By Robert Lazu Kmita
A recent article by Michael Rota and Stephen Bullivant, titled “Religious Transmission: A Solution to the Church’s Biggest Problem”, published in Church Life Journal, has sparked reactions in various circles due to its main thesis: nine out of ten people born into the Catholic Church abandon it.
The exodus of adults, and especially of adolescents and young people, is one of the most alarming symptoms of the profound crisis in Christian life, not only within our Church, but throughout our entire culture. (I believe that the most terrible and widespread disease is the contraceptive mentality, and the abortion regime to which it leads. All other problems reflect this slow suicide of the communities of the Western world that have stopped procreating.)
Regarding the youth exodus, it is essential to conduct a deep examination and propose concrete suggestions. But first—as happens with patients who present multiple serious symptoms—, it is necessary to establish an accurate diagnosis that reveals the hidden causes of the “illness”. My perspective is somewhat unusual today: that of a convert from the “Orthodox” Church to the Roman Catholic Church.
What I noticed after requesting (in the year 2000) to be received into full communion with the Roman Church (thus returning to the Church of my Polish ancestors) was a serious crisis of Catholic identity. Without exaggeration, I dare to say that the Catholic identity of an alarmingly large number of the faithful is in the process of dissolution. This crisis, evidently, can only lead to the indifference and alienation that easily result in the exodus denounced by Rota, Bullivant, and others.
To better understand the causes, it is advisable to briefly define what we mean by “Catholic identity”. My starting point is the classic “Act of Faith”:
My God, I firmly believe that You are one God in three divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; I believe that Your divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths that the holy Catholic Church teaches, because You have revealed them, and You cannot deceive or be deceived. Amen.
Whoever believes what is expressed here so succinctly can consider themselves Christian (that is, Catholic). To this I would add the conviction that the Catholic Church is the one and true Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ.
No other community or “church” can be considered as such. And furthermore, no other can offer salvation to its faithful. Heresies and the state of schism with respect to the true Church are real dangers that prevent full conversion and, ultimately, the salvation of souls.
Of course, this does not exclude that God can save souls also from other communities, but that necessarily implies that they enter into communion with the Catholic Church, at least through the “baptism of desire”.
Today, Catholics no longer believe—as St. Cyprian did—that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus). Interreligious and ecumenical dialogue, the practical pluralism of the current world, and the absence of authentic Christian evangelization and catechesis have generated indifference and even hostility toward any “firm” value (sometimes even toward the very notion of dogma).
In fact, although some priests, bishops, and faithful welcomed me sympathetically in my conversion, many others expressed perplexity: what is the point of converting from the “Orthodox” Church to the Catholic Church? Aren’t they the same? They cannot imagine how many times I have been asked this question.
For me, there is a significant detail: in “Orthodox” churches and in Protestant and neo-Pentecostal communities, Catholics are constantly presented as heretics, apostates, etc. For example, very well-known monks in Romania claim that since the Great Schism of 1054, there has been no Church in the West. They also say that Catholicism is a mass of papal inventions and heresies added to the traditional creed, and so on.
I could present impressive collections of such statements, which—I must emphasize—are not the exception, but the rule.
In contrast, Catholics are no longer convinced that their Church is truly the only one founded by Christ, and that outside of it salvation is not possible. Lost in endless discussions about “anonymous Christians” and other subtleties, post-conciliar theologians like Karl Rahner, Hans Küng, Jacques Dupuis, among others, have fed and amplified this identity crisis.
Likewise, the loss of the “hereafter”—Heaven and Hell—as a constant horizon of reference and personal meditation, has worsened this generalized indifferentism. If salvation can be found anywhere, why would young people continue to be Catholic?
The most dramatic and immediate consequence of the ecclesial identity crisis is the disappearance of the missionary spirit. (I don’t know if this is clearly perceived in a country with tens of millions of Catholics, like the United States, but in a country where Catholics number only a few thousand or hundreds of thousands, this consequence is evident.)
In a context where the majority of the population runs the risk of losing salvation by belonging to heretical and schismatic churches and communities, one would expect that bishops, priests, and faithful would work tirelessly to convert those lost souls. Or, at least, that they would always be ready to help these people embrace the true Christian religion.
Unfortunately, it is not so. Ecumenical dialogue has long since replaced the proclamation of the Gospel and the formation of a solid Catholic identity. And young people have learned this lesson. Many simply abandon the religion of parents who not only do not know, but probably never knew, why they were Catholic.
About the author:
Robert Lazu Kmita is a novelist, essayist, and columnist with a PhD in Philosophy. His novel The Island Without Seasons was published by Os Justi in 2023. He is also the author and editor of numerous works, including an Encyclopedia of J.R.R. Tolkien’s World (in Romanian). He writes regularly on his Substack, Kmita’s Library.