The diocese of Pittsburg is closing and merging numerous parishes. This is happening all over the northeast.
There are many reasons for the decline and possible fall of the Catholic Church in this country. To say that the changes in the Church immediately after Vatican II isn’t the foundation for this miserable state of affairs is to bury one’s head in the sand and focus on other factors that aren’t the foundation for this.
Vatican II’s liberalism is just that, flakey liberalism that firm Catholics it does not make. Liberals/heterodox are like reeds blowing in the wind seeking out every new fade or formula to make the Church more interesting, more dynamic, more relevant. Nothing is held onto tenaciously as conservative/orthodox Catholics hold on to certain aspects of tradition.
Traditionalists are stereotyped as rigid, meaning that won’t change or change ends up breaking their faith. To a certain extent this may be true of the “rigid” pre-Vatican II types right after the Council who had a difficult time changing and simply stopped going to Mass rather than being irritated each time they went to find one more novelty and one more sacrilege called renewal.
I do not see any bishops today taking seriously the root of the decline and fall of Catholicism in this country. Pope Benedict and his so-called minions knew what was the cause and the cure for what has happened in the last 50 to 60 years. The current crop of Benedict’s contemporaries who are “spirit of Vatican II” elderly trying to recapture what they thought were the helicon days of the late 60’s and 70’s, the era of their radical youth, are making the same mistakes today they made back then. They haven’t learned a damn thing at all about the Church or themselves.
17 comments:
The diocese of Pittsburgh also had a major closing of churches in the 90's. Those slogans & renew programs to help make more vibrant parishes seem to have failed. One can't replace true doctrine and noble worship with a contrived enthusiasm and active social projects.
I wish bishops would be more honest in closing churches. They need to be consolidated because there are fewer priests and small congregations are a luxury of the past, although still a luxury in rural areas of our diocese.
No, you can't replace true doctrine and noble worship with a contrived enthusiasm and active social projects which can also be accomplished and must better in many cases by the Salvation Army.
I don't know if there has been a drop in vocations since Pope Francis took over, but I think there has been and those who would have considered the seminary under Benedict's ethos of sound doctrine,noble worship and pastoral aplomb seem to be ambivalent about Pope Francis' ethos from the 70's. I could be wrong, but Benedict along with John Paul II enthused the young and not just for a fleeting moment but many then becoming priests and nuns. I can't say that is true today.
As a member of this dying diocese, it's just constantly depressing to hear how we should be "excited by this growth." That's right, in his latest decree merging 60 parishes into 15, the bishop told us that this is "growth," even though someone living in reality sees that we're going from 162 to 105 parishes just like that. And there's never any mention of doctrine, solid teaching, or more reverent liturgy, which are lacking in a lot of parishes, the real reasons why barely 1 in 5 Pittsburgh Catholics go to church. He just wants us to "learn Jesus, love Jesus and live Jesus." (his quote, whatever that really means)
"learn Jesus, love Jesus and live Jesus"
The real meaning to any Catholic is clear.
Baltimore Catechism No. 1
Question 6 Why did God make you?
Answer - "God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven."
To know Jesus, we must learn Him - His words, His actions, His love for us.
To Love Jesus - with gratitude for the gift of Himself.
To live Jesus is to serve him in this world in the hope that we will be welcomed to heaven.
There's nothing ambiguous in the Bishop of Pittsburgh's words.
Other than the Bishop of Pittsburgh's statement makes him sound like a simpleton.
I used to visit relatives in Pittsburgh years ago and recall the many, many beautiful churches there. Another Vatican Disaster II "success" story.
The declines in attendance and membership can certainly be linked to loss of all which seems holy and otherworldly, but the root cause is far deeper. The root cause allowed the other to set in, as it became the blind leading the blind, and so folk started tinkering with externals, trying to vainly ape protestant models which at the time were booming.
Today, the protestant model is also imploding and for same reason, the blind leading the blind, and flocks are not stupid, and can see this.
People come to church seeking ultimate answers to ultimate questions. There is no proof one can offer of the existence of God shy of the seeker truly experiencing God, beyond a shadow of a doubt. And people who experience God will not break the commandments and they WILL offer worthy worship and they WILL evangelize in word and deed, and draw others to same, merely by their example and the obvious beneficial effects upon their own person.
But one cannot teach what one does not know, and this is why churches are hemorrahging members, as folk rightly intuit there are no answers to be found in that place, and that those who run whatever local show are as lost or even more so than the seekers. They know a phony when they see one.
The Church has settled into ethnic/cultural Catholicism for untold years, baptising new members and then utterly neglecting any true spiritual catechesis, and then everyone shocked when all these folk wander from truth and doctrines and practices or simply leave the game of charades.
Anon@1041am so lazy that you make me type that rather than a simple name and sticking with it....
Pray tell how one knows God? Pray tell how one loves what they do not know? Pray tell how one serves honorably and rightly what one neither knows nor loves? Lacking the knowing and loving, it is patently obvious the serving is going to end badly, and does, across the entire religion.
Your reply is no more helpful or informative than "don't worry, be happy", which is precisely why folk either seek elsewhere or stop seeking, altogether. Likewise the bishop statement, which is as helpful as "because" as for any answer.
This will get interesting when they have to merge NO parishes with VO parishes.
Traditionalists are not rigid! Many of them away from mainstream progressive Catholicism towards traditional Catholicism. Many of the progressive Vatican 2 people won’t disengage from the 1960’s, and will not let anyone get in the way of their agenda. That might be why many of their liberal parishes only have age group actively participating and in attendance. They won’t move to make room for any one else.
Anon@1041am....I read your stab at the answer on knowing Jesus by "learning" Jesus, studying his words, actions, etc. All laudable endeavors, but you still are only telling learning OF, learning ABOUT, and all utterly peripheral and an exercise of only intellect.
This is analogous to saying I can KNOW George Washington, and BE George Washington, merely by reading OF George Washington, and my BEING George Washington simply by copying his every move. Which is obviously impossible, his every move is not recorded, and most certainly are not recorded are all his thoughts, experiences and memories. My attempts to do such copying would be rightly seen as dangerously delusional leading to a very bad end.
We all have read of deceased individuals, and enviously read writings and anecdotes by those who were fortunate enough to actually KNOW them, EXPERIENCE them. And we ache for that which they had, and which will not, not in THIS life, in any case. What seekers want, is to KNOW this person, experience that reality. They want no sham delusional "KNOW the golf ball. BE the golf ball" talk of entirely manmade self-delusion.
Pittsburgh had so many stunning German, Slovak, Croatian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and Italian churches I grew up there and yes most have been closed. These were built by the above mentioned ethnic groups with all the money the could muster and now they are Gone with the Wind. All the renew felt banners, hand holding, kiss of peace, folk music, altar girls, lay lectors, clown Masses, liturgical dancers could not save these churches, to say Vatican II did not result in this disaster is just ridiculous.
Bob, If Bishop Zubik of Pittsburgh is unclear and "utterly peripheral" when he says we are "learn Jesus, love Jesus and live Jesus," then the Baltimore Catechism is equally unclear and utterly peripheral when it says we are, "To know, to love, and to serve God."
Sauce for the goose is, after all, sauce for the gander.
Von Hadden aka Anonymous K,
Except the sauce you are serving is spiritual pablum. You are clericalism on steroids, always having to have the last, silly word.
The problem is not with the slogan itself, the problem is what does the bishop mean when he says it? Which Jesus are we to learn, live and love? Jesus called out sin....warned against sin, satan and hell but it seems the liberal clergy don't want us to learn, live and love that Jesus. Or how bout this Jesus.... I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me. Or this Jesus.....no salvation outside of my Church.
"The problem is not with the slogan itself, the problem is what does the bishop mean when he says it?"
Did you look at Bishop Zubik's pastoral letters which are posted ion the diocesan website? It seems to me that if you REALLY wanted to know what he means when he says it, you might start there.
There you might have found his encouragement for a daily examination of conscience and regular confession.
There you might have found his reminder that we are scarred by sin, that direct attacks on human life are a sin, that he speaks of Mary being free from sin - a model for us.
As for "No salvation outside of my Church," Jesus never said that.
Von Hadden aka Anonymous K,
And Jesus never said "Abortion on demand and gay marriage" but YOU are voting for the Party that promotes it.
Jesus also never said, "The Extraordinary form is the way to go."
So, if "What Jesus Said Or Didn't Say" is the determining factor, you're out of luck there.
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