“Aren’t the ways of “the world” the problem here? Maybe I’m missing something... “
Your point is a great one, but IMHO it depends to what he is referring to when he says the world is changing. The world ‘changed’ a lot when the dogma about the earth being the center of the universe was challenged. People were put to death for that one before the dogma was abandoned. Martin Luther helped change Catholicism, as well as promote the formation of a broad array of protestant churches by his actions - which got him excommunicated at the time. God is eternal. What God deems correct is eternal. Our interpretation of the mind of God is at best, nascent, and some dogma is from God and some from man. The dogma that comes from man is subject to review and change, and maybe that’s what he’s referring to.
This is a colorful historic Narrative, in a Monty Python kind of way, but it is untrue. The Church never taught as dogma that the earth is the center of the Universe, and nobody was ever put to death for any particular hypothesis about the structure of the Solar System.
Other than that, OK. :o)
Thank you for your observation. The following words are quoted from a late-1800's/early 1900's Episcopal Bishop and seem appropriate for inclusion here:
"All the ages down some men have superciliously declared, 'The days of religion are numbered.' But her sacred books outlast the critics. Resting her hand upon the Bible, the Church can say, 'Here is an anvil that has worn out many a hammer.'" - Bishop William Hobart Hare - Niobrara Convocation Address, 1899
Bishop Hare, in addition to his work with the American Indians, ministered to the Japanese and Chinese in later years.
The following passage comes from "The Life and Labors of Bishop Hare" - 1912 relating remarks delivered at Trinity Church, Tokio (sic).
"A single passage from his address to them which in general was more a report than a sermon is all that need be quoted:'I would urge upon all who are called upon in any capacity to teach religion to the people, that they keep carefully to those salient points in the broad lines of Christian truths of which it may be said that they are Catholic, that they have been held 'always, everywhere and by all.' We are here not of our own motion but of the Church's appointment, and we are commissioned to teach, not our own peculiar views of the things to be believed, and the things to be done, but what the Church teaches. This body, of truth is presented to us in the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, and in the striking summaries and paraphrases of them which our short Catechism contains. They con tain truths so compact and terse in statement, that, as the intelligent teacher, familiar with the Scriptures, dwells on them, texts and incidents, impressive, pathetic, tender, from the His- torical Books, the Prophets, the Psalms, Gospels, Epistles, rise up in the memory and leap forward ready to expand, illustrate and enforce them. I fear these treasures are not adequately appre- ciated. Religious emotions are of high value, but they rise and fall. They are not perennial.
'Religious opinions rise up and flourish in each age, in individuals and little coteries, and are like the passing highly-colored cloud. They attract attention and pass away. But the great truths taught in the formulas just referred to are not dependent upon emotion. They are not matters of opinion. They are seed truth. They are capable of perpetual germination. Once lodged in the mind, they 'spring and grow up and bring forth fruit, we know not how,' even though they be long inactive and apparently dead, and from their renewed life, holy emotions and pious opinions and right living result almost as a mat ter of course.'" - Bishop William Hobart Hare