A return to the fold

Rev. Brian Joyce of Christ the King Church in Pleasant Hill is leading an effort to bring Catholics back to active church life.
The first time Joyce invited lapsed Catholics in for a chat, he drew a standing-room-only crowd -- "an even mix of the interested and the openly hostile."
But during the hours of give-and-take that followed, several decided to return to the church.
Since then, every three or four years, Joyce, who now leads Christ the King Church in Pleasant Hill, invites people who have left the church -- over old rules, new changes, abuse scandals, an interfaith marriage or hurt feelings -- to come in and talk about it, no strings attached.
People reveal myriad reasons for leaving the fold. "Some went back to changes 40, almost 50 years ago when the church went from Latin to English," Joyce said.
Of the more than 60 million Catholics in the country, about a third are inactive, said a Berkeley theologian. Disaffected Catholics seldom convert to other faiths and continue to identify themselves as Catholics after quitting the church, said Jerome Baggett, associate professor of religion and society at the Jesuit School of Theology, part of the Graduate School of Theology
Some leave, yet follow developments within the church nonetheless. And some "deflect in place," he said -- attending church, but on their own terms. To read the rest of the story, click here.