The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God

Actor Mel Gibson, when filming his now classic The Passion of the Christ, was interviewed on the set by Time (January 27, 2003). For Gibson, Vatican II "corrupted the institution of the Church. Look at the main fruits: dwindling numbers and pedophilia." Gibson misrepresents the moral crisis facing the Church, which is not “pedophilia” but stems from an inordinate amount of active homosexuals as ordained priests and some inattentive bishops who have run interference for them, all the consequences of a failure to uphold and live the Church’s sexual moral teaching. Accolades to Gibson are in order, though, for his perception of Catholic demographics. The chart which follows gives us the tip of the iceberg (the underwater portion is the subject of the remainder of the book) regarding a few indicators since 1965:

	1965	Today
Priests	58,000 (doubled from 1930-65)	45,000; projection for 2020 is 31,000
Ordinations	1,575	450
Priestless Parishes	1 percent	15 percent
Seminarians	600	200
Sisters	180,000	75,00 (Average age of 68)
Catholic High School Enrollment	700,000	386,000
Catholic Elementary Enrollment	4.5 million	Less than 2 million
Attendance at Mass	3 out of 4	1 out of 4

An interesting contrasting view to Gibson’s is Temple University professor and Hans Kung protégé Leonard Swidler’s in his introduction to The Church in Anguish: Has the Vatican Betrayed Vatican II? Swidler writes of:

….the anguish engendered in the Catholic church during the past decade[2] through what appears to many Catholics, and non-Catholics, as an attempt by the present leadership in the Vatican to reverse the momentous gains in maturity that were made at the Second Vatican Council (1961-65)....Vatican II was clearly a peak experience. Today we seem to be going through “the valley of the shadow...”[3]

Neither Mssrs. Gibson (who in common parlance is a “traditional” Catholic) nor Swidler have it just right. Mr. Gibson’s “dwindling numbers and pedophilia” are not the fruits of the actual reforms set down in the Documents of Vatican II any more than is Professor Swidler’s claim of “momentous gains in maturity” prior to 1978. The evidence reveals that the true fruits of Vatican Council II are only today beginning to be realized in each of the four main areas addressed by the Council documents, which brings to mind one final assessment of the Council’s fruits I discovered which, when I began understand why it was offered, inspired me to write this book.

Comments

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

The 21st Century Must Come Into the Church

Continued from September 14.... T hrough the Church’s teachings, God has also revealed his truth on how humanity can live happily. What is so little understood by Catholics and Christians is that doctrinal revelations that come through the Church come out of God’s very Self. They are not tied to culturally constructed norms! Read Vatican II’s Dei Verbum : “by divine revelation God wished to manifest and communicate both himself and the eternal decrees of his will concerning the salvation of humankind.” Our Lord’s Church derives its basic vision not from mere human speculation, which would be tentative and uncertain, but from God’s own testimony—from a historically given divine revelation. Thus Catholics believe that just as God himself is immutable, so, too, are His teachings as revealed through the Church because they come from him. As I discuss in my book, although the Church does not change its central teachings, we do see the theological principle of “devel...

Nuns' Story Dominican Style

In my book I quoted the late Fr. Benedict Groescel as follows: A surprising and welcome development at the present time is the emergence of a whole wave of young men and women interested in authentic religious life. They provide proof of the ongoing presence of God’s grace…. These young people surprise us by their willingness to join even communities beset by obvious theological confusion and little observance of their traditional rule. If they manage to survive for twenty years, the appearance of the sinking communities may change. In some communities there is an absurd phenomenon similar to a theological sandwich: The youngest and the oldest, who are in agreement, are like slices of bread. The age group in the middle reminds us of mayonnaise. Something in human nature has been calling people to religious life for thousands of years—and gospel teaching and church tradition have aimed this human hunger at a strong form of Christian dedication. We should have le...

To Fighting Irish, Francis Spikes the Ball... For the Bishops

I have been commenting here on the recent Rolling Stone article on the Holy Father, who recently hosted the big cheeses from our premier "Catholic" University... Speaking of premier, h ere is the premier blogger on this very topic!

A Bishop Bishops!

It is in the person of the bishop that Our Lord is present in the midst of the Church community, wherein through his service Christ preaches the Word of God, administers the sacraments, incorporates new members into His Body and guides the faithful to their eternal destiny, the Beatific vision. The bishops have no less than the responsibility of taking “the place of Christ Himself, teacher, shepherd, priest and to act as his representatives ( in eius persona ).... Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Wisconsin in response to Federal Judge's Ruling on Marriage: First, it bears repeating that, we must respect, love, and care for every individual we encounter, regardless of who they are, where they come from, or how they define themselves. This will never change. It is at the core of who we are as members of Christ’s Church. Christ, Himself, invites each individual to know and love Him and live a life in response to His love. His love and mercy can heal all divisions th...

Libido Redux: Porn Harms: Do Pray for Mindy, and Fight the New Drug

T he author of this blog (which must be near last in readership in the Catholic blogosphere) often posts about human libido as one way that Paul VI taught that Satan can harm souls. See here and here . But as we know, Our Lord has overcome the world, the flesh and the Devil. See here for one blessed example. The author supposes that one who has stumbled upon these pages might have struggled with porneia, or knows one who is. For helpful hints in the battle, just enter "porn" in this blog's search engine at right. Meanwhile, don't forget: Thriving in obscurity and disguised as entertainment pornography has reshaped society, redefined sexuality, & undermined a generation. Discover the harmful effects of pornography revealed by recent studies & experienced by millions of people. See here .

Sr. Cecilia. Ora pro nobis

Who smiles like this at the moment of death? Sister Cecilia, of the Carmel of Santa Fe in Argentina, witnessed to her love for Christ in her struggle with lung cancer Aleteia June 25, 2016 Facebook 4k 12 Death is a tragedy for mortal man, and yet with faith in eternity and anticipation of the embrace of our heavenly Father, death becomes radiant. We share today the news of the death of Sister Cecilia, a Carmelite of Santa Fe in Argentina, who suffered from lung cancer. She astonished those who surrounded her in her agony, as her face was transformed by a tender smile as she closed her eyes to this world. As you can see in the photograph, she looks like a lover who has arrived to the encounter she has long been yearning for. The Carmel of Santa Fe announced the death of Sister Cecilia to their brothers and sisters and friends of the Carmel, with a brief, but profound, note. Dear brothers, sisters and friends: Jesus! Just...

Libido Redux: "Sex it up"

"....If one is worldly and hedonistic, Satan enters with temptations of the flesh. One hears often that the “liberation” of the human libido began in earnest in the United States in the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s. Americans, troubled over repressive attitudes toward human sexuality, hoped for a revolution that would free them from outdated moral and social constraints. It resulted not in liberation but in license and a host of societal sexual crises. Since the onset of the sexual revolution, we have had to face an ever-increasing array of sexual problems. One has only to think of the tremendous increase in the number of post-1960s illegitimate births and abortions, sexually transmitted diseases, opposition to censorship of pornography (especially on the Internet), and the resulting sexual addiction (in some extreme instances resulting in murder). Consider too the tremendous blows to marriage and the family done by adultery, the battle over the homosexual lifestyle in th...

The Year of Faith

Last October Pope Benedict announced a Year of Faith to begin this Oct. 11. He described it as “a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world.” The reason for calling for a Year of Faith is simple. Faith, at least in Europe and some parts of America, is dying. In the past, faith in God, the contents of the Gospel and the values inspired by it were part of the cultural matrix that families could rely on to help them transmit the faith to their children. Not anymore. “This presupposition” the pope said, “can no longer be taken for granted, but is often openly denied.” Read more...

Et Lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt

What Is the Source of This Darkness of Our Times? |Blogs | NCRegister.com : What prompted me to write a book about the current spiritual war ongoing in the world in which we live? Stumbling upon this quote by the Pope of the council, Pope Paul VI : We have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: it is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation. And how did this come about? We will confide to you the thought that may be, we ourselves admit in free discussion, that may be unfounded, and that is that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the devil. We thought that after the Council a day of sunshine would have dawned for the history of the Church. What dawned instead was a day of clouds and storms, of darkness, of searching and uncertainties . I am an avid reader of Msgr. Charles Pope, who has written recently on this our adversary in ...

Search This Blog