Posted on 05/26/2005 9:29:33 AM PDT by Murtyo
The Church and its people are in crisis, according to the Archbishop of Westminster
EUROPE is filled with angst and the Catholic Church is in crisis, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, said last night.
In a lecture at Westminster Cathedral, the spiritual leader of more than four million Catholics in England and Wales said that the Church in Europe, in particular Britain, was in a time of crisis and of “dying and rising”.
He described the modern European as a person of angst, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the many liberties enjoyed in contemporary Western culture. He said that Europe would fall into anguish if it forgot God and lost touch with its Judaeo-Christian tradition.
He argued that the greatest temptation facing Europe was not evil but indifference, but he gave warning that the response to aggressive secularism could not be aggressive Christianity. One of the main tasks facing the Church was to recall Europe to its roots in God.
The Cardinal was speaking on the eve of the launch of his long-awaited “green paper” on the re-organisation of his own diocese of Westminster.
Westminster is one among 22 dioceses in England and Wales but, as the foremost, its plans radically to change the way it operates in order to cope with the rapidly declining numbers are being watched closely by church authorities throughout the West.
The paper, which will be introduced to parishioners at Masses this weekend, controversially proposes parish mergers and closures. Parishes will be told that they can no longer assume that they will have a resident priest and that they must prepare for this. Lay people will be urged to take a more active role in worship, administration and pastoral care. Numbers of Masses will be reduced and parishes will need to share staff, prayer ministries and even major liturgies, such as organising joint celebrations during Holy Week.
Unlike the developing world, in which the Catholic Church is experiencing explosive growth, numbers of priests in this country are in freefall as vocations continue to decline.
Some blame the celibacy requirement. In the Westminster consultation, a number of parishioners served by married priests who left the Church of England and went over to Rome after the ordination of women suggested that the success of this ministry meant that the celibacy requirement should be relaxed.
The Cardinal says that this is a question for Rome rather than for the local Church. Church authorities today continue to insist on the celibacy discipline and put the decline in vocations down to increasing secularisation and the reluctance of young people to make lifelong commitments to unfashionable spiritual values. From 843 priests working in the ministry in Westminster in 1990, the number has fallen to 623 today and is projected to be 471 by 2015.
Over the same period, the number of Catholics in the diocese has remained steady, replenished, in part, by immigration. Of 500,000 Catholics living in Westminster, 150,000 regularly attend Mass. This year saw a record number of adults, 780, seeking admission to the Church through its adult baptism and confirmation programme.
The surprise success of the television programme The Monastery shows that there is still a demand out there for what the Church offers, even if few men wish to be priests.
The Cardinal urges Catholics to pray for priestly vocations. He says: “There is no reason to lose confidence in the Lord of the harvest who desires to send labourers into His harvest.”
He also says that the paper is not simply a response to the crisis in vocations but is born also out of a desire to develop the gifts “of all the baptised”.
The paper gives warning that the shift in the image of a parish will need to be profound and parishioners and priests will need to take on a new mindset to develop strong lay leadership. “Over the next 10-15 years, the Church in Westminster will need to move away from the idea that the viability of a parish is contingent on its resident priest.”
Precise details of the plan, the result of a diocese-wide consultation by the Cardinal, will be published in the “white paper” at the end of the year.
But the Cardinal summed up his concerns in his speech at the cathedral last night. Referring to the pattern of dying and rising again that the Church has undergone through the centuries, he said: “In some ways the Church in Europe, and in particular the Church in Britain, is at such a time now. It is a time of dying and of rising. It is a time of crisis.”
He said that by “crisis” he meant a time of decision, uncertainty and change rather than of disintegration. “We live in a rather strange, twilight time. We should not be surprised at the challenges and the nervousness and the fears that face us here in our own country as we look to the future and the shape of the Church to come.”
The lecture was the last in the Faith in Europe? series. Previous speakers included Bob Geldof and Lord Patten of Barnes and each talk attracted more than 1,000 people.
Ah, but Allah stands ready to take the place of Jahwah, the God of the Jewish people and adopted by the Christians. First marry the burghers' daughters, and convert them, then bring in great numbers of your relatives, and establish a colony within these countries.
Europeans have abandoned their allegiance to Christianity in this post-modern world, considering it to be a shallow and uninteresting philosophy and unworthy of the attention of intelligent men. But the Muslims have not, and shall continue to make deep inroads on all things once considered European.
You are right
The socialism promoted by these same churches eliminates one of their important functions, serving those in need. With important function thus reduced it should be no surprise that they would be diminished. One would think that the these church leaders would realize that. Apparently not.
Horse gone bar door closing.
excellent point. i see all these liberal protestants and liberal Catholics talking about getting the State (read Taxpayer) to fund every concievable Health, School, "Childcare", welfare, etc. program and all of this has the effect you talk about. Seems they don't know that this is what happens or maybe it's what they want to see happen??
My thoughts exactly, too dam* late for the crapweasels
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor is part of the problem. The Catholic bishops in England and Ireland have, for the most part, done an even worse job than their American counterparts, and the rot is showing.
He needs to reform himself before he tries to reform his flock.
I think what has got to happen in many parts of Europe and the USA/Canada is a change in the mindset of people about how the Church is structured. In many places, the long-standing structure of the parish church and the parish priest residence that serves a precisely-drawn-out geographical area is over. What needs to take its place is the creation of lay movements that are largely self-initiated and self-governing, but there is a priest who serves as a spritual guide. Thus the priest is no longer a Chief Operating Officer of a Corporation, but a Holy Man for Others.
Even so, they haven't abandoned their entitlement "lifestyle". It's only a matter of time until that which is taken for granted is outlawed. With the institution of Muslim sharia courts, more and more European ideas, traditions and culture will evaporate. Someday many will wake up and finally take things into their own hands.
It's a matter of years before serious violence erupts everywhere throughout Europe. No American blood should be shed for these cretins.
Christianity and Socialism is an oxymoron - the latter believes in the supremacy over God. These poor Europeans never learn. The problem is that we here in the US are ignorant also in our move toward Socialism.
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