I agree with what you say. One of the unfortunate side effects of the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the spread of secularization.
Another, more fortunate result was greater religious freedom.
Actually, I have long thought that the greatest beneficiary of the Reformation was the Catholic Church. The Church did not change her teachings, but the Church did have to do more persuading and less commanding. Catholics became free to be Catholics because they chose to.
Protestantism splintered into sects and subsects. The Catholic Church adopted to the Enlightenment and the new ideal of Democratic freedom.
No group of human beings is ever perfect, of course. The Catholic Church has had its problems with the modern world. But on the whole, the Church has benefited. It is mostly Protestants who have suffered in various degrees from breaking away from the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I was born and bred an Episcopalian but converted to Catholicism, so I’ve seen both sides. There is (or was) plenty of good in the High Episcopal Church. But it wasn’t the fulness of Christianity.
I sometimes wondered why God sent the “Protestant wind” that scattered the Spanish Armada. Evidently He chose to favor England over Spain at that juncture, and I think in the long run that was a very good thing. For Catholics as well as Protestants. And certainly for Americans.
I asked an High Anglican Priest why he didn’t just go over to Rome and have done with it.
‘Ah’, he said ‘Why would I want to lower my chrurchmanship?’
I asked an High Anglican Priest why he didn’t just go over to Rome and have done with it.
‘Ah’, he said ‘Why would I want to lower my churchmanship?’