RENEWED
Ask a charismatic and he will tell you that we live in exciting times, because the Holy Spirit is renewing the Catholic Church. Yes the papacy is very popular these days, large stadiums are filled up with Catholics going to see the Pope, there is now a Catholic version of Woodstock called World Youth Day and the pilgrim business in Medjugorje continues to draw millions of fans from all over the world. Is there anybody left who is not Catholic?
The bishops talk the same talk. In November 1993 The Assembly of the Bishops of Quebec issued a pastoral massage titled Ministries Renewed by the Holy Spirit. They talk about a ‘new reality’ and ‘authentically new ministries’, etc.
The face of the Church is different all right. We had liturgical reform, the churches were redesigned, priests stopped wearing vestments, nuns stopped wearing habits, laypeople started running the churches, New Age infiltrated the Church, reckless ecumenization began, false apparitions burgeoned, sexual scandals erupted, pseudo Catholic movements emerged and liturgical abuse became the norm. There was reform, but where is the renewal? Are there Catholics left?
Since 1965:
• The number of Catholic priests has fallen from 58,000 to 45,000. By 2020, there will be 31,000 and half will be over 70.
• In 1965, 1,575 new priests were ordained. In 2002, the number was 450. Some 3,000 parishes are today without priests.
• Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians fell from 49,999 to 4,700, a decline of over 90 percent. Two-thirds of the seminaries open in 1965 have since closed their doors.
• The number of Catholic nuns, 180,000 in 1965, has fallen by 60 percent. Their average age is now 68. The number of teaching nuns has fallen 94 percent since the close of Vatican II.
• The number of young men studying to be Jesuits has fallen by 90 percent and of those studying to be Christian Brothers by 99 percent. The religious orders seem to be dying out in America.
• Almost half the Catholic high schools open in 1965 have closed. There were 4.5 million students in Catholic schools in the mid-1960s. Today, there is about half that number.
• Only 10 percent of lay religious teachers in 2002 accepted church teaching on contraception, 53 percent believed a Catholic woman could get an abortion and remain a good Catholic, 65 percent said Catholics have a right to divorce and remarry, and in a New York Times poll, 70 percent of Catholics ages 18 to 54 said they believed the Holy Eucharist was but a "symbolic reminder" of Jesus.
• Where three in four Catholics attended mass on Sunday in 1958, today one in four do.
(Kenneth C. Jones, Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church Since Vatican II)
It might be time to review the ‘renewed’.
