Monsignor Pope Ping!
Bishops close parishes when they will not support evangelism in the black and Muslim communities. They yield to demographics; instead of being shepherds they are accountants.
Parishes close when churches adopt a “me too” policy towards the values, morals, and beliefs of secular culture. When that happens, the church is deemed expendable. “If the salt loses its savor, it is fit only to be trampled underfoot.” (Or something like that; I’m not Jack van Impe, and don’t have the Bible memorized.)
Many of the parishes in Minneapolis have been filled with illegals and the services are in Spanish as the Americans have stopped coming.
That’s not a problem in the Dallas Diocese. Parishes are bursting at the seams around here. At my parish, we have 5 Masses each weekend with 4,000 to 5,000 attending.
Step one should be to get a Catholic Pope.
My true Pope describes the nut of the problem:
Given what I think is the root cause, how should we begin to stop the steady erosion of the practice of Catholic faith? I would agree with Dr. Ralph Martin that the first step must be to revive a more biblical vision of urgency regarding salvation. Just because many people—even among the clergy—say that there isn’t a problem doesn’t mean that there isn’t one.
Jesus was far more sober in assessing the situation. He devoted many parables and warnings to our need to attend to the salvation He offers. There are the sheep and the goats, those on the right and those on the left, the wise virgins and the foolish ones, those ready for the master’s return and those who are not, those who will hear, “Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” and those who will hear, “Depart from me. I know you not.” Jesus noted that the road to damnation was wide and many were on it, and “only a few” were on the narrow road to salvation (Matt 7:13-14).
This “falling away” is another sign of the end of the age. Read your Bible and pray, alone if necessary, but with the faithful if possible.
Also it would not be surprising if the horrors the priest sex abuse scandals of the last decade and a half played a BIG part in the decrease of Catholics.
Continue: Of Catholics attending Sunday mass.
I’m a lifelong Roman Catholic and the problem, seems to me, is that the mainstream Catholic Church in the USA just doesn’t give people enough to believe in, so they’ve become easy to minimize and dismiss.
Roman Catholicism is monolithic, staid, and stodgy. Much like how the Vatican itself is the last remnant of a vanished empire the Church itself is a remnant of a vanishing and declining faith...at least in Europe and America.
The leadership of Pope Jimmy Carter (Francis) is facilitating malaise.
What is deeply needed is a Pope Donald Trump (not sure who that would be) who would reinvigorate the faithful, purge the church of the homosexuals who dominate it, purge the church of the heretical feminists, and purge the church of those who promote apostasy and heresy.
In short what is needed is a fundamentalist, militant, evangelical revival in the Roman Catholic Church.
I pray that it happens.
I may not be a Catholic but the world is a better place with the Catholic church in it and I pray for its success and prosperity.
For a long time I have thought this but never said it: Vatican II fixed a lot of things that weren’t broken. I’m 71 and remember packed masses pre Vatican II. Mass attendance started to drift downward when the wrong people were allowed to become priests. Satan is winning for now - which of course is forever for some, but Jesus will remember those who stood with him even when Satan was winning 28 to 3 in the middle of the third quarter. Don’t waver teach your children the way to heaven and pray the rosary each day.
If Roman Catholicism would stick with this and drop their false teachings on the need for Mary for salvation they'd be on to the Truth.
With this pope what’s the point in staying catholic?
Start with “I”, not “we”.