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Pope Says Churches In the West Look To Be Dying
Reuters ^ | July 27, 2005 | Robin Pomeroy

Posted on 07/27/2005 10:16:13 AM PDT by American Newsman

Mainstream churches in the West appear to be dying as societies that are increasingly secular see less need for God, Pope Benedict said in comments published on Wednesday. Please visit my news site, which is one of the best on the web (http://requirednews.blog-city.com).


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1 posted on 07/27/2005 10:16:14 AM PDT by American Newsman
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To: American Newsman

I'm not even Catholic and I'm impressed with this guy. He sure ain't shy about saying what he thinks.


2 posted on 07/27/2005 10:19:45 AM PDT by Types_with_Fist (I'm on FReep so often that when I read an article at another site I scroll down for the comments.)
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To: American Newsman
Correction. Liberal western churches are dying. Traditional Latin masses are flourishing in the west.
3 posted on 07/27/2005 10:20:03 AM PDT by Mulch (tm)
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To: American Newsman

The Catholic Church in the US continues to grow, despite the recent scandals. Let the good folks fed up with the liberalism of the mainline protestent churches come join!


4 posted on 07/27/2005 10:22:07 AM PDT by pissant
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To: Mulch

>>Traditional Latin masses are flourishing in the west.

I wouldn't use the word flourishing. Rather, I'd say they simply attract like minded people. They aren't sprining up like daisies all over the place, and they have not led to an increase in attendance.

Traditional Latin isn't the solution. What we face is a cultural decline, which has impacted on the faithful as well..

If anything, VII has helped to stem this decline. It would be farrrrr worse if all masses were in Latin... (You think people don't pay attention to the mass in English, just get these people into a latin mass -- they'll be snoring in the isles...)


5 posted on 07/27/2005 10:22:47 AM PDT by 1stFreedom (1)
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To: American Newsman

yep, churches which wont stand up for what's right are dying.

Europe and America are the most in need of missonaries.


6 posted on 07/27/2005 10:23:32 AM PDT by Texas_Conservative2
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To: American Newsman

Not exactly a news flash, as churches that claim to be Christian have been steadily abandoning their foundations for as long as I can remember. A couple of generations ago, hour-long, heck-fire-and-darnation sermons from the pulpit were not that uncommon, but those old-time preachers have long since been supplanted by the "kinder, gentler" voices of calm and soothing platitudes.


7 posted on 07/27/2005 10:25:05 AM PDT by alloysteel ("Master of the painfully obvious.....")
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To: 1stFreedom
...and they have not led to an increase in attendance."

Quite the contrary. When I was attending the church (liberal) down the block, There would be 5-6 pews between you and the next person. Now that I attend the Latin mass on the other side of town, its shoulder to shoulder. Stunning when you consider that the church is in a bad neighborhood and most people need to drive quite a distance to attend mass.
8 posted on 07/27/2005 10:30:18 AM PDT by Mulch (tm)
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To: Mulch
Quite the contrary. When I was attending the church (liberal) down the block, There would be 5-6 pews between you and the next person. Now that I attend the Latin mass on the other side of town, its shoulder to shoulder. Stunning when you consider that the church is in a bad neighborhood and most people need to drive quite a distance to attend mass.

Thatonly says that people are switching churches, it doesn't mean that new or lapsed Catholics are coming back now that there is Latin Mass.

9 posted on 07/27/2005 10:33:57 AM PDT by LWalk18
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To: Mulch

Yes, but there are many fewer Traditional Masses so they will have more people from all over the diocese.

In our diocese only one parish is allowed to have the Tridentine Mass - and only one per weekend. Of course that mass is packed because everyone in our diocese who wants to attend has to go there.


10 posted on 07/27/2005 10:34:06 AM PDT by pax_et_bonum
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To: 1stFreedom

Well, hate to tell you this but if their snoring, their standing up and snoring!!

The SSPX (Traditional Latin Tridentine Mass) church that I attend started out small but faithfull to the Traditional Mass. Now it is standing room only. The Pews are full nad the aisle's have chairs in them and they are full. Standing room only at the back of the church. All age groups. Grandpa's, Grandma's Parents and small children and babies.

The Novus Ordo churches are as empty as tombs as the "Priests ?" have their little "tea parties" as XVI described them. So your pure speculation that they would be "snoring" is proved totally incorrect.

Maybe you should go to a Latin Mass and see for yourself.


11 posted on 07/27/2005 10:34:12 AM PDT by 26lemoncharlie ('Cuntas haereses tu sola interemisti in universo mundo!')
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To: Mulch

Dear Mulch,

"'...and they have not led to an increase in attendance.'

"Quite the contrary. When I was attending the church (liberal) down the block, There would be 5-6 pews between you and the next person. Now that I attend the Latin mass on the other side of town, its shoulder to shoulder."

Yes, but you're likely just drawing like-minded individuals from a number of geographical parish territories and getting them all in one place. In my own archdiocese, there are three Indult Masses each Sunday, one at 7:30 in the northern part of the archdiocese, one at 9 am in the middle of the city, and one at 11:00 in the southern counties of the archdiocese. Between the three Masses, pretty much everone in the entire archdiocese is within a 30 minute drive of an old rite Mass.

Only the 9 am (at a historical church that is very popular with vacationing "traditionalists") in the city is bursting at the seams. The others are reasonably-well attended, but nothing to shake a stick at.

Thus, every Sunday, with around 200,000 Catholics going to Mass in our archdiocese, there are perhaps as many as 1,000 or 1,500 going to an old rite Latin Mass.

It is difficult to reason that these three Masses have increased overall archdiocesan Mass attendance by any significant amount. I suspect most of these folks would just attend a Pauline rite Mass if they had no Indult Mass to attend. But even if every single one of them would not attend Mass without an Indult to go to, that's somewhere in the range of 0.5% - 0.75% of overall Mass attendance in the archdiocese.


sitetest


12 posted on 07/27/2005 10:40:48 AM PDT by sitetest (If Roe is not overturned, no unborn child will ever be protected in law.)
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To: pax_et_bonum
True. Separating the wheat from the chaff I guess. The liberal catholics who wont attend the Latin mass because of the message will need to attend a Tony Robbins seminar when their liberal churches are closed.
13 posted on 07/27/2005 10:42:00 AM PDT by Mulch (tm)
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To: American Newsman
Mainstream churches in the West appear to be dying as societies that are increasingly secular see less need for God, Pope Benedict said

CORRECT!!! Mainstream as they have outlived God's destiny for them.

The Good Lord is taking the sheep to the Next Level by raising up Christian television stations, like DAYSTAR, and HUGH congregations, such as Saddleback, Potter's House, and Lakewood, to get the ball rolling!

Hallelujah!!!!!

14 posted on 07/27/2005 10:47:47 AM PDT by Ff--150 (The Blessing of the LORD Maketh RICH--no sorrow addedb)
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To: pissant; Salvation
Let the good folks fed up with the liberalism of the mainline protestent churches come join!

***********

Agreed. They are also welcome to join the discussion on the Catholic threads.

15 posted on 07/27/2005 10:53:08 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkes.)
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To: 1stFreedom

What happened to "throwing open the doors of the church at Vatican II by the Pope John XXIII"? What about the "new springtime both he and JPII promised?

The church lost the moral high ground at Vatican II, making it no different than your local Protestant church. Just the word "subsists" throws all that the church claimed for centuries out the window, and who proclamined that-Father Ratzinger as it was he who wanted that inserted in Lumen Gentium. But need not worry as this statement contradicted past church teachings, making it a pastoral not a doctrinal proclamation.

And the TLM is a thing of beauty and reverence-the Latin is not even an issue as you follow in your missal and the readings and sermon are in the vernacular, and after hearing the same week after week you learn what "Dominus Vobiscum" , Pax tecum, Pax vobiscum, Oremos, etc etc mean.

Vatican II sowed the seeds of error, opened the floodgates, and when your Pope even refuses to take a Papal Oath as all Vatican II popes have refused to take-How can they really be called the "Vicar of Christ"?


16 posted on 07/27/2005 11:24:14 AM PDT by BulldogCatholic
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To: BulldogCatholic
The church lost the moral high ground at Vatican II, making it no different than your local Protestant church. Just the word "subsists" throws all that the church claimed for centuries out the window, and who proclamined that-Father Ratzinger as it was he who wanted that inserted in Lumen Gentium.
The central passages about the Church's constant need of renewal as well as of the presence of Christian truth and holiness in non-Catholic communities are joined to a fundamental conciliar statement which says that the spiritual and visible entities of the Church are inseparable. The visible Church is herself also the spiritual Church, the Church of Jesus Christ. And even more strongly: this one and only Church, which is at once spiritual and earthly, is so concrete that she can be called by name: she "subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and the bishops in union with that successor". No translation can fully capture the sublime nuance of the Latin text in which the unconditional equation of the first conciliar drafts-the full equation between the Church of Jesus Christ and the Roman Catholic Church-is clearly set forth ...

It is not easy to describe the tension aroused by this new reminder [in Mysterium Ecclesiae] of the conciliar text. General awareness had very quickly soothed itself with the assumption that the equation between the Church of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church was no longer valid ... It is obvious [from this] how completely the factual content of Vatican Council II has been forgotten today ... (Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, pp. 230-2)

Do you even understand what "subsists" means? "[W]e say that those things subsist which exist in themselves, and not in another - illa enim subsistere dicimus, quae non in alio, sed in se existunt" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 29 a. 2)

17 posted on 07/27/2005 11:46:59 AM PDT by gbcdoj (Without His assisting grace, the law is “the letter which killeth;” - Augustine.)
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To: 26lemoncharlie

You do realize that you can remain in communion with the successor of Peter and go to a Tridentine rite mass, don't you? Please find an indult mass or FSSP mass. By the way, my Catholic parish (there is no such thing as a "Novus Ordo" church, as Vatican II did NOT start a new church or a new religion) is not empty, the music is fairly traditional and the liturgy is quite reverent. I had to shop around to find it, but there are good orthodox Catholic parishes out there. The priests tend to be younger.


18 posted on 07/27/2005 11:53:45 AM PDT by Unam Sanctam
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To: BulldogCatholic

The "aggriornamento" was about proclaiming the unchanging truths of the Catholic faith to the modern world. It was not about changing the truths of that faith. Nor were the Vatican II documents. If some have used the so-called "spirit of Vatican II" to try and change the teachings of the faith, they are abusing the same, not authentiaclly representing it. The present and previous Pope have been doing much to weed out carefully and prudently erroneous interpretations of the Vatican II Council. It would be helpful if so-called "traditionalists" reentered full communion with the successor of Peter and helped him to do so, rather than continually try to undermine the Catholic Church and promote schismatic parallel structures.


19 posted on 07/27/2005 11:58:41 AM PDT by Unam Sanctam
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To: Mulch

>>Quite the contrary. When I was attending the church (liberal) down the block, There would be 5-6 pews between you and the next person. Now that I attend the Latin mass on the other side of town, its shoulder to shoulder.

You don't understand what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that traditionalists flock to these parishes from all over -- but the locals are still asleep in the pews. Attendance may have increased at "traditional" parishes -- but that only means there is a decrease at the traveling attendee's own home parishes.

TLM *have not* raised attendance at Mass.

>>Stunning when you consider that the church is in a bad neighborhood and most people need to drive quite a distance to attend mass.

Not stunning at all. See above


20 posted on 07/27/2005 12:04:54 PM PDT by 1stFreedom (1)
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