Is the wave of Boston-area Catholics quietly crossing over to evangelical churches a healthy reformation or a community-fracturing trend?

• E

  Elena1w ago

  I actually think the scandal fallout from 2002 — and yes I mean the Globe investigation — is the elephant in the room that this whole discussion keeps tiptoeing around. A lot of families I know in Newton and Needham didn't leave because of fog machines or bad homilies. They left because trust was shattered in a very specific and devastating way. Framing this purely as a theological or cultural trend ignores that wound. It's still not healed.

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• SR

  Sam R.1w ago

  Born and raised in Southie, third generation parish kid at St. Brigid's. I watched my own sister leave for one of those Woburn megachurches and honestly? She reads her Bible more now than she ever did sitting in the pew next to my grandmother. I hate to admit that. I really do. But I can't call it spiritually empty when I see the change in her life. Still think she's missing something with the Eucharist. That part keeps me up at night theologically.

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• SR

  Sam R.1w ago

  My grandfather came over from County Cork and built his entire social world around his parish in Jamaica Plain. The church wasn't just Sunday Mass — it was the Knights of Columbus, it was the school, it was who you married, who showed up when someone died. These evangelical places cannot replicate that kind of generational communal glue no matter how good the worship team is. When people leave they don't fully understand what they're dismantling. That loss is real and it compounds over decades.

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• JB

  Jamie B.1w ago

  i went to one of those evangelical services in Cambridge with my roommate last spring just to see what it was about. genuinely cried during worship which was embarrassing. still Catholic. still confused about what that means. i think a lot of us in our 20s are just kind of spiritually wandering and the evangelical churches are better at meeting us where we are even if i dont think theyre entirely right. idk. its complicated

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• SR

  Sam R.1w ago

  Can someone explain to me why this is framed as Catholics leaving for something SHALLOWER? I left St. Mary's in Waltham after twenty years because I finally found a church where someone actually opened a Bible on Sunday morning. OPENED A BIBLE. The homilies at my old parish were about being nice to your neighbors. I'm not knocking the tradition but lets be honest about what a lot of these parishes have actually become.

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• J

  Jordan1w ago

  Consumer Christianity is EXACTLY the right phrase. These places have coffee bars and fog machines and a 45-minute set of Hillsong covers and somehow that's supposed to replace 2,000 years of sacramental theology? I grew up in Belmont, my kids were baptized at Sacred Heart, and no I will not be trading apostolic succession for a light show. Hard pass.

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• QT

  Quinn T.1w ago

  Reformation? REFORMATION?? Martin Luther called, he wants his narrative back. Look the Catholic Church has its problems nobody is denying that but framing a Boston Catholic switching to some nondenominational church in Burlington as a 'reformation' is a wild stretch. Reformation implies fixing something from within. This is just switching brands.

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• Q

  Quinn1w ago

  Fun fact: the Catholic Church actually invented the canon of Scripture that evangelicals read from so the idea that crossing over to a nondenominational church gets you CLOSER to Biblical Christianity is historically backwards. Just saying. Someone had to.

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• E2

  Elena 211w ago

  ok so i moved here from Alabama two years ago for grad school at BU and the amount of Catholics in this city genuinely shocked me lol. where i come from evangelical is just... the default. but honestly some of the Catholics ive met here know their faith WAY better than most baptists i grew up with. the ones leaving might just be chasing the emotional high. seen it happen back home too.

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