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The winding road to religious identity
Casey Pomicpic
Issue date: 3/4/08 Section: Features
Last week, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a survey that discovered more than forty percent of Americans have left the religion of their upbringing. The survey interviewed more than 35,000 Americans to find that people are experimenting with different religious organizations or abandoning institutionalized religion all together in greater numbers than ever before.
The survey also cites that about ten percent of all Americans are ex-Catholics.
I was raised Catholic. I was baptized as a baby, celebrated my first communion and confessed my first reconciliation as a child, and was confirmed at age 13. I spent my entire childhood attending weekly catechism classes.
I believe in a higher power and consider myself to be a very faithful individual. However, not having been to church since Christmas, absentmindedly forgetting to observe my Lenten sacrifice (no television for 40 days) on multiple occasions and now the publication of the Pew Forum survey, are all reminders that I am clearly slacking in the "good Catholic" category.
When the Washington Post's article on the Pew Forum survey described America as a "competitive religious marketplace," I was reminded why I firmly believe faith and religion to be separate from one another.
Faith is belief and confidence that is not based on proof. Religion is the organization of these beliefs and traditional practices agreed upon by a group of people. This "competitive religious marketplace" attempts to turn personal values into a commodity that can be bought and sold, underlining many fast growing religious organizations but disrespecting the honest vulnerability of faith.
It was not until I was 15 years old that I sincerely felt the presence of God for the first time in my life. I was at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, staring at the mountains and unable to breathe. I realized then how small and insignificant I was in the world. It was the most humbling experience of my life and the moment when my faith became solidified.
The survey also cites that about ten percent of all Americans are ex-Catholics.
I was raised Catholic. I was baptized as a baby, celebrated my first communion and confessed my first reconciliation as a child, and was confirmed at age 13. I spent my entire childhood attending weekly catechism classes.
I believe in a higher power and consider myself to be a very faithful individual. However, not having been to church since Christmas, absentmindedly forgetting to observe my Lenten sacrifice (no television for 40 days) on multiple occasions and now the publication of the Pew Forum survey, are all reminders that I am clearly slacking in the "good Catholic" category.
When the Washington Post's article on the Pew Forum survey described America as a "competitive religious marketplace," I was reminded why I firmly believe faith and religion to be separate from one another.
Faith is belief and confidence that is not based on proof. Religion is the organization of these beliefs and traditional practices agreed upon by a group of people. This "competitive religious marketplace" attempts to turn personal values into a commodity that can be bought and sold, underlining many fast growing religious organizations but disrespecting the honest vulnerability of faith.
It was not until I was 15 years old that I sincerely felt the presence of God for the first time in my life. I was at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, staring at the mountains and unable to breathe. I realized then how small and insignificant I was in the world. It was the most humbling experience of my life and the moment when my faith became solidified.
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