Oh, and just for the record, Listecki wrote on behalf of all the bishops of Wisconsin. So “Listecki should have stayed out of it” needs to be corrected to “the bishops of Wisconsin should have stayed out of it.”
All the bishops are crap. The sky is falling. The Church is over. There’s no hope. Let’s take our bat and ball and go home.
The American bishops, as a group, are in de facto schism. I’m guessing you would have told St. John Fisher that everything was OK in England during 1635. If you’re not part of the solution (i.e, exposing the corruption), you’re part of the problem.
For the record, you were the person who made this exchange “personal.” YOUR QUOTE: “But you are stuck in the disasters of 20 years ago and, like the dwarfs in C. S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, insist on sitting in darkness of their own making, denying reality.”
When you can’t argue the facts, that’s all you can do.
Here are some facts:
One in three baptized Catholics leave the Church.
65% of Catholics do not attend Mass regularly (a mortal sin).
About 1% of Catholics regularly receive the sacrament of Reconciliation, while nearly 100% receive Holy Communion.
98% of married Catholics contracept.
The rate of abortion among Catholics is higher than that of the general population.
Large parishes are celebrating fewer than five marriages per year.
Hundreds of Catholic politicians publicly disobey Catholic teaching on sexual morality with no fraternal correction.
Summary:
I too live in hope, because I know what’s on the last page. But these are current problems, not “disasters of 20 years ago”. Only a handful of bishops are even talking about these problems, much less making the changes necessary to correct them.
I too am discerning some positive trends, but the trends are moving from the Spirit through the laity, not the bishops. AB Dolan would not have been elected if it hadn’t been for the ground swell of lay outrage at the Kicanis succession.
You may continue to resort to name-calling. This will be my last post on the subject.