He's 100% right, it almost did. Yet something happened....not even sure what or why exactly. Orthodoxy is in resurgence; bishops are growing spines.
Is it because we are smarter, wiser, less sinners than Anglicans? I don't think so.
The only thing that keeps us together is that promise that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it". Somehow, somewhere, someway, against all hope or reason, torn apart by sinful men, bruised and battered and beaten from one continent to the other, betrayed and backstabbed by its own bishops, the Church still stands in the end.
If that isn't proof of God's Providence....
"As my wife said to me, imagine how you would feel if some group or social movement tried to take over the Catholic Church? Well it almost happened. I distinctly remember being in grade school (1970’s) and hearing a liberal priest telling a friend’s parents, “Just wait by the end of this decade all of the barriers of this Church will come crashing down.”
He's 100% right, it almost did. Yet something happened....not even sure what or why exactly.."
The "Catholic Center" I attended for awhile was infested with CINO's and a flaming priest who was having an affair with another male adult. As completely striped of any Catholic identity as the church was it could have passed for a warehouse. I left. I'm a huge sinner, but even I could see that something was really wrong.
After a few years, everything changed. It was as though the Holy Spirit swept through and blew all the evil out of this church. The "priest" was gone and replaced with very Catholic holy men. The laity who wanted hippie heaven left. It is now a glorious church with a restored Eucharistic Adoration and center of life.
Definitely the work of the Holy Spirit!