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A Shocking Loss of Faith: Reflecting on the Closing of So Many Churches
Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 12-06-18 | Msgr. Charles Pope

Posted on 12/07/2018 8:54:49 AM PST by Salvation

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There's a news story from Fox on the site about one of the closing churches.
1 posted on 12/07/2018 8:54:49 AM PST by Salvation
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To: nickcarraway; NYer; ELS; Pyro7480; livius; ArrogantBustard; Catholicguy; RobbyS; marshmallow; ...

Monsignor Pope Ping!


2 posted on 12/07/2018 8:55:46 AM PST by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: Salvation

The myth is that they can fill the pews again by importing Hispanics. I’ve got some bad news for those puppies. Ain’t gonna happen. That myth about the Hispos being family and church oriented is from the 40s an 50s. Those days are long gone. They only have kids these days for use as political props and golden tickets into the Land of the Big Pinata.


3 posted on 12/07/2018 9:01:17 AM PST by FlingWingFlyer (#NotARussianBot)
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To: Salvation

Gotta make room for all the new mosques.


4 posted on 12/07/2018 9:02:42 AM PST by Teacher317 (We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men)
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To: Salvation

Loss of faith in God, or abandonment of a corrupt ecclesiastical hierarchy?
The two are not the same Msgr Pope.


5 posted on 12/07/2018 9:05:00 AM PST by MrEdd (Caveat Emptor)
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To: Salvation

When the Mall and the Nanny State supply everything one could possibly want in life, there is no need for churches. Brutal, but true.
Creeping materialism leads to atheism.


6 posted on 12/07/2018 9:09:59 AM PST by I want the USA back (There are two sexes: male (pronoun HE), and female (pronoun SHE). Denial of this is insanity.)
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To: Teacher317

I’ve heard that in some places, churches have been converted into mosques.

With decline in overall church attendance, it is sad that closing of churches will be inevitable.

I’ve also heard of church closings/consolidation of parishes , in an area of economic decline, where population has declined because people have moved away.

It’s a tough problem for many denominations.


7 posted on 12/07/2018 9:13:00 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Salvation

It’s not something that makes up for all the closing churches but it should be noted that many churches are broadcasting on the web now. The attendance picture that we see is not all there is because some are still “attending” that way.


8 posted on 12/07/2018 9:13:20 AM PST by \/\/ayne (I regret that I have but one subscription cancellation notice to give to my local newspaper.)
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To: I want the USA back

1Tim.4:1.....We are in Apostacy;the great falling away from the faith. Hold fast the faith, keep sound doctrine, be a good soldier for our Lord Jesus Christ unto the end. Look for His coming saints of God!


9 posted on 12/07/2018 9:17:12 AM PST by Maranatha7757
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To: Salvation

Yes, the mental default of a lot of people is secular. Technological marvels and miraculous cures are produced by science... and, in fact, man’s abundant generosity to peoples of the world is due, in great part, to science. The message in the Gospel of Luke — help the poor — is taken up by a predominantly secular mindset, as if, one can speculate, that God poured himself into the flesh of his people and removed himself from the scene so that they can accomplish his will. God has been allowing man more power to determine its destiny ever since he grant them the right to have kings in the Old Testament. God started off from afar on Mt Sinai in the OT and slowly came close to man. The closest he came was with Jesus. But then he slowly has moved away till we now have the secularism of our century. But he hasn’t left us and we experience grace, our source to the transcendence, and we either accept or reject him — and judging by our fruits, by our generosity to our fellow man, we have accepted him.


10 posted on 12/07/2018 9:20:23 AM PST by BEJ
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To: FlingWingFlyer

Exactly.


11 posted on 12/07/2018 9:21:41 AM PST by Eagles6
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To: MrEdd

“Loss of faith in God, or abandonment of a corrupt ecclesiastical hierarchy?
The two are not the same Msgr Pope.”

So important a statement that I thought it bore repeating.


12 posted on 12/07/2018 9:24:29 AM PST by RinaseaofDs
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To: FlingWingFlyer
That myth about the Hispos being family and church oriented is from the 40s an 50s.

Yea, I work with several hispanic women. Yes, they are church oriented - if by "church oriented" you mean having out of wedlock babies with different fathers.

13 posted on 12/07/2018 9:25:18 AM PST by Sans-Culotte (Time to get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US!)
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To: Salvation

Thank you for posting this.
I’m afraid that the Catholic Church in the US will be experiencing closures on a grand scale in the near future. Current attempts on the part of bishops to move and protect assets is thinly veiled and will be pierced.
The Church will survive the loss of many of her buildings. What is sorrowful is to see many of these buildings, which were monuments to faith and hard work, lost to time. Perhaps it will spur those young faithful to find their architectural voice. One can pray.


14 posted on 12/07/2018 9:25:23 AM PST by Ouchthatonehurt
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To: Salvation

My thought is that the Grim Reaper no longer harvests the very young as he used to, thanks to modern medicine, so the young people scoff, and deaths are relegated to “accidents”.

Families no longer have 10-15 children, knowing 2/3s would never reach adulthood. Today’s families are much smaller.

Still, death lurks at the door, too close for some of us.


15 posted on 12/07/2018 9:31:34 AM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: MrEdd

I believe our country’s moral direction is dictated by our Commander in Chief. Since the days of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama- who both exhibited no moral character and instead embraced social perversion as the norm, our country’s moral compass has been adrift. Neither one of these “men” have ever shown grace, morality, or any other traits synonymous with great character. We are seeing the evidence now of having 8 years of “your country is not great, it is the cause of a lot of ills yada yada yada’ spewed from the lips of Obama and reinforced in every policy he ever endorsed. We have a younger generation that does not feel pride in our great country- which makes them less inclined to defend it and/or our founding principles. This creates a situation where what we have long fought for is easily discarded by our youth- and pilfered and destroyed by those who do not share our values or virtues. Spiritually, these two “men” have led the way far from churches and the important life lessons taught there. Instead of having the ideas of self-sacrifice for a better good instilled, we have the ideas of selfishness and all the heartaches that sin causes. Clinton and Obama did more damage to this country than many of us will ever realize. Donald Trump has done great things, and I thank God every day he is our President. He understands the importance of church and has started to show that side of a leader we have had lacking for so long. Prayerfully our citizens will follow him back to church and back to a better society.


16 posted on 12/07/2018 9:32:10 AM PST by MissEdie (I am South Carolina Strong.)
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To: Salvation

I firmly believe this part of the essay identifies the major cause for so many churches and synagogues failing ———- “As for the mainline (largely white) Protestant churches, I would argue that a collapse of faith has depleted them, at least collectively. Many of them ceased preaching the “old time religion” a long time ago, having largely assimilated to a post-Christian world and acclimated to the sexual revolution. Gone are the moral demands of the gospel, which have been replaced by a social “gospel.” Gone is the drama of salvation.” Imho, perhaps 5 percent of people want or like or will tolerate a socialist “church” program. Most everyone else, EVEN IF COMMIE PINKO politically, want a meaningful / Biblical faith message in church/ synagogue. I further think that almost everybody at least “sees through” the socialist political “liberal church” propaganda as false - ( also as unnecessary and not helpful for them).


17 posted on 12/07/2018 9:38:18 AM PST by faithhopecharity ("Politicians aren't born, they're excreted." -Marcus Tillius Cicero (3 BCE))
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To: Salvation

Well, when you have decades of the Left teaching kids that anything pertaining to religion is bad, except Islam. Islam is good. The one religion that tells its followers to kill, is the only good religion.

Then you have all scandals of the Roman Catholic church.

You have the Left blaming all that is evil in the world being caused by all things associated with Christianity, in all its forms.

What does anyone expect?

Years ago, Stars & Stripes had an article about the mosques in Baghdad. As things started to settle down toward the end of 2008, the imams were complaining that fewer and fewer people were attending. The young kids were just going about their business.


18 posted on 12/07/2018 9:42:30 AM PST by qaz123
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To: MissEdie
I believe that the degree of loss within Catholicism ties directly to defending pedophiles and attacking their victims for many, many decades.

A practice within the priesthood vigorously denied by the laity until the whole cesspool collapsed. The enormity is still slowly sinking into the laity, and as Francis rapidly destroys the last lie which much of the laity clung to (namely the lie that the Pope lacked the power to directly intervene) then people are responding by leaving Catholicism.

That does not necessarily equate to abandoning faith in God, and a thorough housecleaning might bring them back.

Canonizing JP2 was a bad idea. He casually sent away all the victims of the clergy who approached him about the issue. Now Francis is using the papal authority which JP2 should have used to clean out the perverts (proving that the power existed all along) and is attempting to guide the Roman Catholics into communism.

Overall, it's a self made mess.

The presidency didn't cause this.

19 posted on 12/07/2018 9:47:33 AM PST by MrEdd (Caveat Emptor)
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To: Salvation
For what it is worth:

I will show My Glory through the Eastern House
April 8, 2014

20 posted on 12/07/2018 9:49:55 AM PST by GBA (Beliefs => Reality. Believe... wisely.)
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