Well, to be honest it seems virtually impossible for the Catholic Church to recover what it has lost. Then again, the Church has been through tougher times. We did triumph over pagan Rome, then again the political situation was different back then.
These day’s if you want to win over the people you don’t go for the government you have to go for the people, which is extremely hard. First of all people are very attached to their immoral hedonistic lifestyles. Now there have been cultures in the past even more immoral than ours though it took authoritarian governments to eliminate these lifestyles. Pagan Rome and Weimar Berlin are examples of this and I know the latter didn’t exactly lead to a good Christian society either.
In today’s world of democracies, our only alternate is outspoken reason. You have to drown the people in it. However this is also a major issue, New atheists such as as Dawkins, Hitchens, and the lot have made people think that secular lifestyles are actually backed up by reason. The good news is that their arguments are made up of absurd sophistry. The problem is that not many people including many Christians are good at pointing this out. Now the solution is to have many very outspoken Christian apologists defending both theism and the Church, like Hilare Belloc and G.K. Chesterton. Now today there are competent theists, like William Lane Craig, and Alistair McGrath that are taken seriously. However neither of them are outspoken enough. I think they need to reach out to more people and also be well spoken enough to counter the extreme dogmatic atheist bias in people. Another problem is that neither of them are Catholic. Now people shouldn’t be lead to the same churches that lead to the rise of atheism, so we really need another Chesterton or Belloc these days.
So there is still hope. Or else its back to the old Imperial Roman ways for the Catholic Church in the Western World. Living an existence in the fringe while surrounded by extremely immoral persons that hate us. But, hey at least in the near future of the Western World, Christianity isn’t on the path to becoming illegal, or having its members executed.
This is a response I posted to a proclaimed Atheist on another thread and it seemd to follow this subject to a degree;
"I know you said you have no interest in learning about God, (not sure why you come here in that case) but for those who believe in God and refer to the Bible, we will say at this time Old Testament, God made it clear that parents are responsible for their children and to teach their children all about God especially His love for us. Regardless of what denomination it may be, that is part of the teaching of the Old Testament. Until children are of an age to choose to accept God or not to, this is the responsibility the parents have and of course are going to pass on based on their faith. That is of course the way it was.
Now If we look at the last 50 to 60 years for example, much like you in some ways the generations from the 60’s and 70’s have pulled drastically away from God. Parents not only lost much of what they use to know and practice through the teachings of their parents, they lost the concept of teaching their children about God as well. Their priorities centered mostly on their “goals” not realizing the goals are actually set by industry through commercialism and absorbed by our own self pride. All this is evident in what we have called progress.
We have enacted laws and given our approvals for abortion, the selective elimination of the most vulnerable of human life.
We are working diligently to eliminate the words “In God We Trust” from our currency. Is it we no longer believe in Him? More likely we don’t even take the time to consider it much at all.
We are, in a growing number of our states, supporting the legalization of “same sex” marriages and some barbaric means to pursue stem cell research.
We have “drive-by” shootings and assaults performed against our youths by our youths;
We discipline children for outward signs of affection when they so much as hug a friend; We produce serial killers who can select people at random, look down the sights of a sniper rifle while hidden and end a life for amusement;
We have school massacres performed by our children gunning down our children; fathers and mothers not only killing each other but killing their own infants and children before committing suicide;
We have families destitute and living in cardboard boxes under bridges while some corporate executives receive hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus money in one quarter (not including their regular income). Is it because they are legitimately successful? No, more often than not it is because they are full of greed to a point they have fraudulently manipulated the markets and their investors.
By the way, it is our public officials who are now taking our tax dollars from many of those who contributed now living on the streets to bail out the banks and businesses who put them out on the streets.
Many institutions including commercial businesses will not allow employees to say the Words “Merry Christmas” as a greeting. But it still represents the Celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ whether some like it or not. Many of the business owners will pray for a successful sales season I’m sure. And on it goes as if the time will never come that we will have to answer for the transgressions of the society we created.
So in fact up to recently more people have fallen away from God. I say until recently because there has been a rather sudden substantial increase in converts to Catholicism including Muslims, converting atheists, Jews and fallen away Christians returning as well. Regardless of your personal beliefs, this should make things a bit safer even for you depending on where you live over time. You know, everything that has occurred over the last 2000 years has been professed in the Bible, it hasn’t been wrong yet. You also may want to consider these things also have been prophesied in revelations. "
