[livius]

"I cannot shake the conviction that some great good is about to happen to the Church during this new century."

Good article. I think he's right, although it's not entirely a comforting thought, since sometimes God's idea of "good" seems to be our idea of downright uncomfortable. Personally, I think we will be engaged in a conflict with Islam in such a way that Christians will have be absolutely sure about what they believe, and then will have to really believe it all the way.

I'd say most of us are sadly unprepared for this, especially after 25 years of non-doctrine, so I guess a little purification is definitely in order.

[ex-snook]

Thanks for post.

"The next step is to build a new Catholic culture on all the strengths of our inheritance. Not on liquid mush, but on the rock that Jesus chose. Human weakness is one thing; willful rebellion is another. Contempt for Rome was the starting place of the evil that befell us. "

'REFORM' IS DEAD, LONG LIVE REFORM.

JPII is a good and holy man but it seems his staff kept him apologizing and traveling while the infrastructure of the Church went into free-fall. What is needed is a General Patton type Pope to shape up the troops and restore the faith that was received and start by slapping a few dissenters. Let's hope the 'flames' of the Church will go out.

[houston1]

They need to allow priests to marry to prevent these problems. I graduated from a Catholic high school with over 800 students in my class and only 3 (1 male) went into "the vocations". Many of my male classmates lamented that they would like to go into the priesthood, but wanted families some day, so they didn't look at it as a serious vocation. The Church is cutting off a lot of young men with this archaic policy. If they can allow married clergy who convert from other religions to serve, why not thier own?