Hi Duncan,

Thanks for the very good question.

Over the previous years we have had several people who have left the Church, but having regretted the choice, decided to return, so your question is very relevant.

Although, not very original, I always try to reference appropriate portions from the Catechism and the Scriptures in my answers, when possible. This is what the Catechism tells us:

2088 — 2089 [...]

• Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated, doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.
  
  
• Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief.
  
  
• Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it.
  
  
• Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same;
  
  
• Apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith;
  
  
• Schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.

We can keep ourselves from falling into any of these situations by living the sacramental life of the Church, especially by going to Confession regularly and renewing our Sunday covenant with the Lord at Sunday Mass.

All of these case are serious, yet all of them are forgivable because of the great Divine Mercy of the Lord which we encounter in the Sacrament of Confession.

If someone is a baptized Catholic, all they would have to do is make an appointment with a priest asking him to hear [his/her] Confession.

One could go to the regularly scheduled set of Saturday Confessions, but if [he/she] has been away from the Church for a while, making an appointment would be better. The Confessor would be able to discern what type of penance is appropriate from a small one to renouncing ones previous faith and making an act of faith along the lines of reciting the Nicene Creed.

I hope this answers your question.

Mike

Hi, Duncan —

In a nutshell, leaving the Church, objectively speaking, is a grave sin but again I say, objectively speaking, because each individual's circumstance is different.

Often times people who have been lukewarm, cultural, Catholics will have some kind of conversion experience because a Protestant will share the Lord with them. Since Evangelical Christians present the gospel (as they understand it) in a very simple manner, often times lukewarm Catholics will understand this new presentation and have this experience where they "accept the Lord".

They blame the Church for not explaining it to them and leave. Now this may seem hard to understand, but these people are actually more Catholic then they were before they left. All those years of being cultural Catholics, who attended Church out of habit or maybe they didn't even attend all that often, now don't believe with their heads, but with their hearts. I'm not saying that their leaving is right. The right thing for them to do is find a good priest, who knows the Scriptures and cam explain it to them, but too often they don't bother.

I had just such a conversion and fortunately I could find a priest that answered my questions. Eventually, after being a Protestant minister, I began to study further on my own and returned to the Church so the Lord allowed me to take a detour in order to return to Him.

There are other cases where people have left the Church because they dissent from Catholic teaching or they may want to marry a Protestant (outside the Church), or they might want to remarry after a divorce without seeking an annulment. Well in these cases, these folks weren't altogether very Catholic in their beliefs. They may well have embraced the social gospel — "Love the neighbor and do good", but they haven't a clue about the nature of the Church. They may reject the moral teachings, and their theology is not very solid.

The technical word for these folks is heretic. That sounds a lot worse than it may be but they left the Church long before they changed their religious affiliation.

Whatever the situation, we need to treat these people with charity. We should share our relationship with the Lord and His Church with them. We need to pray for them and we need to understand that we can't beat them over the head with the Catechism.

It's God's job to give them the grace and open their eyes. Their job to accept the grace and see the truth. We can:

• plant a seed
• affirm the things they believe that are in keeping with the Church's teaching, and
• lovingly offer them information as the Holy Spirit leads.

We must also be witnesses with the lives we lead, careful always to avoid spiritual pride and self righteousness.

I hope this helps,

John