“The pope’s marked political character has increased the willingness of Catholics to argue with their pastors, Galietti notes, since the pontiff’s approach to United Nations positions on global warming and global immigration can easily be brushed aside as simple leftist slogans with little if anything to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ.” https://neonnettle.com/news/6221-pope-s-decline-in-popularity-shows-fading-trust-in-globalism-analyst-says
“Red-pilling” is a metaphor that has caught fire in the traditional Catholic world in the last year. It is drawn from the movie, now almost 20 years old, The Matrix. The main character, Neo, is given the choice to see the world as it really is – a reality he intuits but cannot yet perceive. Neo is offered a blue pill, which will allow him to remain in the bliss of ignorance, or he can choose the red pill and see the fullness of reality beneath the veneer. As he reaches for the red pill, Neo is told, “Remember, all I am offering is the truth – nothing more.”
Twenty-eighteen is the year that many Catholics, myself included, have taken the red pill and come face to face with the truth – the cold, hard reality of the situation in the Church. For many of us, fidelity to the Church meant allegiance to the hierarchy and a blind trust in the goodwill of their motives, no matter how difficult they may have been to explain. But the Summer of Shame and its accompanying intrigues have torn off the blinders and opened our eyes to a real and present danger in the Mystical Body of Christ.”
https://onepeterfive.com/red-pill-year-2018/
“Catholics are not only losing confidence in the clergy, they’re also leaving the Church. They aren’t “losing their faith,” but they are removing themselves from parish participation and activities, and many are stopping their donations to Catholic causes and charities.
Those decisions hurt – the Church, domestic parishes, and of course, individual Catholics and their families.
While many of the scandals involve large groups of priests and their illicit activities, there are also situations on local levels that leave people perplexed and, in many cases, furious.”
https://www.wnd.com/2019/01/big-church-big-problems
Investigate, Prosecute, Sanction. I hope the citizens care more about the teens than their pastors do. And again, the laity is left looking to secular law enforcement for protection and support.
“ The other avenue for legal redress is libel suits. Robert Barnes, who reads, tweets about, and occasionally writes for these pages, has stepped up with an offer of free legal representation for libel lawsuits on behalf of the children and already apparently is representing some of them. He has been warning prominent people – such as Rep. Ilhan Omar and New York Times writer Maggie Haberman – to repudiate and apologize for their libels or face a lawsuit.
I do hope these lawsuits are brought in Kentucky. It is a state often dumped on as backward, full of hillbillies and moonshiners. It is also a place with a distinctive local culture and much well deserved pride in is world pre-eminence in thoroughbred horse-breeding and bourbon. I suspect that Kentucky jurors would not take kindly to threats and libels aimed at the children of their state.”
To remain silent or to distort facts is not merciful.
“Dreher also noted in a blog posting that when McCloskey was asked years ago in a television interview what percentage of the priesthood he thought was gay, he said just three percent to five percent are — the same percentage of homosexuals in the general population.”
“I knew perfectly well that McCloskey knew better than that,” wrote Dreher, “and that he was propagandizing to protect the image of the Church.”
…
“In a twist added to the story last night, Leon J. Podles, author of the landmark 2008 book, Sacrilege; Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church, said when he mentioned to McCloskey that he was working on the book, McCloskey strongly advised him to drop the project. “
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/opus-dei-paid-nearly-1-million-to-settle-sexual-misconduct-complaint-agains
Response to being abused takes many forms. Does the Filipino president hit close to home?
“Prior to assuming the presidency, Duterte told reporters in an interview that he had been raised Catholic but “lost [my] innocence” to a priest who sexually assaulted him as a young teen. “It was a case of fondling—you know what—he did during confession, that’s how we lost our innocence early,” he said in 2015.
As president, he has increasingly used his bully pulpit to bring up the subject of child sex abuse in the Church, on one occasion giving supporters free copies of Altar of Secrets. The priest he identified as his abuser later faced similar accusations after returning to his native United States, but died in the 1970s, leaving no legal recourse for his alleged victims.”
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2019/01/10/duterte-vatican-should-allow-priests-to-have-boyfriends-since-most-of-them-are-gay/
Temple Destruction Redux
What we the pious Jews of 67-69 AD thinking? Could they have envisaged a faith without the Temple? The Jews relationship with God is a litmof for all people. The Temple has become a stumbling stone for people to encounter God. The Church has become the same. It is starkly apparent regardless of the source of inquiry.
“This suggests that another gospel (an abomination) has found its way into our sanctuaries—one that, in the words of Protestant theologian Richard Niebuhr, famously tells of “a God without wrath who brings men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”
So while the Christians have been looking for an abomination “out there,” in an individual or organization an ocean apart or galaxy far away, it could be that the Invader has been patiently, but surely, setting up residence “in here,” where it was least suspected. If so, it follows a familiar pattern of biblical prophesy, one that calls for serious self-examination of every denomination and every believer.”
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2019/the-desecration-of-gods-temple
One presupposes that people leaving the Church will go to another one. The statistics show rather these people simply quit practicing any religion, most of the time. And the consequences last through a couple of generations. https://www.crisismagazine.com/2019/newmans-message-for-those-leaving-the-church
“Positive views about the honest and ethical standards of clergy have almost halved in a decade, from 61% to 31%, but the most recent figures show the largest annual fall.
Confidence in the institutions of the church fell to 44% last year compared with 52% in 2017, although the figure was above a low of 39% in 2007.”