ok, ok, Sisters and Brothers--I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but here's a provocative piece. "ORA ET LABORA." What say you?

Time For The Benedict Option?

I read the article.  I agree that the secular movement is pushing its agenda and churches (what many consider Protestant) are offering waters down versions with the name Jesus being the only thing that has commonality with the Bible.  What I was surprised to see is that this is happening also in the Catholic Church. ( this is not to start an argument) I saw on here today where someone said they could go to any Catholic Church anywhere and get the same thing.  Many they were refering to eucurest.  I was under the impression that the Catholic Church was more conservative and straight line.  The article eludes to the fact that some pastors( I had not heard Priest refers to as that before) are trying to move with the times and be more gay friendly.  How is that disciplined?

Thanks for sharing op. I think it's quite possible for it to happen and may even be doing so now. I do find myself becoming more conservative in my beliefs and miss many of the past practices of our Faith.  But, I'll study it more to form an opinion, because It might just be old age adding up.

I am the one that said I could go anywhere in the world & yes have the same celebration- readings, Gospel & the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Eucharist. This will never change. I haven't read the article yet, but will. The Catholic Church, if followed the right teachings, is very conservative. Unfortunately, some pastors are more eccentric then they should be. The Catholic Church believes in subsidiarity, allowing pastors quite a bit of leash. Still, priests are human & lose their way. But it doesn't mean it is the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Cool.  I understand what you are saying.  Not being Catholic, what happens to a Priest who goes against Rome? For instance from the alter agreeing with gay marriage? Abortion, divorce etc? Again, I have no experience in the RCC, and I thought this was uncommon, maybe is, but the article seems to say US Catholics are more liberal. Is there oversight that is acted on? I know there are issues with leeway.  I guess I am asking how liberal Catholics, who push for abortion, etc, can still receive communion.  Like some senators...not a dig at anyone...I would question a Baptist minister who didn't speak up too.  The article just made me think of this.  We are all sinners, but the priest, minister, etc, is in charge of his actions, as a result of his position of authority.  I am not under the opinion most good Catholics are liberal.

I can't speak for the whole Church, but I have a unique experience of both "liberal" & "conservative" Churches. I grew up in southern California, went to 8 yrs of Catholic school. My Mom and Dad struggled to send my brothers & sisters there, thinking it was a religious education. It wasn't until my younger brother & sisters were going through, that my parents realized that it wasn't. 30 mins a week was all we had. Granted we went to mass regularly & observed the Holy Days. But no CCC. Thank God that my parents had a strong home teach us. It made up a lot. At least for me, not so much for my sisters. During this time I oftened questioned certain things our priest would say. They didn't seem very "Catholic". But mostly,  people would brush it off & continue along. We soon had a staunch Irish pastor, very strict. I loved him. (He married my wife & I) During this time, we had an associate pastor. He was on fire with the Holy Spirit. He would speak out about much that was in this article. He was inspiring & it felt good to have this leader of our Faith following it. Well, many people complained & the Bishop, removed him. He was not allowed to say mass to the people. Only to clergy. I never found out what happened to him. But the Bishop ended up being removed due molestation charges. (again, don't know what occurred to him). I continued go to mass & find my sermons from others. Books, previous writings from Saints. My parents still help me in understanding my Faith.

Fast forward to 13 yrs ago. I moved to Texas (think you Lord). Holy cow! What a difference! Granted there are still some issues with certain churches in Austin. But I am in a very conservative County. It is such a blessing to be around the Faith. Not having to hide, like in California. The community is amazing. Granted there are still a few extreme liberals. But they are a minority.

But again, in the mass the Sermon is only 10-20 mins. The majority is the Liturgy of the Word & the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Eucharist.

I believe we will definitely shrink as a Church. Which to me is fine. We are already returning to many of our old values & Traditions. I think the "Benedict Effect" has to occur every so often to purify the Church. "separate the wheat from the chaffe".

I only went to Catholic school from 1st through 8th. No religious taught or were in charge. We would have visits from the pastor, but most days were not what I would say "Christian" oriented. It was more a private school rather than a Catholic school.

Now my father was taught by Jesuits his entire schooling until University. My mother was taught by Dominicans.

Longnecker is always well written. The Catholic Church saved the world in its preservation of literacy, schientific knowledge and education in the dark ages after the fall of Rome. Western civilization would have died without the monastic movement of Benedict's time.



Are we there? I don't know. Although we have good attendence at my parish, the confessionals are not crowded and I see the same 5% of the people doing all the heavy lifting (figuratively) in the parish. I will note that our small parish school has moved ever slowly away from public school type of curriculum. There is hope.

The bold part, true everywhere, and it is sad.  Even in my trad parish, probably for different reasons though.  Lately though, the phrase that has been bouncing around in my head is IN HOC SIGNO VINCES.

To both you and TWIRE (and maybe slightly off topic)...

My parish read a book entitled 'The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic' during Lent. The gist of the book is to get people more involved in their faith and he repeatedly bangs on the point that only 7% of Catholics are responsible for practically all the Church accomplishes, from international missionary work by the laity to volunteer hours spent at the parish bookstore.

Maybe this fits in with the thread better than I thought.

Good questions!

You might ask "What happens to an entire nation of Catholics that goes against Rome?" when you look at what is happening in Germany.  The answer is that the Pope does not act like a dictator.  In fact, this is one of the basic problems with trying to explain the Church hierarchy to Protestants because Protestants typically understand "Primacy" as a form of despotism on one hand or quick-acting powerful monarch on the other, and neither really describe the way the Popes have ever governed the Church.

In fact, what they do is lead, coach, teach, plead with, coax, and even beg sometimes to keep their flock together and then sometimes...sometimes, drop the hammer because they do in the end have that power and authority of loosing and binding.  But then that reflects God's mercy, too, doesn't it.  When was the last time you saw a bank robber simply struck by lightning?  

Various Priests have been laicized and some excommunicated, and that does indeed happen if after long periods of time they simply continue to rebel.  Normal folks, even politicians, are almost never excommunicated by the way.

At times many of us feel and express anger for the leniency of the Church toward those Catholics who spit on the teachings of Our Lord and His Church and yet receive no discipline.  I admit, it is frustrating to see several infamous and loudmouthed political leaders flaunt their heresy and the Church sits back and appears to do nothing.  But sometimes we aren't seeing the whole picture.  For one thing, some of them are barred from Communion and the Church doesn't make that public..  At other times direct counseling is going on.  And other times simple cowardice is leaving them in place.  Remember, the Church is made up of people after all, not superheroes.

As for the "Liberal" thing, the recent history {last 40 years} of the Church has seen what some {me included} consider a deeply unholy alliance between many Catholics and the Democrat Party.  Now I can understand a person of Christian faith not wanting to vote Republican but I cannot imagine a Catholic voting Democrat!  60 years ago?  Yeah, but not now.  That party has boisterously established policy diametrically opposed to Catholic teaching and yet many still remain solidly in their camp.  Will be interesting to see what happens in the future.

As many have said, the personal beliefs and feelings of Catholics do not sway the teaching of the Church.  That is the difference between Catholicism and many groups where doctrine becomes a point of voting preference.  And get this, over time you may see swings of the pendulum, but that teaching always remains the anchor of the faith.  I personally believe we are in the process of shedding CULTURAL CATHOLICS and in a few decades we will see a smaller and more unified Church.  I suspect we will see more schisms, too, as those who select this or that distilled set of beliefs and values separate to pursue them.  Such is the history of the faith.  Unfortunate, but there it is.

Excellent response.  Without getting into what was changing inside the Church in the decades prior, I am under the impression that U.S. Catholics were staunchly Democrat until 1973 (Roe v. Wade).  That has been in place so long now that the young loose sight of it's significance it seems.  I also imagine that no one around them (the youthful Catholics of today) is discussing the moral responsibility of heads of state who pen obviously immoral laws, and the clearly ignored burden they bear as individuals (the heads of state that is).

That date does define a date of divergence and many Catholics have left the Democrat  Party for sure on that and on other issues related to modernist morality {AKA immorality}.  Many still remain.  I'd like to see an accurate presentation of the split now.  Would be interesting.

Let's just say that the lines for Communion are ALWAYS longer than the lines at Confession.

I'm talking orders of magnitude.

That said, my church is usually fairly full, but not overflowing.

I don't judge, however. I've missed far more Masses in my life than I have attended.

I realize that we need to go to Confession (which I love to go). I know that you should be free from sin prior to receiving the Eucharist. But after reading this from St Faustina's Diary, I belive that it is not so bad for the lines to be off a bit.

"Unite Yourself with Me"

Jesus

My daughter, do not omit Holy Communion unless you know well that your fall was serious; apart from this, no doubt must stop you from uniting yourself with Me in the mystery of My love. Your minor faults will disappear in My love like a piece of straw thrown into a great furnace. Know that you grieve Me much when you fail to receive Me in Holy Communion (Diary, 156)

That is in essence a beautiful summary of the Church teaching on reconciliation/confession and sin!

All mortal sin must be confessed before receiving Communion.  Venial sins may be confessed before the Priest or for example at Mass during the Confiteor. Under extreme conditions general absolution may be obtained as well.  See 1436, 1456, 1458, 1482, 1483.

One thing that always confounded me was how the church's practice on frequency of communion and confession has changed throughout the ages. I would love to see an essay tracing these changes, what caused them, what effects they had, and how the two sacraments frequency interacted with each other.

Great topic for research!

Jungmann's book is a great place to start for the Mass;  http://www.amazon.com/The-Mass-Roman-Rite-Development/dp/0870612743

I've read it and it is simply fascinating.  

A good study on the historical relationship between confession and the Mass would be very interesting.

One thing I do know is that for hundreds of years intense penance was required of Christians guilty of grave sin.  Interestingly, such a demand sometimes included YEARS of penance before reconciliation was completed.  And this occurred for hundreds of years during the fast growing phase of Christianity!

Today?

How much of a demand for anything is made of Christians at all? Why, it's "all done for them"...

The Protestant denominations have simply walked away from the Early Church doctrines and practice and much of the Catholic Church has in effect distanced itself from the practice.

Possibly a renewal of or re-visitation of the fruits of penance may be in order as we enter a new phase of paganism in Europe and the USA.

I agree with you about confession.  Yes, the Church DOES teach the need and in fact I think the Church is re-emphasizing that more and more.

I was unclear.  I was referring to the hard-core practice common in the early Church of requiring time and sometimes very difficult acts of penance for the commission of grave sin.  That is not something we commonly see today.  The DOCTRINE has not changed but the practice in that regard has, exceptions with individual Priests notwithstanding.

Great posts, Men! You guys are awesome!

Just reading each of your posts, this "Old-Timer" feels a whole lot better than I did before about our JESUS, our FAITH and our CHURCH!

My own personal main take-away from the article was our notion of "subsidiarity" and how it must be used in everyday life.

Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority.  

i.e., the Husband or the Wife; then the extended family; then neighbors' right on up the line.

the "top down" solutions aren't always the best.

Please excuse my mechanical thought on this, but it's a more QUALITY than QUANTITY thing as well.

A smaller, yet more devoted and dynamic Church just may be in the offing.

Kinda like being a "Delta-Force" Catholic, rather than an average recruit.

The future of the Church is small but bright. This is apparent by simply counting the gray hairs in parishes (no offense, BeNotAfraid ).  The demographic bomb will be even worse in the western Church than in western society as a whole.

I have been to countless parishes where my wife and I were the only ones under 60. These parishes have mediocre liturgy but that awesome old generation doesnt let that stand between them and their duty to God. Sadly in 20 years those parishes will probably be closing.

The good news is the rare parishes that are totally vibrant. Our little trad parish has lots of young couples having babies like it's going out of style, lots of young boys serving the altar and a ton (relatively speaking) of young men entering seminary. Everyone is dead serious about the Lord and His Church. The sad part is that this is the exception and not the rule in the church today.

KEEP IT UP!

That is actually what my Parish is that I just left. We moved to the country. My church now is very small. But my previous Parish was "vibrant". Many lay apostolates. Many families, like mine, with 5+ to 8+,  children. It was very nice there. My new church is very nice, in a different way. They say the Divine Mercy chaplet after every mass. A very spiritual Parish. I have much hope for the church. I'm not worried in the least about the Catholic Church. "gates of hell" & all that

I hear you, skid2041.

I'm not worried about the Church; she has endured and will endure until He comes again.

It's just so darn hard raising up the newer generations with the "ungodly assault weapons" out there today, like 247 tv, computers, hand-helds, iPods, Hollwood trash and the like.

It just makes out job a mite harder...but never mission impossible!

Thank you for the post.  I definitely see differences in parishes.  I suspect that this will only continue.  My Parrish attendance is pretty depressing - but then again our current Priest has pretty much discontinued Confession.  The parish I attended in N. Austin, the pastor was actively preaching confession was unnecessary (see explanation).  He has since been promoted (out of perish duty, to the diocesan offices) - but he did damage that will last a generation.






explanation- We are required to confess mortal sin.  Mortal sin requires grave matter, our understanding that it is grave matter, an the decision to do it anyway.  Well if we truly understood what eternity in hell is, we would not commit the sin, so obviously we do not understand the graveness of the sin.  Since we do not understand that it is grave matter, the sin was not mortal and does not need to be confessed.





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I think the heart of a growing and vibrant Parish requires 2 things.  A good Priest really helps.  A good Catholic education system is also important (k-death).



Wife just got us tickets to a "True Presence" event with Scott Hann.  I was looking forward to a water park this weekend, but this is probably better for the family.

Where is Dr Hahn speaking? Your in San Antonio, right?

Dr. Hahn=DYNAMITE!

In Corpus Christi this weekend:

Fullness of Truth

Beach towns always get the God ones.

Oh well to far for me. Probably sold out anyways. (or is it donated out?)