How can ordinary Catholics support the languishing Church in the West?

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We need to actually learn the faith. Honestly I think like 90 per cent of Catholics don’t really know the faith.

Then, we have to live the faith, actually put daily effort into working the virtues and striving for holiness.

Most importantly, pray, go to adoration, grow in our relationship with Christ through worship and the sacraments. Not sanctimoniously, but together in charity and community to build the church.

The early Christians lived in a pagan world, hostile to the church. I think Romans 12 shows us how they converted the world.
 
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Start local…like in your own family. If you’re a parent, say the rosary every day in your home. Promote the Catholic faith at home by observing the Church calendar, highlighting special feast days. Attend regular Mass and confessions. Vocations come from happy and Catholic homes like these.
 
How did you determine, from one group of nuns having to sell off some land (or even choosing to do so), that the entire Church in the West is “languishing”?

Yes, vocations are down and some orders are having trouble; other orders are changing their focus to some other way of helping or place of helping because their help is no longer so needed where they are at. An order nearby recently sold a lot of their local property because it was no longer being used in the manner originally intended, which was to operate a large school for local poor youth. Nowadays those children have other education options that didn’t exist when the order started their mission. The order is focusing its work on some distant places where there are a lot of poor children in need of help.

There are a lot of reasons why nuns nowadays would not want to be in the hospital business.

If you want to help the Church, then go to Mass, volunteer at your parish if you can, donate to charity, encourage vocations, and pray.
If your vocation is marriage and kids, then you can work hard on raising them Catholic with good values as well.
 
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By living your faith. By having the peace, love, joy and other fruits you will shine in a dark world. The fruits come from the Spirit and these attributes will attract people or pique their interest.
St. Seraphim put it nicely “Acquire the holy spirit and a thousand souls around you will be saved”.
Our own methods, attempts and efforts can often get in the way of God who wants to work through us.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Yes, vocations are down and some orders are having trouble; other orders are changing their focus to some other way of helping or place of helping because their help is no longer so needed where they are at.
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Some orders changed “focus” due to practical realities, but some conformed to the secular culture. They usually aren’t doing bad things, but repeat the same benevolent and popular priorities proclaimed by the media, and are silent on truths the media chooses to stifle.

If you consider the hazards of the World, the flesh, and the Devil, most Ordinary Catholics are very much aware of the Flesh, but oblivious to the problem of the World.

If you’re still glued to that daily newspaper or newscast, replace it with Scripture and times of Adoration.
 
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Neithan said:
Honestly I think like 90 per cent of Catholics don’t really know the faith.
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90%? I just don’t see it being that intense, but I only see what I see. Could be I’m in some extraordinary little bubble and it’s a wasteland out there, but I doubt it and I hope not.

Unless you mean we are all learning the faith in a sense and only ten percent are learned.

Either way I agree that to learn and live the faith is the answer to a lot of ills.
 
That wasn’t meant as an accusation, which could quickly turn into a Catholic version of the No True Scotsman fallacy. But 90 per cent actually seemed like a conservative estimate to me. Let’s hope I’m in an extraordinarily bad bubble.
 
If you came to my parish next Sunday and did a survey, you would find FAR more than 10% know the faith.
 
TheLittleLady said:
If you came to my parish next Sunday and did a survey, you would find FAR more than 10% know the faith.
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It really depends on how one defines “knowing the faith”. One can have a reasonable working knowledge of Catholicism without being a whiz kid who gets over 80 percent on that difficult Catholic IQ test that was going around a few months ago.

And a reasonable working knowledge is all most people need. Obviously if you’re the priest then you need to know a lot more than some random person in the pew on Sunday.
 
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