By Robert Lazu Kmita

A recent article by Michael Rota and Stephen Bullivant, "Religious Transmission: A Solution to the Church's Biggest Problem," published in Church Life Journal, has sparked reactions in several quarters because of its main contention: that nine out of ten people born Catholic leave the Church.

The exodus of adults, and especially of adolescents and young people, is one of the most troubling symptoms of the deep crisis in Christian life, not only within our Church but in our whole culture. (I believe that the most terrible and widespread malady is the contraceptive mentality, but also the abortion regime to which it leads. All other problems reflect this slow suicide of communities in the Western world that have ceased to procreate.)

Regarding the exodus of young people in particular, an in-depth examination and concrete suggestions are absolutely necessary. But before that - just as in the case of patients with multiple severe symptoms - it's essential to establish an accurate diagnosis that will reveal the hidden causes of the "illness." My perspective on all this is somewhat unusual these days: that of a convert from the "Orthodox" Church to the Roman Catholic Church.

What I noticed after I asked (in 2000) to be received into full communion with the Roman Church (thus returning to the Church of my Polish ancestors) was a grave crisis of Catholic identity. Without exaggeration, I dare to say that the Catholic identity of a frighteningly large number of believers today is in dissolution. This crisis, obviously, can only lead to the alienation and indifference that easily result in the exodus denounced by Rota, Bullivant, and others.

To better understand the causes, it's worth briefly defining what we mean by "Catholic identity." My starting point is the classic "Act of Faith":

O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in three divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; I believe that Thy divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.

Anyone who believes what is so succinctly stated here can be considered a Christian (i.e., Catholic). To this, I would add the need for the conviction that the Catholic Church is the one and the same Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ.

No other community or "church" can be considered such. Moreover, no other community or "church" can offer its believers salvation. Heresies and the state of schism from the true Church are real dangers that prevent full conversion and, ultimately, the salvation of souls.

Of course, this does not exclude the fact that God can save souls even from those other communities. However, this necessarily implies that they enter into communion with the Catholic Church at least via "baptism of desire."

Catholics today no longer believe - like Saint Cyprian - that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus). Inter-religious dialogue and ecumenism, the practical pluralism of today's world, and the lack 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 believers showed me a certain sympathy at my conversion, many others expressed puzzlement: What is the point of converting from the "Orthodox" to the Catholic Church? Aren't they the same thing? You cannot imagine how many times I have been asked this question.

For me, here's a significant detail: in "Orthodox" churches and in Protestant and Neo-Protestant communities, Catholics are continually presented as heretics, apostates, etc. For example, well-known monks in Romania constantly claim that since the Great Schism (1054), there has been no Church in the West. They also say that Ca...