When Adult Children Leave the Faith

It's a fear that most Catholic parents (or parents of any faith tradition) have - that their children will grow up and reject all that they have been taught in regards to their faith, that they will stop going to Church, or worse yet, stop believing in God. This has happened in my own family. My three nephews were all raised Catholic. None of them currently practice. One is an athiest. I worry about my own children, still far from adulthood. Every time they complain about going to Church on Sunday, I wonder whether the importance of that ritual will really take root in them. I wonder if they will ever see that it matters.

The July/August issue of Catholic Digest features a couple of articles on that very topic. Basically, the consensus is that all you can do in that situation is pray and offer a good example. There was a very good quote by Woodeene Koenig-Bricker who wrote:

An elderly woman whose children hadn't turned out well was asked how she could be so serene about it all. She answered, "Children are like cookies, and God isn't through baking mine yet." Pray always for your children and never lose hope that with a little more time in the oven, they will turn out right in the end. Though you can't guarantee that your kids will stay Catholic, you can guarantee that you've done your part in passing on the faith. What they do with it after that is up to them - and God.