having a rich physical tradition with which to express their faith. When you combine real interior faith with meaningful exterior expression, the result is incredible, believe me. And the best Catholics, like the best Evangelicals, know that a personal relationship with Jesus is the goal of the Christian life. We just have a whole lot of ways to express and experience that relationship.
I spent a summer in Mexico City and a semester in Santiago de Compostela, but with the exception of one little old lady, for all of the students that I met, I can't say that I met any committed Catholics, and this in Catholic countries where virtually everyone would at least say that they are Catholics.
Well, what else would you expect in a "Catholic country"? In some countries, Catholicism is the "default religion." It's what you say you are when someone asks, even if you haven't set foot in a church in years. It's the same with Protestant Christianity in this country. If you ask most Americans what religion they are, they'll say "Well, gee, I'm not Jewish, I'm not Moslem, I'm not Hindu, so I guess I must be Christian." In this country, Christianity is the default religion. And if you ask these people whether they're Catholic or Protestant, most will say "Well, I'm not Catholic, so I guess I must be Protestant." Protestantism is the default version of Christianity in this country. But it would hardly be fair to judge Protestantism based on the people who, if pressed, would say they're Protestants, but who may never have seen the inside of a church, or read a single verse of Scripture. Same goes for judging Catholicism by the so-called Catholics in "Catholic countries."
And yet the Evangelicals that I met almost always were "set apart," meaning they read their Bibles, took their faith seriously, etc.
In a nominally Catholic country, wouldn't you expect the Evangelicals to stand out? And since they've deliberately chosen a religion other than the default religion, wouldn't you expect them to take it more seriously than those who've opted for the default just out of habit or family tradition?
