Catholic leaders gather to counter decline of faith

[bpcatholic]

My opinion is that there needs to be more than a synod. Perhaps there needs to be another council (I’m pretty conservative so I don’t throw that around lightly). Vatican II came right before a massive cultural shift. I think Vatican II addressed the problems the Church was having at the time. But since the cultural revolutions, and the political revolutions of the past twenty five years, the Church hasn’t been too “up to date.” The Church needs to change the way she teaches her doctrines. I am not saying the Church should change doctrines, just present them differently without watering down their meanings.

 

[AKG]

Ultimately, I believe it all boils down to a lack of respect for the dignity of the human person, and I believe that this lack of respect is the result of a lack of faith itself. Faith is a gift. While believers recognize tht faith is offered freely, it must be received and cultivated. The rapid increase of knowledge and information which is readily available to people through technological means, literally at one’s fingertips, has not helped. Most people are not very good at processing what is available, and quite a few believe they are far more sophisticated than their predecessors. Anything that smacks of traditional moral values or reminds them of their own limitations and shortcomings is rejected.

 

[Beautiful]

Faith is a gift.

A vintage 70s LIFE magazine I read spoke exactly about this. The old article went on to say that people in the pews are no longer impressed by homilies. The parishioner’s education and intelligence often exceeds that of the priest…so sorry I can’t give you the issue and article title. I handed my vintage collection on Catholic topics to some of my local Catholic priests.
All this isn’t much more than what you have said. This idea was publicly recognized 40 years ago. Has anything changed? I would say that Catholics are worse about this now than 40 years ago as more and more lay people take charge and priests receded into oblivion.
There is no room for the gift of faith while pride takes up occupancy.

 

[ProVobis]

Our parish has 4500registered famlies. Roughly 13,000 total.Wehave one Sat Mass and four on Sunday.All. Masses are packed to overflowing.So,you couldn’t prove it by the size of my parish that The Church is struggling to keep it’s members:

You have 13000/5, or roughly 3000 at most Masses?

 

[SuperLuigi]

Unless Catholicism changes its views on birth control and gay marriage it will keep losing members to secularism. And since that won’t happen, nothing will change.

Quality, not quantity.

In you read carefully some of Scripture, Jesus tells us the road to the Truth will not be easy.

Also, with the rise of Christianity in the Southern World and Islam easily subduing secularism in the West, I’d say the days of major gay activism and even contraception are coming to a end.

 

[edwest2]

I agree 100% but how do we get back to strong Catholic families? I clearly remember Catholic families in my parish rupturing back in the 70s. What was happening around the time of the meltdown and what has it taken the few strong Catholic families to remain. The answers to these questions are varied.
Readily available and acceptable divorce
Readily available birth control
Lack of quality Catholic education for all
Mass exodus of men from priesthood
Popular media such as LIFE magazine also fed into the collapse. I’ve read a few vintage magazines that testify to this. Media was having an ever increasing sway on the American Catholic about then.
These things and more were all harbingers to the collapse of Catholic families.
What has kept some Catholic families strong?
Answers to this are varied.
What do you think?

First, one needs to realize that in the 1960s, the government and media respected and reflected our Christian values. I think the term “assault on the Church” is better than collapse. I was there and it was a slow, gradual and planned attack.

Birth Control

1960 The FDA approves The Pill, but what must be understood is that most people lived on farms and rural areas. People knew the Church was against artificial birth control. Modesty and the rules of dating and no sex outside of marriage still held sway.

As you read on, remember, the Church had to be attacked from the inside and out.

1967 Time magazine runs a cover story about The Pill. It promises us freedom. Freedom from what? Babies. Notice the top line: “Contraception : Freedom from Fear.” The Pill was only now becoming more readily available.

time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843551,00.html

Also, in 1967, under the false belief that more “freedom” was required, some Catholic Universities decided to disconnect themselves from Church authority.

catholichistory.net/Events/LandOLakesStatement.htm

So, is it any wonder that things went nuts in Catholic colleges as the 1960s ended?

1968 Pope Paul VI understood what was happening. Even though he was under some pressure to loosen Church teaching about artificial birth control, he had Humanae Vitae published, which reaffirmed constant Church teaching. There were those inside and outside the Church that howled in protest. Here’s what happened:

“Within 24 hours, in an event unprecedented in the history of the Church, more than 200 dissenting theologians signed a full-page ad in The New York Times in protest. Not only did they declare their disagreement with encyclical’s teaching; they went one step further, far beyond their authority as theologians, and actually encouraged dissent among the lay faithful.” Source: Regnum Christi

Did you catch the part about “an event unprecedented in the history of the Church”?

That was the year the anarchists, Hippies and sexual perverts declared war. They were going to reform the country into their perverted vision of living. They rejected ALL authority: mom, dad, priests, nuns. They were going to have sex with anyone. Marriage? Who needs it? As a Hippie friend of mine told me: “I don’t need no piece of paper ta live with my old lady.”

1969 Time to promote abortion to the public and to the media with lies, and deception. Their primary obstacle to getting the job done: the Catholic Church.

catholicnewsagency.com/resources/abortion/articles-and-addresses/an-ex-abortionist-speaks/

We were lied to. Just as the anarchists, Hippies, and sexual deviants decided it was time to turn their backs on all authority and established their own culture, which, after 40 years, gradually corrupted most of us.

1970s Adult bookstores selling graphic porn, topless bars and strip clubs. I was shocked. We protested, but their high priced lawyers said, “We have the first amendment right to do this” you bunch of religious nuts. We have the FREEDOM! Porn, as opposed to religion, became the opiate for too many people.

The 1960s and 1970s was when dissidents inside the Church added to the damage.

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704586504574654282563939764.html

How did committed Catholic families survive? Easy. We ignored it all. We went to Church. We upheld our traditions. As the media gradually became more and more immoral over the years, we spent less time watching it. The same with some books and magazines. Some I will not buy, and it’s only been in the last five years that I’ve noticed immoral words and phrases creeping into non-fiction. I’ve had to throw out a few.

I will see one, maybe two, movies a year. I watch very little TV, and I’ve dumped most internet forums because of the rude, insulting and inhumane behavior. I only look at a handful now.

So take heart. There are those who have not forgotten. Fortunately, there are those who missed the worst of it and are coming into a Church that was helped along by Pope John Paul II and now, Pope Benedict, who both helped and are continuing to help restore what was lost. The Church knows there are Catholics out there who have lost their way and is inviting them back, regardless of what sins they’ve committed. God’s infinite mercy is available to all.

catholicscomehome.org/top-ten-reasons.php

Peace,
Ed

 

[SuperLuigi]

As far as homosexuality Catholics , most Protestants, Judism and Muslims agree

The gay-rights movement is peaking.

It doesn’t stand a a chance against the rising tide of Islam and secular big government activism is forcing the hand of the Catholic Church.

 

[Jeanne_S]

You have 13000/5, or roughly 3000 at most Masses?

The church holds 1300 ,standing room at allMasses.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I think only some people will see the truth and embrace it ultimately in this situation. There is nothing that guarantees that catholicism will ever flourish once it’s effectively extinguished. Look at North Africa, most of the Middle East and Scandinavia. These places were once catholic but lost the faith and still have never returned. Another good example is Nestorian Christianity which once spread across India, Mongolia and China but is now nearly completely gone.

Christianity is booming in Africa and Asia like never before and we are very much along for the ride. Missionaries report being able to crack into everything from pagan animists to even Islam. Something inconceivable 80 years ago.

Catholicism has been growing on every single continent (no data for Antarctica) including Europe.

I think it can flourish if it stays true to its faith, but let’s look at what “flourish” mean.

Church leaders tend to be more interested in quality, not quantity.

interestedman said that the Church needs to change in order to accommodate more followers.

But look at the denominations that are changing with the whims of the world—how are they faring?

Not too great in the Western world.

They are under the false premise that being proactive for so-called “gay marriage”, abortion, contraception or whatever else will get their pews full.

What’s happening is that the more detached, liberal members disown faith altogether, and more conservative ones go non-denominational or Catholic.

Catholicism will always be a bedrock for those who seek ultimate Truth and logic, and I do very much believe that when all the emotional distractions and false promises of the world get tiresome, that is where some of our fallen brethren will turn.

Let’s make sure that we are ready to welcome them.

 

[edwest2]

Some Anglicans are, by their testimony and actions, becoming Catholic.

catholicherald.co.uk/news/2012/10/04/leading-church-historian-to-be-received-into-personal-ordinariate/

Peace,
Ed

 

[Beautiful]

I stand correcting myself. The magazine article I referenced earlier is The Saturday Evening Post November 28 1964 edition. The title of the report: American Catholicism – Not Peace, But the Sword.

The new anguish of American Catholicism
In seminaries, slums, convents, colleges-even in bishops’ chanceries – a bold new generation is struggling to break with the inbred past and to bring the Church to grips with modern society. The Saturday Evening Post presents a monumental, searching and reverent report, ten months in the making, on the historic ferment now transforming the Roman Catholic Church in America.

By Edward R. F. Sheehan

This is a lengthy article which I have barely made sense of. I know it says much about the Catholic Church in America today. The very things we wrestle with today were as much a concern then…just in a different way.

I’m not sure how readily available this article is to anyone interested.

My point – the question of how to counter the decline of faith is a difficult one to answer when you consider the whole picture over the past 100 years in this country…particularly about 40-50 years ago.

I found this snippet from the article posted on the Internet. This gives an idea of the contents of the report. I’ll post it on the next message.

 

[Beautiful]

The Saturday Evening Post
November 28, 1964

From “Not Peace But The Sword – The New Anguish of American Catholicism”
By Edward R. F. Sheehan

Just as the middle class is consecrated to the entrenchment of the status quo, the average pastor is primarily concerned with the preservation of his parish plant. If Negro families infiltrate a prosperous parish, property values may fluctuate, affluent Catholics may move away, and the pastor’s burden of sustaining his parochial school and other facilities may become unbearable. Naturally, despite his conscience, he is not eager to precipitate a crisis which would invite such hardship. He finds it more convenient to limit his moral indignation to planned parenthood, divorce, dirty movies, “going steady” or the threat of taxation of parochial schools.

“In a way,” declares a California priest, “all this tends to verify the Marxist hypothesis that the economic substratum of society has a determining effect on the values of the superstructure, religion, culture, art and the rest.”

Economic determinism, Marxist or otherwise, appears to be hard at work in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the see of the American Church’s most controversial cardinal.

James Francis Cardinal Mclntyre is 78 years old, but age has not diminished his many admirable qualities. He is a financial wizard, and he has deployed his talents to great advantage in the swift expansion of his archdiocese. A favorite of Cardinal Spellman, whom he served as coadjutor, he was “translated” to Los Angeles in 1948; since then his flock has more than doubled to 1.5 million souls. To accommodate them he is presently constructing a new church every 66 days and a new school every 26 days – a remarkable performance.
continued

 

[Beautiful]

In many ways Cardinal Mclntyre is a kindly and fatherly man. An incident of some years ago, related to me by a distinguished Catholic scholar, illustrates this. The cardinal, so the story goes, happened to overhear one of the priests who shares his residence complaining about being awakened at all hours of the night to answer emergency calls on Skid Row. His Eminence quietly arranged to have all such calls transferred to his own bedroom, and for some time after that it was the cardinal himself who carried sacramental consolation to the derelicts of Los Angeles in the middle of the night.

Paradoxically his archdiocesan policies have failed to reflect his personal benevolence. It is not sufficient to say that he is a conservative – the majority of American bishops are conservative. Cardinal Mclntyre is a reactionary.

He makes no effort to conceal it. I spent an hour and a half with him, and it was a memorable experience. The audience transpired in his ultra-modern chancery, replete with Xerox machines and wall-to-wall carpeting; curiously, recent issues of the liberal Catholic magazine Jubilee are to be found in the waiting room outside his office, but he keeps a copy of William F. Buckley’s Up From Liberalism at his fingertips. The cardinal possesses a sort of irascible charm. A rather handsome man who appears considerably more youthful than 78, he has a way of puckering up his lower lip when he has finished making an important point, a mannerism almost endearing.

Cardinal Mclntyre has three principal preoccupations: the godlessness of the public-school system, the godlessness of the United States Supreme Court and the supremacy of the natural law. I slumped comfortably in my chair while he very graciously read to me the entire text of one of his favorite discourses, Ebbtide in Education. “. . . Is it not strange that in the public-school system which has developed in the United States, the children may not be taught that there is a God? Perhaps only in Russia today is the recognition of God denied. Are we not keeping strange company? . . .” And on the Supreme Court: “The Supreme Court, in avoiding and evading the natural law, has removed the very foundations of its own existence. It has stripped itself of its own authority.” On the natural law, the cardinal has a favorite quotation which, together with Ebbtide in Education, he had Xeroxed for me: “True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is universal in application, unchanging and everlasting. … It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it. . . .”

This classical and unexceptionable passage from Cicero provides an important key to Cardinal Mclntyre’s character. He had first discovered the passage in the seminary nearly 50 years ago. It is genuinely moving to hear him talk of the sacrifices he had to make to acquire that seminary education. "I had to go to work at 13, because my mother was dead and my father was an invalid. My first job on Wall Street paid me three dollars a week.

I got my high-school education at night, and then I went to City College and Columbia at night, and it wasn’t easy, because I was supporting my entire family at the same time. I was working my way up on Wall Street, and doing darn well at it. I had always wanted to be a priest, but my family obligations didn’t release me until I was 29 years old. In 1915 I entered St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers. I was ordained a priest when I was 35. That’s the best education a priest could ever get, the training I got at St. Joseph’s!"

St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, like all seminaries at that time, was still staggering from the impact of Pius X’s condemnation of Modernism. But the cardinal is not merely nostalgic, he is also suspicious, and his philosophy of history is essentially conspiratorial. Communism is the most serious internal threat to America. Liturgical reform is undesirable. Ecumenism is dangerous. The Supreme Court is subversive. The United Nations is evil. The John Birch Society? “I don’t know everyone who’s running the organization now, but I do know the founders of the John Birch Society in this state, and they’re the finest people in California.”

A number of people had warned me to refrain under any circumstances from mentioning the race question to the cardinal – the mere mention of it might make him angry. (On a number of occasions Negro and white Catholics have picketed his chancery and staged sit-ins outside his office, assailing his “inertia in civil rights.”) But he raised the subject himself. “How can anyone say that racial discrimination is practiced in this archdiocese?” he asked, crashing his ringed hand down hard on his desk. “The racial problem does not exist in Los Angeles. All our institutions are integrated. All our seminarians are taught Spanish, so that when they become priests, they can serve our Mexicans. We have 700,000 Mexicans. We have built scores of churches and parochial schools for them – and for Negroes, too, and these schools have given them cultural accomplishment and civic advancement. These people need education, and we are giving it to them. What is wrong, what is immoral, that they should live among their own kind? Kind lives with kind – Irish with Irish, Poles with Poles, Mexicans with Mexicans, Negroes with Negroes. That’s not segregation – that’s opportunity!”

continued

 

[Beautiful]

The profound disagreement between Cardinal Mclntyre and many of his younger priests over the definition of racial “opportunity” has made Los Angeles the most disturbed diocese in the United States. Shortly after my arrival there, I was contacted by a number of thesepriests. They did not dare to meet me in the lobby of my hotel, for they were afraid of reprisals if observed in the presence of a writer, so we conferred clandestinely in my rooms. These were devout and obedient men, but frustration had driven them to the brink of defiance. The tales they had to tell were melancholy.

It is well known now that the cardinal has reprimanded several of his priests for preaching from the pulpit about racial injustice – this was, he said, a political problem, not a moral one. It is not surprising that the priests should wish to speak, since in fact Los Angeles is one of the most segregated cities in America; 90 percent of its Negroes live in “substantially segregated areas,” according to the Community Relations Educational Foundation. It is quite true that Negroes can enter Catholic hospitals in Los Angeles, something they frequently cannot do in the South. But as Negro leaders point out, the parishes and parochial-school districts usually coincide with the demarcations between black and white neighborhoods: In practice, they are not integrated at all.

The majority of pastors in Los Angeles seem perfectly content with this arrangement and in no particular hurry to change it. A small but courageous group of priests, most of them lowly curates, have dared to be different, and they have paid dearly for that. Whenever Cardinal McIntyre, through one of his informants, has learned that a priest has preached on a forbidden subject – it might have been liturgical reform, ecumenism or psychiatry as easily as race – the offender has been summoned to the chancery for a confrontation with His Eminence. The cardinal’s chancellor, Msgr. Benjamin Hawkes, is usually present during such proceedings. The delinquent priest is lectured sternly. The cardinal, though often kindly in his reproaches, sometimes loses his temper, pounds his desk, and delivers impassioned speeches. Monsignor Hawkes, an intense, sharp-chinned man whom I met in the cardinal’s office, is particularly severe, and more than once Cardinal Mclntyre has had to restrain him.

“Monsignor Hawkes,” one of the young priests told me, “asked me what sort of books I had been reading. When I told him, ‘The works of Father Hans Küng and Father Yves Congar and Cardinal Suenens,’ the monsignor said I had no right to be reading such radical theologians. At this point the cardinal interrupted him and said, ‘Now wait a minute, Monsignor, I never said that my priests couldn’t read if they wanted to.’”

“There are various opinions,” another priest interjected, “as to whether the cardinal has more influence on Monsignor Hawkes or vice versa. If I had to choose between the two, I’d take the cardinal, because in spite of his ideas, he is really a lovable man in many ways.”

The humiliation of the delinquent priest is not always restricted to a mere lecture. On at least one occasion the rite of submission was expanded to include a renewal of the promise of obedience to the cardinal. A number of priests have been placed under the seal of silence to prevent them from disclosing that they have been reprimanded for taking part in interfaith activities and the like. Such precautions have not kept these proceedings from becoming legendary in Los Angeles. In fact, the censured priests have unofficially formed what they whimsically call the “C.C.C.” – the Cardinal’s Carpet Club.

With most priests, the intimidation succeeds. There is no effective machinery under canon law which permits a priest redress from the excessive severity of a bishop. Some Los Angeles priests will not say anything compromising on the telephone for fear their lines are tapped; others say they have been shadowed by private detectives, or informed upon by admirers of the cardinal – and in Southern California he has many. A sycophantic, ecclesiastical careerism has thus become the priest’s path of advancement; the robust and affirmative Catholic life of Chicago is at most a misty aspiration in Cardinal Mclntyre’s Los Angeles. The statistics bear this out. With little more than negativism to feed upon, only about a third of Los Angeles Catholics even bother to attend Sunday mass – far below the national average.

This unhappy chronicle could be prolonged almost indefinitely. At St. John’s Seminary at Camarillo not only are the liberal Catholic weeklies America and Commonweal banned, but Time magazine as well. This does not prevent the student body from seeking out these subversive publications; the highlights of America and Commonweal are secretly mimeographed and distributed for a fee of 75 cents per semester. Clandestine Bible vigils are conducted, and liberal lecturers have been invited to visit the seminary when the faculty was absent on Sunday parish assignments. When Cardinal Mclntyre discovered that John Howard Griffin, the author of Black Like Me, had addressed the students, he upbraided the rector, who in turn interrogated each offender. One was expelled, two others quit, another was denied his subdiaconate, and 15 were placed on probation.
continued

 

[Beautiful]

Shortly after this the Rev. William Du Bay released his celebrated bombshell publicly accusing the cardinal of “gross malfeasance in office” for his failure to condemn racism as a moral evil, and for conducting a “vicious program of intimidation and oppression” against his clergy. A second priest, the Rev. Terrence Halloran, also publicly criticized the cardinal’s stand on race but did not approve of Father Du Bay’s appeal to the pope to remove the cardinal from office. The blackest sort of punishments were predicted for these courageous young curates, but the great international publicity given to the incident seems to have protected them from the full measure of Cardinal Mclntyre’s – and Monsignor Hawkes’s – wrath. While neither of the curates retracted his criticism of the cardinal on the race question, both of them decided to renew their promise of obedience to him as their bishop. Father Halloran was transferred from a Mexican parish to a less sensitive post in Long Beach. Father Du Bay was removed from his Negro parish in Compton and reassigned to an all-white parish in Anaheim, where he has full access to the swimming pool on the rectory roof but is forbidden to mix with the local population; he may not even visit the adjacent parochial school.

Father Du Bay’s daring outburst has already produced unexpected results. The global publicity and pressure from other American bishops have begun visibly to beat down the cardinal’s intransigence. He is said to be painfully aware that the Du Bay scandal has made him look ridiculous in Europe – and particularly in Rome. In late June, Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle of Washington, whose own record on race is quite good, visited the cardinal and persuaded him to issue a mild endorsement of the Civil Rights Bill. In July, Cardinal Spellman arrived in Los Angeles ostensibly to take a vacation, but also to talk his erstwhile protégé into adopting more reasonable policies.

About a month later Cardinal Mclntyre reversed himself and – on direct orders from Rome, it is believed – agreed to sign a public statement issued by the bishops of California condemning racial discrimination. At the cardinal’s insistence, the statement avoided direct condemnation of Proposition 14, the constitutional amendment aimed at nullifying the anti-segregation clauses of California’s fair-housing law. But, although the effect of the bishop’s statement was to align the Church against Proposition 14, Cardinal Mclntyre’s long silence on the moral issue involved was unquestionably a contributing factor in the triumph of this discriminatory amendment at the polls this November.

Still, there is progress on other fronts. Until now Cardinal Mclntyre has forbidden even the discussion of liturgical renewal in his archdiocese, and has simply ignored the innovations urged by the Holy See itself. But the Vatican Council’s new Constitution on the Liturgy – and the decisions of the American bishops in concert – overrule him juridically. He had no choice but to authorize the sacraments and the mass to be recited in English, throughout his realm, beginning this fall. So far he has limited the use of English to one Sunday mass per parish – the children’s mass.

Despite his recent concessions, conditions under Cardinal Mclntyre remain by and large as they have always been. Priests and even archbishops of whom he disapproves are still banned from speaking in Los Angeles; fear continues to pervade his clergy. The Tidings, his official newspaper, continues to publish undisguised John Birch Society propaganda. Monsignor Hawkes rules on as the iron chancellor of His Eminence.
And that is just a snippet of the lengthy report really

 

[iloveangels]

I’m not so sure about that. The vast majority of self-identified Catholics don’t even attend mass so how many Catholics are really out there?

Well, this is the thing. Nobody really knows. Less than we think, probably.

That said, the Church will not go out of existence, no matter what else happens.

 

[iloveangels]

From International News.
Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday opened a meeting of Roman Catholic Church leaders from around the world to debate how to counter rising secularism on the 50th anniversary of the momentous Second Vatican Council.
The synod of 262 archbishops, bishops and other senior clerics heard a call from the pope for a “new evangelism” for the Catholic Church, which is fast losing followers in Europe and feels increasingly discriminated against in many parts of the world. The three-week synod coincides with the announcement on October 11 of a “Year of Faith” to mark the anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which changed the face of Catholicism. In Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday, Benedict said the Council had been “the most universal expression” of the spiritual dynamic of the 20th century. He shunned any reference to the latest scandal to rock the 2,000-year-old institution, the trial of his butler Paolo Gabriele who was convicted on Saturday of stealing secret papers from…

Fine except the thing about the pope’s butler is just a jab at the Church by the MSM.

Unless Catholicism changes its views on birth control and gay marriage it will keep losing members to secularism. And since that won’t happen, nothing will change.

If this were the case the Episcopalians would be booming, yet they’re probably going to be gone in 20 years. This is not the cause.

My suggestion to the Pope is that if the leadership of the church enforces and LIVES the faith it will grow.

This would help, yes.

Haven’t they been holding similar get-togethers to discuss this since John Paul II was Pope? If they haven’t figured it out by now I don’t know that they ever will.

Yes, and nobody’s really been listening because this isn’t where the problem really is. See the next comment down.

It’s worse now and maybe they think this will help to inform the bishops of the world that this is a serious problem that must be addressed. I don’t think it’s all about trying to fix it as much as it is to make the church more informed of the issue.

Correct. If people can realize where the problem is, then they can work on it. It’s not at the higher levels. It’s a much more practical and cultural problem in the Church.

It’s terrible to say, but sometimes I truly do wonder how much they actually care about this. The Year of Faith is imminent! The Synod is open! Doctors of the Church were declared today! You’d think the Church would pay to have that Mass broadcast on primetime television. Expensive, yes, but worth it. I’m sure we could afford it.

This wouldn’t help because it wouldn’t target the right audience, but it would be very expensive. The problem doesn’t have anything to do with the 78% of the country that’s not Catholic.

You realize that we don’t care, right? We will bleed members to the last man without changing Church doctrine. Though I don’t believe for a second it will come to that. Empires have tried to wipe us out repeatedly. We have gone underground for centuries and come out of it with just as much faith as before. Secularism thinks it is winning and we simply chuckle at the naivety.

This is about half the problem right here. The Scriptures say that the Church will always exist, but they don’t say that the Church will always exist in each town, each state or each country!!! For that, we have to get off our seat ends and work!!!

I’m not so sure about that. The vast majority of self-identified Catholics don’t even attend mass so how many Catholics are really out there?

No one really knows, to be honest. Probably considerably less than we think.

I went to a Catholic high school. Trust me, this didn’t work.

Trust me, I know. That’s a fooler. Sometimes it helps, sometimes not. It’s not a recipe, that’s for sure.

 

[iloveangels]

But that is the point. Modern Christians like throwing tradition to the wind, playing loosey goosey with the rules, and having tangible and sense-based inspirational experiences in worship. That is the reason why mass attendance is so low and why nothing will change for the Catholic Church; people find it boring and too serious and intellectual. People think that worship should have some measure of fun to it. Short of changing doctrine; the only thing the Church hierarchy can do is either roll back Vatican II and start enforcing the rules or invent some form of worship that is consistent with doctrine while appealing to modern Christians. I can guarantee you that trying to scare people back into the fold won’t work.

That’s actually NOT why we’re having the troubles we’re having. In fact, that’s as big a modern caricature as its opposite. Neither of the ideological extremes is the problem or the answer.

What people need is a parish with activities. They need to know their neighbors in a neighborly way and have some reason to go down there. It’s not political at all. It’s about picnics and prayers and reading the Bible and explaining Noah & the Ark to little kids.

The Catholic Church can, at times, seem very intimidating and the worship services archaic to a lot of people. That is a struggle that the Church will have to address if it wants to increase mass attendance and conversion. People flock to non-denominational churches like the Vineyard because their congregations tend to be open, welcoming, and nonjudgmental. Sadly, that hasn’t been the experience of many people in terms of mass.

Yeah, this may be your take, but that’s not how most people feel. Most people showing up for the first time are looking for the mystery and the beauty. I"m a convert. I know this. This is particularly true for young people.

The problem resides in the family itself. Without a strong catholic family structure, there can be no hope of seriously propagating the faith. If we hand down the faith to our children, maybe we as catholics would vote and live according to our faith. In which case neither Obama or Romney would be electable.
Our government has been effective through the media and public education system to propagate ideas that break down the catholic family unit which is the only thing that stands in the way of the culture of death.

This is the thing that you hear and hear and hear because it’s the common excuse. It’s not the reason we’re having trouble. At. All. Most people do not live in large families anymore, even Catholics. In fact, the demographics of Cathlics are really no different than the rest of the population as a whole.

If you want to keep people you can’t rely on the whole family thing as a recipe. Look around you in church sometime. How many intact 2-parent families with 10 kids do you see? Most of the people there? Or do you see single parents with 1 or 2 kids? What percentage of the Church is filled with them? Or do you see couples or solitary worshippers? What percentage? What do you see?

PS: Catholics schools are ALSO not a recipe. You can’t count on them to keep kids in the Church. It generally doesn’t work that way.

The 2nd largest religious group in the US today is Ex-Catholics. Ex-Catholics comprise 10.1% of the American population. About half of those who leave the Church now leave before they’re 18, and most of them never come back. The other half leave as adults.

**The leading cause for leaving is “just drifted away.” **Note: Not sex. Not politics. But boredom, aimlessness, lack of purpose.

pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Religious_Affiliation/faithinflux_3.pdf

 

[iloveangels]

I think only some people will see the truth and embrace it ultimately in this situation. There is nothing that guarantees that catholicism will ever flourish once it’s effectively extinguished. Look at North Africa, most of the Middle East and Scandinavia. These places were once catholic but lost the faith and still have never returned. Another good example is Nestorian Christianity which once spread across India, Mongolia and China but is now nearly completely gone.

The Scriptures themselves say that nothing will prevail against the Church as a whole, but they never say that the Church will not disappear in any particular country. If the people of a region do not stay faithful, in fact, the Church can disappear in a region. History tells us this.

I read somewhere once that 'people don’t care how much you know, unless they know how much you care"
Maybe the CC needs to look at some of the more Evangelical Churches and their approach to community building. The CC really isn’t into all that. If you come to the church and somehow ‘force’ yourself to be part of a ministry you can actually meet other Catholics and have fellowship(however minimal). Otherwise not much. And if you don’t show up it really does not matter to anyone.
Only 1,2 things that can spur growth…i see is by having more truly Catholic based universities(like Franciscan Steubenville) or more support for the Charismatic renewal.
People need to feel part of a community and fed constantly for change to happen.

This is 100% true. Just because we don’t agree with their theology doesn’t mean we can’t learn from Protestants. Catholics are generally very anti-pathetic to protestants and that causes us to point at them and say that all that they do is bad. This is a very unfortunate thing, very inefficient and foolish. There are a LOT of practical things we could learn from Protestants if we would give up being so arrogant about these non-theological practical things. I’m speaking of things like how to do a picnic, or how to do a summer bible camp or a sledding trip for teens or a ladies’ gathering. Protestants are very efficient at these things and they keep many people going to their churches as a result.

This is a good thing.

1. No one knows the exact number of Practicing Catholics.

Absolutely correct. The best ways we have of getting an accurate estimate are a) polling strategies like the Pew Report, and b) actual attendance counts. These both tell us that our real numbers are much smaller than we conventionally believe, or claim.

1. I heard a priest on Catholic Radio declare that the Church leadership knows the Church - right now - will become smaller. Filling the pews is not the whole goal. Faith without works is dead. Today, I saw people standing on street corners as part of “40 Days For Life” with signs that included: “Pray to end Abortion.”

All this can quickly devolve into just more talk. Change the way Catholics live so we aren’t the ones crossing the line to GET the abortions. Be a refuge for kids who need homes by taking them in personally to keep them from dying; be a refuge for kids who can’t get adopted because they’re disabled and therefore not “perfect.” That’s “works.”

1. So, no, it’s not about numbers like the number of people who belong to any group going up and down. The Church is concerned to reach non-Catholics, Catholics who, for whatever reason, have left the Church, and helping to make sure that Catholics understand their faith.

The “New Evangelization” needs to start in the Church first. We can’t hope to do anything about the culture outside Catholic circles until we conquer it within our midst.

1. This whole thing did not happen overnight. It took 40 years to get here. It is the job of the laity to witness the faith and give the answers that the Church gives us to others - Catholics and non-Catholics alike. We are in no position to say that it’s only a “management” problem or only a problem among lay Catholics. As one Church leader put it: “We can’t do it all by ourselves.”

I don’t know what you mean by “doing it” then. We MUST start with lay Catholics. We cannot continue to preach to the general population unless we ourselves are credible. They simply don’t believe us anymore.

1. I heard a priest on Catholic Radio declare that the Church leadership knows the Church - right now - will become smaller.

True. This shouldn’t even be controversial to people who are thinking about it. The Church will become smaller. When half of the people that leave are under 18 years old, of course the Church is going to become smaller. It’s arithmetic.

Changing the things we teach in a vain attempt to prevent that from happening will only accelerate the effect. There are things we can do to prevent some of the damage but we’re going to have to step up and find out what they are and it’s going to take effort. I don’t know if the Church here is going to get to that place in time. We’ll see.

 

[edwest2]

The number one secular sin: boredom.

ncregister.com/daily-news/why-catholics-leave-the-church-and-what-can-be-done-about-it

In the past, there were groups in every parish that were primarily for men and others for women and others for both. There was the Sacred Heart Society. As the Catholic community was strong in the early 1960s, and we were surrounded by messages from our government and the media that respected and reflected our faith, it was easy to be Catholic. It really was. I loved reading the Christmas editorials about the birth of Christ.

It wasn’t until a bunch of wolves in the late 1960s told everybody that ‘we’re going to turn this country into a haven for fornicators, adulterers and sexual perverts’ and we’re going to put our way of life into your face more and more as the decades passed - well, here we are.

Divorce - unless fully justified - tore apart not just the families in question but the children. They knew what marriage should be but it got to the point - now - that if the other person is a pain, he or she goes. No Fault. And the in-laws. Gone, or bitter, or sad and hurt.

And the media, they just kept gradually turning up the FILTH dial, and here we are.
Wherever you turn – filth, scandal, divorce, adultery.

We stopped talking to our neighbors. Why? They were illegal drug users who didn’t care that you thought it was wrong.
They became cohabitators with their girlfriends and fornicators. And didn’t want to hear a single word that it was wrong, not even from their own parents.
Their idea of fun stopped being moral. It turned into going to strip clubs or hanging out at adult theaters.

AND NO ONE WAS GOING TO TELL THEM WHAT TO DO. Too many people wanted it their way – the wrong way. If most people decide they are going to go in their own, separate direction, then what do we have in common anymore?

"The Holy Father says:

"If we cannot have common values, common truths, sufficient communication on the essentials of human life–how to live, how to respond to the great challenges of human life–then true society becomes impossible."

Additional commentary by the Practical Catholic:

“How true this is. Where there is no communication, no culture, no shared experience, there is no society; because there is no people. There remains only a vast and foreboding, unforgiving sea of individuals ready to crash upon each other and the world with the slightest wind. Without a common basis, we have not the vaulted pluralism we’re taught to embrace, but Babel, in all the confusion and madness of a society with no binding forces. Already we are seeing the tensions of this fragmentation breaking out across cultures.”

I propose the formation of a group called Catholics In Action (yes, CIA). We go to door to door to hand out approved tracts or DVDs or booklets from strictly Catholic sources, including the names and phone numbers of local Catholic parishes. We set up phone lines so people can get their questions answered, and tell why they left or why they want to come back but don’t know how or are afraid because of past sins.

We coordinate with our local parishes. Finally, we provide opportunities and places where Catholics can sit down with other Catholics and get to know each other, so that we can form Catholic communities again. To be friends with those of like mind.

Sure. The illegal drug user who’s had three kids by three different women and who hates anybody telling him what to do, likely won’t come, but he’ll be invited. The openly gay couple down the street, same thing. The woman who is on marriage number three, and so on.

We MUST be visible on the highways and the byways, not for our glory, but to witness God’s love and to reach out. To show, by works, that we are doing what we can. Not to boast but to be that source of evangelization. And to glorify our Father in heaven.

Peace,
Ed