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I am really worried about the state of the Catholic Church. After reading articles like this: Drama At Fatima [cfnews.org] and with the new Politically correct inclusive language Liturgy I am finally beginning to think my home is not with the Catholic Church. Perhaps this is just one more push toward Orthodoxy.

Am I over reacting or are others concerned like me?

I'd say you're overreacting. Kinda late to be getting uppity about something that happened a year ago. Now if the Fatima authorities did allow the Hindu's to use their premises thats most unfortunate but to be honest its not completely unexpected. I have learnt to look at the Church as the vessel of orthodoxy if not orthopraxy.

I dont expect everyone in the Church to be a good Catholic because in spite of all I know about Catholicism I am a terrible Catholic. What happened was wrong, terribly wrong, but I'm not going to leave the Church over the sins of my brethren woe betide me if the scandal of my sins was revealed. God said the Kingdom of Heaven would be a field with darnel in it as well as good seed, so I'm just getting on with it.

Moreover, I dont know what generation you're part of but mine seems ok. I have far more optimism about the teenagers of today's Church than its adults. To me the teens are more open to the love of God because the world around them seems so empty of love. They seek love through adjulation, applause, accessories etc but they can see the transiency of this and so when confronted with Jesus' ever presence it prompts a quick change of heart. I find the unchurched youth's of my generation are far more open to Christ than the adults (even in the Church) of the generations that came before.

John Paul II spoke about the Church having a 'lost generation' and I agree. But like him I believe in the youth to make a better future cos I'm one of those youth's and I have every intention of shaping that future.

Today\'s homily from EWTN [play.rbn.com]

Thanks Myles I appreciate your post!

And you always have options for other Catholic Churches sui iuris should your discernment lead you to that point.

I think one's viewpoint could be a result of where one is located. Some bishops are not good shepherds, but some are. In some areas, liturgies are respectful, holy, and reverent. In some places they are anything but. I would also agree that the post-Vatican II Church does seem to have confused ecumenism with syncretism - and this seems to go all the way to the top of the Church, at times. In the long run, we know things always turn out according to God's holy plan, so there is no reason for despair. As Diak pointed out, there are other Churches besides the Latin Church. The Latin Church has gone through a period of behaving like Venerable Bede accused the English, of following everything novel and holding fast to nothing. But I maintain, and have said repeatedly, Pope Benedict is God's gift to the Church. I think he will put his stamp on the Church and it will cause improvement and authentic restoration.

Ray,

Are you going to Otpust? I am not able to go this year. Perhaps you can go and participate in the Liturgy. Then report back your response to it.

Dan L

No, I can't go this year. I am really broke right now and have less than 18 hours vacation left.

Perhaps next year, God willing!

Have you read this clarification, Ray?
http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/CLARFATM.HTM

Sometimes I think some traditionalist is just overreacting...
From the Bishop clarification, the Hindus never borrow the altar and conduct any religious ceremony there.
If that is the case, why they persist on saying things that never actualy held?

I think you are overreacting a bit, Ray.
I don't mean to make you more depressed, but I frankly don't think the state of the Church was in the end was really better at any other time in history:

Maybe it was better in the era of the Church Fathers? No. They fed Christians to the lions.

Maybe it was better in the time of St. John Chrysostom? No, just read his homilies on some of the outrages and disrespectful things that would happen in church.

Maybe it was better in the time of the 1st Nicean council? No, Arianism was rampant.

Maybe it was better in the time of King St. Louis IX? (I actually know people who believe this) No. In Languedoc, the local church was indifferent at best, complicit at worst, to an anti-Christian version of Manicheanism, and and preserving orthodoxy was an ENORMOUS effort. At the same time, Latin-Byzantine ethnonationalist/religious hatred was so intense that at one point almost every Latin in Constantinople was slaughtered, to be followed by the ransacking and rape of the city AND ITS HOLY SITES by ostensible Crusaders.

Maybe it was better in the Renaissance under Pope Alexander VI?

Maybe it was better under Pope Pius V and the Council of Trent? (I actually know people who believe this) No, northern Europe had fallen to Protestantism and once power politics, nationalism and raw pride enter in we had just entered a period of intense and bloody Catholic vs. Protestant confrontation. Not to mention the problems of Turkish occupation, or of Jansenism.

Maybe it was better under the 1st Vatican council? When Rome was captive to a masonic government, and all kinds of national considerations threatened the unity of the Roman-rite Church?

Maybe it was better in the 1950s (I actually know people who believe this)? At a time when there was a near universal consensus that something needed to change in the Church? When American Catholics lived in what some good Catholic scholars would call a Catholic Ghetto, where anything Catholic was considered unamerican, and where you had 15 minute low masses?


Of course, none of these phenomenon are universal, and there's plenty of good things in each of the historical eras I mentioned. But you've got to remember, there's no time in history when the Church has had it easy, and there never will be until Christ comes again. Whatever problems we face have been faced before. We need to be faithful, live our lives and fight the necessary fights that we can.

Alfonsus,

They have pictures of the going on's at Fatima. Have you seen the new Church they are building?

Marc,

Good point!

I saw the pictures, some girls brought something to the statue of Our Lady, and the Hindu priest using altar microphone. That is all I see.
Probably it will be better if they give him another microphone instad using that one which happened on the altar.

But saying that this is a Hindu ritual is a little too much isn't it?

I saw another picture of Hindus sitting in the pews, but for what purpose I don't know.

As for the new church, I only saw pictures of the plan though.

GOD IS IN CONTROL!

GOD IS ON HIS THRONE!

AND THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST HIS CHURCH!

Pani,

The question is, is this His church? Perhaps the reason why Inclusive Language and weird Hindu rituals have not creeped into the Orthodox Church is because it is "His Church."

Ray- You should be cautious abouy anything from Catholic Family News ; they are pretty whacked out and have printed sedevacantist, and anti-Semitic things in the past. Of course their interpretation of things is going to be critical of the Church.
And which is really more scandalous, allowing Hindus into the shrine for what by all accounts was nothing evil, or entering into schism, as the SSPX has done?
-Daniel