"Ask Father:" I struggle with despair at the future of the Church. I Sometimes Wonder If I Will Die a Catholic. ---How a Priest Responded to This Admi

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“Yet, I struggle with despair at the future of the Church. Between the news of the scandals and what’s happening in Rome, I find it my faith regularly disturbed. I often seriously wonder whether I will die a Catholic, because there are days – increasingly more in recent months – where I think of giving up entirely. Why bother when it seems as if so few of the Church’s priests and bishops believe in her teachings?” he said.

The priest said to him…
 
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There are a lot of worrying signs in the Church. If a person is not worried, they’re just not paying attention. There may be worse things to come.
 
otrrl said:
There are a lot of worrying signs in the Church. If a person is not worried, they’re just not paying attention. There may be worse things to come.
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Heaven forbid those worse things include people who love the Church deciding to leave in despair rather than staying in courage.

We can look back at the great saints and know that they did not do this. We need to follow their examples.
 
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otrrl said:
There are a lot of worrying signs in the Church. If a person is not worried, they’re just not paying attention. There may be worse things to come.
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If you are worrying about the future of the Church, then you do not trust Jesus, who promised to protect her.

To be sure, we’re in for a rough road in the future. It’s probably going to become very hard to be a Catholic, at least for a while. In then end though, we will prevail, whether that be the end of this era of history, or the actual end of the world.

We’ve been here before, and in all likelihood we’ll be here again. We humans tend to repeat our mistakes.
 
Why do people prefer to worry about the state of “the Church”, a huge topic beyond most people’s control except for praying, rather than worrying about the state of one’s own soul, a topic one can definitely do something about?

It’s like people who worry all day about national matters instead of figuring out how they can concretely improve something in their own life or own neighborhood.
 
My Savior was not a liar. He said the gates of hell would not prevail.

Jesus, I trust in you.
 
I’m struggling as well. Our current pope has said many very confusing things, things that could vary definitely be considered to contradict Jesus himself, to say nothing of the scandals currently raging. I’ve tried reading books like The Confessions and the Interior Castle, but nothing is helping. I sometimes feel like a reverse CS Lewis, if that makes sense. Lewis said he was dragged into the church kicking and screaming. I sometimes feel like I’m being pushed out kicking and screaming.

People my age (early 30s) Just don’t care about this stuff anymore. They don’t believe in eternal life, and wouldn’t want it (at least not consciously) even if they did believe. To them we’re basically selling four-legged pants. People talk about the new evangelization, but we’re not presenting a compelling case to the rest of the world. A decade ago traditionalists were worried that nobody talked about Hell anymore. Now nobody talks about Heaven anymore; I mean we don’t tell people WHY they should believe in Jesus or the Church. I feel like it’s a lost cause, at least here in America, because of the pervasive “don’t tell me how to live my life” mentality.

And that’s not even getting into the scandals. I heard a priest on the radio talking about the issue, and the despair in his voice was palpable. He pointed out rightly that we have to back up our penances with firm action to be sure this sort of thing is dealt with properly in the future. But I’m afraid that won’t be enough to restore trust (what little it had in the English-speaking world over the last 500 years anyway.) Considering people are still hung up on the Crusades et al, there’s pretty much nothing short of a miracle that will dig us out of this PR nightmare in my lifetime. GK Chesterton said that, to some people, any stick was good enough to beat the Church with, and we handed them a flail.

All I can ask for at this point is prayer.
 
What does the article mean when it says Pope Francis is interested in peripheries?
 
Give me a little while. I will translate his own words. Even when he was an Archbishop.

The existencial peripheries,as the encounter,the culture of the discardable,among others,will be recurrent topics close to his heart,close to the heart of the Gospels.

…
"The idea arises, in Bergoglio, from his pastoral vocation in the years when he was bishop of the Argentine capital. As stated on October 4, 2013: "It is an element that I lived a lot when I was in Buenos Aires: the importance of going out to meet the other, the peripheries, which are places, but are mostly people in special situations of life . (…) A periphery that made me very bad/sad was to find in middle-class families children who did not know how to make the sign of the cross. This is a periphery! (…) These are true existential peripheries, where God is not. "

EVANGELIZE THE PERIPHERIES

by Jorge Mario Bergoglio

Reference was made to evangelization. It is the reason for being of the Church. “The sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing” (Paul VI). It is the same Jesus Christ who, from within, impels us.

1. Evangelization implies apostolic zeal. To evangelize supposes in the Church the parrhesia of leaving herself. The Church is called to leave herslf and go to the peripheries, not only the geographical ones, but also the existential peripheries: those of the mystery of sin, those of pain, those of injustice, those of ignorance and religious ignorance, of thought, those of all misery.

2. When the Church does not leave herself to evangelize, it becomes self-referential and then becomes ill (cf. the woman bent over herself in the Gospel). The evils that, in the course of time, occur in ecclesial institutions are rooted in self-referentiality, a kind of theological narcissism. In the Apocalypse Jesus says he is at the door and knocks. Obviously the text refers to knocking the door from the outside to enter … But I think about the times when Jesus strikes from within to let us out. The self-referential Church seeks Jesus Christ within himself and does not let it go out.

3. The Church, when it is self-referential, without realizing it, believes that it has its own light; it ceases to be the “mysterium lunae” and gives rise to that grave evil that is spiritual worldliness (According to De Lubac, the worst evil that can happen to the Church). That live to give glory to one another. Simplifying; There are two images of Church: the evangelizing Church that comes out of itself; the “Dei Verbum religiose audiens et fidenter proclamans”, or the mundane Church that lives in itself, of itself, for itself. This should shed light on the possible changes and reforms that must be made for the salvation of souls.

4. Thinking of the next Pope: a man who, from the contemplation of Jesus Christ and from the adoration of Jesus Christ, helps the Church to leave itself towards the existential peripheries, which will help her to be the fertile mother who lives from "the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing. "

Rome, March 9, 2013
( this was the speech to the cardinals in the Pre Conclave,a few days before becoming Pope.)
 
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I read that statement as meaning that he thinks Francis isn’t interested in the big things going on in the church but on items on the edges or peripheral things. It’s sorta like saying Francis is ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room while he focuses on watering the plants and dusting.

No disrespect is meant to Pope Francis in my reply.
 
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Cruciferi said:
I’m not worried and I’m paying attention. However, I am jaded and not easily shocked. :man_shrugging:t2:
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That makes two of us 🙂
Catholicism started with 12 guys and a woman in one room.
If it shrinks back down to that number again, my priority is to be one of the people in the room.

Trust me, if things got really bad, like the bomb was going to go off tomorrow, all of a sudden a whole lot of people would be packing the church again and whether the Pope said tomayto or tomahto suddenly wouldn’t matter.
 
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normdplume said:
What does the article mean when it says Pope Francis is interested in peripheries?
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When you’ve been an archbishop, your awareness of being “at the center” would naturally be quite a bit different than what people in the pews might mean by that.

I take him to mean by “the peripheries” those who are just outside or those who are just barely inside the Church, the ones who are easily neglected by those who are privileged enough to live at the center. In other words, I think he means the Church needs the attitude that the clergy’s life revolves around the flock, not the other way around…and he was addressing brother priests and brother bishops.

I think he means being willing to leave the 99 in order to seek out the one who is lost.
 
Didn’t Jesus warned the Pharisees about this complete blind trust on their own justice?
 
Yes, but we are not trusting in the Pharasies. We’re trusting in Jesus’ promise.
 
Our founder knew all of this would happen. Do you think Satan and Hell will go after any other church but the true church so violently or horrifically? I am not happy at all with the clergy. I had run ins with three of them a priest a brother and a nun that would have qualified as (not sexual predation) but mean physical and demeaning (pretty bad in two cases). If you do not realize the vast majority of them are good people but still are sinners with all of the faults that men and women have then your faith is diluted before you even start. Bad people have always been part of the church hierarchy, always. The church has come very close to disappearing several times over the centuries but our Lord knows what he is doing.

And another thing. Grow up. Our founder has this as he always has. If you doubt that then I really feel bad for you. At the heart of the church are people. You and me. We are the church not the clergy. Act as a member of the church. Like Peter said if you leave where will you go?
 
Prophecies, from apparitions to scripture, said things would get really bad. We don’t know how this all pans out in time, but we do know the story has a good ending.

To leave would be a panic move, imo.
 
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This were Jesus words as well!,and I don’t mean to sound apocalyptic or anything, is just a fair question I think, something to consider , good day
 
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