Holy Mother Church is indefectible. The Lord promised that Hell would not ultimately prevail.
He didn’t, however, promise that it wouldn’t prevail quite a lot.
He made no promises about the mighty Church in N. Africa or Asia Minor… or these USA… or Rome.
Take 18 minutes and listen to Damian Thompson’s sobering new podcast.
I am reminded of an answer I got from a bishop as we were relaxing after a conference where we were both speakers. I asked him about the state of the Church and, as a follow up, what we had to do to reverse the situation. His answers, in rapid response…
“TERRIBLE!”
“The first thing we have to do it stop blowing sunshine up everybody’s …..”
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Indeed. It struck me the other day pondering this, that when Christ said to Peter “Thou art the rock….” He made a clear distinction; the Church and the office of Pope.
Our Lord only promised that one of those would not be prevailed. Rocks can be replaced; but the Church may need to be majorly dismantled in order to get to the affected one, before rebuilding it.
…but, but, but… NEW SPRINGTIME! Glorious dawn of post-conciliar wonderfulness! Everything in every way is getting better and better every day! We’re singing a New Church into being!!!!
Fully agree with the Bishop. It may speak to my own flaws but just as much if not more than all the scandals and doctrinal ambiguity my struggle with the Church today is the level of sycophancy. I don’t need to be told what I want to hear all the time but I also don’t need people to be dishonest and cowardly about the crisis in the Church.
I am getting old, at this point. In my youth, I thought most bishops must be pretty good and holy, but there could be some outliers. Boy, was that naive.
During my young adult years, I thought most bishops were probably chosen from the best educated of the priests, and the most competent, and those who were clearly, manifestly devotional, even if not exactly holy. Heh.
During most of the the last 30 years, I assumed that even if most bishops were not really educated well, they meant well, and while faced with nearly insuperable problems, they were doing the best they could with the materials at hand. They were trying, at least most of them, even though they were typically very badly educated about much of philosophy, somewhat so about theology, and largely bloody ignorant about things like (a) the TLM and the “reform of the mass” issue, (b) the abuses at mass in their dioceses, and (c) the heresy being spouted by their priests, and their seminaries. If only it really was that good (i.e., ONLY that bad).
During that time, I had constantly held out hope with regard to a small number of bishops who were manfully resisting the crap.
But in the last few years (say, since the McCarrick craziness) and now TC, I have had to revise my estimates downwards even further. Given the number of bishops who MUST HAVE known full well what McCarrick was like, and who knew of specific things with which he should have been accused, the complicity is gravely disturbing, and NONE of them has been willing to admit the complicity. Not a single, bloody, stinking, one bishop has voluntarily come forward saying “I knew about it, I should have said something” and taken his comuppance. And the Vatican hasn’t tried to even suggest “Ok, the rest of you who knew about this, you have to start coming forward…” Silence. Crickets. And, here’s the really worrisome part: the dozen-ish solid bishops who DIDN”T have anything specific that THEY knew of McCarrick, undoubtedly know that there has to be at least 10 or 20 bishops in the US who DID know, and THEY AREN’T SQUAWKING about the silence. They are letting it go by…”not my business”… They aren’t demanding that heads roll. They aren’t trying to clean out the nest of vipers who just moved in taking over from McCarrick.
Now with TC, so far as I can see, the BEST of the bishops have been effectively saying to the TLM community “I won’t completely abandon you…”. Gee. Thanks for the tepid support, your excellency. Whelmed, I am sure.
Even the ones who usually HAVE stood up to the insane stuff over the years have been …very…muted in their stances this past month. They have, for the most part, indicated that they will follow TC to some degree, while trying to soften its blow. You would think that if there were 20 (out of 260) US bishops who are solid men of God, at least 2 would be outspokenly firm in saying that the bad parts of TC will have no effect in his diocese. Has even one been clear that Francis overstepped on this? One? It’s the LACK of any pro-tradition outliers – out of 260 – that has me surprised. Does Francis have them that cowed?
I might be mistaken, maybe it will turn out that a handful of the bishops like Bishop Lucia of Syracuse will not only take a few actions that resist the end-goal of suppressing TLM altogether, but will go further and become BEACONS for supporting and promoting TLM, and will argue to their faces that those trying to destroy TLM in this way are against the Church and God. But, so far, the evidence doesn’t indicate that. It shows very careful, tentative steps, triangulating, wait-n-see sort of stuff. That’s from the GOOD bishops, mind you, not from the rats.
I don’t have anything anything remotely like a full picture of the US bishops, but my sense is that TC is going to have the effect of showing us the “true colors” of the bishops, and it isn’t pretty. Some bishops I assumed all along were ho-hum middle-of-the-road not actively part of the enemy crowd, are showing up as perfectly willing to implement TC with hearty gusto. I fear that the number who will be found to implement it sparingly, gently, and with some real concern for TLM people will map directly to the dozen or so bishops who, up to now, I considered the solid guys who really got it. But that’s ultimately not enough, in this case. We need some bishops to say to TC, “molon labe” and push back, HARD.
“Time to acknowledge the utter disaster of Bergoglio.” Indeed. Delusion and sycophancy helps no one, least of all the current Vatican regime- which should repent. Let the pagans and the papalotrous have Vatican Hill- it won’t last forever anyway- we have the Faith.
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TonyO makes a good point.
“During most of the the last 30 years, I assumed that even if most bishops were not really educated well, they meant well, and while faced with nearly insuperable problems, they were doing the best they could with the materials at hand. They were trying, at least most of them…
“But in the last few years (say, since the McCarrick craziness) and now TC, I have had to revise my estimates downwards even further. Given the number of bishops who MUST HAVE known full well what McCarrick was like, and who knew of specific things with which he should have been accused, the complicity is gravely disturbing…”
Yes, it is disturbing. Without being flippant, such is life at times during the last twenty centuries. The continuing abuse of children, the refusal to answer the Dubia, the repeated Bergoglio attacks not only on the Faithful but the Gospel- all this is repulsive, and the consequences of several generations of poor leadership, disdain for masculinity, mental illness, encroaching paganism, and for some in the hierarchy an adherence to the diabolical.
Now, some Catholics wish to make themselves feel better by indulging in tribalism and ranting about “Prots.” This is not the 16th century. Time to grow up. This is not a competition with Protestants, or Jews- they are not, not the Enemy.
Recognize that some of the Catholic hierarchy and laity, absent repentance, are permanently lost. Acknowledge Catholic flaws, mistakes and weaknesses. Then, persevere.
Catholicism is not a suicide pact nor a personality cult. Use your God-given brains and continue to develop spiritual and situational awareness. Interesting times in the vineyards of the Lord. Excellent.
To expand on, “…some Catholics wish to make themselves feel better by indulging in tribalism and ranting about “Prots.””
That type of individual tends to be a new convert (usually from Protestantism) suffering from a psychological condition known as “Zeal of the Convert.” In military parlance they are “boots” or an E-3 with two years in and an inflated ego that encourages them to behave as if they were God’s gift to the military. Typical stuff. Given time and several sharp lessons they usually mellow.