Is the (Catholic) Church Prepared to Confront the Secular Culture?

While the article is focused on the Catholic Church in America, the same may well apply to the Church at large. Ping!

“Who am I to judge?”

If only the Pope were Catholic.

Check out the www.neweMANgelization.com [Drawing men to Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church]. It was on EWTN the other night and is an explanation of why the Church is falling because it has abandoned men.

Good article.

The New World Order has installed a “pope” whose assigned task is to fundamentally transform the Church.

I have seldom if ever heard a priest include any discussion of current events in a Homily.

The general feeling appears to be that current events are beneath the Homily. That the Homily is supposed to stick to the readings and help relate them in a very general way to how church members are supposed to conduct their lives.

So we get encouraged not to lie or be lazy or prideful, etc.

Fewer Catholics are getting a Catholic elementary/high school education. Few Catholics go to church events or spend any time with the priest except at church or maybe a brief chat after Mass.

The only time that a priest can send a message to a significant portion of the remaining faithful is in the Homily. And yet it seems that Catholic practice discourages and/or prohibits priests from bringing up topics like contraception, abortion, gay marriage, etc. because there are exceedingly few readings that the priest can use as a launching point for such discussions.

Failure has been baked in.

Excellent summary on the failure of the bishops to lead.
As the Apostle Paul put it in 1 Corinthians, “If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?”

He is.

You are so right. ~sigh~

You evidently have not seen the list of true statements from the Pope that Mrs. Don-o has.

What they prove is that the Pope is VERY Catholic and many people are believing the lamestream info on him that they would not believe on politics.

Do a search for her and browse her entries into the forum. You will find them.

My priest does all the time. He says that a good preacher preaches with the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other.

Where did you get that information? In my opinion it is totally false.

"... there are exceedingly few readings that the priest can use as a launching point for such discussions."

The overall point of your remarks is a good one, but I would dispute that there are few readings that provide a springboard to discussions of contraception, abortion, gay marriage, etc.

Although the Scriptures don't refer t those issues by name (check your concordance), they do relate teachings very, very frequently about man and woman, marriage, child-having (that's what the "begat, begat, begat" is all about) and idolatry.

It is quite feasible --- I have done it -- to teach thoroughly about the "hot disputed questions" using nothing but a solid exposition of the Commandments, the Sacraments, the Epistles of Paul (he is absolutely rich on these topics) and, referring to the Liturgical Calendar, the Lives of the Saints.

While we're at it, here's my own not-updated and not- complete, but still pretty robust link list of the Pope speaking out in favor of traditional marriage morality and against gay marriage and radical "gender theory" over just in the first 6 months of this year..

What, you haven't seen these in the mainstream media, either?

Ever wonder why?

LINKS:

Pope Francis Tells Couples To Wait Until Marriage To Have Sex

Pope Francis: Gender Theory Is a Threat to Society

Pope: Marriage between man and woman is threatened by gender ideology

Pope Francis: “Children have a ‘Right’ to a Mother and Father”

The Closed Door of Pope Francis (Speaks against abortion, divorce, and homosexuality)

Pope Francis: marriage inscribed in creation (Man/Woman)

Pope Francis and the family, the next step (pro-Traditional Family)

Pope Francis is starting to look a lot like Sarah Palin (Guardian UK dumps Francis)

A Letter to Pope Francis (Pope defends man-woman marriage)