As she points out, it wasn’t just a one-person movement - Alinsky could never have gotten a foothold without the steady undermining effect of the atheistic philosophers of the 20th century having prepared the way for him. I think one of the crucial things, however, was the collapse of the Catholic Church after Vatican II, because it left many very simple people completely without any intellectual defenses. That us, the average Catholic certainly didn’t spend time pondering the great truths of life and morality on his own, but he knew what they were because he had absorbed them through his upbringing.
But the Church had been undermined by these same atheists; it’s well known that the communists had a plan to infiltrate seminaries and that they in fact did. So when discipline broke down and tradition was rejected at Vatican II, they just hatched out and took over.
Atheists have been around as long as has the Church. Can’t believe that they are the reason for any decline.
Excellent post...
Christianity’s big problem is that God is a lot more subtle than had been taught for the previous 1700 years. Science explains most of what happens in this world, not God, at least at the most immediate level. Christianity was caught off guard by the sheer power of modern scientific explanation. It’s this crisis, with the resulting doubt in God, that has fueled the world-historical wave of atheistic socialism. Simple people were overwhelmed and left defenseless because their intellectual superiors had yet to come up with a reply to this new onslaught. It was like a movie where the bad guys roll out their super weapon and the good guys are momentarily routed. In our case momentarily means a few hundred years while Christianity searches itself and refines itself and climbs to an understanding that is higher than the wave that is rolling against it.
It was not just Catholics Livius. Most churches told their people what to think rather than arming them with spiritual principles which would allow them to understand the world in light of the truth. It is hard to catechize a people with just 1 hour a week.
Mel