The folks over at ChurchMilitant.TV have just launched a new program they are calling “Dispatches.” The first five episodes of Dispatches will constitute a series entitled “The Demolition of the Faith,” with Episode 1 airing yesterday as part of the Vortex series. The remaining episodes will also air this week as Vortex shows.
Several ChurchMilitant.TV personnel spent a good part of the last few months gathering historical data and discovering trends related to the Catholic Church in the United States. It comes as no surprise that most of these trends are negative.
According to Michael Voris,
This level of research, its depth and its scope, about the life of the Church in the United States, has never been undertaken before. We scoured the official records of the Catholic Church in America going all the way back to the late 1700s.
Why are they doing this? Voris again,
An authentic restoration of the faith can never happen as long as the reality of the crisis is not understood and admitted.
With that, here is “The Lost Identity of Catholicism”, episode 1 of “The Demolition of the Faith” …
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Tags: Catholic Stats, Orthodoxy at Work
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Before the usual discussion of Michael Voris’ tone/personality/style comes up, I thought I would offer a few thoughts on the actual substance of his piece.
–The decline he highlights I encountered when I was still a Lutheran and a prominent Lutheran scholar illustrated it by dividing the history into three phases: The immigration phase, where boatloads of Lutherans coming into the country meant all growth. Then the prolific phase, that even though Protestant denominations were doctrinally capitulating on contraception, there was still enough residual societal taboo that Lutherans were still having 3-6 kids. If only half retained the faith, that’s still replacement rate and even a little growth. But finally is the modern phase, where contraception is practically an anti-sacrament and Lutherans have 0-2 kids. And since Lutheran doctrine has been drained of virtually all content by now, the possibility of those 0-2 retaining the faith is minimal. We are in full demographic collapse.
–When Voris talks about the fact that is not just the dissidents, but also the faithful Catholics that are out to sea, I just had an interesting experience this Sunday. One of our choir members couldn’t make it to our traditional Latin Mass which is at 1:30 on Sunday and I noticed the pews were a little thin on attendance than usual. Why? The Bills were playing an afternoon game. Now, I will assume in good faith that they met their obligation at the NO Masses in the morning, but what a testimony! People complain up and down about NO Masses and want reverent Latin Masses–as long as it doesn’t interfere with football watching, then the NO is just dandy. Faugh.
–One quibble with Voris is when he talks about confirmations. Obviously I don’t disagree with the collapse of numbers in confirmation, but while I’m sure he knows what confirmation is, when he couches it in terms of personal affirmation, it sounds like the errors I used to make about this Sacrament.
Wow, Voris’s presentation is both shocking and scandalous to any true believing Catholic. No wonder our churches are empty on Sundays and during the week!
Scott W.,
I, too, found Voris’ verbiage around the Sacrament of Confirmation a bit odd. But after checking the Catechism I think I can understand where he’s coming from.
CCC 1285 (quoting Lumen Gentium 11) states,
Still, had I been writing that script I think I would have put it differently.
If I may, I’d like to use my own family as an example of the decline in ‘committed’ Catholics…
I am one of six children, 2 girls and 4 boys, spaced over 14 years. We moved for my dad’s job several times during my childhood, but no matter where we lived, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Nebraska, Virginia, etc., there were always parochial schools nearby to attend. Each of us completed at least 8 years of Catholic education, thus providing a solid foundation in the religion.
Now, as adults, only 2 of us are married, by choice, not divorce. And from among the 6 of us, there are 4 children, only one of whom attends parochial school; and that’s because the local public schools in their urban area are so bad.
We consider ourselves ‘committed’ Catholics, attend Mass regularly and make sure the children are receiving the Sacraments. But, at the same time, people are having fewer children and there are far fewer Catholic schools available for those children. These 2 facts have to account for at least some of the decreases Voris mentions.