This article, I am sure, I read in my theological and pastoral 1970’s books in the seminary. It is today’s rusty liberal meme about the Church. These are old, worn out, tried and failed ideas of liberal Protestantism and specially the Anglican Communion which long ago imploded, which this sociologist is suggesting the Catholic Church should do today. She truly wants to destroy Catholicism.
This ideology is an enemy of the Church of Christ founded by Christ Himself.
She thinks that doing what she suggests, taken from the 1960/70’s playbook will save the Catholic Church from imploding.
But an unfaithful Catholic Church has already imploded and become only a sociological reality, not a Divine Institution.
Pope Benedict is correct, we don’t need a larger, unfaithful Church; it is better to have a smaller but more faithful Church, a leaven in society or counter cultural, what some call the Benedict option, not the emeritus Benedict, but the big Benedict.
Read this and know you have traveled back in time to the mid 1970’s:
4 comments:
"reform" is the reason the Church is in the trouble it is in today. May I remind you that Trent was wildly successful, Vatican II was not
Father McDonald,
Father Cipollo wrote this excellent piece on the liturgy and TC:
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/08/jesus-weeps-over-jerusalem-as-we-weep.html#more
Agree as we watch protestantism continue to splinter, become increasingly irrelevant and in many places, disappear.
So many Roman parishes are proud of touting "over x" number of families on their roles, many having thousands of members as a result. When you consider how few are attending and supporting their parish throughout most of the year, are the remainder really members other than in name only? You can't rely upon them. Byzantine parishes were always smaller, including the larger ones. We don't have the luxury of maintaining membership roles that are effectively meaningless. If years go by with nothing, we have to just conclude that an individual has moved on. Our size forces some degree of planning - who are actual members, who can we rely upon to consistently provide support? I'm not talking about amenities either, like being able to turn on the floodlights on the soccer field/ball field, or having sumptuous parish centers with all these meeting rooms. I'm referring to basic maintenance, which, causes some parishes to struggle. Our attendance averages above 80% on a weekly basis. Most of our membership is crystal clear on the importance of providing regular support. Somehow, we manage to survive.
God, having within Himself only that which is true, has revealed that truth to His Holy Church to which in Christ he is joined, whose members can be affirmed as truly faithful who embrace its revealed teaching without dispute or contrary opinion.
Are we now to recast and transform what God has given us, so as to please and be welcomed and embraced by the world?
"What God has joined together let no man put asunder".
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