Posted on 05/01/2013 6:54:27 AM PDT by marshmallow
Reading Sherry Weddell’s excellent Forming Intentional Disciples is making me think about the American church and what ails her. Can anybody deny that there is a sickness in the body ecclesia? When 50% of Catholics vote for a man who stoutly defends same sex marriage and partial birth abortion can we say that Catholics in America are okay?
I don’t think so.
Thus a series of posts on what’s killing Catholicism. All the words begin with the letter ‘C’. I can’t help it. I was brought up as a Biblical Evangelical and our pastors always used alliteration to make their points memorable.
The first problem is cultural catholicism. The Poles, Italians, Irish, French, Czech, German and more Catholics came here from the old country and the bishops reckoned the best thing to do with them all was to allow cultural parishes. So in the same town the Irish Catholics went to St Patrick’s and the Poles to St Stanislaus and the Italians to St Anthony of Padua. Geesh, a man in my parish who grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania said that when he was a boy a girl from his Czech parish fell in love with an Irish boy and the Irish priest wouldn’t marry them because it was a mixed marriage.
I’m all for cultural customs and so forth, but the problem is that the immigrant Catholics–in a foreign land–clung to their culture for security and happiness and part of that culture was their Catholicism. The didn’t distinguish their culture from their Catholicism. Then, after a few generations, when they were all really American and stopped being Italian or Irish or German they also stopped being Catholic. The Catholic faith wasn’t much deeper than Mama’s special spaghetti sauce or stories of the Blarney stone.
Of course they didn’t.........
(Excerpt) Read more at patheos.com ...
the muslim backed rat party...
I still say it’s the long-term result of Vatican II, when everybody’s favorite liberal pope decided to make drastic changes to most of the Catholic traditions, beliefs, and ceremonies.
Once they let the “lay” people in charge, all hell broke loose: cafeteria Catholicism was in vogue . . . pick what you want to believe . . . no more respect for the consecrated Host . . . no more respect for priests or nuns . . . blah, blah, blah
Wolves in bishops' mitres.
Interesting point(s) in this article, thanks.
I think I would say that it is the same things that are killing all religious: Secularism, relativism, humanism, statism.. all wrapped up into a popular culture that seeks to destroy the spirit.
Pope-emritus Benedict said we are living the end results of the Enlightenment. I think of this mainly as humanism and individualism - fertilizer for the sin of pride. When this grows in a human, she/he cooperates with the evil one in his/her own downfall.
So, my two cents worth is that the enemies of the Church are no different today than in the past; they are only more popular and more ubiquitous.
Let's hope he doesn't try eastern religions. I can see this guy becoming a Hindu Holy Guy, a Bhuddist monk, a Shinto Bonze, then a leading Imam.
However, you never read something he writes without coming away richer.
Liberalism.
Scriptural modernism killed the American Catholic Church. Of course, Fr. Dwight can’t say this because he’s a scriptural modernist (gotta prove he’s not a fundie anymore, y’know!).
Too bad you’re among those confused about what Vatican II did and did NOT do.
In fact it was an excuse for those with ill intentions to misuse the purpose of Vatican II.
Read the documents and you will find that it was only the unintended liberal application which lead to the changes you cite.
Bishops lacking intestinal fortitude. If they had held firm, the Church in America wouldn’t be in disarray.
I don’t disagree with what’s here; but what’s not here is Vatican II and its profound, if disastrous effect on Catholics in America, in particular. Europe’s Catholic identity had already begun to decline, but America’s Catholic population was thriving; orthodoxy reigned. The Church in 1962 America, very definitely the monolith Nancy Pelosi claimed it wasn’t, needed no “open windows,” no vistas of reform. Convents were full and happy; Catholic elementary education, for the most part, was free, available, and superior.
Vatican II, along with America’s post-war super-power status accidentally (?) destroyed all that.
Along with the communist efforts to sabotage seminaries (Bella Dodd) and the burgeoning peace/feminist/academic movements (also communist-inspired), American Catholicism simply faced too many fronts to defend. And, in keeping with “the spirit of the council,” it mistakenly eschewed orthodoxy with as much fervor as it had previously reserved for heretics.
Thankfully, however, there is no such animal as the American Catholic Church.
no complicated answers required.... parents stopped taking children to church every week and society has lost any sense of sin
The Creation of the Religious Left
“When people reflect on the Christian church they generally picture a fellowship of believers whose focus is on *spiritual growth*, *spreading the faith*, and *good works*. These were the church’s primary goals until the last few decades. There is a wide gulf, however, between yesterday’s goals and today’s agenda. The American mainline churches the most prominent of which are the United Methodists, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopalians, the American Baptists, many Catholic leaders and orders, and the Lutheran Church in America - have realigned their priorities in a frighteningly *political* direction.”
“A growing percentage of Christian leadership has abandoned its role as *spiritual shepherd* because it no longer considers humanity’s *spiritual welfare* its greatest concern. A great many bishops have rejected *winning souls* in favor of *influencing political issues*. Church bureaucracy now neglects traditional mission in favor of *lobbying for political causes*. In fact, certain sectors of the church now make it their primary business to manufacture, widely distribute, and finance a radical agenda by which they hope *to save the world*. In doing so, they have created the *Religious Left*.”
http://cmpage.org/betrayal/chapt1.html
American Catholics, mostly.
For later
It was those "unintended" applications that were never snuffed out immediately that led to the disaster that the church became:
Nuns running around in street clothes
Priests not having to do vespers anymore
Saturday Mass was now equiv to Sunday Mass
Handling the Host like it was a Big Mac
Lay people handing you the Host
Being able to eat on your way to church to receive the Host
No more Latin Mass
No immediate expulsion of renegade nuns and priests who supported abortion and faggotry
Allowing discontents, homosexuals, and other heathens to undermine the Church's morals
Female altar boys
(fill in the blanks)
The bishop’s thinking that they can teach publicly without using public discipline. Any first grade teacher knows that won’t work.
Freegards
-Priests that don’t teach during homilies... never talking about abortion at election time
-People wearing short shorts, flip flops hats and raggy t-shirts to mass
-No sacred music; rock bands playing at mass instead of beautiful choirs
-nuns (even habit wearing nuns) lining up to vote for Obama
-social justice focus
-obama stickers on cars in the parking lot at mass.
-pretending illegal immigration no matter who you are is somehow a human right.
Ping for later read of comments
Things wrong with the Catholic church:
1. There are a lot of people who call themselves Catholics but never attend church (well, maybe once or twice a year). That tends to distort polls.
2. The Bishop’s do not excommunicate politicians who flaunt the church’s teaching.
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