Friday, May 22, 2015

The Cult of Softness and its fruit: The Church in decline

Crux News reports: "...the total number of Catholics in the United States dropped by 3 million since 2007, now comprising about 20 percent – or one-fifth – of the total population.

And perhaps more troubling for the church, for every one Catholic convert, more than six Catholics leave the church. Taken a step further, Catholicism loses more members than it gains at a higher rate than any other denomination, with nearly 13 percent of all Americans describing themselves as 'former Catholics.'"

This should come as no surprise.  Years of witnessing corruption of various kinds (material and moral), not to mention a lack of leadership and charity, have turned young people-  and people of all ages-  off of the Church.

In many parishes, orthodox Catholics are subjected to hatred and violence.  For example, when I called for reverence in the liturgy and advanced the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI that applause has no place within the liturgy, I was threatened with violence by "leaders" at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol and banned from the parish's Facebook page.  See here.

We've had enough of a preaching which leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death.  We've had enough of a Cotton-Candy Catholicism which offers Chicken-Soup Homilies and asinine theatrics rather than the solid meat of sound preaching and liturgical reverence.  Sadly, so many of our priests haven't caught on to this.  And so they continue to spoon-feed us the unsatisfying pablum.

The time for lying is over.  I have been saying this for years.  Back in 2009, Archbishop Charles Chaput noted that, "40 years of American Catholic complacency and poor formation are bearing exactly the fruit we should have expected...We can't talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what we've allowed ourselves to become.  We need to stop lying to each other..."

The lying must stop.  For this to happen, we need priests and Bishops who fear God more than they do men.  Cowards will not lead us out of the valley of death.  Neither will homosexuality or effeminate clerics who cannot relate to men.  Only shepherds who have the spiritual strength, the Cardinal Gift of Fortitude, to brave the risk of worldly criticism, will be able to lead the American Catholic Church out of the valley of the Culture of Death and back on the road to the Civilization of Love which Pope John Paul II spoke of so often.

Why have so many priests succumbed to fear?  Why is it that their preaching no longer points out sin?  Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange provides us with an answer:

"The reason for this is not difficult to find.  A sermon is the result of the combined effort of all the priest's powers; it reveals his entire person; it is his struggle against the vices of the surrounding world."  In other words, if the preaching is unsound, it is because the priest's spiritual life is unsound.  Fr. Lagrange continues, "Everything in the priest cooperates in his preaching - study, reflection, his powers to compose and revise, the activity of his intellect, his imagination, his memory, his feelings, his voice.  Therefore, when he preaches, the priest stands exposed for all to study; some will be attracted, others will not.  Some will accept what he says, others will simply criticize.  So if the priest approaches his task from the human angle, he will say to himself: 'I cannot afford to lose my reputation; people of weight in the parish who take offense easily must be spared their feelings and not provoked; I must proceed warily so as not to incur criticism.'  In that way Christian eloquence is invaded by a profane eloquence in which the preacher looks after his own interests, not the glory of God or the saving of souls." (The Priest In Union With Christ, p. 156).

Forty years of lying has wrought so much damage to the American Catholic Church.  Archbishop Chaput is right, we are merely reaping the fruit of what we've planted.  St. Paul tells us that, "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.." (Galatians 5: 22).  But what fruit have we witnessed in the American Catholic Church?  The Church has been infected with dry-rot as so many Catholics have succumbed to the works of the flesh.

We need heroic shepherds.  Men who, like Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J., are willing to give their very lives for the Catholic Church and her teaching.

Sissy clerics aren't getting the job done.  And this Lavender Mafia will never acknowledge this.  The Cult of Softness will not-  IT CANNOT - examine itself.  It is too fat, too lazy, too corrupt, too proud.  It has become a haunt of demons where every manner of filth and immorality is welcome and faith and purity are treated with animus.

Large segments of the Church in America are simply lost.

7 comments:

David said...

In Ireland, the hierarchy abandons Catholics and embraces the culture of sodomy. FrancisChurch embraces corruption.

Paul Anthony Melanson said...

http://www.onepeterfive.com/can-a-catholic-criticize-the-pope/


Even at the very top, the demon is sowing confusion. And many Catholics are leaving the Church or escaping to traditionalist communities.

TLM said...

Martyrdom is coming to faithful Catholics. We must ask for the grace to be martyrs. The Church of Christ is burning and as grateful as we are that there are some that are speaking truth publicly, there are still only a very few. Soon, we will literally have to flee to the 'catacombs' of wherever they happen to be just to hear Mass. It's rapidly approaching. PRAY.

Unknown said...

written after a soul wounding painful experience with a Fr. Grumpy, chief representative of our diocese.

W W J D

JESUS, I’M COMING TO SEE YOU !
“IMPOSSIBLE CHILD, I’M BUSY
I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO
AND YOU ARE FAR TOO TIZZY”

Lord that doesn’t sound like you !
“Of course not, child, I’m imitating
the behavior of members of my crew
it bothers Me it’s very irritating”

Lord it’s urgent I’m in dire strait !
“and I am in a meeting, child”
the only thing for you is “to wait”
Just “keep on trying” He then smiled

“BTW you didn’t give Church tithing
my representatives are really upset”
Why ? oh Lord I’m barely surviving
my job is gone, I’m in a lot of debt

Your pastors, Lord, nowadays
are consumed by worldly matters
they put the needy in the sick bays
far away avoiding nasty scatters

“I know all to well what’s going on
the day is close in justice I will come
then they’ll long for times foregone
Wanting it or not, they will succumb”

Jesus You never needed a steeple
Your word is not bound to a temple
You preached in front of the people
You’ve always been a living example

“My child, just come to Me day or night
I love you, I’m always there for you
your future kiddy will be ever so bright
pray for My pastors, only a few do”

“I will never forsake you, My loved devotee
I see everything, I know everything
remember “nothing is impossible” for Me
I give you my Royal Heavenly Blessing”

Jesus, I offer you my pains and mishaps for the Church
Rita Biesemans, September 18 2014

Michael F Poulin said...

Sunday May 3 2015 Statistics:
8:30 Mass: 8 men, 24 women, 1 teenager
10:30 Mass: 32 Men, 31 Women, 63 Young persons <17, 2 pregnant women, one Baptism after Mass.
8:30 Mass = Novus Ordo
10:30 Mass = Tridentine "Latin" Mass

Tradition works.

In the article "The Devirilization of the Liturgy in the Novus Ordo Mass" by Fr. Richard G. Cipolla, Ph.D., D.Phil. the author quotes Cardinal Heenan speaking to the assembled bishops after witnessing the experimental Novus Ordo Mass:
“At home, it is not only women and children but also fathers of families and young men who come regularly to Mass. If we were to offer them the kind of ceremony we saw yesterday we would soon be left with a congregation of women and children.”
This is exactly what we see post Vatican II.
In the New Mass, emphasis is obsessively placed upon the human-centered “gathering” for supper and the memorial instead of upon the Christ-centered unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary.
Real men understand sacrifice and will emulate it, primarily by taking care of their own families, but also in the wider sense of their Catholic brothers and sisters, the other families in the parish take care of each other. So when the Mass became a feminized love fest deliberately made acceptable to Protestantism by suppression of the Sacrifice, men left.
The attendance results from my parish are generally similar wherever the old Mass is celebrated. That is a fact. In any case, in a few generations, Traditional Catholics will outbreed the disaster that the modernist heretical Vatican II generation made, and the Church will be rebuilt via this remnant.
The Latin Mass attending men in my parish evangelize, we stand outside the Post Office with literature, invite Mormons and JH into our homes for debates, attend apologetics courses, attend and teach Bible studies, teach Catechism, run a small independent Catholic school, they help one another out. We raise money for fellow parishioners who have medical bills, car problems, baby expenses etc. We raised money for one of our families whose house burnt down. We raised money for a family whose car broke down and the owner need one to travel for cancer treatments. I took in to my home for a year and a half a family who was about to lose their home by forclosure. We have Holy hours and do processions like the Stations of the Cross, and Public Rosary out in plain view in the town. We need fraternity - we have it in spades, and the men keep coming and bringing their families. All due to one faithful and Traditional and holy priest
The Vatican II cult inside the Catholic Church is the AIDS virus of the Catholic Church, leaving it unable to defend and sustain itself. The US Church is a corruption that bore its evil fruit at the Vatican II council in the 1960's where a heresy called modernism took over the machinery of the government of the Church. Faithful Traditional Catholics, were and still are persecuted and demoted and shunned in favor of homosexual men and communist ideology and secular theologians and other leftist worldly thinking men. These modernists still control the hierarchy, and we are still under persecution at the highest levels. But the True Church does not reside in men, it resides in the Body of Christ, the true faithful.

Paul Anthony Melanson said...

Well said. Those in charge of the diseased body will never acknowledge these facts. They cannot and will not perform the examen. These effeminate clerics refuse to speak out against homosexuality and fornication because they would be condemning themselves.

Young people cannot look to these degenerates for example. And so, they have deserted the Church. They feel abandoned.

Welcome to FrancisChurch: Hell on earth.

Athol/OrangeCatholic said...

Paul, I know that Scott Colley has behaved in a shameful way against you. He has bad mouthed you and blocked you from the NQCC Facebook page because he is envious of you. I am ashamed that he has discriminated against a decorated veteran like yourself, a devout Catholic who defends the Magisterial teaching of the Church.

This parish could use your gifts. But the hate-filled bigots won't let you have a place at the table. They are selfish and do not serve Christ.

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