And this all happened in the last 25 years?
There has been a loss of faith on a massive scale--statistically measurable and observable--and a corresponding collapse of catechesis. He himself has called the breakdown of Catholic faith a "silent apostasy"--yet he does nothing to reverse the trends. Church attendance has continued to plummet.
Depends on where you look. Young people are coming back to the church in droves.
Vocations have continued to spiral downward. The missions have imploded.
A gain, it depends on where yo look. We are getting loads of African priests to do what the Irish did years ago.
The seminaries have been increasingly lavenderized. The highest echelons of the Church seethe with apostasy and corruption. Cronyism is rampant. Yet despite all this, and for 25 years, the Pope has instituted not a single reform of any consequence. Nor need I even mention the heterodoxy on his part that has underscored all this--the scandalous indifferentism and syncretism that has punctuated his long pontificate.
THere has certianly been change. Me thinks you are one who looks at a glass half empty.
"And this all happened in the last 25 years?"
The last forty-plus. JPII merely accelerated the process of dissolution.
"Young people are coming back to the church in droves"
HUH??????? What fantasy land are you dwelling in?
A peek in the door of the average NO Catholic church in the US will show a congregation made up of at least 40% senior citizens......in many cases a mugh higher percentage.
Most kids do not go to church (unless thier parents bring them - forcibly) after they are in high school.
":THere has certianly been change."
Oh yes.......a clergy whose numbers are homosexual in the majority, increasingly empty pews, diocesan seminaries closing for lack of interest (due to the first item), schools which are Catholic in name only - in which the faith is most assuradely not taught, male & female religious either leaving or becoming pagans, bare - ruined sanctuaries.........
The church is a headless thing - out of control, and imploding upon itself.