The death of the Church

[Matariel]

Yet the world must die. Our world is not eternal. The Church militant belongs to this world, it’s institutions belong to this world- so would not the Church die with world?

You’re forgetting that the Catholic Church is growing by leaps and bounds in Asia and Africa. And also, this year 150,000 adult converts joined the Church in the United States alone. I was one of them. The Church is ensouled by the Holy Spirit; She won’t die. If She did it would mean the Holy Spirit would no longer be active on the Earth, which will not happen according to the Bible.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

The words of my world issues teacher got me thinking today. She says that because of the rapid growth of Islam, combined with the general secularization of North American and European countries (the “Christian West”) signals the death of the Christian religion. Christianity is no longer growing, and certainly not the Catholic Church. The secularization and modernization of western society has created an extreme drop in birthrates in the last few decades and the abandonment of Christianity. Demographers now say that within a century Christianity will cease to exist.

As I was reflecting on this lesson I began to wonder if all that the Church is trying to do- bring back traditional morality; denouncing relativism, modernism; pushing for a rebirth of Christian thought- if all this is just an attempt to prolong the death of the Church; an effort to slow the inevitable downfall of Christianity . Does not the Church that we see in the west possess but a shell of her former glory? Is it not this liberal, relativistic society that we live in dying in its own decadence and corruption, starved of morality and deprived of God? Society has killed the Church and in doing so has ushered in its own death.

I can see I am being slightly pessimistic here, but how true is this? Is the Church dying? Will society die with it?

The Catholic Church and Christianity will not cease to exist until the end of time. The State and Civil society may try and even succeed in suppressing it, as it did on and off for most of the first three centuries.