Amen.
There are however, several items of the original article that seem ridiculous to me. What jumped out most was "Trying to earn Salvation" and "merit", these are bedrock claims against Catholicism made by Protestants and my mind boggles whenever I see them because they are so blatantly false. Seeing a priest make those claims just makes me suspicious.
It makes me suspicious because a priest before the liturgical changes would have said "not counting our merits, but freely granting us pardon" every day when he said Mass. Even after the new missal was introduced he would have said "do not consider what we truly deserve but grant us Your forgiveness".
I prefer the old usage because it explicitly gives the lie to this idea that Catholics believe we merit salvation or that we can earn what is freely granted.
Now, if I, a mere adult convert can pick up on this after a short period of attending Mass how can a priest excuse himself who says Mass daily? He may be going after low hanging fruit or trying to gain credibility with anti-Catholics but he must know that inserting this "earning" stuff must throw up red flags to any Catholic who's actually paying attention. His entire presentation of Catholic thinking on salvation is a stereotype, why would he do that if he actually wanted to speak to Catholics?
But never mind all that because there was one thing he wrote that really did ring true. He nailed something when he wrote that the reason he was insulted in the streets of Rome "was not because I stood for Christ as the early Christians did but because they saw in me the Roman Catholic system."
I was having exactly that conversation with a priest friend last week when talking about the press coverage and the hatred of the world against the Church. "Don't you wish they were attacking us because of Christ?" I asked. Our Lord doesn't even begin to enter into it because we've done such a horrible job. I don't care about the witness of the various protestantisms, it doesn't matter what their ratio of sexual immorality is, and the public schools aren't worth using as a defense either. Their failures aren't the issue, OUR failure is.
Humanly speaking the Church stands in ruins, her people are uncatechised, her priests are depraved, she has been abandoned by everyone who stood under her protection during the good times. In fact, one could draw a very telling comparison at this time to the Passion of Our Lord. It is Friday for the Church and it is very difficult to call it Good, only in the hope of Sunday can we remain faithful.
That wasn't at all what I intended when I started replying but there it is.
I don't think Bennett is actually speaking to Catholics, but to a Protestant audience, and is simply confirming them in their prejudices. Knowledgeable Catholics wouldn't fall for these assertions, and, as you say, it's surprising that any priest would.
Charles Chiniquy was a Catholic priest who went over to Protestantism. He did it for the money. Maybe that's the motivation here? I'd hate to think so.
I can't agree with you that the Church is in ruins, though. Things are actually improving in many ways. Mass attendance is increasing. Some of the sillier ideas that were put forth in the wake of the last Council are in decline. Only a small percentage of priest were involved in the scandals. And I know a number of young Catholics, strong in the faith, who give me hope.
I've seen some people dismiss hope as Panglosian optimism or Pollyanna nonsense, but it's the second theological virtue after charity. So chin up, friend. The Church always does well under persecution, and we've been through much worse than this. It's when times are "fat" that she tends to fall into corruption.
Oh, and welcome home!