Why do we have the problems we do in the Church? What do you say?
Why do we have the problems we do in the Church -- around the United States and here in our Archdiocese of Los Angeles?
Why do not enough Catholics go to Confession, understand and believe in the Real Presence, love the Mass, know their Faith and defend it and spread it?
Why do so many Catholics fall away or apostasize?
Why do so many Catholics adopt and live by the values and ways of the world, of dissent and heresy and of sick liberal ideology?
Why do vocations to the priesthood and the religious life flourish in some dioceses and congregations but not in so many others?
My firm belief is that these problems and more are rooted, mystically and practically, in three overall major areas:
1. We effectively disallow the Tridentine Latin Mass and its holy, powerful and grace-filled prayers of contrition and reparation and of warring against the powers of hell.
2. We ordain homosexuals and consecrate some as bishops.
3. We sit by idly, do nothing, and congratulate ourselves on being loving -- and in the process lose our Christian worth, our manhood, our holiness and countless graces God has for us -- in the face of the greatest moral wrongs of our times, as pornographers seduce us, fornicators and contraceptionists defile our womanhood and abortionists murder our little babies.
We cannot get anywhere until we start dealing with these problems.
What do you say are our problems, and what do you say we can do about them?
Why do not enough Catholics go to Confession, understand and believe in the Real Presence, love the Mass, know their Faith and defend it and spread it?
Why do so many Catholics fall away or apostasize?
Why do so many Catholics adopt and live by the values and ways of the world, of dissent and heresy and of sick liberal ideology?
Why do vocations to the priesthood and the religious life flourish in some dioceses and congregations but not in so many others?
My firm belief is that these problems and more are rooted, mystically and practically, in three overall major areas:
1. We effectively disallow the Tridentine Latin Mass and its holy, powerful and grace-filled prayers of contrition and reparation and of warring against the powers of hell.
2. We ordain homosexuals and consecrate some as bishops.
3. We sit by idly, do nothing, and congratulate ourselves on being loving -- and in the process lose our Christian worth, our manhood, our holiness and countless graces God has for us -- in the face of the greatest moral wrongs of our times, as pornographers seduce us, fornicators and contraceptionists defile our womanhood and abortionists murder our little babies.
We cannot get anywhere until we start dealing with these problems.
What do you say are our problems, and what do you say we can do about them?
posted by Quintero at 4:14 PM
10 Comments:
From the 12th chapter of St. Luke's Gospel: 51:Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52:From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three...
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This is not heaven and there will always be division in the holy church. always the faithful will be persecuted. This earthly life, which our secular age says is to seek pleasure as our goal, is in reality a time of pilgrimage and testing. We are in exile.
There is nothing new under the sun. All this has happened before! At one time almost the whole church was Arian. Another time the faithful followed their priests and bishops out of the church into protestantism and lost the sacramental life.
What can we do? Evil is overcome with good. We must seek our personal holiness. We pray for all is in God's hands. We seek union with God and live an intense sacramental life. We learn and speak the Truths of the faith. We serve as we can. We perform the spiritual and corporal works of mercy as much as we can in our state of life. We are faithful to our marriage and religious vows.
That is what we do. Ave Maria!
I think one key reason why we have problems in the Church is that the institutional Church, by and large, has not taken itself or it's teachings seriously, especially over the last 40 years. The way we celebrate Mass, the downplaying of confession and even something as simple as removing the requirement for Friday abstinence; all of these things cast doubt as to what exactly is true anymore. They also remove anything transcendant, so it all becomes about the here and now.
One reason I am so hopeful about the rumored Motu Propio is that the
institutional Church is taking itself and it's rituals seriously again. By opening the door wider to the Traditional Latin Mass, she also opens the door to all of the other wonderful things in the Church throughout history.
That being said, I don't foresee much change in the archdiocese. The Cardinal and his people will continue to push their agenda relentlessly. I'll just keep on praying
Paul in Long Beach
Hóla, Quintero. Qué tal? No puedo encontrar tu e-mail en la página. Damelo por favor. Saludos.
Patrick
Hola, Patrick,
For now with this blogspot I'm communicating just by posts and comments, not e-mail. Thanks for checking in, and please do write in with comments when you want to.
Dear Paul in Long Beach,
You're very accurate about the many who do not seem to take the Church and Her teachings seriously.
Ditto about them removing what is transcendent, what is sacred.
We all have seem examples of what you are talking about.
You are so right that opening the door to the Tridentine Latin Mass opens the door to other wonderful things in the Church's life.
Lately I am not too hopeful about how far wide the Pope will open the door to the Tridentine Mass. But maybe he will surprise us all.
We all must say and do what you say: "I'll just keep on praying."
Dear Anonymous 6:11 p.m.,
Thank you for writing! It is good to look to Scripture and the rest of history, because there we learn what to expect and we also see how Holy Mother Church survives and lasts and triumphs.
Yes, divisions and persecutions and defections have been with us all through the Church's history.
Yes, we are pilgrims, wayfaring strangers in this world of woe.
Your "what can we do?" list is wonderful and encouraging. To pray, to seek personal holiness and union with God, to speak Catholic Truth, to serve, to be merciful, to be faithful to our vows. Yes, Ave Maria!
John 3:19 And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil.
Too easy to blame the leadership; they feed us baloney to a great extent because that's what we want...
Dear Dave,
Yes, there's blame to go around; but many in leadership have helped dumb down, and outright distort, our teaching of the Faith, so the laity are not entirely at fault.
The Friday abstinence from meat was never removed :) (thanks to EWTN i know that)
Dear Joe of St. Therese,
Here's the statement that the U.S. Bishops made in 1966 (sorry it's not clickable here):
http://www.usccb.org/lent/2007/Penance_and_Abstinence.pdf
They said we could keep abstaining from meat or we could substitute some other penance.
It's been pretty clear, though, that a whole lot of people took the bishops' action wrongly -- to mean that we could eat meat and do no penance, and that if the Church can make it "no longer a mortal sin" to eat meat on Friday then the Chuch could dispense with other mortal sins too.
So that is a problem in our Church today.
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