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Scratch the surface of the Novus Ordo and you will find liberalism, the same this-worldly yearning to create a paradise on earth that is found in Socialism or Communism--or in the Democratic Party. The Catholic belief in the Transcendent has been systematically suppressed in favor of an exclusively social agenda. Gone are the teachings familiar to Catholics before Vatican II--talk of death and judgment, Heaven and Hell. Now it is essentially this-worldly do-goodism not much different from the agenda set by Democratic Party activists. It even includes the worst of the feminist and gay agendas--and it is at the heart of the new religion, defended by its devotees with all the zealotry and passion of the old Catholic orthodoxy.

But the young aren't buying. They are walking away in droves.

WHat I've seen is more complex. In some places the young are flocking to the Church. If they are given a sense of the sacred, of something Holy, they come. The more orthodox the Diocese, the more the young respond. Among the young priests I know, conservative orthodoxy is the rule.