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To: GCC Catholic

Firstly, I haven’t seen any of you provide statistics to support your claims. All the available numbers suggest, time and again, that church attendance is dropping, there are fewer priests every year, and Catholic schools are in crisis and closing in great numbers.

I don’t dispute there’s an enthusiastic bunch of fundamentalist Catholics in the world, but they are a tiny minority (who may indeed be the last ones standing eventually), and their existence has not stopped or slowed large-scale attrition.


108 posted on 04/28/2008 10:32:44 AM PDT by TraditionalistMommy
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To: TraditionalistMommy
I don’t dispute there’s an enthusiastic bunch of fundamentalist Catholics in the world, but they are a tiny minority (who may indeed be the last ones standing eventually), and their existence has not stopped or slowed large-scale attrition.

The correct term is "orthodox," not "fundamentalist." I also find it interesting that you seem to think that they will be the "last ones standing eventually." You're correct, because heterodoxy ultimately doesn't produce good fruit.

111 posted on 04/28/2008 10:35:48 AM PDT by Pyro7480 ("If the angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion." -M. Kolbe)
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To: TraditionalistMommy
Firstly, I haven’t seen any of you provide statistics to support your claims. All the available numbers suggest, time and again, that church attendance is dropping, there are fewer priests every year, and Catholic schools are in crisis and closing in great numbers.

I don't have numbers at my disposal, nor do I have the time to go find them. I have qualitative support: traditional orders are growing; orthodox dioceses are producing priests; liberal/"progressive" dioceses and orders are withering away IN REGARDS TO CLERGY AND PROFESSED RELIGIOUS. Until this is remedied, the church attendance issue will not be fixed and cannot be fixed. Are the orthodox dioceses still bleeding parishioners and thin on priests? Sure. Are the orthodox religious orders still small? Certainly. But they aren't as small, they aren't bleeding as badly, and they have genuine hope that the situation will get better. Look at the FSSP, or the Society of St. John Cantius, or the Dioceses of Lincoln and St. Louis, or Kenrick-Glennon and St. Charles Borromeo. Compare them to their less traditionally-minded counterparts. It cannot be ignored.

I can only speak for what i know: my fellow seminarians from our rather small diocese have absolutely no interest in liberal or modernist concepts.

You never answered my question: HOW do you explain the trends that exist, which are in stark contrast to your assertion?

123 posted on 04/28/2008 10:45:31 AM PDT by GCC Catholic (Sour grapes make terrible whine.)
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