“Another great problem for the Roman Catholic church (similar for some other churches and synagogues) is the number of people (especially those in public life) who still claim membership or affiliation but whose conduct and advocacy is nevertheless Satanic.”
So good I had to post it twice.
Start excommunicating public officials that KNOW church law and violate it anyway by creating policy in complete contravention of both Natural Law, and God’s Laws and the Catholic church will start to regain some credibility. Lord knows the Protestants are bleeding credibility by the buckets and are looking for some place to land that has the least bit of moral fortitude.
You're right. The problem, at the level of the bishops, may be their formation in ethics, dating from the sixties. Many bishops have bought into the moral equivalency of the "seamless garment" argument.
Simple cowardice is another explanation. Both are possible.
That generation is passing away. I have some hope for the new generation.
I have become very disillusioned with the Catholic Church because I am greatly at odds with many of their political stances (illegal immigration, their warped ideas about “social justice,” and their failure to excommunicate high-profile, influential Catholics who support abortion on demand, to name a few). I cannot remember one sermon in 60 years that emphasized the importance of liberty. Virtue presupposes free will. Helping the less fortunate by choice is a virtue; being forced to help the less fortunate by the government is clearly not a virtue. I have never known the Church to make this point clear to its flock. One can ONLY be virtuous if one if free to be virtuous. The Church has never emphasized how critical liberty is to carrying out the mission of Christ.
That doesn't really make sense.
"the Protestants" isn't actually a denomination, to try to describe all Christians who aren't members of the Catholic denomination, as a single denomination, for example, Episcopalians and Southern Baptists, as a single church controlled by a Protestant Vatican, just doesn't work, or make sense.