How can Christianity in the west be saved?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Augustine5
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Sometimes maybe it is better to concentrate on what we still have rather than on what we have lost.

I take pleasure, for example, when going on a pilgrimage, at the high numbers of young people visiting those places and praying.

I then think to myself, if only my parish back at home looked like that. But then these poeple must come from somewhere so obviously somebody’s parish does look like that.

I also see lots of signs of people coming home to Catholicism from other denominations. Especially Anglicans. It is no coincidence that John Henry Newman was recently made a saint. Maybe the numbers are small overall but every bit helps.
 
Last edited:
Tis_Bearself said:
“The Sky is Falling” when it comes to Christianity.
Click to expand...
I agree. The sky certainly isn’t falling, but I think a lot of Western European countries are entering (or have entered) - what many authors are terming - the “post-Christian” era.

At the same time, I think many European Christians see it as an opportunity for evangelism and theological renewal. It was either the (Anglican) Archbishop of Canterbury or the (Catholic) Archbishop of Westminster who mentioned that, for the first time in centuries, they are presented with a large proportion of a generation of British children who have never heard of the Gospel narratives, who have never heard of the prodigal son, and who have never thought of what it means to be in a relationship with God.

In many ways it’s an occasion of sadness, but in others it’s a joyful opportunity to proclaim the Gospel anew with fresh enthusiasm, just as the earliest Christians did in the apostolic age.
 
I understand the previous existing social constructs which largely determined religious affiliation. But the implication is often that we are somehow superior in the faith because “we have a choice”. I suspect percentage wise, Catholics were much more devout and faithful in those days than now. It’s not dissimilar to how people imply ore Vatican ii Catholics had no idea what was going on because if Latin. Yet the percentage of Catholics who understood the fundamentals of the faith in those days was likely much greater than now.

Saying a whole group if people are Christian simply because they have no choice seems very disrespectful to me. Not necessarily the intent, but one can be disrespectful despite a jack of intent to be so.
 
When I listen to my elderly relatives talk, I am certainly happy that I didn’t live back then. Talk of being taught by nuns who would terrorise pupils and predict the terrible things that would happen to them, priests sniffing around in your private life and telling you what to do. My grandmother told me how a priest visiting her house took offence at the newspaper she was reading and made her cancel her susbcription, not leaving her side until she had posted the letter. Today such excesses of power play have for the most part gone away. Priests no longer take the faithful for granted and seek to serve and understand rather than just command.
 
Fortunately, in USA or at least in the parts where my relatives lived, my ancestors escaped the worst of that. My grandmother was something of a maverick because she would stand up to the priests and sisters, not just meekly allow herself to be bossed in matters concerning her family. I understand it was much worse in some other areas and some other countries. Such stories make me doubt that everyone was truly so devout. Some probably genuinely loved the Lord, but many others probably just obeyed out of societal pressure or servile fear.
 
It certainly may not be productive to ok articular individuals. But understanding the causes if the decline of Christianity can certainly be productive to the Church.
 
Again, I’m not seeing a “decline of Christianity”. I’m seeing a change in society to where practicing Christianity has become an individual choice, as others have said, rather than an expectation or obligation imposed by society, peer pressure, the state, etc. If your idea of Christianity is a full church every Sunday because people are pressured to attend, then you’ll see this as a decline. That’s not my idea of Christianity and has never been. It’s more like the caricature of Christianity that writers like Flannery O’Connor mocked.

In addition, it’s kind of hard for me to see Christianity as having been so strong in the past 100 years when most of the scandals we are only just now hearing about happened during the time Christianity was supposedly so strong.
 
Last edited:
I personally am seeing a return to unapologetic conformity with church teaching. New young priests seem to be more interested in embracing the faith than changing it, and the churches that seem to be growing…at least in my area…are unapologetic about Catholicism and are not trying to please everyone by watering down catechism.

I think the pendulum has swing too far in America toward a “do whatever you want” mentality and many among us want better lives, and for our lives to mean something other than temporary personal gratification. I think a return to church will continue to emerge as Central to meeting this objective.

I do think we need to change in one radical way, however.

We have a big problem in that about half of our active priests in the US are now 70 or over, many need to or want to retire but are asked not to or feel they should not. The work can be exhausting, as where one parish may once have had two or three priests sharing the work, we may now have just one priest there who also picks up added responsibilities elsewhere.

I think we need to seriously look at our need for priests, and Rome needs make celibacy optional. It would not be easy to make such a change, but many of the objections to doing so relate to having too few priests. For example, I have been told by some priests that they could not attend to a family given their schedule. Or that they could not manage emergencies if they had a family. These are practical issues of not having enough men on the job…many lay professions require unusual hours and being “on call” and families work it out. I also believe such a change would be healing for many faithful Catholics who view a need for such a change in order to bring more straight men, who are only attracted to adult women, into the priesthood.

No question that celibacy has been a factor in the vocation attracting a disproportionate percentage of homosexuals. I think the laity need this change as much as the priesthood needs it.
 
By being more radical, radical means to be rooted, or to the root.

We should start evangelizing ppl who are next to us in our daily life. Nontheless whether you are orthodox, catholic or protestant. You know the man of sin must come and will be persecuted. Trust the lord and understand the east is not saved from this.
 
I think we should start with the church embracing tradition. I have been to the Latin mass a few times and the overwhelming majority of the people there were young people. I notice that young Catholics tend to be more traditional. When people become Catholic they want to be devout. They recognize that the world is going in the wrong direction. They don’t want to conform to the world and they don’t want the church to conform to the world. They want to be a part of something that is greater than this world. I think that is why young Catholics tend to be so traditional.
 
It seems to me that this has happened many times in the history of the faith, that God’s people have been sifted with a faithful remnant retained by God. Perhaps this is just one of those cycles. One of the interesting things about making Christianity a licit religion in the 300s is that all of a sudden the Church had people join not necessarily for reasons of faith, but for expediency, or otherwise. Perhaps this is a time when the Church is merely being purified through trial. If you want to save Christianity in the West, return to the love we once had in Christ, by hearing his word, receiving the sacraments, being part of the body of Christ, and training your children to do the same.
 
I suppose you mean the good ole days when everyone was a wonderful God fearing Christian and our world was free of hate, violence, judgment etc? Please tell me what wonderful Utopian Christian Era in history that you are referring to, because I definitely can’t think of a time without ridicule, hate or violence. There never was a time when man embraced the precious message of Christianity. Just under 80 years ago, in a modern 1st world, western civilized continent, about 20 million or so people were murdered for being different. Or even more recent in our own country, when so many God fearing white folks in the so called Bible Belt, really showed their utmost southern hospitality to black people. I’m just speaking of modern western history here, let’s talk about how Jewish people have been treated since the Dark Ages. Look I’m no Athiest, I consider myself an Agnostic spiritual Christian I guess. Don’t you see that it is because so many Christians live their faith way too much by the Bible. I think that scripture improves many lost people and what not, but this live by the Bible attitude is honestly pushing people away. This Biblical utopia has never existed and realistically never will, I want to be a good Christian by Loving or just even making people laugh to enlighten their day. Not talk about how Christianity can magically restore society to a false Utopia.
 
I don’t mean to make anyone feel bad, but I am blunt and very honest. If you truly want to follow Christ or spread the good word around, do it by just being a good person. Don’t talk about religion this or God said this, just do your best to do no harm, because we’re all natural sinners, but just try and enjoy your life and stop trying to spread the word of the Bible. That may work for some people and I totally think that’s wonderful, though be realistic in this huge, diverse and beautiful world that God has created for us. The strategy of trying to restore Christianity to reading people the good book has honestly proven to scare people away from religion, rather than comfort them. Good night and God bless
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Again, I’m not seeing a “decline of Christianity”. I’m seeing a change in society to where practicing Christianity has become an individual choice, as others have said, rather than an expectation or obligation imposed by society, peer pressure, the state, etc. If your idea of Christianity is a full church every Sunday because people are pressured to attend, then you’ll see this as a decline. That’s not my idea of Christianity and has never been. It’s more like the caricature of Christianity that writers like Flannery O’Connor mocked.
Click to expand...
Doesn’t it seem like looking at Christianity at one short period in time and all the flaws that existed at that time and then extrapolating that out to the whole of Christian history is the flip side of what you are criticizing?

OTOH, when Catholicism was in its full flower, people were rarely something other than Catholic, not like today.

But today most people are something: they are the people who accept everything which kills the soul and condemn nothong except that which harms the body, or, the bodies of those who jave been born but not too long ago.

We have a spirit of our time, and it is not Catholic. And the way people now are of the spirit of the time is the way people once were Catholic: the underlying philosophy of life in general was Catholic, no matter where any particular individuals were located on a spectrum.

So I have to disagree, in that in western society I believe there is a decline in Christianity, which has been superceded by something else.
 
Salvincenza45 said:
If you truly want to follow Christ or spread the good word around, do it by just being a good person. Don’t talk about religion this or God said this, just do your best to do no harm, because we’re all natural sinners, but just try and enjoy your life and stop trying to spread the word of the Bible.
Click to expand...
So we should just all be “good people” (in whose eyes, I wonder, considering that some of what we do as Christians renders us not-good in the eyes of many in the general population?) and not mention to anyone that we have found something wonderful? Would keeping that a secret be something a “good person” would do? Or is it just that some people do not like to jave their consciences reminded of true goodness, and so we should all just do everything we can to make sure the people around us are very comfortable as they travel the wide road to destruction?
 
Time to trot out Fr. Mike on “Good People” again.
I have my ups and downs with Fr. Mike, but I think this vid is one of his best moments.

 
Annie said:
OTOH, when Catholicism was in its full flower, people were rarely something other than Catholic, not like today.
Click to expand...
Are you talking about before the Protestant Reformation?
Yeah, everybody was Catholic because they were pretty much forced to be by the ruling class.
If you were something other than Catholic in Western society (Like Jewish, or an unbeliever) you were risking your livelihood and probably even your life.
No doubt there were a lot of “Catholics in name only”.
We ended up with Protestants largely because the emerging middle class didn’t like feeling oppressed by the aristocracy, and decided to run their own show. It had as much or more to do with oppression as it did with doctrine.

Being Catholic is great when people choose it. It’s the best thing to be.
If you force it on people, it’s not so good.

This whole “Today most people are…” in your post doesn’t make sense to me.
Today most people are the same as people ever were.
People have been the same throughout human history. They even commit the same sins.

Likewise, this idea that Catholicism had some golden era of faith that’s gone away doesn’t make sense to me. What we have had is eras when the Church had a lot of economic and/or social power. That’s what’s gone away to a large extent. And frankly, I think that’s a good thing. Power corrupts. The Church was corrupted by all that power.
 
Last edited:
Tis_Bearself said:
Yeah, everybody was Catholic because they were pretty much forced to be by the ruling class.
Click to expand...
Right. And today most people are pro-homosexual marriage because they are pretty much forced to be by the ruling class.

Bit they do not see it that way, do they? They simply think that the zeitgeist is the truth and they live and believe accordingly.
Tis_Bearself said:
If you were something other than Catholic in Western society (Like Jewish, or an unbeliever) you were risking your livelihood and probably even your life.
Click to expand...
Just as today people who do not believe risk theor livelihoods if they are not on board with homosexual marriage and transgender ideology.

All this has nothing to do with whether or not Catholicism is true, or whether or not people actually did believe.
 
Last edited:
Annie said:
Right. And today most people are pro-homosexual marriage because they are pretty much forced to be by the ruling class.
Click to expand...
No I’m pro LGBT because their relationship doesn’t change mine. They aren’t going to marry to produce offspring anyway. They want to have a stable healthy relationship so whatever. Not my business.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top