I just received this comment from the post below this:
Faith is a gift of God. He offers it to all of us. God offers salvation to those who look to Jesus Christ, imitate him, love him, and hope to spend eternity with him. Others accept consumerism, communism, fascism, and currently the very popular "wokeism." The latter replaced the Book of Life (Bible) with Face Book. They do not believe in heaven or hell only in cyberspace which is a kind of hell. There they form hate -communities, consuming communities, and just generally loose themselves in an artificial nirvana. This new kind of existence is all consuming, leaving no room for forming authentic human relationships, or time to contemplate creation, eternity, or the meaning of life, or what is true or what is false. As a society, and I would include the Catholic Church, not its written theology but its current public face as represented by Pope, bishops, religious and very public lay members believe truth (dogma) is relative. There is nothing special there. Catholic truth is equal to atheist truth because who are we to judge? Unless the Church is willing to offer a more compelling alternative to secular fashions of the day it will continue to loose. And it should as it is currently dominated by apostles more in sympathy with Judas than with the other 11.
Wherein I concur:
There are clergy and laity who scoff at promoting the purpose of Christ's Incarnation, birth, hidden years, public ministry, passion, death, resurrection, ascension, sending of the Holy Spirit and His Second Coming and Last Judgement. They scoff at the Church as being founded by Jesus Christ specifically for the salvation of souls. They scoff at proclaiming the opposite of eternal life in heaven which is eternal life in hell, first for the soul and second for body and soul at the Final Judgement, the bodies of the saved joined to the souls in heaven too.
If Catholics no longer believe in the two options after death, either heaven or hell; if they don't believe in the personal judgement at the hour of death and the general judgement at the Second Coming, what in the name of God and all that is holy is the point of being a Catholic? To hold hands and sing Kumbaya? To do good works only?
An atheist or agnostic can find fellowship, real fellowship in a variety of places with like minded people. They can assist the poor and disenfranchised by helping the Salvation Army or going into politics and public service.
But if they don't believe that the Catholic Church is the Church founded by God Incarnate Himself and that this life is a pilgrimage either on the narrow road to heaven or the wide highway to hell, then why in the Name of God and all that is Holy should any person be a Catholic. Become a Democrat and let that suffice!
26 comments:
Powerful statement and very insightful.
Very good comment.
Fr. AJM asks: "If Catholics no longer believe in the two options after death, either heaven or hell; if they don't believe in the personal judgement at the hour of death and the general judgement at the Second Coming, what in the name of God and all that is holy is the point of being a Catholic? To hold hands and sing Kumbaya? To do good works only?"
I think many feel this way. Additionally, and to me, your question is being answered within the provided comment: "As a society, and I would include the Catholic Church, not its written theology but its current public face as represented by Pope, bishops, religious and very public lay members believe truth (dogma) is relative. There is nothing special there. Catholic truth is equal to atheist truth because who are we to judge? Unless the Church is willing to offer a more compelling alternative to secular fashions of the day it will continue to loose."
"Catholic truth is equal to atheist truth because who are we to judge?"
This represents a significant misuse of Pope Francis' words.
"Unless the Church is willing to offer a more compelling alternative to secular fashions of the day it will continue to loose."
We do offer such. We promote justice as it is understood in the Scriptures. We promote forgiveness as it is shown in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We promote the value of all human lives, from the unborn to the condemned to the dying.
These are compelling alternatives that the Church has always offered.
You can't blame the commenter for any confusion he might have about anything Pope Francis writes or says as the nuances are too many to enunciate depending on how you interpret his words. He is not clear at all! And thus the state of the Church under his pontificate.
But you make the commenter's point for him and emphasize it:
'"Unless the Church is willing to offer a more compelling alternative to secular fashions of the day it will continue to loose."'
"We do offer such. We promote justice as it is understood in the Scriptures. We promote forgiveness as it is shown in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We promote the value of all human lives, from the unborn to the condemned to the dying.
These are compelling alternatives that the Church has always offered."
There is nothing in your statement above that a person, Catholic or not, cannot embrace and still not live a sacramental life and being an active member in good standing with the Church that Jesus founded and the Sacraments He instituted for our personal eternal salvation rather than the eternal damnation we deserve.
None of what you describe offers us eternal salvation in heaven. Salvation is the work of God and is made manifest in Faith and Good works, orthodoxy and orthopraxis.
Amen!
"We promote the value of all human lives, from the unborn to the condemned to the dying."
LOL - you just voted for the guy who is restoring funding for abortion and wants to codify it into federal law. So your words ring hollow
Pope Francis' "who am I to judge" comment was very clear. Certain folks, within and without the Church, misrepresented (and continue to misrepresent) the Holy Father's clear statement in question.
Pope Francis declared clearly that a sinner who had sought Jesus Christ, wished to atone for his (the sinner in question) sin, as well as reformed his life, had been forgiven by the Lord.
Therefore, who am I to judge that new man in Jesus Christ?
Pope Francis' point in question is clear...at least to me.
Pax.
Mark Thomas
"There is nothing in your statement above that a person, Catholic or not, cannot embrace and still not live a sacramental life and being an active member in good standing with the Church that Jesus founded and the Sacraments He instituted for our personal eternal salvation rather than the eternal damnation we deserve. None of what you describe offers us eternal salvation in heaven. Salvation is the work of God and is made manifest in Faith and Good works, orthodoxy and orthopraxis."
You're right - we don't earn salvation. I never said or suggested we did.
It will surprise you and others to learn that there is lots of salvific grace operating in the lives of those who are not members of the Catholic Church, who are not baptized in any Christian denomination, who are not in any way part of any Christian communion, those who practice non-Christian faiths, and even those who are not religious in any way.
You see, that's where evangelization starts, where do our Christian values and the values of the non-Christian intersect. That is the foundation that God the Father in Christ His Son has built for us.
I do blame the commenter - and you since you seem to subscribe to the notion - for intentionally misusing Pope Francis' comments about judging. As much as it galls you, Mark Thomas is right.
Fr. K,
Yet you continue to vote for the Abortion Party. No wonder you have no credibility with the serious commenters here
But what FrMJK states has not worked and will not work until the need of salvation comes forth and with it the fear of God.
"But what FrMJK states has not worked and will not work until the need of salvation comes forth and with it the fear of God."
Care to back up that assertion with a few citations...?
Let me see, over and over and over again there are studies to show that in many places in the USA, most notably the northeast, only 12% of the Catholic population go to Mass on Sunday. And we have the phenomonen of nones, Catholics totally disengaged from organized religion and with no intention to return and if their elderly parents die, no plans for a Catholic funeral.
What need to we have of further witnesses....?????
Your ideology doesn't work other than to make nones feel good about their life choices.
What Father K refuses to acknowledge is that the “reforms” did not deliver on the promise of a new springtime but instead delivered a cold, harsh winter of monumental decline. He keeps yammering about what was/is going on society in general as some sort of excuse for the failure of the reforms. Protestant churches were already in decline long before the Council while the Catholic Church was still growing in the US. He’s a broken record
You're comparing apples and oranges.
Why people practiced Catholicism in the early 1921 is not necessarily why people practice Catholicism in 2021.
In 1921 you might scare them into church with threats of eternal damnation. That's not going to happen in 2021.
In 1921 incense and Latin chant and priests in cassocks and birettas and the rest of the "accidents" of that time and style were de rigueuer.
You can keep looking at this as an entirely internally solveable matter. I suggest that's that's the qrong diagnosis. Therefore, you offer the wroing cure.
If a none is patient, kind, forgiving, generous, merciful, and just, I think he/she should be commended as there are many, many "committed" Christians, including not a few Catholics, who are not.
Father K,
LOL - people are people, whether it’s 1921 or 521 or 1121. The difference today is we have malformed in the Faith priests and bishops like you who cannot even be trusted not to vote against the baby killer party!
Maybe even the dull tools will get this:
“Said it before, and I’ll say it again: working for the Catholic Church in America in 2019 feels something like working for Blockbuster Movies in 2005. We’re still arguing about how we should display the DVDs, and meanwhile our current model and customer base is about to collapse.
“Simply put: every diocese is full of parishes that have much smaller, now mostly older, congregations, in aging buildings with less money, and in a few short years we will hit the bell curve with both people and money. And we’re barely talking about it.
“Our schools are closing, and those that remain are becoming “private” schools for those who can afford them, as we struggle to understand what “Catholic Identity” means for a student body, most of whom do not attend Sunday Mass.
“The average knowledge of the faith in most Catholic communities is at a low point, though it will probably get worse. Meanwhile, the practice of the Sacrament of Reconciliation has virtually disappeared, as have other traditions that had culturally marked Catholics in the past.
“No need to expand the laundry list. And the parishes and communities that are doing well are precisely exceptions that prove the rule. The point is, rather, how are we (especially Church authorities and leaders) not talking about this, addressing it, figuring out a plan?
“As bad as 2018 was for the Church, with respect to all the tragic revelations about covering up child abuse, this problem is far more serious, for it concerns the very disappearance of Catholicism as a community, or at least a massive change unlike anything in her history before.
“If you believe I’m exaggerating, just ask your diocese for the data from the last 40 years on weekend head-counts, offertory, and sacramental numbers. The change will shock you. And the numbers are about to hit an even steeper curve.
And this describes the "faith" as propagated by priests like Father K:
The unvarnished truth is that fewer people are coming to the sacraments simply because the overwhelming majority of our sacred hierarchs, from the 1960's on forward, have ingested every limp-wristed, weak-kneed, kumbaya-style ambiguity the conciliar text has to offer, only to regurgitate them back to the souls in their care at every opportunity like pelicans feeding their young.
Along the way, an entire generation or more has come of age having been nurtured on little more than the fast food of modernism by pastors who have utterly ceased to proclaim the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church as the solitary means of salvation, and therefore the paramount importance of the sacraments that the Lord has entrusted to her.
All of this being the case, is it any wonder that the Catholic Church in our day is in the throes of a full-scale institutional collapse?
We can lament the large number who have departed the Faith,and those who remain but do grave harm to the Body of Christ, but we should try to build up the Church by emphasizing the good she had done and continues to do, and the grace from God that she provides, especially in the example of the lives of her saints. We should impart to all, from the very young on up, that there is great joy to be found in knowing, loving, and serving God, and that to turn away from Him towards the world for fulfillment is to bring one to indifference, disillusionment, spiritual darkness, and much sorrow.
TJM says: "Protestant churches were already in decline long before the Council [1962-1965]..."
No they weren't. That is false. It is most likely a complete and utter lie, made in an attempt to bolster weak arguments.
The International Bulletin of Mission Research gathers and publishes the data on the membership in Protestant denominations. It also makes projections on what they anticipate in terms of church membership in the decades to come. They also publish book reviews. This one might be interesting: Book Review: "African Catholic: Decolonization and the Transformation of the Church" by Benjamin Aldous.
I know that those, like TJM, who prefer "alternative facts," meaning the ones they make up on the spot, to real ones won't be convinced. But for the rational folks out there...
Even a CURSORY glance at said data shows that the Protestant churches were going stong up to the mid-1970s, as the Catholic Church was. The same forces that impacted the Catholic Church hit the Protestant churches as well. And those forces didn't include the absence of Latin, incense, and Gregorian chant, the direction the priest/minister faces, or the style and decoration of church buildings.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309471126_Christianity_2017_Five_Hundred_Years_of_Protestant_Christianity
A partial truth is as evil and an outright fabrication, or fakenews. Liberal Protestantism began its decline with its embrace of modernism in the late 1800's. By the time of the late teens or early 1920's a new movement in Protestantism, Fundamentalism, challenged the modernism of liberal Protestantism. A more evangelical Protestantism, evolved and helped to purify some of the more affected denominations of liberal Protestantism. Thus evangelical Protestantism thrived well into the 1970's and continues today compared to its liberal counterparts which for all practical purposes are extinct or exert to influence today on the culture as a whole.
Liberalism in Catholicism, borrowing from the liberal Protestant movement inspired by modernism has led to the same crisis in the Catholic Church, since the mid to late 1960's that liberal Protestantism has experienced since the late 1800's through today.
In Catholicism and under Pope Francis, new life has be given to liberal Catholicism's main tenets and so has the decline of Catholicism accelerated once again after a brief hiatus under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Even Cardinal Pell at the sham of the first synod under Pope Francis decried what was happening there and said it would empty Catholic Churches even more and make us as irrelevant as Liberal Protestantism is.
Protestant churches, liberal, evangelical, modernist, or otherwise, were not in decline long before the Council. WHat TJM stated was false.
If you think otherwise, cite the sources of your data.
By the way, your conjectures don't count as data.
According to Pew Research, the percentage of Americans saying they were Protestant declined from 70% in 1955 to 67% in 1960, whereas the percentage of Americans saying they were Catholic rose from 22% in 1955 to 25% in 1960. Epic fail by the priest who votes for the party of intrinsic evils!!! No wonder why he wants to change the subject or like Mark Thomas dodges the point
Sorry my data came from Gallup now Pew
Liberal Protestantism's decline since the 1967 with charts and graphs for those denominations that are considered liberal Protestantism:
https://juicyecumenism.com/2019/09/25/mainline-protestantism-decline-continues/
Good link on general historic overview in both Protestantism and Catholicism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Christianity
And an evangelical pastor, get it and makes his points in a very cogent way:
https://decisionmagazine.com/albert-mohler-theological-liberalism-is-not-christianity/
"...since the 1967..."
That's what I said all along.
And my data shows pre-Vatican II. Just like Mark Thomas
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