"An index of Catholicism's decline"- Pat Buchanan

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An index of Catholicism’s decline
Posted: December 11, 2002
1:00 am Eastern

By Patrick J. Buchanan
© 2010 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

As the Watergate scandal of 1973-1974 diverted attention from the far greater tragedy unfolding in Southeast Asia, so, too, the scandal of predator-priests now afflicting the Catholic Church may be covering up a far greater calamity.

Thirty-seven years after the end of the only church council of the 20th century, the jury has come in with its verdict: Vatican II appears to have been an unrelieved disaster for Roman Catholicism.

Liars may figure, but figures do not lie. Kenneth C. Jones of St. Louis has pulled together a slim volume of statistics he has titled Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church Since Vatican II.

His findings make prophets of Catholic traditionalists who warned that Vatican II would prove a blunder of historic dimensions, and those same findings expose as foolish and naive those who believed a council could reconcile Catholicism and modernity. When Pope John XXIII threw open the windows of the church, all the poisonous vapors of modernity entered, along with the Devil himself.

Here are Jones’ grim statistics of Catholicism’s decline:

Priests. While the number of priests in the United States more than doubled to 58,000, between 1930 and 1965, since then that number has fallen to 45,000. By 2020, there will be only 31,000 priests left, and more than half of these priests will be over 70.

Ordinations. In 1965, 1,575 new priests were ordained in the United States. In 2002, the number was 450. In 1965, only 1 percent of U.S. parishes were without a priest. Today, there are 3,000 priestless parishes, 15 percent of all U.S. parishes.

Seminarians. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700, a decline of over 90 percent. Two-thirds of the 600 seminaries that were operating in 1965 have now closed.

Sisters. In 1965, there were 180,000 Catholic nuns. By 2002, that had fallen to 75,000 and the average age of a Catholic nun is today 68. In 1965, there were 104,000 teaching nuns. Today, there are 8,200, a decline of 94 percent since the end of Vatican II.

Religious Orders. For religious orders in America, the end is in sight. In 1965, 3,559 young men were studying to become Jesuit priests. In 2000, the figure was 389. With the Christian Brothers, the situation is even more dire. Their number has shrunk by two-thirds, with the number of seminarians falling 99 percent. In 1965, there were 912 seminarians in the Christian Brothers. In 2000, there were only seven. The number of young men studying to become Franciscan and Redemptorist priests fell from 3,379 in 1965 to 84 in 2000.

Catholic schools. Almost half of all Catholic high schools in the United States have closed since 1965. The student population has fallen from 700,000 to 386,000. Parochial schools suffered an even greater decline. Some 4,000 have disappeared, and the number of pupils attending has fallen below 2 million – from 4.5 million.
Though the number of U.S. Catholics has risen by 20 million since 1965, Jones’ statistics show that the power of Catholic belief and devotion to the Faith are not nearly what they were.

Catholic Marriage. Catholic marriages have fallen in number by one-third since 1965, while the annual number of annulments has soared from 338 in 1968 to 50,000 in 2002.

Attendance at Mass. A 1958 Gallup Poll reported that three in four Catholics attended church on Sundays. A recent study by the University of Notre Dame found that only one in four now attend.

Only 10 percent of lay religious teachers now accept church teaching on contraception. Fifty-three percent believe a Catholic can have an abortion and remain a good Catholic. Sixty-five percent believe that Catholics may divorce and remarry. Seventy-seven percent believe one can be a good Catholic without going to mass on Sundays. By one New York Times poll, 70 percent of all Catholics in the age group 18 to 44 believe the Eucharist is merely a “symbolic reminder” of Jesus.
At the opening of Vatican II, reformers were all the rage. They were going to lead us out of our Catholic ghettos by altering the liturgy, rewriting the Bible and missals, abandoning the old traditions, making us more ecumenical, and engaging the world. And their legacy?

Four decades of devastation wrought upon the church, and the final disgrace of a hierarchy that lacked the moral courage of the Boy Scouts to keep the perverts out of the seminaries, and throw them out of the rectories and schools of Holy Mother Church.

Through the papacy of Pius XII, the church resisted the clamor to accommodate itself to the world and remained a moral beacon to mankind. Since Vatican II, the church has sought to meet the world halfway.

Jones’ statistics tell us the price of appeasement.
 
Here’s an idea; what else happened between 1960 and 2010? More than Vatican II, more than the release of the Mass of Paul VI. Something else happened.

Humanae Vitae happened.

The 70’s were the 70’s, and the Church took an official stance on the issues of fornication, abortion, and artificial birth control. When popular (ie; society at large) opinion was in favor of the “sexual revolution”, it’s obvious that there will be backlash against the Church when they produced a document saying “we’re not caving on this”. Eventually, over the course of time, people realized the Church was not going to change. Thus there were two options; leave or simply disobey.

You see now today how over-sexualized things have become. Some people don’t bat an eye anymore about what is even considered PG-13. This is purely my opinion, but I personally think that this would have happened anyway based on societal trends.

VII had nothing to do with it, the OF has nothing to do with it.

The “sexual revolution” happened, changed societal norms, and the Church stood firm. Something had to give, and in this case it’s numbers.
 
Let me suggest other reasons for the decline of Catholicism, among them:
  1. Traditional organized religion generally has suffered in recent years. The only ones who may have gained have been evangelical Protestants. Mainline churches in the US have lost heavily in membership. A backlash against religion has been spurred on by a media that is not friendly (or indifferent) - to Christianity in particular. The impact of the media is key.
Code: 
2. Catholics - when I was young - were less educated (I'm up in my senior years) and generally believed what they were told. Today Catholics are much better educated and are far more likely to think for themselves. This has led to considerable doubt about some of the main doctrines of the church. For example, I believe I saw a poll of Catholic saying that 43% don't believe in transubstantiation - maybe even higher, depending upon how the question is asked. There are more and more doubters when it comes to the Immaculate Conception, the authority of the Pope and Magisterium, and other basics of the church, Large numbers - majorities, as I recall? - favor the marriage of priests and millions believe in the ordination of women. 

 3. The sex scandal has badly injured the church, especially alienating those already skeptical.

  4. Catholics have increasingly become part of mainstream America. New immigrants years ago often clustered around their churches, sent their children to parochial schools, attended mass every Sunday, and were enormously 'tribalistic' - Irish-Catholics, Polish-Catholics, Slovak-Catholics, Italian-Catholics, etc. Ethnic churches are nearly gone. The old cohesion has all but disappeared. In the old days Catholics were forbidden to enter Catholic churches. Since then millions have intermarried, have Protestant sons-in-law, attend baptisms, weddings, and funerals in Protestant churches, and no longer see Protestants as heretics but as friendly neighbors and fellow Christians. The concept of the 'one true church' has been rejected by most Catholics.

   5. The position of the priest has changed. Years ago the priest was a powerful authority figure within the Catholic community. Most priests are respected still, but they no longer can tell their parishioners what to think and do, and if they try they risk losing them.

   6. Catholic families are much smaller now, in large measure because Catholics overwhelmingly ignore the official church position on birth control (and many resent the effort of the church to invade their personal lives in that fashion). With only two or three children, most parents are not eager to see a son become a priest or a daughter become a nun. Grandchildren are a greater priority. When they were more devout and had 6, 9, even more children they often encouraged one or more to commit lives to the church. Rarely today.

   7. The feminist movement also injured the appeal of convents.

   There are other factors, but I'll stop here.
 
Hm? I mistyped. I meant, of course, that Catholics were forbidden to enter non-Catholic churches. That change can be attributed to Vatican II, but to keep the ban would have caused even more of a problem. The very atmosphere here in America encourages interfaith acceptance. Religious ‘prejudice’ - the ‘one true church’ idea - seems out of whack with the American ethos that says toleration of other faiths is part of being a good citizen. Years ago for Chelsea Clinton to marry a Jew would have been seen as a scandal by many - perhaps most. Today it is regarded as a symbol of American diversity and broad-mindedness.
Let me quickly add that 'devout Catholics" like Mel Gibson severely hurt the image of the church. I had Protestant relatives (now deceased) who regarded Hitler, Mussolini and Franco as Catholics, which added to their deep distrust of Catholicism.
 
Roy5 said:
I had Protestant relatives (now deceased) who regarded Hitler, Mussolini and Franco as Catholics, which added to their deep distrust of Catholicism.
Click to expand...
Your protestant relatives were grossly uninformed about a person’s supposed Catholic identity. At least two of the three you have mentioned persecuted Catholics.

In addition, if they also believed that any KKK member was Catholic (the KKK are highly sympathetic to Hitler’s evil ‘cause’), it is not widely known at this time, but it is a fact that after Black Americans, Catholics were second on their list of hate. Jewish people were third.

Also, in my opinion, it is not rational to judge a global church based on one private citizens’ (celebrity or not) immoral behavior,
 
More statistics:

Total number of Catholics worldwide, 33: 12
2007: 1.1 billion
 
Melchior said:
Yup. I believe there would have been mass (no pun intended) defections from the Church regardless of the new Form and a legit Council.
Click to expand...
Dear friend, consider your words (not quoted but posted earlier) :

You wrote of
“societal trends,”
as being a
“revolution.”

People wearing blue rather than black is indicative of a societal change or trend, but certainly not in itself a “revolution” (though such changes can be by-products of revolutions or revolutionary norms, and indicative that things are changing). “Revolutions” do not just happen : they are plotted, orchestrated. They are not random occurences.

The “sexual revolution” was foisted on people and had a source ; otherwise, it would not be “revolutionary” and would simply be a “trend”, but I can think of no reasonable person who believes the force, rapidity and almost violently radical (or perhaps “extreme”) change of the sexual revolution could be numbed-down to that of a trend.

Finally, I do not think the addition of new terminology and an inner re-working within the Church could have in any wise assisted countering the sexual revolution : the Church was occupied going from the Old Rite to the New, and explaining and effecting that, while also trying to temper the sexual revolution, which her warnings and condemnations of that revolution are now truly prophetic.

If the Church needed a counter-reformation to combat the Protestant errors, it could be argued she needs a sort of counter-revolution to combat sexual licientiousness. Now, had that been the purpose of the (or a) council - namely, combatting revolutionary errors that not only spread errors but are cause for endless human sorrow and misery - then maybe we may have faired better during the “sexual revolution” or might yet still.

ADDED : Though, I feel uncharitable as regards Divine Providence. Undoubtedly the Lord knew and foresaw all these things, and who are we to know what time will bring forth or history will record in the end?
 
Roy5 said:
Let me suggest other reasons for the decline of Catholicism, among them:
  1. Traditional organized religion generally has suffered in recent years. The only ones who may have gained have been evangelical Protestants. Mainline churches in the US have lost heavily in membership. A backlash against religion has been spurred on by a media that is not friendly (or indifferent) - to Christianity in particular. The impact of the media is key. - Yes, my opinion too
Code: 
2. Catholics - when I was young - were less educated (I'm up in my senior years) and generally believed what they were told. Today Catholics are much better educated and are far more likely to think for themselves. This has led to considerable doubt about some of the main doctrines of the church. For example, I believe I saw a poll of Catholic saying that 43% don't believe in transubstantiation - maybe even higher, depending upon how the question is asked. There are more and more doubters when it comes to the Immaculate Conception, the authority of the Pope and Magisterium, and other basics of the church, Large numbers - majorities, as I recall? - favor the marriage of priests and millions believe in the ordination of women. - We live in an age of advanced technology and science so people are doubting the mystical

 3. The sex scandal has badly injured the church, especially alienating those already skeptical.

  4. Catholics have increasingly become part of mainstream America...  millions have intermarried...  and no longer see Protestants as heretics but as friendly neighbors and fellow Christians. The concept of the 'one true church' has been rejected by most Catholics.  aka Relativism, though I think even St. Padre Pio considered Protestants fellow Christians

   5. The position of the priest has changed. Years ago the priest was a powerful authority figure within the Catholic community. Most priests are respected still, but they no longer can tell their parishioners what to think and do, and if they try they risk losing them.

   6. Catholic families are much smaller now, in large measure because Catholics overwhelmingly ignore the official church position on birth control (and many resent the effort of the church to invade their personal lives in that fashion). With only two or three children, most parents are not eager to see a son become a priest or a daughter become a nun. Grandchildren are a greater priority. When they were more devout and had 6, 9, even more children they often encouraged one or more to commit lives to the church. Rarely today.

   7. The feminist movement also injured the appeal of convents. birth control and abortion

   There are other factors, but I'll stop here.
Click to expand...
Good list, and there are lots of factors. Instead of another counter-reformation I think the church needs a new Pentecost as Pope John XXIII hoped for.
 
Melchior said:
Here’s an idea; what else happened between 1960 and 2010? More than Vatican II, more than the release of the Mass of Paul VI. Something else happened.

Humanae Vitae happened.
Click to expand...
This theory gets thrown around a lot. It may be true but do you have any statistics to show how many people the Church attracted right after Progressio Populorum, which gave the appearance that people could use their consciences in preventing conception, was written before Humanae Vitae?
 
Roy5 said:
Let me suggest other reasons for the decline of Catholicism, among them:
  1. Traditional organized religion generally has suffered in recent years. The only ones who may have gained have been evangelical Protestants. Mainline churches in the US have lost heavily in membership. A backlash against religion has been spurred on by a media that is not friendly (or indifferent) - to Christianity in particular. The impact of the media is key.
Code: 
2. Catholics - when I was young - were less educated (I'm up in my senior years) and generally believed what they were told. Today Catholics are much better educated and are far more likely to think for themselves. This has led to considerable doubt about some of the main doctrines of the church. For example, I believe I saw a poll of Catholic saying that 43% don't believe in transubstantiation - maybe even higher, depending upon how the question is asked. There are more and more doubters when it comes to the Immaculate Conception, the authority of the Pope and Magisterium, and other basics of the church, Large numbers - majorities, as I recall? - favor the marriage of priests and millions believe in the ordination of women. 

 3. The sex scandal has badly injured the church, especially alienating those already skeptical.

  4. Catholics have increasingly become part of mainstream America. New immigrants years ago often clustered around their churches, sent their children to parochial schools, attended mass every Sunday, and were enormously 'tribalistic' - Irish-Catholics, Polish-Catholics, Slovak-Catholics, Italian-Catholics, etc. Ethnic churches are nearly gone. The old cohesion has all but disappeared. In the old days Catholics were forbidden to enter Catholic churches. Since then millions have intermarried, have Protestant sons-in-law, attend baptisms, weddings, and funerals in Protestant churches, and no longer see Protestants as heretics but as friendly neighbors and fellow Christians. The concept of the 'one true church' has been rejected by most Catholics.

   5. The position of the priest has changed. Years ago the priest was a powerful authority figure within the Catholic community. Most priests are respected still, but they no longer can tell their parishioners what to think and do, and if they try they risk losing them.

   6. Catholic families are much smaller now, in large measure because Catholics overwhelmingly ignore the official church position on birth control (and many resent the effort of the church to invade their personal lives in that fashion). With only two or three children, most parents are not eager to see a son become a priest or a daughter become a nun. Grandchildren are a greater priority. When they were more devout and had 6, 9, even more children they often encouraged one or more to commit lives to the church. Rarely today.

   7. The feminist movement also injured the appeal of convents.

   There are other factors, but I'll stop here.
Click to expand...
Thankfully, the majority of Catholics today think for themselves; they are no longer willing to accept teachings simply “because the pope says so”. They are reading scripture for themselves. Most of my family members are devout Catholics; they try to obey God’s commandments, but not necessarily the manmade rules of the Catholic Church. They vote according to their conscience, not the “official Catholic voter’s guide”.
 
I believe it is pop culture media combined with profit motivation. It became clear in the 70s (when media started introducing more sex) that people could be led around like a bull with a ring through it’s nose a la Freud’s “id.” The id is the impulsive, child-like portion of the psyche that operates on the “pleasure principle” and only takes into account what it wants and disregards all consequences. It was easy to bombard society with messages of love-less sex, drugs, gambling, etc. in TV, movies, and music. They could distract people from the Church and make good money at it. People have become more distracted from True Love due to the media’s appeals to the basic instincts. This is turning more people into selfish simpletons who lust for immediate gratification brain pleasure through love-less sex, drugs, food, gambling, etc. by only wanting what they want and not caring about sacrificing for others, except in words of good will (but less in deeds). They’ve glorified it and remarketed it as “independent individualism.”

Men lust for the scantilly-clad hotties in the media = men get distracted from their wives = men are less interested in family life = women get mad at men = blame men for society’s problems. The Church has a finite set of rules for behavior, but the puppetmaster media’s
desire to distract our ids will be stronger unless we open our minds to see how they are controlling society’s values.

If you give taxpayers the opportunity to not pay taxes and kids the opportunity to stay home from school, most people will seize the opportunity. The difference is that govt. is making them comply. There’s no one enforcing Church rules in free society, so there needs to be a value added attraction to it. True, romantic Love and a Covenant for behavior is what many young women seek. So, there’s your opportunity for an appeal.

I agree with Roy’s assessment that when parents only have 1 or 2 kids, they don’t necessarily want them to become priests or nuns. With all the sex in the media, it’s going to be more challenging to attract priests and nuns. Besides, it’s not uncommon to see families with only 1 or 2 kids who are never forced to struggle become adults who are intolerant of sacrificing time and attention for marriage and kids in this unromantic society that promotes selfishness disguised as independent individualism.

A Catholic Renaissance could take place if the following occurs:
  1. people minimize their exposure to the unelected media. Who is the media? They’re nobody. We are not betrothed to their values, or lack thereof. We could really use a Catholic Tv station on the order of the show “Happy Days,” entertaining, yet not toxic to the culture.
  2. women (the primary household spenders) stop financially supporting media which will destroy families. I’m not putting all the responsibility on women, because we men should also do our part, but women alone could enact such powerful change once a substantial percentage of women network and spread the word. This would be romantic change we can believe in. The media has been fairly successful in propagandizing the minds of people into the exact opposite of what we really need. Now we’ll see who is truly open-minded to consider this idea instead of the close-minded propaganda that the media is promoting.
  3. To address overpopulation concerns: Parents practice NFP for the highest quality intimacy, with symphonies spaced farther apart to increase anticipation, desire, and seduction. Yes, people will be more likely to have 3 or 4 kids, but larger families have been shown to be forced to take turns, sacrifice for each other, delay gratification, be more resourceful, and be tougher, which allows more sacrifice for the next generation.
 
Buchanan is right on the money. While there are other factors to blame for the erosion of Catholic values in the laity as well as the decline of the Faith, the primary responsibility is on the shepherds, not the sheep.

Sheep will always go astray if they are not led strictly and without fail.
 
notredame_999 said:
An index of Catholicism’s decline
Posted: December 11, 2002
1:00 am Eastern

By Patrick J. Buchanan
© 2010 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

As the Watergate scandal of 1973-1974 diverted attention from the far greater tragedy unfolding in Southeast Asia, so, too, the scandal of predator-priests now afflicting the Catholic Church may be covering up a far greater calamity.

Thirty-seven years after the end of the only church council of the 20th century, the jury has come in with its verdict: Vatican II appears to have been an unrelieved disaster for Roman Catholicism.

Liars may figure, but figures do not lie. Kenneth C. Jones of St. Louis has pulled together a slim volume of statistics he has titled Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church Since Vatican II.

His findings make prophets of Catholic traditionalists who warned that Vatican II would prove a blunder of historic dimensions, and those same findings expose as foolish and naive those who believed a council could reconcile Catholicism and modernity. When Pope John XXIII threw open the windows of the church, all the poisonous vapors of modernity entered, along with the Devil himself.

Here are Jones’ grim statistics of Catholicism’s decline:

Priests. While the number of priests in the United States more than doubled to 58,000, between 1930 and 1965, since then that number has fallen to 45,000. By 2020, there will be only 31,000 priests left, and more than half of these priests will be over 70.

Ordinations. In 1965, 1,575 new priests were ordained in the United States. In 2002, the number was 450. In 1965, only 1 percent of U.S. parishes were without a priest. Today, there are 3,000 priestless parishes, 15 percent of all U.S. parishes.

Seminarians. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700, a decline of over 90 percent. Two-thirds of the 600 seminaries that were operating in 1965 have now closed.

Sisters. In 1965, there were 180,000 Catholic nuns. By 2002, that had fallen to 75,000 and the average age of a Catholic nun is today 68. In 1965, there were 104,000 teaching nuns. Today, there are 8,200, a decline of 94 percent since the end of Vatican II.

Religious Orders. For religious orders in America, the end is in sight. In 1965, 3,559 young men were studying to become Jesuit priests. In 2000, the figure was 389. With the Christian Brothers, the situation is even more dire. Their number has shrunk by two-thirds, with the number of seminarians falling 99 percent. In 1965, there were 912 seminarians in the Christian Brothers. In 2000, there were only seven. The number of young men studying to become Franciscan and Redemptorist priests fell from 3,379 in 1965 to 84 in 2000.

Catholic schools. Almost half of all Catholic high schools in the United States have closed since 1965. The student population has fallen from 700,000 to 386,000. Parochial schools suffered an even greater decline. Some 4,000 have disappeared, and the number of pupils attending has fallen below 2 million – from 4.5 million.
Though the number of U.S. Catholics has risen by 20 million since 1965, Jones’ statistics show that the power of Catholic belief and devotion to the Faith are not nearly what they were.

Catholic Marriage. Catholic marriages have fallen in number by one-third since 1965, while the annual number of annulments has soared from 338 in 1968 to 50,000 in 2002.

Attendance at Mass. A 1958 Gallup Poll reported that three in four Catholics attended church on Sundays. A recent study by the University of Notre Dame found that only one in four now attend.

Only 10 percent of lay religious teachers now accept church teaching on contraception. Fifty-three percent believe a Catholic can have an abortion and remain a good Catholic. Sixty-five percent believe that Catholics may divorce and remarry. Seventy-seven percent believe one can be a good Catholic without going to mass on Sundays. By one New York Times poll, 70 percent of all Catholics in the age group 18 to 44 believe the Eucharist is merely a “symbolic reminder” of Jesus.
At the opening of Vatican II, reformers were all the rage. They were going to lead us out of our Catholic ghettos by altering the liturgy, rewriting the Bible and missals, abandoning the old traditions, making us more ecumenical, and engaging the world. And their legacy?

Four decades of devastation wrought upon the church, and the final disgrace of a hierarchy that lacked the moral courage of the Boy Scouts to keep the perverts out of the seminaries, and throw them out of the rectories and schools of Holy Mother Church.

Through the papacy of Pius XII, the church resisted the clamor to accommodate itself to the world and remained a moral beacon to mankind. Since Vatican II, the church has sought to meet the world halfway.

Jones’ statistics tell us the price of appeasement.
Click to expand...
***No what this tells us is that when priest fail to accept the extraordinary graces offered to them by God, and freely choose to not just sin; but to violate there Sacred Covenant with God, with God’s people and with God’s Church…there will always be a H… of a price to pay. One cannot violate there Sacred Vows with impunity. Further, the implication here is that this problem is ONLY a Catholic Problem….Ridiculous! As pathetic, vulgar, sick and perverted as it is; we are not the only ones suffering this inflection of misplaced trust.

These stats ought to motivate us to learn and to share our faith and practice it fully and with the utmost piety.

Love and prayers,

Pat***
 
Roy5 said:
Hm? I mistyped. I meant, of course, that Catholics were forbidden to enter non-Catholic churches. That change can be attributed to Vatican II, but to keep the ban would have caused even more of a problem. The very atmosphere here in America encourages interfaith acceptance. Religious ‘prejudice’ - the ‘one true church’ idea - seems out of whack with the American ethos that says toleration of other faiths is part of being a good citizen. Years ago for Chelsea Clinton to marry a Jew would have been seen as a scandal by many - perhaps most. Today it is regarded as a symbol of American diversity and broad-mindedness.
Code: 
 Let me quickly add that 'devout Catholics" like Mel Gibson severely hurt the image of the church. I had Protestant relatives (now deceased) who regarded Hitler, Mussolini and Franco as Catholics, which added to their deep distrust of Catholicism.
Click to expand...
My father a Catholic, my mother, a Baptist were married in the Catholic Church in 1956. My siblings and I were raised Catholic. We also went to my mother’s church. I don’t recall wearing a hat to mass after 1969 or so. I started catechism class at the age of 7 and don’t remember ever hearing the Catholic Church is the “one true” Church. My parents were married close to 50 yrs when my dad passed away. My sister married a Methodist and my brother married a Church of the Nazerene (holiness) in the Catholic Church in 1981 and 1990 respectively. My nephew was raised Catholic. My brother and sis in law do not have children.

Roy is correct about the “education” aspect. My grandparents were immigrants…not very educated…if the Church said so, it was right. And no child back in the day would have told their parents a priest touched them inappropriately…because the priest was always right. It wasn’t until people realized that priests put their pants on one leg at a time and are just as “human” as the rest of us…things changed. Children are now taught…no one has the right to abuse you. Women now are taught “you do have a brain”, use it. A woman can be a scientist and a mom. A man can be nuturing dad and be “there” for his children.
The economy has forced both parents to work…to afford a home to “live” in. Women used to have babies at home…my grandmothers did…no hospital or doctors bills…no worries about the high cost of insurance. Women were not encouraged to get an “education” in my grandmothers day…even in my mom’s day.
 
In my opinion this year should be the Year of Reconciliation, a renewed focus on frequent, sincere, Confession. Formation on how to approach/go to / perform Confession, how to link frequent confession to daily examination, how to form a useful purpose of amendment, how to have a manly/womanly confession.

All the candle counting, this rite, that rite, handhold here, hand shake there is a huge distraction from our pursuit of holiness.

If you don’t think the priestly sexual abuse issue has at least some roots in half-confessions by us, you’re fooling yourself.

No more finger pointing or games of “rites”. Get back to personal holiness, more daily Mass attendance, sincere confession, better more regular mental prayer. Let’s do that for 10 years and the statistics will fix themselves.

Imagine being a well meaning, striving priest leaving the Confessional on a Saturday afternoon after hearing a bunch of excuse making whiny worry warts or wannabes. What’s on that poor priest mind and soul? Half confessions…half lusts, half adulteries, lies, half resentments, excuses, some one in need of tissue vs. a soul cleansing,’

That GEICO commercial with the “former Drill Sergeant” is just what I am talking about

youtube.com/watch?v=JhlWddAXSRA
 
Priscilla_Ann said:
Thankfully, the majority of Catholics today think for themselves; they are no longer willing to accept teachings simply “because the pope says so”. They are reading scripture for themselves. Most of my family members are devout Catholics; they try to obey God’s commandments, but not necessarily the manmade rules of the Catholic Church. They vote according to their conscience, not the “official Catholic voter’s guide”.
Click to expand...
Salvation by works is not only foreign to the Catholic Faith, but Protestantism as well, and Christianity absolutely.

Not even sola-scriptura warrants such a “do as thou wilt” philosophy.

“For themselves,” you say ? Then “save yourself” is what you say.
 
Priscilla_Ann said:
Thankfully, the majority of Catholics today think for themselves; they are no longer willing to accept teachings simply “because the pope says so”. They are reading scripture for themselves. Most of my family members are devout Catholics; they try to obey God’s commandments, but not necessarily the manmade rules of the Catholic Church. They vote according to their conscience, not the “official Catholic voter’s guide”.
Click to expand...
Problem with this of course is N number of “interpretations” from “spirit led” “well meaning” people, as googlmaps of “christian and church” will reveal.

“Thinking for themselves” has actually lead to “willing for myself”. Voting with a half-formed or un-formed or badly formed consciences is another danger. Free will is misunderstood…and if you ask any of the above example people: they’ll tell you that it means to do what you want.

The “official” Catholic church has spent an enormous amount of thinking and intellectual development around the “formation of conscience” which is sadly not even known about, less read, less understood, and even less followed by the “lone riders” mentioned above.

Hearing elsewhere that “my opinion is as good as 2000 years worth of substantial thinkers” actually is considered by many lone riders a plausible and accepted response. It’s offered as an intellectual retort by college educated people.
 
Edward_H said:
Problem with this of course is N number of “interpretations” from “spirit led” “well meaning” people, as googlmaps of “christian and church” will reveal.

“Thinking for themselves” has actually lead to “willing for myself”. Voting with a half-formed or un-formed or badly formed consciences is another danger. Free will is misunderstood…and if you ask any of the above example people: they’ll tell you that it means to do what you want.

The “official” Catholic church has spent an enormous amount of thinking and intellectual development around the “formation of conscience” which is sadly not even known about, less read, less understood, and even less followed by the “lone riders” mentioned above.

Hearing elsewhere that “my opinion is as good as 2000 years worth of **substantial thinkers” **actually is considered by many lone riders a plausible and accepted response. It’s offered as an intellectual retort by college educated people.
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