Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Democracy in America | 5/30/05 | de Tocqueville

[Knitting A Conundrum]

At the present time, more than in any preceding age, Roman Catholics are seen to lapse into infidelity, and Protestants to be converted to Roman Catholicism. If you consider Catholicism within her own organization, it seems to be losing; if you consider it from the outside, it seems to be gaining. Nor is this difficult to explain. The men of our days are naturally little disposed to believe; but as soon as they have any religion, they immediately find in themselves a latent instinct that urges them unconsciously towards Catholicism. Many of the doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church astonish them, but they feel a secret admiration for its discipline, and its great unity attracts them.

Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America

[Knitting A Conundrum]

I wonder what de Tocqueville would thing about things now...

[GrannyML]

I remember getting a giggle out of that when I first read it years ago. Not much has changed, overall.

Sometimes I think we see the mote in our own eye too well, because the gaggle of heterodox theologians, priests and laity who are trying to destroy the Church merely present a surface disunity. The bedrock of faith still persists, and is still being taught and preached by those who really matter.

(Not that I'll quit praying for unity soon...)

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Exactly...in his time there was the end of the Jansenist movement, the desire to be anti religion and other things going on. The church is historically alternating periods of crisis with periods of dynamic development the way God wants it, sometimes going on side by side (like St. Francis and St. Dominic coming along right when the church was in dire need of preaching and teaching, and south France was filled with gnostic heresy.)

But I'll hold on to God's promise for the church and keep trying to do the right things!