Posted on 09/05/2001 7:14:11 PM PDT by Brian Mosely
CHRISTIANITY has almost been vanquished in Britain, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O?Connor told a gathering of priests yesterday.
Christ was being replaced by music, New Age beliefs, the environmental movement, the occult and the free-market economy, the Archbishop of Westminster said. In a candid and unscripted passage of his speech, the Cardinal also spoke of the damage and shame brought to his church by the scandal of paedophile priests.
His analysis of Britain?s spiritual decline echoed the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, who last year said: ?A tacit atheism prevails. Death is assumed to be the end of life. Our concentration on the here-and-now renders a thought of eternity irrelevant.?
But the Cardinal, leader of 4.1 million Roman Catholics in England and Wales, went much further. The extent to which Christianity informed modern culture and intellectual life in Britain today had been hugely diminished, he told the National Conference of Priests in Leeds.
?It does seem in our countries in Britain today, especially in England and Wales, that Christianity, as a sort of backdrop to people?s lives and moral decisions ? and to the Government, the social life of the country ? has now almost been vanquished.?
Increasing numbers of people now gained their ?glimpses of the transcendant? from involvement in music, New Age movements and green issues. ?I could go on about this and talk also about the rise in New Age and occult practices and the search being made by young people for something in which, or someone in whom, they can place their complete trust.?
People were seeking transient happiness in alcohol, drugs, pornography and recreational sex, the Cardinal said.
?There is indifference to Christian values and to the Church among many young people and, indeed, not only the young. You see quite a demoralised society, one where the only good is what I want, the only rights are my own, and the only life with any meaning or value is the life I want for myself.?
In an apparent condemnation of both Thatcherism and ?new? Labour, the Cardinal gave warning of the excesses of the free-market economy and consumerism. ?When we live in a culture which says ?What I have got is what I am?, we are in big trouble. Whilst I understand that ? to some degree ? we are all consumers, this is something we all enjoy a bit, it?s quite clear that a sole reliance on the market place does in the end actually prevent people from taking their destiny into their own hands.
?There are many today who think that to believe in God is to limit one?s freedom.?
Confronting the problem of priests who have sex with children, the Cardinal warned the Church against ?apathy? and ?negligence?.
?All I want to say about this is quite clear and simple. I do not try to make excuses for the past. Yes, we must recognise the depth and the extent of the damage done to the Church and its mission in these cases.?
He said priests, and especially bishops, had not been sufficiently aware of the ?insidious? and ?pathological? nature of child abuse and had not treated all allegations with the seriousness they merited.
Apparently Christianity thrives in a planned economy?
Bishops anguish over these pedophile priests. There are shortages of priests to begin with; then, to have to take a priest "out of service" creates a strain on those left.
The Church has to face this issue and take steps to make more priests available to the Church. I think it's through a married priesthood; others may have different ideas.
Heck, I bet you can guess who I refer too?
Do not think for a minute that the Cardinal's remarks are isolated to England and Wales: the US is in the same boat with millions of shallow or warped 'Christians', many millions of agnostics (many of whom don't know what the word means), and even more humanists and atheists (who are virtually identical in beliefs, IMO).
All the Cardinal's points are well taken, and I applaud him for giving them voice.
Tuor
The American bishops take shots at capitalism too.
Apparently, there are just too many wealthy people for a semi-socialist worldview.
The untold story is that if it weren't for the free-market West, the Catholic Church would be broke.
Because modern Christianity has become spiritually stagnant. Blame both the modernists/liberals and the conservative fundamentalists for choking out whatever life it had as it entered the 20th Century. The church has become a part of the world, and not God's embassy from the world.
As one modern theologian put it, the church in America is dying, and isn't it a G*d-d*mn shame...
Because the people have turned their face from G-d.
/john
If you're blaming both the modernists/liberals and the conservative fundamentalists, who's left to promote a Christianity which is NOT spiritually stagnant? And, I can't help but think that the leaders of the various churches didn't see this problem coming. I mean, there has been no revolution....this was an evolutionary process. More importantly, where do you go from here?
OK, why?
Freedom too.
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