It's bad news for Catholics from a PEW Survey on Religion in America, the first since 2014. For every 100 new Catholics entering the Church, 800 leave. This from Eric Sammons at Crisis Magazine:
No other religion has nearly as bad of a join/leave ratio. For every 100 people that become Protestant, 180 leave. That’s bad, but it’s not Catholic bad. Conversely, for every 100 people who leave the religious “nones” (i.e., they join a religion), a full 590 become part of that irreligious cohort.
Where are the former Catholics going? Of all the former Catholics, 56% become religious “nones” and 32% become Protestant. I think we all know from personal experience that these numbers ring true. What Catholic doesn’t have family members who have become Protestant or have stopped practicing any religion? It’s just part of being an American Catholic these days.
I can't say I'm surprised. Francis has spent a decade decimating the faith along with many of the cohort in miters and pectoral crosses. How many bishops are more interested in pursuing the almighty dollar than in giving praise and worship to Almighty God. Isn't that their chief motive for championing the invasion at the border?
But the reality is it's probably more than that:
Yes, but there’s something that keeps the numbers slightly afloat: immigration. As the Pew Survey itself states, “immigration has helped to bolster the number of Catholics in the United States.” So while millions are fleeing the Catholic Church, new migrants keep the overall numbers from looking horrific. I’m not saying our bishops are working so hard to keep mass immigration alive in this country to keep the true horrible state of the Church hidden, but the inflow sure does end up having that effect.
Sammons goes on to point out that the survey is from "self-identifying" Catholics. How many who "self-identify" actually practice the faith? How many "cultural Catholics" don't mind saying their Catholic, but rarely kneel in the pews?
The news is bad indeed. Sammons goes on to give his opinion about the causes and cures. I'm inclined to agree and one of his cures is something I've been saying for years, decades in fact: ABOLISH THE USCCB! It's nothing but an old boys' club that uses peer pressure to keep the cowards quiet and marginalize the brave. I remember when Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska tried to get his brothers to study the impact of homosexuality on the sex abuse crisis during the pathetic Dallas meeting in 2002. He couldn't even get a second to his motion from the "hapless bench of bishops." They collectively decided to cover up the problem and shift the blame to parish priests and the laity. Their Cadillac safe touch program, VIRTUS, included pretending that homosexuality had nothing to do with the abuse crisis. Carrying the shepherd's crook doesn't keep you from being the wolf's best friend.
Read the article and weep for Holy Mother Church. And pray the rosary that the Lord sends holy workers to the vineyard:
O Lord, give us priests,
O Lord, give us many priests,
O Lord, give us many holy priests,
O Lord, give us many holy religious vocations,
O Lord, give us many holy, Catholic families!
You tend to get the leaders you deserve. So each of us should resolve to imitate Christ to the best of our ability. All things are possible with God's grace. Don't wring your hands over it. Resolve to storm heaven for the antidote, resolve to spend time in Eucharistic adoration, and pray the rosary.
Check out the article, Catholics Are Rapidly Losing Ground
"They (the bishops) collectively decided to cover up the problem and shift the blame to parish priests and the laity." Share the guilt. Like the woman we know who in order to sit in on the special-ed class her Down Syndrome son was in, to help keep him in line, had to take the "How not to molest children" class as well. Fools. For bishops, too often institutional image is what counts, not the faithful the institution is supposed to serve.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the immigration crisis only partly helps in filling pews. It also empties some of them. As English speaking Americans find that their parishes have more and more Spanish language masses and fewer and fewer English masses, and fewer acitivies and events for those of American heritage, some Americans leave. Their parishes that no longer feel like home to them.
ReplyDeleteThe exodus from the Catholic Church, has been going on for decades……an enemy ‘within’ and ‘without’ has done it.
ReplyDeleteCardinal Pacelli (future Pope Pius XII)……’’I hear around me reformers who want to dismantle the Holy Sanctuary, destroy the universal flame of the Church, to discard all her adornments, and smite her with remorse for her historic past…..I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to little Lucia of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the danger which menaces the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in its liturgy, its theology and its soul…..”
The decline, and decay are the ‘rotten fruits’ of the French Revolution in the Church - Liberté - Equalité - Fraternité since the Second Vatican Council’…… due to ‘false ecumenism (in the name of search for the lost unity)’, ‘false love of neighbor’, ‘religious liberty (universal religion),’ ‘modernism, humanism’, ‘liberalism ‘collegiality,’ ‘inculturation…..etc., etc….
Alice von Hildebrand—Bella Dodd Recruited 1,100 Communists to Enter Catholic Seminaries
Under the NOT watchful eyes of the post-Vatican II popes, many homosexuals (communists, freemasons) have entered the seminars, became our priests, they have been protected, moved from one diocese to another, or to Rome, became bishops and cardinals……no disciplinary action……causing more, and more scandals that have shaken the core of the soul, and hearts of many faithful Catholics, who were so scandalized, became sedevacantists, and members of every stripe of Protestant sects…….legions of lost souls, known only to God.
Pope Francis is a ‘result’ of the Revolutionaries……obedient ‘pupil’ of his predecessors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEONEL1TzMc
DeleteAlice von Hildebrand—Bella Dodd Recruited 1,100 Communists to Enter Catholic Seminaries
In these times of obscurity and apostasy, God has certainly not allowed all defenders of the Faith to remain silent and for Tradition to be hidden under a bushel…….
ReplyDeletePope Pius VI, April 13, 1791……”All of you Catholics…..We exhort you, with all our heart, to remember the Religion and Faith of your fathers, to remain faithful to it, since religion is the first and greatest good, because it will procure for you eternal felicity in heaven, and is yet on earth the only means of assuring the salvation of empires and the happiness of civil society. Guard against the preaching of deceivers, of the philosophies of the century, which would lead you to death; distance yourselves from all usurpers under whatever guise they present themselves, Archbishops, Bishops, priests; have nothing in common with them, above all in the practice of religion.”
“My God, my God, what is to become of poor sinners?” St. Dominic
Highly recommend to those who seek truth……
ReplyDeleteThe Devil and Bella Dodd: One Woman's Struggle against Communism and her Redemption; Mary A. Nicholas and Paul Kengor, (Tan Books, 2022) 422 pp.
“In the 1930’s we, (Communists) put eleven hundred men into the priesthood in order to destroy the Church from within…..right now they are in the highest places in the Church.”
~ Bella Dodd, former Communist Party member
“The Communist Party operates by infiltrating and subverting social institutions like the churches, schools, mass media and government.”
~ Bella Dodd, ‘School of darkness’, 1954
(excerpt from a review regarding this book)
This was not an easy read for me for several reasons:
First, the main subject matter is grave and scary. I was not only introduced to the beginnings of the machinations conducted by the communists, but also to their fruits, which are abundantly being reaped in our present time.
Second, this biography does not read like a novel but rather is a history of modern Communism and Socialism in the United States.
After her conversion to the Faith, in which Msgr. Fulton Sheen played a great role, she adopted Our Blessed Mother as her role model. Her return to the Faith was gradual, but steadfast.
Bishop Sheen forbade her to reveal the names of four compromised Cardinals...
Bella Dodd’s journey can assist us in combating this evil of Communism, which Our Lady warned us of in 1917, telling the three shepherd children that “Russia will spread her errors throughout the world.” Communism continues, in a different mask, and Catholics should be wary of attempts to rehabilitate Russia’s new Communism.
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, like many normal kids I played some sports. Swim team was only in the summer with Saturday swim meets that lasted most of the day, and when I played soccer and baseball during the school year, most games were on Saturdays. If we had a Sunday game the earliest start time was 1 PM, which gave team members time for church.
ReplyDeleteToday many kids have all weekend tournaments and soccer games at 9 and 10 am. Some of the parochial schools have Sunday games but at least at my parish they don't start until after 12 PM so the families have time for worship services.
That said, I do agree with the article there's too much emphasis today on sports for youth and parents say it's stressful when weekends are booked solid with sports. Sports are fun, but they need a balance.