Yes the Church has done all those things.
For myself, finally I have come to peace with the fact that she has, and with the fact that she continues despite still not having really corrected some of the mindsets, and even some of the behavior.
The Church has two things to do in my estimation: a) feed the sheep of the current generation, and b) preserve the story and tradition for future generations.
As an institution I think she does really well at b) but doesn’t do nearly as well for a) because the vast majority of practicing Catholics I know, have no idea about the really deep transformational aspects of our faith for one thing, but remain stuck in “the first half” of spiritual life as one spiritual director calls it, where it is about “cheap behavior contests and an evacuation plan for the next world.”
But she has carried forward the Eucharist and the story, and preserved it at great peril. So here almost 2000 years later we have access to some of the original data they had in the first century when the books were written. So regardless of how many have gazillions may have served the Church and given her their lives to preserve her on earth, but never actually received the miracle because as Jesus said, few will take the narrow path, they have kept the Word intact. So regardless of the past, she has preserved and developed all the resources we need to find our own individual Narrow Paths to Divine Union.
With St John of the Cross just being promoted to Doctor in 1926, I’m hoping to see mysticism take its rightful place alongside Thomistic asceticism and in a great time in this information age, where the religious we don’t see (monasteries and cloisters for example) and are more and more coming out with teachings on the spiritual journey.
When Jesus said that the Sabbath was not made for man, but man for the Sabbath, to me that puts the onus more on the Church to motivate and teach “solid” spiritual food rather than “milk” as St. Paul puts it.
Today for example, avid Catholics seem to think that to be a good Catholic, they have to be very loud politically and cast their judgments upon others’ evil. Plus they see all the terrible things in the world and live in constant anxiety. This is not what Jesus taught, but this has been an effect that the Church has had on her people in previous generations. My mother was angry at God her whole life, for example, for their insistence that all her little Protestant friends would surely go to hell if they did not convert. Bad teaching? Yes. But that thinking was more the rule than the exception. So yes she was “perfectly Catholic” and supported the Church with time, talent, and treasure, but to her it was a social club.
Today we don’t need new ways to socialize, as much as something deep that cuts below the surface and into the human psyche. To learn how to see the world in a kingdom way, where the one who serves truly is the greatest, and where the least respectable members of the body are offered special dignity, and Jesus and St. Paul talked about, respectively.
And we are losing to weird touchy-feely spiritual-ish movements and New Age and even eastern religions, because we as a whole have failed to incorporate the inner teachings of Jesus, but have instead focused almost entirely on outward behavior. Outward behavior is great, and the Church has done marvelous things to help people in need, but the inner transformation is what will catch it on fire and go blazing into future generations. If you see this, then you know it is already in the works.
