“Financially, the State has replaced the Church in terms of relevance.”
Which is all the more reason to attend and perpetuate the Faith.
I stopped giving to many of the 2nd. collections, but I try to support the Church.I have noticed the absence of the young members, and a shortage of altar servers. The Church is hurting, and IMO it is a hurt they brought on themselves. Their refusal to discipline Catholic politicians has shown that their rules are only for us peons and not for the Elites in the Church.Their allowance of things like Obama getting an award from Notre Dame , and his speech at Georgetown have hurt the Church.
If the Church cannot discipline their own theological Universities they need to get out of the University business.If the Church cannot control their Nuns they need to close down the offending Convent. If the Church refuses to get homosexuals out of the Priesthood, they need to stop pretending to keep the Faith.
The Church must provide discipline if they wish to survive.
That which is already gone can not survive
The Church will survive (because Jesus Christ said it would); it is simply changing. In my area they are closing schools and parishes (they use the euphemism “merging”, but only one building survives); they certainly don’t need my $.02 as they sell/rent out those buildings. Second collections were off the table years ago; the “double jeopardy” had become so commonplace it was a real source of griping. On the other hand, we have no shortage of altar servers or lay people that want to “play priest”; a few months ago for the first time my children returned to the pew because the only priest distributing Communion had returned to his seat (and they can’t receive from “play priests”).
My children are learning that the Vatican is the Church, and the shenanigans they see with our US hierarchy are irrelevant. Seeing Mr. Dolan yuck it up with Obama was priceless; what a hoax. The Dems have exposed the US Church as complicit in their reign (for those that didn’t see it already).