“And this is where you are wrong and metmom is correct. Individual Catholics are not to blame. The heirarchy is to blame. 100%. They are the ones,...”
Ones. Yes, INDIVIDUALS. All of the members of the hierarchy are INDIVIDUALS. They have more influence and more authority, but they are still INDIVIDUALS. The failing is theirs alone because the Church - as Christ’s Body - cannot fail.
“...since Vatican II, who have allowed Modernism/Protestantism/false ecumenism (whatever you want to call it) into the Church.”
They are not the only ones. And even if they were, they are still just individual men no matter what their influence or authority. I agree with you that they should all be better men in their vocations - as should we all be - but individuals fail, not the Church. By confusing the failings of individuals with an impossible failing of the Church you are buying into Modernism. That’s the irony of Modernism. Often those who rail against it as stemming from Vatican II or the decade before Vatican II actually are heavily infected by the Modernistic thought they condemn. The Church is indefectible. Men fail. The Church doesn’t.
“THEY are the reason why the Church is in disarray.”
They are not the only reason. It is a simplistic argument, tinged with Modernism, to claim it is only the hierarchy that is at fault.
“When THEY start acting like Catholics, then MAYBE lay folks will follow.”
Lay people could simply have stayed Catholic on their own. We have a responsibility to remain faithful even if we have shepherds who fail to do so. The simple fact is just about all Catholics failed. You included. Me included. Just blaming the hierarchy is the Modernists’ way of not taking responsibility for their own actions while discounting the mystical strength of the Church Christ founded. Don’t fall into that trap.
And if you remove the individuals, what exactly is left?
What is the church without individuals to comprise it?
If all the individuals go astray, the church has.
Really? How so? If Vatican II was not faithful to Traditional Catholic Teaching and the former is what Catholics are being taught now (either in word or in deed), how should they be expected to "remain faithful"? I think of those poor souls just after Vatican II. Not knowing WTH just hit them. But many of them "remained faithful" to a hierarchy who led them down the wrong path.
Unless of course you and I are talking about remaining faithful to two different things (you: post Vatican II teachings; me: pre-Vatican II teachings).
How can they stay faithful to something they've never known?
I grew up post-Vatican II. My family never missed Mass at our local parish church (wreckovated to resemble a masonic temple, without statues or other traditional decor, tabernacle off to the side, no recognition of the Real Presence, dancing women on the altar, etc.). It wasn't until I came across a copy of a Leaflet Missal catalogue (thank God) that I had the slightest clue regarding the post-VII abruption.