Amy Welborn is engaging another bad opinion piece on the Pope's Visit to the USA. Go see Sed Contra I think her points are brilliant and of course are never engaged.
I have said for time that having the United States Catholic Church mimic the American Episcopal Church would be a disaster. We see American Anglicanism going off the rails. The exception being the various Episcopal Diocese you see scattered here and there that are fighting back. The growing Episcopal Churches are the one that returning to Orthodoxy. Some of their members I link to on this blog.
I don't mean to pick on the Anglican Church here. I am very much is solidarity with those that are fighting for its Christian Soul. A fight that I hope is won because if it is not it will affect us all. There are many other example of Churches that have gone off the rails . However when I converted they were often promoted by some Catholic Activist as a model of what we should be doing. One can look at many various bodies of mainline American Protestant Churches and see one consistent theme. A shedding of Christian Orthodoxy and massive loss in membership. I think there is a connection.
The other Elephant in the room is if the old Fogie Pope with his Old ideas is making young folks leave then how come they so many are becoming conservative Evangelicals!!!! Oh and let us not start on Islam's gains. Amy ended her post by saying:
I could go on, but I’ll just finish by saying that articles like Prothero’s irritate me because they are either obtuse or disingenuous. What is his point? That the Catholic Church should, today, celebrate sex outside of marriage, abortion and start ordaining women, and that then young adults would start coming back to Church in droves?
No, I’m thinking they’d still be working ten hours a day and letting off steam with their friends afterwards, with Church as a faint memory and not a real object of desire or interest. But not because they’re mad about the ordination of women. Rather because they don’t see the connection between whatever spiritual yearnings they have and whatever church they came from. Their own liberal sexual practice (which is true of most of them) factors into that as a self-perceived obstacle, either out of guilt or conviction, but it’s really only a symptom of something deeper.
And that “something deeper” is exactly the problem Benedict has dedicated himself to addressing. From his homily at his installation Mass:
If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life. Amen.
What is often seen in articles that Amy engages in is an amazing arrogance and I have to say dishonesty. The lack lack of self appraisal is staggering. The Bishop of Rome has not been running the day to day operations of the American Church the past few decades. The people that have been running it for large part on the Parish and Diocesan level are those that wish the Church to "get with the times". At some point their management must be questioned. What fruits good and bad have resulted from it?
Every time there is Papal Visit it seems that many take it as grand opportunity for a mass absolution of their failures and their mismanagement . I should say I need to include "me" in that category because we are all responsible.
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