Debate: Is the Church in Europe facing a crisis of faith or a crisis of leadership?

This being the same Christ who chose to ride on a donkey rather than a horse? From where I am in the South West of Ireland, I see no crisis of faith, just total despair and disillusionment with a church showing no leadership, headed by priests and bishops who lied and misled. that is not to say that there are not some holy inspirational clergy, there are, but they are few and far between

We need a definitive statement of what these dangerous documents, vague and already used by the Revolutionaries to disembowel the Church, actually mean. I agree that it is no longer enough for the Pope to go on about the Council’s continuity if he does not, in writing, show HOW it is in continuity with unchanging Tradition. 

More than “gestures” are needed. Much more. 

My (Irish) parish priest is scathing of the Catholics of Ireland, who he calls “faithless”, “ingrates”, and “selfish”.

He reckons Ireland got the clergy it deserved.

And I say that as one with Irish blood.

What is ailing the Church is pretty clear : the incremental Protestantisation that followed the willful misinterpretation of Revelation by the Modernist 1840s-1970s minded Theologians

FTFY

Bishops’ Conferences have no right whatsoever to impose themselves in the manner that you describe — which is, I agree, outrageous !!!!

An Archbishop or Cardinal or Pope could certainly question a Bishop in this manner — but I would expect privately, NOT in the public domain like this !!!!

The Church needs to wake up and realize there is an enemy destroying Christian culture and bleeding nations financially and morally. Zionism. It owns governments, corporations and media in the West and the Church has remained silent. Having ecumenical dialouge has become more important the Truth. Catholics have become brainwashed. So if pleasing man is what the Church wants then it’s what God will give, at the expense of the Faith of it’s flock. The enemy is at the gates. And the hierarchy are cowards like the disciples that hid away, for fear of the Jews.

I make this comment as often fundraising seems to take precedence over duty and service

And many of the these second tiers are not even catholic!Iam told that our schools are full of non catholic tecahers as there is a huge shortage!

Bring these Catholics to work in our schools and dioceses!

Quite.we need to become Roman Catholics again and not Roman Anglicans

Priests are not living in luxury.. one estimate I read for the US was a salary of about $20-25k yearly (12k-16k gbp), plus modest housing. 

And it’s hard to serve or fulfill your duties if you yourself are a beggar.  Churches cost money. Think about how much just heating a large cathedral-style church costs in the winter. 

Which books did you get?

Oh, boy, the kooks are really coming out, now.

The Church in Europe as a whole has reached a tipping point in terms of the catastrophic loss of influence and adherents which parallels the rise of unbelief, subjective Liberalism and scientific rationalism across the continent.  This situation has been acknowledged by contributors to the meetings of religious and lay-people in Rome to kick off the year of the New Evangelisation which coincides with the 50th anniversary of Vatican 11.  Hard-headed realism has marked the speeches of such luminaries as Italian Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella bluntly stated. “We have closed in on ourselves… we have turned a life of faith and ritual into bureaucracy..”.  Philippine bishop Socrates Villegas blamed the “hypocrisy and arrogance” of the evangelisers in the clerical ranks, who have failed to portray the attractive aspects of the Christian Faith to people, who have dropped out of religious practice or those who have become atheists.  The Pope will listen to a lot of opinions in similar vein, and will to a large degree sympathize with them.  The New Evangelisation will require the present generation of Christ’s disciples to wade out into the deep again with the renewed vigor of their antecedents in the early Christian centuries.  It does not mean a watering down of the Faith in terms of doctrine and teachings but an immersion in their profound implications in terms of knowing and living out the spiritual truths as expounded by the Church over the last 2000 years.   In contrast, the Church continues to expand exponentially in Africa and Asia and the joyful nature of the Faith of the inhabitants of these continents tempered by a realistic stoicism in the face of adversity, needs to be rediscovered by the Catholics of Europe.

 Open Letter to confused Catholics: Abp M L
The Living flame: 1st 25 years in UK
Most asked questions about SSPX
and various leaflets including time bombs of V II

That should keep me busy for a while

Heard some interesting chat too.  Don’t want to go into detail, but it seems at ground level there is much more acceptance than one might imagine.  quite friendly relations locally.

 A new Syllabus of Errors is needed. Without clarity of doctrine, the Pope can forget about a new evangelisation. The Church will carry on dying of Anglicanism & secularism.

Someone mentioned the Rosary – excellent point. Maybe the bishops should revive or at least encourage other pre-conciliar devotions too. That has to start with the laity. And it is not impossible: far from it.  And why not have the Ember Days back ? There were set aside for prayers for priestly vocations – if such vocations are not asked for, why should God grant them ?

A secularised Catholicism has no flavour the world does not have, and nothing to offer, but is of the world, and is good only for throwing on the rubbish heap to be burnt.

Surely you cannot wish that Benedict XVI will burn?

I’ve tried to read all the comments, but it is difficult. Some are longer than the actual article and many simply rely on points of doctrine. None have addressed the simple truth. In a marketplace of ideas, Catholicism holds very little appeal. It does not hold any more evidence of the existence of a “God” than any other creed. People can get “all the benefits”, without bending to catholic doctrine… or even any organised central religion. All the actual benefits can be achieved with a mix of spiritualism and/or secular community participation. 

The particular appeal of Catholicism is becoming a rather particular (even cult, in the modern sense), preference. Mass, The Host, Confession and Papal Authority, all will appeal to a certain type of person. But most Western Catholics will move on, if they haven’t already, by considering themselves to be “Cultural Catholics”.

You really do write the most revoltingly heretical tripe sometimes …

But not just the old mass,but the old traditions that gave us our identity.The beautiful old hymns,that our children do not hold the rosary in their hand as a foreign object.That the month of Our Lady be recognised as such.That people appreciate the value of Confession,that we have to work at conquering sin.That having children is a blessing and not a scourge.That families help each other and that marriage is for life.

Your ability to paint an accurate and realistic state of affairs,astounds me.The Catholic Herald would do well to employ you!

But it is more than this although your points are valid.There must be a change in the modus operandi of the the Church as an institution.Greater transparency and much better communication and channels of cimmunication would be a start as would a clear cut procedure of complaint when we have a useless Bishop

The Church in Europe has lost its way because, unlike the Catholic Church in the third world which is booming, it does not experience abject poverty, disease, oppression. persecution and conflict.
The Church in Europe has lost sight of the Cross.That’s not to say that Europe should revert back to third world status, no.  What it means is that the Church in Europe ought to radically raise its awareness of the desperate plight of its brothers and sisters in the developing world and focus much more on their welfare.

Critics will say that this is a humanist approach but they are wrong.

Jesus made it plain that whatever we do to the poorest who are his brethren we do to him, and that if he ignore the poorest we risk damnation.  

The Church in Europe has a major role to play in this regard.

It should drastically increase its efforts to help the poorest, to encourage parishioners to help the poorest and, in doing so, it will lead those parishioners closer to salvation as Our Lord promised.

 Thanks – but God [and I think almost everyone else] prefers me as a shelf-unstacker

I do not know that going back is the answer as there are two many forks!.Maybe just a fresh start .I do think that a massive cull of Bishops would help