While Christianity and Catholicism in particular have been taking hits, big-time — while clergy/bishop scandals continue to erupt; while evangelical mega-ministers resign for malfeasance; while cardinals face trial (see: Australia) — it is truly amazing (and to Church enemies, beguiling):
How no matter what this cardinal did, or what that bishop didn’t do, no matter the true horrors (and they were/are horrors) committed by a phenomenal number of priests (four to six percent of clergy involved in abuse, and rampant homosexuality, including among bishops); no matter the incredible failings of the hierarchy, not just in matters of scandal, but in the entire Church ambience and conduct of the liturgy (which too often is windswept — sterile), the devout are remaining just that: Devout. A remnant.
The strongest believers are budging not a bit.
The Rosary and Eucharist and novenas and prayer from the heart, the feast days: all maintain their potency independent of flawed men.
There’s no, “I won’t go to church any more” or “I don’t believe any longer.” Just the opposite. As a president once intoned, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
A recently published paper suggests that declines in church attendance are confined to the “moderately” religious, while America’s strongly religious stay as firmly dedicated to their beliefs as ever.
The Spirit lives, more vibrant than ever. The Institution is another matter.
Reports the Freebeacon:
“Social theorists have in recent years argued for a so-called ‘secularization thesis’—as technology and science have advanced, religiosity in the Western world has declined. Proponents of this viewpoint to declines in average church attendance, self-reported religiosity, and other heuristics.
“However, this focus on average decline in religiosity masks the persistence of the portion of the population which, across many measures, remains exceptionally religious, according to paper authors Landon Schnabel and Sean Bock.”
And so, as even a formal study shows, whatever may come, there is that Rock.
That Rock was founded on a layman.
And once more, the laity must rise.
Excruciating it is to contemplate the number of vocations lost due to abuse of seminarians and altar boys. Might there be no vocation crisis, or at least less of one, if not for the crisis of homosexuality? A catch-22: homosexuals dissuade vocations and bishops cover up homosexual transgressions because they are short of priests.
If, for a time, the Church must shrink, so be it — if in retreat there is a wringing out that brings: purity. The False Church, the artificial one, the modern one, the academic one, the politicized-bureauractic one, for so long dominant, must and will fall as a first stage in purification.
Perhaps it even goes to the prophetic words of Pope Benedict XVI, who famously wondered if the future Church would be better off smaller in size but as stated purer in spirit.
+“In order to accomplish her true task adequately, the Church must constantly renew the effort to detach herself from her tendency towards worldliness and once again to become open towards God. In this she follows the words of Jesus: ‘They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world’ (Jn 17:16), and in precisely this way Jesus gives himself to the world. One could almost say that history comes to the aid of the Church here through the various periods of secularization, which have contributed significantly to her purification and inner reform.”
+“Secularizing trends – whether by expropriation of Church goods, or elimination of privileges or the like – have always meant a profound liberation of the Church from forms of worldliness, for in the process she, as it were, sets aside her worldly wealth and once again completely embraces her worldly poverty.”
+“History has shown that, when the Church becomes less worldly, her missionary witness shines more brightly. Once liberated from material and political burdens and privileges, the Church can reach out more effectively and in a truly Christian way to the whole world, she can be truly open to the world. She can live more freely her vocation to the ministry of Divine worship and service of neighbor.”
Spirit Daily
Spirit Daily