The Church Militant

The Church Militant
cinops be gone Thursday, May 15, 2008

The following are poignant excerpts on the last section of the book by Philip F. Lawler, “The Faithful Departed” The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture, Encounter Books, 2008. It begins with the last page to the front page of that chapter. Within the Church there is religious correctness. It is time to set it aside for the whole truth. Hope springs eternal. Tough love will bring a revival.
Catholic leaders will be required to make personal sacrifices and unpopular decisions – and to ask their followers to do the same. That is the mark of Christian leadership: the willingness to imitate the Sacrifice of Christ…. 257

“I am counting on you.” (This includes the laity.) In 2007, during a visit a visit to the Roman academy that trains clerics for service in the Vatican diplomatic corps, the Pope made the same point about how a readiness for personal sacrifice defines the nature of leadership in the Church…. 257
Faithful Christians should “recognize themselves as a creative minority.”… “The future of a society depends upon creative minorities.” 257

When Church agencies begin to serve earthly aims, they become truly cancerous… Loving the Church means denouncing the corruption… The same corruption that produced the sex-abuse scandal, the greatest crisis in the history of American Catholicism, remains widespread in the Church today. Indeed the corruption is more firmly entrenched now than it was in 2002 because the hierarchy has refused to acknowledge the most serious aspect of the scandal: the treason of the bishops… 255

American bishops of recent vintage have shown little interest in the use of their legitimate teaching authority. When they teach, loyal Catholics obey. But when do not teach – when they remain silent in the face of grave abuses – how should a loyal Catholic layman react? Our faith teaches respect for the office, not the individual. If the bishop neglects the duties of his office, then deference toward him is misplaced. A loyal Catholic should protect the bishop’s office by demanding that the bishop fulfills it…. Eventually, as the Holy Spirit guides the Church, a worthy successor will arrive to lead the reform… 256

If the Catholic Church is nothing more than a human institution, if will not survive beyond the next generation or two. But then, if the Catholic Church is only a human institution, it does not deserve to survive. If, however, the Church is an institution founded by God – if it is the living Body of Christ – then she will certainly survive and flourish in spite of all earthly handicaps … 255
Up and down the streets that surround the church, (This is the Boston area.)

Catholic families live immune to the influence of their parish. On any given Sunday, less than one-fifth of the Church adults will attend Mass…. Even in matters on which the Church has a clear public teaching – matters such as birth control, abortion, and divorce – Catholics behave no differently from the American public as a whole. For the great majority of even those who could be termed practicing Catholics, the Church can command one hour of grudging, passive attendance in church each week – if that – nothing more… 254
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.