How Can I Help A Friend Who Is Considering Leaving The Church?

We’d encourage your friend to spend some time before our Lord in Eucharistic adoration, whether the Blessed Sacrament is exposed or not, and pour out their heart to the Lord. And encourage your friend to do so periodically and ask Jesus to help them experience their discipleship more fruitfully.

In addition, ask your friend why they want to leave the Church. Did they have a bad experience personally by a representative of the Church? Or are they upset about something else going on in the Church? We should never let anyone or anything keep us from regularly encountering our Eucharistic Lord.

Also, is there an underlying lifestyle issue that is leading your friend to want to leave the Church? Remind your friend that it is better to carry our cross in a redemptively suffering manner (Matt. 16:24-25) than to lay down that cross, because Our Lord and his Church have the truth that sets us free, now and forever (John 8:31-32) and the incomparable peace which the world cannot give. Encourage them also to talk with their parish pastor as well; perhaps they are in need of a good confession, as the Sacrament of Reconciliation provides us our Lord’s healing in different ways.

In any event, you and your friend’s other good Catholic friends should let your friend know how much you all care for your friend, and that you will continue to be their friend, even if they leave the Church. This is true accompaniment befitting a disciple of the Good Shepherd, who always continues to seek out a wayward sheep (see Matt. 18:12-13; Luke 15:1-7).