What ever one may think about Voris’ reluctance to lay at least a portion of the Blame at the feet of our Catholic Leadership, he is right on the money here. However for our recalcitrant Bishops and Cardinals, to survive, they must be receiving support from those above them, and therein is where the problems lie.
Leaders must lead .Those that lack that portion of the human anatomy, that is the essence of their manhood, will continue to crucify Him and He will continue to hang from the cross…
After watching this, a few thoughts: (sorry, Burro, but some of us do think, a bit)
The Church in the West is not suffering from active “hatred,” as Voris seems to think – but inertia. The Dutch Catholics who ignore the Church do so from negative reasons – it seems largely irrelevant nowadays to them.They don’t hate it, they’re just indifferent – might even quite approve of it, in abstract. Mind, you it’s more stimulating to feel hated and plotted against.
Does anyone believe that replacing altar rails and giving communion on the tongue will make everything all right, and the churches full again?
The discredited “royal” imagery of “Kings” “Princes,” and “Palaces,” does not help.
Does anyone really believe that there are priests and bishops that want to destroy the Church, their livelihood? What will they do to earn a crust then?
Does anyone think that videos of Raymond Cardinal Burke trailing a 50 foot long train of scarlet silk held up by small boys, will encourage young men of the right sort to enter the priesthood?
Does anyone remember the scorn heaped on the dwindling and aged congregations of Anglicans some years ago. Hubris?
Voris is advocating evangelisation, that is teaching, without dialogue. His approach is, “Do what we tell you in the name of Christ, and don’t argue, or even discuss it.” Won’t do any more. Sounds like indoctrination, and people don’t care for that totalitarian sort of thing. Not since The Wall came down – long before, actually.
Toad… did I read that right and that you were THINKING before penning this twisted comment? Well, you have been wrong many times before, but in your latest contribution to CP&S, you have surpassed yourself in your ‘wrongness’.
Are you sure you are not a Dutchman yourself? 😉 (Sorry, poor joke!)
It is this embracing of the evil of Modernism and all the worldly views seen as ‘progress’ that has sunk the Faith in Holland (and to a lesser degree in other Western countries) with its abandonment of the basic teaching of Christ ‘to pick up our cross and follow Him’.
Rejecting your Christian roots does not bring happiness either; it leads men to despair.
I am going to ‘borrow’ the words of another commenter on another blog to express better than I could the root flaw of your (and others’) twisted reasoning – the belief that Catholic Truth is old hat and that Agnosticism and Secularism, with its total abandonment of Christianity, is the best way forward.
Yeah – the way forward, broad and wide*, paved with enlightened free-thinking ‘rights’ to every class of evil… and leading straight >>> to Hell!!
“Consider the total rejection of the Social Kingship of Christ, mass apostasy, legalised butchery of unborn children up to birth, including in Catholic hospitals, contraception and divorce taken as “normal”, sacrificing of school children to the antichrist commissars of the education system, the complete undermining of the place of parents in rearing and instructing their children, the screeching celebration of sodomy, increasing [cases of] euthanasia, together with the craven Church capitulation in the face of those forces of organised naturalism who seek to expel the voice of Catholic truth from the public square and wage unrelenting war against Christ….
[In] the words of the English martyr bishop, Saint John Fisher: “The fort has been betrayed even by those who should have defended it.””
*”Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for WIDE is the gate, and BROAD is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat” – (Matt 7:13).
The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.
Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.
Actually, later in this Pew Forum report it says that the percentage of Netherlanders self-identifying as Christians will hardly change from 2010 to 2050, from 50.6% to to 49.1%, probably largely because of an increase in the Muslim percentage. Now, if we could only get some of these Dutch back to participating in churches! (The biggest losses in Christians will be in the UK, France and even Australia and New Zealand; and except for France, these are only historically protestant countries anyway.)
And only 16% of all Christians will live in Europe in 2050. Some might even say that Europe is hardly worth worrying about.
Some might even say that Europe is hardly worth worrying about.
Hold on a minute, are you saying that historic center of Christendom won’t matter to the Church, just because of someone’s statistical speculation? And since when is any continent hardly worth worrying about where the Church is concerned?
I personally wouldn’t worry about Islam becoming the “religion of the future.” It will probably dissolve when the Muslims fail to conquer Rome. The real danger is in the East.
“..the root flaw of your (and others’) twisted reasoning – the belief that Catholic Truth is old hat and that Agnosticism and Secularism, with its total abandonment of Christianity, is the best way forward.”
Fie… Kathleen… hang on! When did I ever twistedly reason such a thing? I was merely putting forward my idea of how, and why, the Voris comments might be a bit off target.
Although, yes, a great many people do think it’s “old hat,” as Voris more or less admits.
Doesn’t mean it’s not true, though, does it?
Personally, I have no idea whether it’s “old hat” or not. …Or true or not. Not being God.
I doubt if there is a “best way forward,” that we can confidently identify. Maybe a “least worst” one. Although that seems equally unlikely. I don’t know what it is, anyway.
“Some might even say that Europe is hardly worth worrying about.”
Excellent point, GC. Some might even go so far as to say that Planet Earth, currently populated by seven-billion odd raving, frothing, lunatics of every conceivable and murderous stripe of religion, ethnicity, and political depravity – amusingly and ironically labelled as “Homo Sapiens,” is not worth worrying about.
Maybe. I don’t know. …But I suspect we’d do vastly less worse if we left the planet to “the dumb animals” to run, even if that only meant the ants and cockroaches.
“Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.”
Very good news. Who cares? Not me, as an agnostic. I don’t care if I’m the only agnostic in the world. (Me and Sir Anthony, that is.) I don’t care about making converts. Other people can decide for themselves what they choose to think.
The Muslims are apparently winning the “Global Numbers Of Believers Game,” so we can confidently expect The “Christians” (a very mixed bag indeed – including those who actually often hate one another even more than they hate anyone else – if that’s possible) – to cease playing it.
I find it all hugely fascinating. We all do. Well it is, isn’t it?
…Or I’m a Dutchman, “Now looick heere, Mynheer Toad…” (insert smiley Dutch face)
“Rejecting your Christian roots does not bring happiness either..”
Well, I never expected it to, Kathleen. There’s more to life than happiness as we both know.
Accepting your roots makes you happy.
As does a Muslim, a Methodist, or a Mormon, or a Muggletonian, accepting his, or hers.
…And that’s just fine.
THR: I personally wouldn’t worry about Islam becoming the “religion of the future.” It will probably dissolve when the Muslims fail to conquer Rome. The real danger is in the East.
Much obliged, GC. I shall be careful where I put my finger in future.
I’d have thought, following from what we read virtually daily on P&S, that“the real danger” cited by The Habsburg Restorer, was in Rome. Already.
Does THR think, then – that what’s going on now with ISIS is, in some way, not a “real” danger – some sort of lull before the storm?
Michael Voris raises an interesting issue in this video — there has certainly been a marked decline in Mass attendance, but to what extent can we chalk that up to the effects of V-II? If Vatican II is the cause, then there is no reason to expect a correlation between protestant and Catholic attendance trends in the Western world. Conversely, if they appear to follow a similar trend, then we must doubt the Vatican II is the primary cause. Anyone got any data to share?
To put it in more direct terms, nothing about the Second Vatican Council will have altered attendance trends among Anglicans (Episcopalians), Presbyterians, or Methodists. If (per chance) all these denominations were to show a collapse in attendance since the mid-twentieth century, then we’d have to conclude that V-II was not so much a cause, as a symptom of a much deeper malaise in western Christianity. — It would be very interesting to know if Catholic attendance had begun to decline prior to V-II.
I have long suspected that Vat ll was a belated attempt to “stop the rot,” Tom.
But I have no relevant data. Surely someone does.
I do, however, remember us small boys all whining, “Why does the Mass have to be in Latin, Father?” And the priest replying, “So that wherever you find yourself in the world, you can attend Mass secure in the knowledge that you won’t understand a word of it.”
…So that was already a concern for some.
And it is good to have the Mass in the vernacular – provided it’s in a foreign language, of course.
Toad, could you kindly creep back under your stone (to put it politely) and give us all a break! 🙄
Interesting data from “pew forum” in GC’s link. Should duly startle us Europeans to ask, “what are we doing, contracepting and aborting ourselves to gradual extinction?!!”
But we won’t – we have become too lazy and self-indulgent to even care (in the main of course) and it will need a lot more than warning statistics on demographics to shake us out of our self-induced stupour.
“And only 16% of all Christians will live in Europe in 2050. Some might even say that Europe is hardly worth worrying about.”
How I interpret GC’s words here is that with our dwindling numbers in Europe, the main focus of the Church’s attention will naturally be directed to the more populous Catholic continents – Africa ? Asia ? – (and NOT that anyone is unworthy of attention or value; of course every single soul is of immense value to God… and His Church!)
Tom,
You ask questions that need far more time and attention than I can give right now. (Nor do I consider myself an expert on this troublesome subject! 😉 )
As far as I know, Mass attendance was extremely high prior to Vatican II’s… er… reforms!
In brief though, the “trends” towards apostasy in the West are considered to have started at the time of the Reformation, come to more relevance in the so-called ‘Enlightenment’ period (hence the many warnings coming from the Popes of the time) and then really broken all its restraining ‘chains’ in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council.
I am not saying the Council itself is to blame; most leaned theologians and apologists say that (except for some of the more ambiguous statements in places) nothing in its documents justifies the outburst of Modernism, Iconclasm, shocking abuses, and pure denial of Catholic teachings even among members of the clergy (a.k.a. heresies) that took place in the aftermath of the Council. However, many put a large part of the blame for this attack on Truth and Holiness down to the enforcement of a banal Liturgy onto the faithful, replacing the Church’s magnificent pre-VII Liturgy.
We have identified many of those ‘errors’ now, and in some ways among Traditional Catholics (and especially under the Papacy of Benedict XVI) things gradually appeared to be getting back on track, but much damage has been done – re Holland – and it will take nothing short of a miracle for the Faith to recover its decline into sheer Atheism cum Secularism in some countries.
The “effects of VII” mainly affected Western nations, while the Faith grew and spread (and continues to do so) in other nations.
Yes, Brother B, God can deal with Europe Himself. How about a plague of toads? We here at CP&S can vouch that that would probably be very effective in elevating religious conviction and practice.
Conditions in most of Europe appear right on the verge of gurgling down the plughole such that there’s not much we in other parts of the world can do and there’s no point us thinking about it.
I did not mean to down play the danger posed by IS (Islamic State), yet one of the fundamentals of their faith is the conquest of Rome, and if they fail to conquer Rome and fail to destroy the Catholic Church (which they cannot destroy even if they take Rome), the religion will most likely dissolve. Yet though our current battle is with IS, a different religion more alien than Islam (which is, after all, a Christian heresy), the religion which once took the form of the Cult of Kali, and may do so again; that is the Worship of Destruction. IS has a finite goal (one we must combat), but this far older religion has no goal, save infinite Nothing. It is far more dangerous, and difficult to combat, but it will never prevail against the Rock of Peter.
IS certainly won’t be around for long, they can barely keep the lights on and the taps running in the areas under their control. And they won’t be conquering Rome this side of Doomsday. However I think it is very very very unlikely that the inevitable demise of IS will mean the end of Islam.
Re Kali; there are various unpleasant cults (mainly in North India) which you might be referring to. None of them is of any significance.
I agree that the Rock of Peter is quite safe, but I find your understanding of world events rather wobbly.
To our Restorationist, above and others: It seems to be a tad arrogant to suggest that Islam or other diabolical forces will not or cannot ‘conquer’ Rome. The diabolical forces are quite capable of that which we think is impossible. A large portion of Rome ( the Church ) is quite corrupt and vulnerable, because of that corrupt and vulnerable element of Her that persists and is described as the human component.
Not withstanding Our Lords assurance that the Gates of Hell will never prevail against “His Church”. His Church is far different than our concept of Her . For that reason alone we need to fear the forces WE have unleashed in Her by the audacity of thinking we could interfere with and improve on, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to the extent that we have.
How is this from Father Gabriel Amorth ( at the time Chief Exorcist at the Vatican. 16th March 2007)
“The smoke of satan has entered ( the Church) everywhere, Everywhere.”
Our own (Australia) Mr Bob Santamaria a renown and respected Apologist and Social commentator…”Let us not conclude with the monumental absurdity that as Catholic’ vote with their feet and empty ONCE FILLED Churches , that the Holy Spirit is renewing what is visibly ceasing to exist” -Shortly before his death in 1998.
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, (at the time the Prefect of the Supreme tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and one of the few senior prelates in the Church that in any way displays an ounce of sanity. – 25th July 2013)
“The abuses of the Sacred Liturgy following the reforms of the 2nd Vatican are strictly correlated with a great deal of moral corruption that exist in the world today”
He went on to say, “Their is no question in my mind that the abuses of the Sacred Liturgy, the reduction of the Sacred Liturgy to some kind of Human activity is strictly correlated with a lot of moral corruption and with a LEVITY IN CATCHESIS that has been shocking and left generations of Catholics ill prepared… You can see it in the whole gamut of Church life. -25th July 2013…..
“Levity in Catechesis”??? A particular concern of mine, given (and a reference to) the quality of Religious Education in our ‘Catholic Schools’ these days.
There is a direct correlation between the ‘health’ of the Church and her ability to draw and sustain aspirants to a contemplative and consecrated life in the Church and her founder, Jesus Christ. As some one that just happened to be there at the time, I can tell you that convents and Seminaries were overflowing with Religious and Priests up til about 1965/1970. Gee, what happened 45/50 Years ago??? I hear you ask…
I suspect the Church that will prevail (in accordance with His assurances) will be unrecognizable and far different from the one to which we are accustomed.
We can pontificate all we want but nobody can say with a straight face, that these are not Diabolical times.
Well said Geoff!
Who could not see the constant attacks on Traditional Catholics, the falling away from the Faith of so many former Catholics, the manipulations surrounding the Synod on the Family, the ‘toleration’ shown towards the ‘sodomy’… oops, I meant to say ‘gay’ lobby, and other grave evils, of some treacherous members of the hierarchy (with seemingly no papal reprimand), the ‘permitted’ sacrilegious antics at some N.O. Masses, the daily mass murder of Christians by Islamists, etc., etc., etc., and not say that these are DIABOLICAL TIMES indeed?
Pope Paul VI got one thing very right when he said that ‘the smoke of Satan’ had infiltrated the Church! Would any sane Catholic looking at the panorama of satanical goings on in our Holy Mother Church nowadays deny the truthfulness of that statement?
But THESE are the times we (Catholics alive today) have been CHOSEN by God from all Eternity to tread our pilgrim journey in the world. We are being challenged to live as faithful witnesses to Christ’s Divine Law within His Church, and to fight with all the ‘tools’ available to us against these forces of evil. This is our mission; we cannot simply bemoan the wrongs taking place and bury our heads in the sand ostrich-style (that many times I feel just like doing!) We must meet these challenges head on by being loyal and courageous Christian witnesses, and standing up for Catholic Truth, whatever the cost.
Our Blessed Lady’s warnings, in many Church-recognised apparitions (especially Fatima) that this immense apostasy would occur in our times are unravelling before our eyes. She came to prepare us, to encourage us to remain firm and true to Her Divine Son and His Church, and to assure us that Goodness and Truth (the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart) would be victorious in the end.
Yes Kathleen, Your comments about the ‘Church recognised apparitions’ are intriguing in that Scholars/commentators on Fatima almost universally make reference ( in the so called 3rd secret of Fatima ) to ‘The Great Apostasy’ that will take place in the Church with pointed reference to that apostasy commencing or coming from the highest levels in the Church.
The so called secrets of Fatima were an accepted and essential part of what the Church approved ,
Little or no mention is made now of Fatima and its impending 100th anniversary in 2017 (what ever one chooses to make of that). It as if such things are not spoken about among our ‘sophisticated, polite and enlightened’ post VII Catholics these days. After all, in the spirit of Ecumenism, we cant be mentioning such silly or childish things in front of our protestants friends can we…. It might scare them off.
As a young bloke just before 1960 it was common knowledge that the so called third Secret was to be disclosed in 1960. In fact I can recall references to that being made in the Secular Press.
Sister Lucia when asked, why 1960, said that it would be better understood then.
A short 3 years later VII was convened and we all know what happened then.
Nah… its all superstitious nonsense…..Secrets???…. come on, we are much too sophisticated for that….
The comment by Saint Pope Paul VI about the ‘smoke of satan’ was made in 1970 I believe, barely a year after the ‘New Mass’ was introduced…
I agree the Church is so badly wounded at the moment that I suspect that only the direct intervention by God through his Blessed Mother will save her and I have every confidence she will.
Without wishing to sound too apocalyptic maybe we wont have to wait much longer….. There I’ve
s said it…..Hope I haven’t embarrassed to many good Catholics.
Re Kali; there are various unpleasant cults (mainly in North India) which you might be referring to. None of them is of any significance.
Do you know the meaning of Harappan? The oldest Hindu god is Shiva the Destroyer, and the oldest idols of Shiva depict him as a horned man with three faces. Is this a coincidence? Maybe. But even the followers of Brahma believe that the world is Brahma’s dream, which will be utterly destroyed upon his awaking. The point is that the philosophy of the East is the worship of Nothing. To the Muslim God is God, to the Hindu and the Buddhist, God is Nothing. That is the meaning of the Juggernaut, the unstoppable vehicle annihilating everything in its path that it may carrying forward for humanity to worship the smiling mask behind which hinds Nothing. That is the meaning of Kali, who feeds her infant child the blood of the slain. That is the meaning of the Nagas. And that is the meaning of mitred monks praying beads and toll bells to the honor and glory of I AM WHO AM NOT. This is the danger in the East, this is the danger I speak of. The Cult of Kali and Shiva are very significant, to the point where the Trimurti (the highest forms of the Hindu godhead) are shown worshipping Kali, as she stands over the slain.
We must fight IS, but we must not be blind to this.
This thread has many tangential (not off topic) comments, so I can’t really say which of them prompt me to mention (tangentially) the recent case at Marquette University, a Jesuit institution in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where a 69 year old associate (poli-sci) professor, John McAdams, has been suspended, barred from campus and is now subject to a Stripping-of-Tenure-Star-Chamber administrative procedure caused by this comment on his personal blog:
“Abbate [Cheryl Abbate, a former teaching assistant at Marquette] was just using a tactic typical among liberals now. Opinions with which they disagree are not merely wrong, and are not to be argued against on their merits, but are deemed “offensive” and need to be shut up…Of course, only certain groups have the privilege of shutting up debate. Things thought to be “offensive” to gays, blacks, women and so on must be stifled. Further, it’s not considered necessary to actually find out what the group really thinks. “Women” are supposed to feel warred upon when somebody opposes abortion, but in the real world men and women are equally likely to oppose abortion…But in the politically correct world of academia, one is supposed to assume that all victim groups think the same way as leftist professors.”
In the interests of fairness, here’s what Cheryl Abbate (cute chick) has to say in response to this debacle. I haven’t actually read her links yet: https://ceabbate.wordpress.com/
…and that’s because it’s too late for me to get into any further specifics, except to point out that in her own abstract of her master’s thesis: Research on Prisoners: An Alternative To Animal Testing (on the strength of which she presumably was hired by the Jesuits at Marquette as a TA), Cheryl Abbate has this to say:
“My central proposal is that our decision to experiment on nonhuman animals is not the best alternative available; rather, if we were to experiment on violent criminals, we would increase overall happiness.”
“But even the followers of Brahma believe that the world is Brahma’s dream, which will be utterly destroyed upon his awaking. “
Like the Red King in the “Alice” book. But aren’t we all the dreams of God?
“The point is that the philosophy of the East is the worship of Nothing.”
The good thing is, it doesn’t take long. No time at all, really.
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
What ever one may think about Voris’ reluctance to lay at least a portion of the Blame at the feet of our Catholic Leadership, he is right on the money here. However for our recalcitrant Bishops and Cardinals, to survive, they must be receiving support from those above them, and therein is where the problems lie.
Leaders must lead .Those that lack that portion of the human anatomy, that is the essence of their manhood, will continue to crucify Him and He will continue to hang from the cross…
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After watching this, a few thoughts: (sorry, Burro, but some of us do think, a bit)
The Church in the West is not suffering from active “hatred,” as Voris seems to think – but inertia. The Dutch Catholics who ignore the Church do so from negative reasons – it seems largely irrelevant nowadays to them.They don’t hate it, they’re just indifferent – might even quite approve of it, in abstract. Mind, you it’s more stimulating to feel hated and plotted against.
Does anyone believe that replacing altar rails and giving communion on the tongue will make everything all right, and the churches full again?
The discredited “royal” imagery of “Kings” “Princes,” and “Palaces,” does not help.
Does anyone really believe that there are priests and bishops that want to destroy the Church, their livelihood? What will they do to earn a crust then?
Does anyone think that videos of Raymond Cardinal Burke trailing a 50 foot long train of scarlet silk held up by small boys, will encourage young men of the right sort to enter the priesthood?
Does anyone remember the scorn heaped on the dwindling and aged congregations of Anglicans some years ago. Hubris?
Voris is advocating evangelisation, that is teaching, without dialogue. His approach is, “Do what we tell you in the name of Christ, and don’t argue, or even discuss it.” Won’t do any more. Sounds like indoctrination, and people don’t care for that totalitarian sort of thing. Not since The Wall came down – long before, actually.
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Toad… did I read that right and that you were THINKING before penning this twisted comment? Well, you have been wrong many times before, but in your latest contribution to CP&S, you have surpassed yourself in your ‘wrongness’.
Are you sure you are not a Dutchman yourself? 😉 (Sorry, poor joke!)
It is this embracing of the evil of Modernism and all the worldly views seen as ‘progress’ that has sunk the Faith in Holland (and to a lesser degree in other Western countries) with its abandonment of the basic teaching of Christ ‘to pick up our cross and follow Him’.
Rejecting your Christian roots does not bring happiness either; it leads men to despair.
I am going to ‘borrow’ the words of another commenter on another blog to express better than I could the root flaw of your (and others’) twisted reasoning – the belief that Catholic Truth is old hat and that Agnosticism and Secularism, with its total abandonment of Christianity, is the best way forward.
Yeah – the way forward, broad and wide*, paved with enlightened free-thinking ‘rights’ to every class of evil… and leading straight >>> to Hell!!
“Consider the total rejection of the Social Kingship of Christ, mass apostasy, legalised butchery of unborn children up to birth, including in Catholic hospitals, contraception and divorce taken as “normal”, sacrificing of school children to the antichrist commissars of the education system, the complete undermining of the place of parents in rearing and instructing their children, the screeching celebration of sodomy, increasing [cases of] euthanasia, together with the craven Church capitulation in the face of those forces of organised naturalism who seek to expel the voice of Catholic truth from the public square and wage unrelenting war against Christ….
[In] the words of the English martyr bishop, Saint John Fisher: “The fort has been betrayed even by those who should have defended it.””
*”Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for WIDE is the gate, and BROAD is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat” – (Matt 7:13).
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Hang on Kathleen…. What about that reasonable expectation that all will be saved… That other great gem of the modernist persuasion
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All fingers to the dyke!
by 2050 …
The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.
Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
Actually, later in this Pew Forum report it says that the percentage of Netherlanders self-identifying as Christians will hardly change from 2010 to 2050, from 50.6% to to 49.1%, probably largely because of an increase in the Muslim percentage. Now, if we could only get some of these Dutch back to participating in churches! (The biggest losses in Christians will be in the UK, France and even Australia and New Zealand; and except for France, these are only historically protestant countries anyway.)
And only 16% of all Christians will live in Europe in 2050. Some might even say that Europe is hardly worth worrying about.
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Some might even say that Europe is hardly worth worrying about.
Hold on a minute, are you saying that historic center of Christendom won’t matter to the Church, just because of someone’s statistical speculation? And since when is any continent hardly worth worrying about where the Church is concerned?
I personally wouldn’t worry about Islam becoming the “religion of the future.” It will probably dissolve when the Muslims fail to conquer Rome. The real danger is in the East.
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“..the root flaw of your (and others’) twisted reasoning – the belief that Catholic Truth is old hat and that Agnosticism and Secularism, with its total abandonment of Christianity, is the best way forward.”
Fie… Kathleen… hang on! When did I ever twistedly reason such a thing? I was merely putting forward my idea of how, and why, the Voris comments might be a bit off target.
Although, yes, a great many people do think it’s “old hat,” as Voris more or less admits.
Doesn’t mean it’s not true, though, does it?
Personally, I have no idea whether it’s “old hat” or not. …Or true or not. Not being God.
I doubt if there is a “best way forward,” that we can confidently identify. Maybe a “least worst” one. Although that seems equally unlikely. I don’t know what it is, anyway.
“Some might even say that Europe is hardly worth worrying about.”
Excellent point, GC. Some might even go so far as to say that Planet Earth, currently populated by seven-billion odd raving, frothing, lunatics of every conceivable and murderous stripe of religion, ethnicity, and political depravity – amusingly and ironically labelled as “Homo Sapiens,” is not worth worrying about.
Maybe. I don’t know. …But I suspect we’d do vastly less worse if we left the planet to “the dumb animals” to run, even if that only meant the ants and cockroaches.
“Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.”
Very good news. Who cares? Not me, as an agnostic. I don’t care if I’m the only agnostic in the world. (Me and Sir Anthony, that is.) I don’t care about making converts. Other people can decide for themselves what they choose to think.
The Muslims are apparently winning the “Global Numbers Of Believers Game,” so we can confidently expect The “Christians” (a very mixed bag indeed – including those who actually often hate one another even more than they hate anyone else – if that’s possible) – to cease playing it.
I find it all hugely fascinating. We all do. Well it is, isn’t it?
…Or I’m a Dutchman, “Now looick heere, Mynheer Toad…” (insert smiley Dutch face)
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“All fingers to the dyke!.
I can't believe you wrote that, GC.
Burro, please explain – in private.
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“Rejecting your Christian roots does not bring happiness either..”
Well, I never expected it to, Kathleen. There’s more to life than happiness as we both know.
Accepting your roots makes you happy.
As does a Muslim, a Methodist, or a Mormon, or a Muggletonian, accepting his, or hers.
…And that’s just fine.
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THR: I personally wouldn’t worry about Islam becoming the “religion of the future.” It will probably dissolve when the Muslims fail to conquer Rome. The real danger is in the East.
THR, please expatiate.
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Toad, the first meaning.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/dyke
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THR, please expatiate.
Yes, please do. Both on the imminent dissolution of Islam, and the peril from the East
**Excuse me, just off to buy some popcorn before the show**
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Much obliged, GC. I shall be careful where I put my finger in future.
I’d have thought, following from what we read virtually daily on P&S, that“the real danger” cited by The Habsburg Restorer, was in Rome. Already.
Does THR think, then – that what’s going on now with ISIS is, in some way, not a “real” danger – some sort of lull before the storm?
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Michael Voris raises an interesting issue in this video — there has certainly been a marked decline in Mass attendance, but to what extent can we chalk that up to the effects of V-II? If Vatican II is the cause, then there is no reason to expect a correlation between protestant and Catholic attendance trends in the Western world. Conversely, if they appear to follow a similar trend, then we must doubt the Vatican II is the primary cause. Anyone got any data to share?
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To put it in more direct terms, nothing about the Second Vatican Council will have altered attendance trends among Anglicans (Episcopalians), Presbyterians, or Methodists. If (per chance) all these denominations were to show a collapse in attendance since the mid-twentieth century, then we’d have to conclude that V-II was not so much a cause, as a symptom of a much deeper malaise in western Christianity. — It would be very interesting to know if Catholic attendance had begun to decline prior to V-II.
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I have long suspected that Vat ll was a belated attempt to “stop the rot,” Tom.
But I have no relevant data. Surely someone does.
I do, however, remember us small boys all whining, “Why does the Mass have to be in Latin, Father?” And the priest replying, “So that wherever you find yourself in the world, you can attend Mass secure in the knowledge that you won’t understand a word of it.”
…So that was already a concern for some.
And it is good to have the Mass in the vernacular – provided it’s in a foreign language, of course.
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Toad, could you kindly creep back under your stone (to put it politely) and give us all a break! 🙄
Interesting data from “pew forum” in GC’s link. Should duly startle us Europeans to ask, “what are we doing, contracepting and aborting ourselves to gradual extinction?!!”
But we won’t – we have become too lazy and self-indulgent to even care (in the main of course) and it will need a lot more than warning statistics on demographics to shake us out of our self-induced stupour.
“And only 16% of all Christians will live in Europe in 2050. Some might even say that Europe is hardly worth worrying about.”
How I interpret GC’s words here is that with our dwindling numbers in Europe, the main focus of the Church’s attention will naturally be directed to the more populous Catholic continents – Africa ? Asia ? – (and NOT that anyone is unworthy of attention or value; of course every single soul is of immense value to God… and His Church!)
BTW, this ‘lifesite news’ article is relevant to the topic of the article. Shows how the rot started too! https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/dutch-catholics-brace-for-future-without-churches-after-abandoning-evangeli
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Tom,
You ask questions that need far more time and attention than I can give right now. (Nor do I consider myself an expert on this troublesome subject! 😉 )
As far as I know, Mass attendance was extremely high prior to Vatican II’s… er… reforms!
In brief though, the “trends” towards apostasy in the West are considered to have started at the time of the Reformation, come to more relevance in the so-called ‘Enlightenment’ period (hence the many warnings coming from the Popes of the time) and then really broken all its restraining ‘chains’ in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council.
I am not saying the Council itself is to blame; most leaned theologians and apologists say that (except for some of the more ambiguous statements in places) nothing in its documents justifies the outburst of Modernism, Iconclasm, shocking abuses, and pure denial of Catholic teachings even among members of the clergy (a.k.a. heresies) that took place in the aftermath of the Council. However, many put a large part of the blame for this attack on Truth and Holiness down to the enforcement of a banal Liturgy onto the faithful, replacing the Church’s magnificent pre-VII Liturgy.
We have identified many of those ‘errors’ now, and in some ways among Traditional Catholics (and especially under the Papacy of Benedict XVI) things gradually appeared to be getting back on track, but much damage has been done – re Holland – and it will take nothing short of a miracle for the Faith to recover its decline into sheer Atheism cum Secularism in some countries.
The “effects of VII” mainly affected Western nations, while the Faith grew and spread (and continues to do so) in other nations.
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Kathleen, I am quite happy to hold out for a miracle of Grace, for it can be the only cure now.
Human beings left to their own devices, even with the best intentions, are just dead donkeys.
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Yes, Brother B, God can deal with Europe Himself. How about a plague of toads? We here at CP&S can vouch that that would probably be very effective in elevating religious conviction and practice.
Conditions in most of Europe appear right on the verge of gurgling down the plughole such that there’s not much we in other parts of the world can do and there’s no point us thinking about it.
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I did not mean to down play the danger posed by IS (Islamic State), yet one of the fundamentals of their faith is the conquest of Rome, and if they fail to conquer Rome and fail to destroy the Catholic Church (which they cannot destroy even if they take Rome), the religion will most likely dissolve. Yet though our current battle is with IS, a different religion more alien than Islam (which is, after all, a Christian heresy), the religion which once took the form of the Cult of Kali, and may do so again; that is the Worship of Destruction. IS has a finite goal (one we must combat), but this far older religion has no goal, save infinite Nothing. It is far more dangerous, and difficult to combat, but it will never prevail against the Rock of Peter.
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IS certainly won’t be around for long, they can barely keep the lights on and the taps running in the areas under their control. And they won’t be conquering Rome this side of Doomsday. However I think it is very very very unlikely that the inevitable demise of IS will mean the end of Islam.
Re Kali; there are various unpleasant cults (mainly in North India) which you might be referring to. None of them is of any significance.
I agree that the Rock of Peter is quite safe, but I find your understanding of world events rather wobbly.
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To our Restorationist, above and others: It seems to be a tad arrogant to suggest that Islam or other diabolical forces will not or cannot ‘conquer’ Rome. The diabolical forces are quite capable of that which we think is impossible. A large portion of Rome ( the Church ) is quite corrupt and vulnerable, because of that corrupt and vulnerable element of Her that persists and is described as the human component.
Not withstanding Our Lords assurance that the Gates of Hell will never prevail against “His Church”. His Church is far different than our concept of Her . For that reason alone we need to fear the forces WE have unleashed in Her by the audacity of thinking we could interfere with and improve on, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to the extent that we have.
How is this from Father Gabriel Amorth ( at the time Chief Exorcist at the Vatican. 16th March 2007)
“The smoke of satan has entered ( the Church) everywhere, Everywhere.”
Our own (Australia) Mr Bob Santamaria a renown and respected Apologist and Social commentator…”Let us not conclude with the monumental absurdity that as Catholic’ vote with their feet and empty ONCE FILLED Churches , that the Holy Spirit is renewing what is visibly ceasing to exist” -Shortly before his death in 1998.
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, (at the time the Prefect of the Supreme tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and one of the few senior prelates in the Church that in any way displays an ounce of sanity. – 25th July 2013)
“The abuses of the Sacred Liturgy following the reforms of the 2nd Vatican are strictly correlated with a great deal of moral corruption that exist in the world today”
He went on to say, “Their is no question in my mind that the abuses of the Sacred Liturgy, the reduction of the Sacred Liturgy to some kind of Human activity is strictly correlated with a lot of moral corruption and with a LEVITY IN CATCHESIS that has been shocking and left generations of Catholics ill prepared… You can see it in the whole gamut of Church life. -25th July 2013…..
“Levity in Catechesis”??? A particular concern of mine, given (and a reference to) the quality of Religious Education in our ‘Catholic Schools’ these days.
There is a direct correlation between the ‘health’ of the Church and her ability to draw and sustain aspirants to a contemplative and consecrated life in the Church and her founder, Jesus Christ. As some one that just happened to be there at the time, I can tell you that convents and Seminaries were overflowing with Religious and Priests up til about 1965/1970. Gee, what happened 45/50 Years ago??? I hear you ask…
I suspect the Church that will prevail (in accordance with His assurances) will be unrecognizable and far different from the one to which we are accustomed.
We can pontificate all we want but nobody can say with a straight face, that these are not Diabolical times.
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Well said Geoff!
Who could not see the constant attacks on Traditional Catholics, the falling away from the Faith of so many former Catholics, the manipulations surrounding the Synod on the Family, the ‘toleration’ shown towards the ‘sodomy’… oops, I meant to say ‘gay’ lobby, and other grave evils, of some treacherous members of the hierarchy (with seemingly no papal reprimand), the ‘permitted’ sacrilegious antics at some N.O. Masses, the daily mass murder of Christians by Islamists, etc., etc., etc., and not say that these are DIABOLICAL TIMES indeed?
Pope Paul VI got one thing very right when he said that ‘the smoke of Satan’ had infiltrated the Church! Would any sane Catholic looking at the panorama of satanical goings on in our Holy Mother Church nowadays deny the truthfulness of that statement?
But THESE are the times we (Catholics alive today) have been CHOSEN by God from all Eternity to tread our pilgrim journey in the world. We are being challenged to live as faithful witnesses to Christ’s Divine Law within His Church, and to fight with all the ‘tools’ available to us against these forces of evil. This is our mission; we cannot simply bemoan the wrongs taking place and bury our heads in the sand ostrich-style (that many times I feel just like doing!) We must meet these challenges head on by being loyal and courageous Christian witnesses, and standing up for Catholic Truth, whatever the cost.
Our Blessed Lady’s warnings, in many Church-recognised apparitions (especially Fatima) that this immense apostasy would occur in our times are unravelling before our eyes. She came to prepare us, to encourage us to remain firm and true to Her Divine Son and His Church, and to assure us that Goodness and Truth (the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart) would be victorious in the end.
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Yes Kathleen, Your comments about the ‘Church recognised apparitions’ are intriguing in that Scholars/commentators on Fatima almost universally make reference ( in the so called 3rd secret of Fatima ) to ‘The Great Apostasy’ that will take place in the Church with pointed reference to that apostasy commencing or coming from the highest levels in the Church.
The so called secrets of Fatima were an accepted and essential part of what the Church approved ,
Little or no mention is made now of Fatima and its impending 100th anniversary in 2017 (what ever one chooses to make of that). It as if such things are not spoken about among our ‘sophisticated, polite and enlightened’ post VII Catholics these days. After all, in the spirit of Ecumenism, we cant be mentioning such silly or childish things in front of our protestants friends can we…. It might scare them off.
As a young bloke just before 1960 it was common knowledge that the so called third Secret was to be disclosed in 1960. In fact I can recall references to that being made in the Secular Press.
Sister Lucia when asked, why 1960, said that it would be better understood then.
A short 3 years later VII was convened and we all know what happened then.
Nah… its all superstitious nonsense…..Secrets???…. come on, we are much too sophisticated for that….
The comment by Saint Pope Paul VI about the ‘smoke of satan’ was made in 1970 I believe, barely a year after the ‘New Mass’ was introduced…
I agree the Church is so badly wounded at the moment that I suspect that only the direct intervention by God through his Blessed Mother will save her and I have every confidence she will.
Without wishing to sound too apocalyptic maybe we wont have to wait much longer….. There I’ve
s said it…..Hope I haven’t embarrassed to many good Catholics.
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Re Kali; there are various unpleasant cults (mainly in North India) which you might be referring to. None of them is of any significance.
Do you know the meaning of Harappan? The oldest Hindu god is Shiva the Destroyer, and the oldest idols of Shiva depict him as a horned man with three faces. Is this a coincidence? Maybe. But even the followers of Brahma believe that the world is Brahma’s dream, which will be utterly destroyed upon his awaking. The point is that the philosophy of the East is the worship of Nothing. To the Muslim God is God, to the Hindu and the Buddhist, God is Nothing. That is the meaning of the Juggernaut, the unstoppable vehicle annihilating everything in its path that it may carrying forward for humanity to worship the smiling mask behind which hinds Nothing. That is the meaning of Kali, who feeds her infant child the blood of the slain. That is the meaning of the Nagas. And that is the meaning of mitred monks praying beads and toll bells to the honor and glory of I AM WHO AM NOT. This is the danger in the East, this is the danger I speak of. The Cult of Kali and Shiva are very significant, to the point where the Trimurti (the highest forms of the Hindu godhead) are shown worshipping Kali, as she stands over the slain.
We must fight IS, but we must not be blind to this.
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This thread has many tangential (not off topic) comments, so I can’t really say which of them prompt me to mention (tangentially) the recent case at Marquette University, a Jesuit institution in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where a 69 year old associate (poli-sci) professor, John McAdams, has been suspended, barred from campus and is now subject to a Stripping-of-Tenure-Star-Chamber administrative procedure caused by this comment on his personal blog:
In the interests of fairness, here’s what Cheryl Abbate (cute chick) has to say in response to this debacle. I haven’t actually read her links yet: https://ceabbate.wordpress.com/
…and that’s because it’s too late for me to get into any further specifics, except to point out that in her own abstract of her master’s thesis: Research on Prisoners: An Alternative To Animal Testing (on the strength of which she presumably was hired by the Jesuits at Marquette as a TA), Cheryl Abbate has this to say:
http://speakingofresearch.com/2013/10/29/some-animal-rights-philosophers-say-the-darndest-things/
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“But even the followers of Brahma believe that the world is Brahma’s dream, which will be utterly destroyed upon his awaking. “
Like the Red King in the “Alice” book. But aren’t we all the dreams of God?
“The point is that the philosophy of the East is the worship of Nothing.”
The good thing is, it doesn’t take long. No time at all, really.
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