The Collapse of Cultural Catholicism

Shery Weddell at the St Catherine of Siena Institute reports that 32% of Americans raised Catholic abandon the identity altogether by their mid twenties. An additional 38% retain the identity but rarely practice their faith. 30% of those who call themselves Catholic attend Mass only once a month. On a given Sunday only about 15.6% of American Catholics attend Mass.

What is the reason for these disastrous statistics? Basically because for the last forty years Catholics themselves have not taught Catholicism to their children. They've taught 'American Catholicism' which is a watered down blend of sentimentalism, political correctness, community activism and utilitarianism. In other words, "Catholicism is about feeling good about yourself, being just to others and trying to change the world." The next generation have drawn the obvious conclusion that you don't need to go to Mass to do all that. You can feel good about yourself much more effectively with a good book from the self help shelf, or by attending a personal development seminar. You can be involved in making the world a better place without going to church.

If only 15% of Catholics go to Mass on a given Sunday, look around and see how many of them are old. Even the 15% who are there won't be there for very long.

The solution is simple: we must return to the supernatural realities of the historic faith and evangelize like the Apostles of old. The big difference is that the Apostles knew their targets were pagans and the pagans knew they weren't Christians. We're dealing with a huge population of Americans (Catholics and Protestants alike) who are pagan but who think they're 'good Christians.' It is very difficult to evangelize people who already think they're fine just as they are. We don't know what we don't know, and the vast majority of poorly catechized, lazy and worldly Catholics aren't aware that there's anything wrong.

Quix:

I have no clue that that video is and who made it. For all I know, it could be a Bob Jones production or Chick tract production.

Again, you made an historical statement that the Catholic Church in ROme did not start until 300 AD. That was “your statement”, not mine as I don’t believe it to be true and the evidence that I post seems to contradict your statement and the evidence that I posted is not just the consensus of Catholic Scholarship, or Eastern Orthodox [who are close to the Catholics in Doctrine, Dogma, and Liturgical practice], it also reflects the best work of the Anglican and Lutheran-Reformed Patristic Scholars of the late 19th and 20the century who once investigating the Patristic Corpus all came to the agreement with respect to which works were extant/authentic vs. spurrious and the works that I cited are recognized as authentic by scholars in all 4 camps that I mentioned above.

One of the greatest American Patristic Scholars of the 20th century, as Patristic studies began to flourish once the Anglican Lightfoot translated the works of the Fathers into English and gradually those works began to be studied in the U.S., was Jaroslav Pelikan, whose works on Church History were among the best that I have read.

For the record, he was an American Lutheran when he did his 5-volume work back in the 70’s but later in his life before he died, he did enter the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Perhaps you should take a look at his work if you have a negative reaction to Catholic publication are websites that have access to the writings of the early CHurch Fathers and Councils of the early Church.

I am not discounting that the Catholic Church suffered under Hitler.

I said one of the FIRST things Hitler did was gather up all the Protestant Pastor and shoot the ones that would not go along with him . Did you know the state took over those churches because and they refused over 700 pastors to take up collections for their own churches. If you take away the pastor the sheep perish.

Let’s think about this a minute and put this into perspective and imagine that our current resident passes a law to control what the Roman Catholic Church in this country can and can not preach along with replacing the priest with the ones he wants . Imagine that Pelosi is now in charge of what can and can not be said in your church ? Do you think they will suddenly be changing what they preach about say abortion?

Oh and BTW Bavaria’s Roman Catholics largely voted for Hitler to begin with . Many in hopes of making Germany Catholic. Just like Roman Catholics largely went along with Castro when he took over Cuba who by the way was also raised and educated by Jesuits just like Hitler.
I’d say the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba has also suffered but it doesn’t change the fact that at first they welcomed him too. And just like Hitler he raised a generation of pagans to remain in control.

Some of those little hick rural Baptist churches might have only around 200-250 members in their church and yet they manage to raise hundred of thousands of dollars and more to send missionaries to places where others have refused to preach the Gospel.

God Bless you!

They walk the talk.

Most of those rural backwoods preachers actually preach God’s WORD instead of what someone else wrote about what they said. Those HICKS actually open their BIBLES and READ them.

Do you think the "elites" of the day looked down their noses at Jesus Christ and his group of backwoods bumpkins the same way?

These arrogant elitist snobs reveal themselves from time to time.

Momof7: So if Mary had said no there would have been no Savior?

marshmallow Exactly.

Which is why Catholics esteem her so highly and call her the second Eve. For what Eve destroyed with her disobedience, Mary helped to repair with her "yes", freely given.

WOW!

The Creator of all. The almighty, omnipotent God. He who brought all into being with just His will and words! Who would have thought His immutable will could be thwarted by a young Jewish Virgin.

You know what?

The Roman Catholic god is really quite small...

There is absolutely no record of Peter having ever been in Rome. The RCC tries to rest their hope on a passage in scripture that even they have to admit doesn’t really work very well. They try to convince us that when Peter said he was writing from Babylon that he was actually in Rome and was using a coded word to refer to Rome to hide his actual wherabouts. The problem with that was that the use of the word Babylon in reference to Rome didn’t come into usage until after 70AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem long after Peter had been martyred.

On the basis of the New Testament account, it would have been very possible for Peter to write his epistle from the city or province of Babylon itself. His ministry was to the Jews, and, as writings from subsequent centuries establish, Babylon was a center of Judaism both before and long after Peter.

Embarrassingly, in the 1950s Roman Catholic archaeologists discovered a tomb in Jerusalem containing an ossuary—a bone box used in first-century Jewish burials—that bore the engraved name “Simon Bar Jona” (a name by which the apostle Peter is known in the Gospels).

The Vatican soon produced its own archaeological evidence that Peter’s tomb and remains were buried under the high altar in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. At the heart of its argument was a sarcophagus discovered in the first half of the century, which authorities began examining more closely in the years after the Second World War.

While Pope Pius XII in 1953 announced that the true remains of St Peter had been found, many scholars have remained skeptical about the significance of the discoveries. While many in the RCC want it to be true there is more evidence that it is not then opinion that it is.

Lera:

Actually, your statement is historically inaccurate, there are maps of where Hitler received the majority of his votes and where he did not recieve a majority of his votes and it was the Catholic parts of the Country that rejected him. In fact, the Catholic party of which produced the mass resistance to Hitler and which produced the officer that tried to kill Hitler in 1944 just after the invasion of Normandy, was the major opposition to Hitler in what was I think the 1932 or 33 election.

CynicalBear:

Actually, there is a record of him being in Rome. St. Clement of Rome alludes to it in 90-95 AD in his letter to the Church at Corinth. St. Ignatius writings in circa 107 AD clearly indicates that Peter and Paul were both in Rome. St. Irenaeus of Lyon writing circa 170-175 AD also attests that St. Peter and Paul were in Rome. Tertullian, writing while still an orthodox Catholic mentions it

So I am not trying to convince you of anything. I am only providing evidence from writings of the 1st century that attest to St. Peter and Paul being in Rome, writings that are universally accepted among the Catholic, Orthodox Church and the Anglican and Lutheran Traditions. From what I gathered, most of the Reformed CHurch Historians today in Europe alo recognize the 7 letter Ignatian corpus as authentic as well as St. Ireanaeus’s writings.

Two Patristic Scholars, one Lutheran-Reformed J. Pelikan [he became Orthodox before he died] and the Anglican Chadwick clearly review the evidence and totally refute your post and views.

For example, Jaraslov Pelikan the Professor of Church History at Cornell in Volume 1 of his 5- volume work “The CHristian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine” entitled THe Emergence of the Catholic Tradition [100AD-600AD], which was written while he was a Reformed-Lutheran writes “But Rome is where both Peter and Paul had been martyred and were buried and this had given the CHurch of ROme a unique eminence as early as the time of Tertuillian” (p.354).

The great Anglican Patristic Scholar Henry Chadwick, professor at both OxFord and Cambridge and Pastor at the major Anglican “Christ Church” at Oxford writes of St. Peter that the martyrdom of St. Peter is alluded to in the Gospel of John. That it took place at Rome is “Highly Probable” from the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, Ignatius Letter to the Romans and the unamimous tradition of the second century writers and the fact that a monumment was built on Vatican Hill in 160 AD which marked the spot of Peter’s killing [See The Pengiun History of the Church: The Early Church, Revised Edition, 1993 Pengiun Books, p.18]

In summary, the evidence seems to clearly refute your personal opinion on the question of whether ST. Peter was in Rome.

Gamecock:

Actually, the letter to the Phillipans [cf 2:5-11] points to the humility of God that he would send his Son into the human condition and become incarnate of the Virgin Mary and then suffer on the Cross.

So the reality is not that without Mary there would be no savior, the reality is that it was through Mary that the Word became incarnate and dwelt among us [cf. John 1:14].

So it was the Divine Will of God that Christ would become incarnate of Mary so that he could experience the entire Human condition and be one totally like us, save sin [cf. Hebrews 14:15].

So Christ being Incarnate of the Virgin Mary means the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity was incarnate of Mary. Thus, the the Son of God and the Son of Mary are one and the same Person - Christ is God, and Mary is the Mother of God [as allude to in the Gospel of Luke 1:43 and dogmatically defined at the Council of Ephesus in 431AD].

Since Mary’s role was unique in Salvation History, both teh Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church recogniz Mary as the greatest saint of the New Testament because no one was so intimately associated with the Incarnation as she. She voluntarily conceived, gave birth to, and nourished Christ. Our Lord derived from her the very flesh and blood of His body.

It was that flesh and blood that suffered, died and was buried, the flesh that Christ got from Mary his Mother.

God is not limited in His choice of women.

I’m sure that IF Mary had said *No*, that He could have raised up someone else who who have said *yes*.

This debate of whether Mary could have said *No* and what would have happened falls into the angels dancing on the head of a pin.

The efforts Catholics go through to exalt Mary to a position that justifies their adoration and veneration of her could better be put into exalting Jesus.

Attention to Mary is attention not given to God.

Prayer to Mary is prayer not given to God.

Anything to Mary is anything not given to God.

There is no justification for the attention the Catholic church heaps on her. It takes the focus off God and puts it on man.

Lera:

Correct, that was the name of it, I couldn’t remember it but it was the party that the Catholics in Germany had been historically part of since Bismark made the German Republic in the 1870’s.

The Catholic Center party was very scared of a unified Germany and fought against and Bismark tried to keep Catholics out of the government. So there was a healthy anti-Catholicism still present among those Germans who suscribed to “a Radical form of German Nationalism”.

With the advent of “State Socialism”, the Catholics began to not oppose Bismark as much but still retained their own Catholic-Center Party.

In the 1933 elections, they were the staunchest opponents of Hitler but they did not put up a fight and with that contested election of 1933, the Catholics did not want to be seen as stoping Germany from being united and they sort of caved in, which was not to their ultimate good nor the good of the German people as a whole.

metmom:

You are entitled to your view, the weight of the Christian tradition stands against your views.

Honoring Mary to me is akin to honorin my Mother and Father, which we are morally obliged to do so, and me honoring my Mother and Father in my view does not detract from my Worship of the Holy Trinity as worshiping God and honoring my Mother and Father, and honoring The Mary the Mother of God are not things that are in conflict are to me, are at odds with each other.

You can chose to do what you want but if all us who don’t share your theological worldview would take your views to the extreme, then none of us could honor our parents at their wedding anniversay or honor our Mothers and Fathers on Mothers and Fathers day or honor each of them on their birthdays because according to you, that detracts from God and puts focus on human beings such as our Mothers and Fathers.

Sorry, that to me is fundalmentalist nonsense and has no basis in the Scriptures or Apostolic Tradition of the early Church as expressed by the Consensus of the Church Fathers and 4 Great Councils of the early Church [Nicea 325 AD, Constantinopile 381AD, Ephesus 431AD, Chalcedon 451AD].

Lera:

I appreciate you providing objective evidence on the Hitler and Germany history and not rely on polemics. The link you provided was good. Here is an article from History Today that shows the same voting partern, the Catholic Center party and the Bavarian party [which was not listed in the wikipedia article] combined for over 15% of the vote and as the article showed, Hitler polled better in Protestant areas vs Catholic.

http://www.johndclare.net/Weimar6_Geary.htm

Unfortunately, the Catholic Center party caved in to allow for a President to take power and basically suspend parliament and then Hidenburg in an attempt to unite the factions appointed Hitler Chancellor without German parlimentary approval.

I don’t know the rules of the German government back then but the election of 1932, when Hidenburg won. However, he in 1933 appointed Hitler Chancellor, which is sort of like our VP, and then in 1934, Von Hildenburg dies and then Hitler came to power and immediately became a dictator.

>>In summary, the evidence seems to clearly refute your personal opinion on the question of whether ST. Peter was in Rome.<<

Personal opinion? Oh, come now. Though you would like to relegate it to personal opinion you would be denying some very diligent scholars. Even the RCC had problems trying to prove it as I showed in my previous post.

A 2009 critical study by Otto Zwierlein has concluded that "there is not a single piece of reliable literary evidence (and no archaeological evidence either) that Peter ever was in Rome." (Pieter W. van der Horst, review of Otto Zwierlein, Petrus in Rom: die literarischen Zeugnisse. Mit einer kritischen Edition der Martyrien des Petrus und Paulus auf neuer handschriftlicher Grundlage, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review)

1 Clement, a document that has been dated anywhere from the 90s to the 120s, is one of the earliest sources adduced in support of Peter's stay in Rome, but questions have been raised about the text's authenticity and whether it has any knowledge about Peter's life beyond what is contained in the New Testament Acts.[42] The Letter to the Romans attributed to St. Ignatius of Antioch implies that Peter and Paul had special authority over the Roman church, telling the Roman Christians: "I do not command you, as Peter and Paul did". However, the authenticity of this document and its traditional dating to c. 105–10 have also been questioned, and it may date from the final decades of the 2nd century.

CynicalBear:

Well, ok this Otto Zwierlen states questions whether Clement of Rome and the Ignatian letters are valid.

Fr. Jurgens in his 3-volume work on The Faith of the Early Fathers states that the authenticity of this letters had been questioned by “Protestant scholars” because of their clear hierarachial model of the church along with a monarchial Bishop. The validity of these letters has long been vindicated by the likes of Anglican Patristic Scholars J.B. Lightfoot and Lutheran-Reformed ones such as A.D. Harnack and Theodore Zahn.

Cleary more recent Anglican Patristic Scholars such as Owen Chadwich and J.N.D. Kelly support the validity of the Ignatian corpus as does perhaps the most well known American patristic Scholar, Jaraslov Pelikan who died a few years ago and he too was a Lutheran-Reformed guy before becoming Eastern Orthodox.

Fr. Jurgens closes his introduction on the Igantian Letters with the statement that these letters are almost Universally accepted.

So given that statement by Fr. Jurgens, one of the well known Catholic Patristic Scholars of the later 20th century, he as a scholar does acknowledge that there is a minority opinion that questions the validity of the Ignatian corpus.

So, Otto Zwierlein is apparently one such scholar today that is in the minority opinion.

There is no record of Peter having ever been in Babylon, either.

By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity. (Wikipedia)

There is strong indication in Revelation that “Babylon” was a reference to Jerusalem, the object of divine wrath.

Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. (Rev. 16:19)

The phrase “great city” is a reference to Jerusalem, as we see in Rev. 11:8.

Josephus records how during the siege of Jerusalem that the city was divided into three factions.

“it so happened that the sedition at Jerusalem was revived, and parted into three factions, and that one faction fought against the other; which partition in such evil cases may be said to be a good thing, and the effect of divine justice.” (War of the Jews, 5:1:1)

We also see in Revelation a strong correlation between the “great harlot” (old Jerusalem) and the Lamb's bride (new Jerusalem).

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.