If people think that religious persecution could never take place in the USA, they are VERY wrong. It can happen anywhere. These words of Pope Benedict seem prophetic to me:
“The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.”
He goes on, saying: [the church]
“It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution – when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.
And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already with Gobel, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”
More: The Coming Catholic Church of America
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2009/03/11/the-coming-catholic-church-of-america
The shadow of the jackboot…
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2009/11/08/the-shadow-of-the-jackboot
Elizabeth Scalia (the Anchoress) has hit the nail exactly on the head!
I was born into a Catholic family, raised Catholic, attended Catholic school for 8 years and then “left” the Church. The time was the 1970’s and 1980’s.
I left the Church as a young person and while some in my generation took to the exotic drugs...I took a spiritual excursion. At the time I could not put my finger on exactly why I left the Church and sought God in everything from “atheism” to evangelical to wicca.
Now here I am 3 decades later watching the Church of my youth finally standing up for what they teach. Time, age, and experience has given me new understanding to my wandering off...to my spiritual walk-about. The Church teachings at the time of my youth were hollow and the Church did not have the “guts” to stand in their faith.
In fact, as any truth speaking Catholic knows the Church was turning and bending to the social justice ideals. As a young person immersed in the religion, needing to believe...and finding the faith of the church at that time empty I left to find the God that seemed to be missing.
It is very good to see the faith of my youth finding that which they had lost. And yes, I agree with the Pope we are about to witness the “great falling away.” I disagree that this is a “test” to Catholics. It is the separating of the wheat and the chaff not just of the church, but of the world. Wheat is wheat and chaff is chaff one cannot become the other but for the miracle of Jesus.
I have been tempted to venture into a Sunday mass lately. Out of the 3 local churches only one does not mention their duties of ‘social justice’ in the community. I am thinking this one is where I will go and see if the faith of my youth, the faith I was taught...is there.
I can now say I left the church 30 odd years ago, because the church appeared weak and wavering to me.
You’re absolutely correct; that is profoundly prophetic.
Thanks for your insights and links.