The titanic Catholic church in America is sinking. I think this is happening for the following reasons.: 1. Young people are drifting away from a church that seems irrelevant to them. 2. Our priests preach the Gospel out of the shadows of the sex scandal. 3. Secular culture in our country does not respect holiness and even a Catholic president champions the federal right to abortions. Our bishops seem not to notice that the titanic Catholic Church has sprung titanic leaks.
What is the response of the leaders of the Catholic Church in the USA to these issues? Recently, the Bishop’s conference announced a liturgical bombshell: From now on all prayers at their conclusion must omit “one” from prayers that end “…one God forever and ever.” The week before that edict the National Conference of U.S. Bishops issued a tweak to imposing ashes on Ash Wednesday. Before that were detailed instructions on how to purify your hands before giving communion on the tongue.
Our titanic church is sinking and our officers keep reminding us of the rules of etiquette necessary to continue with dinner.
People are leaving the church because our leaders have failed us.
Priests continue to sustain Mass schedules while more and more people stay home. Around 30 % of Catholics attend the Eucharist on Sunday. You can look it up.
Priests increase opportunities for Confessions and the same penitents come to cleanse their hearts of every defect, every week. How is it that the Sacrament of Reconciliation has become a spiritual direction episode in the lives of some Catholics? Many Catholics haven’t received the sacrament in years and are not planning on going to it, either.
While the vultures eye us from above, we cannot see what they see. They notice us faltering and they wait. They are hungry.
Holy Hours attended by six isolated old ladies are priests still held up as something significant the fact that it is there. Forgive an old priest’s musings, but I remember when Churches were filled and participation was powerful when Benediction was offered at the close of Forty Hours celebrations.
By the way, why are our church doors shut and locked other than an hour before Mass and an hour afterward?
Where are our leaders? Where are our vice captains? They show us the way, avoid us running into icebergs
Why hasn’t the Church proclaimed repentance and fasting in the face of the moral contagion that God has sent upon our lives? Why isn’t there a cry from the Church calling the z-generation to the Church? I think young people are fleeing the Church because we are irrelevant to them. And, they are right when they say “No one notices that I am missing. You don’t need me and I don’t need you.” Our church is d-u-l-l! And has no skin in the game of life that our people live each day.
I don’t have courage, either. But, I am not a leader. Our Church cries out for direction. We need inspired leadership in our Church. Our members are worried about possible icebergs. Where are the ice captains, those who can guide us through these icy, dangerous waters?