Too little, too late. Those of the laity who refused to accept Communion in the hand and knelt were REFUSED Communion in too many places. One image will stay in my mind forever - that of an old lady forced to take Communion in the hand and standing - returned to her pew, with tears running down my face.
That was as close to punching that despicable POS in robes. He later left the Church because he was a Communist.
You write: “Too little, too late.”
The history of the Israelites and the Church in the New Testament has always gone through the same cycle of slowly losing the faith, and then after the lose of God, and the great suffering due to the lose of God’s protection, a few converted to start all over again. This cycle was repeated seven times in the Book of Judges alone!
If everybody I know does not want to seek to discover and do the will of God with much prayer, that’s their eternal choice. That does not mean I have to follow them, even though it is not easy to go alone.
Pope John Paul II said to a group of pilgrims in Fulda, West Germany, in November 1980, speaking about the secrets of Fatima, that: “We have to be prepared to suffer, before long, great trials which will require of us the disposition to sacrifice even our life for Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it is still possible to diminish this trial (predicted at Fatima), but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only in this manner can the Church be effectively renewed. How many times has the renewal of the Church been brought about in blood! It will not be different this time.” (http://www.fatima.org/thirdsecret/fulda.asp).
“The Dream of St. John Bosco” of the two pillars indicates to us the great importance of staying very close to Jesus in the Eucharist (while it is still possible) with our Rosary in hand.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said: “The truth is the truth even if no one believes it; error is error even if everyone believes it.”
Hell or high water, the first thing I got to do is save my immortal soul. This is also the greatest thing I can do for other, true love, not false love as is so prevalent in the Church today.