It may wind up somewhat as you envision, of course, if ISIS decides to bomb Rome at the next conclave.
I know I'm the type of Catholic that simply has to beg for mercy.
I’m glad I’m not running the show, either. The blood of faithless bishops would run in the streets.
If the laity don’t repent, and thus God continues to afflict us with these wolves and hirelings, the first step will be that civil governments will step in.
It would be deserved, but the less kleptocratic governments of the west would push a homoagenda on us (and the current hierarchy would be only too happy to cooperate, as it would 1) temporarily reduce the heat on the homoclergy, and 2) allow them to keep their homoclerical demonocracy).
The governments in the west would give the coffers of the Church a close haircut, but allow the status quo ante. Eventually, as the Church continued to lose even more moral authority, the militant anti-Christians would use ever more coercive methods to drive a faithful remnant underground, while maintain the barest fig leave of “religious liberty.”
More kleptocratic governments would confiscate whatever they could. Social morality in the west and western-leaning countries will continue to decline.
But wait, it gets worse.
Eventually, the only remaining societies with even a scintilla of moral decency would be Shari’a-based, with their twisted, but by then superior view of morality, and they will then conquer the west.
Then, the persecution unto the death will take place.
And then, after a century or two of islamic misrule, the people will repent, and God will deliver us, and the Church will be cleansed.
I always am begging for mercy. But I don’t let the fact that I’m entirely undeserving, and might not receive it get in the way of trying to look at the reality of things.