Santa Clara, California
Why young Catholics are leaving the Church An American study on young adults leaving the Church has found that about a third left because of Church teaching on matters such as same-sex marriage, which they saw as “an issue of social justice and human dignity, not an issue of sexuality”, according to Robert McCarty, one of the study authors. The report, Going, Going, Gone: the Dynamics of Catholic Disaffiliation, was presented at a symposium before the Santa Clara Faith Formation Conference. Disaffiliation reflects “the secularisation of culture where faith and belief are optional and not a given”, Dr McCarty said. Some 87 per cent of respondents said that nothing the Church could do would bring them back to it.
