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October 11, 2024 - 4:00pm
Pope Francis has a remarkable tendency to frustrate conservative and liberal Catholics simultaneously. He annoys traditionalists by appearing to support, explicitly or implicitly, changes to long-standing doctrines or practices — and then disappoints progressives by declining, after interminable discussions, to actually make any real changes.
One dialogue that seems to have come to an end with a definitive No from the Holy Father is the one exploring the possibility of ordaining women as deacons (a deacon is a sort of assistant priest). This may change, of course, but for now it is being reported that the door is firmly shut.
Certain Protestant denominations began ordaining women in the closing decades of the last century, and the admission of women to the Catholic priesthood is a frequently repeated demand of modernisers in the Church, along with a relaxation of — or at least a de-emphasis on — rules around the so-called “pelvic issues” of abortion, contraception, and same-sex relationships.
It may turn out, however, that these issues begin to recede in importance over the coming years — at least as far as internal Church affairs are concerned. Catholicism’s centre of gravity is gradually shifting away from Europe and towards Africa, South Asia and South America. Francis is already a transitional figure in this respect: although he is of Italian extraction, he is the first non-European Pope for over 1200 years.
While there are pockets of Catholic vibrancy throughout the Western world, often centred on traditionalist communities, the general picture is bleak. In England and Wales, weekly Mass attendance is nearly down to 500,000, meaning that it has more than halved since 1990. Even before Covid-19, it was around 700,000. As in many European countries, the Church here is increasingly dependent on foreign priests. My own parish is now served by a Nigerian; in our previous parish the priest was from Togo.
In general, Catholics in the Global South are less preoccupied with the kind of social justice concerns that animate so many Westerners. That is not to say they are politically unengaged; rather, they are focused on economic fairness, and the fight against political corruption and authoritarian governments. Most Catholics in, say, Ghana or the Philippines would likely regard the recent collective statement by staff and students at Leuven University in Belgium, criticising the Pope for entirely anodyne comments on women’s roles, as the most wildly trivial self-indulgence.
Their seminaries and churches are mostly full, and they have increasingly strong representation at the highest levels in Rome. They tend also to have a more robustly self-confident faith, which is refreshing when one is used to the self-consciously sophisticated scepticism and dissent that is common in the Western world.
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SubscribeThe only obstacle to Britain’s return to paganism is Islam, itself a form of paganism but a very fierce and tenacious one.
We can gauge this to be bulls**t in any meaningful sense, since even the person who ran the Pagan Federation is widely reported as having said that at most, there were only 300-400 active witches etc in the UK.
Paganism was invented here in the 1930s – 40s, but it has NOT had staying power in the country of its birth.
Islam is indeed pagan ; you take it from the horse’s mouth, since Aisha when wanting to distance herself from her husband’s convenient revelations to enable his philandering, invokes not ‘Allah’ or the ‘God of Mahomed’ but rather, the ‘God of Abraham’ – underlining that as far as she is concerned the two are not the same.
Mahomet of course challenged her on this. She appears to back down, but in doing so, swears on ‘Allah’ – the god she has already indicated she does not worship. So she voids her oath.
Mo does not seem to have been smart enough to pick this up.
Aisha is one smart lady, I’d say!!
(This is in the al-Bukhari hadith 5228, so even Islam itself tells you the true situation.)
Fascinating. Thank you.
I learned something about the all-male priesthood from, not a Catholic, but an Orthodox, priest. Women, he said, do not become priests, not because they are inferior to men, but because they are superior to them. Women give life, they do not take it. The slaughter that happens at Mass (or the Liturgy) is beneath the dignity of a woman.
The roles of men and women in the Church and in society should be complementary, not adversarial. A woman does not need to usurp a man’s role to prove her worth and vice versa.
I’m a lapsed Catholic, who has become increasingly disappointed in the Papacy. The Parish in which I am currently situated had a priest for over 20 years, who was quite a moderniser, but who died of a heart attack* in his sleep at 59.
The new chap is a Goan priest, a missionary from the St Francis Xavier movement. He’s a straightforward, trad Catholic, from what I’ve seen (Christmas and Easter services only), and suddenly, our West London church is packed to the brim with what appears to be the entire Goan Community of Southern England. My mother reports being one of 4 or 5 British people in the congregation, and feeling less comfortable, although the priest is very welcoming.
*or whatever causes fit people who run, cycle and play rugby, to die in their sleep these days.
Right, so a Traditional Catholic parish is full to bursting, while the ones offering warmed over liberalism and social justice are empty. Lessons to be learned there.
“Full to bursting” with foreign people, making those few locals who have remained faithful uncomfortable. Import more foreigners if you want a thriving parish is the lesson here. Not the worst lesson in the world but one which comes with its own problems. Does the UK really need more foreign, jesuitical priests?
It is the “Catholic” Church. That is Universal. Why should you care about the color of your priest or fellow parishioners if you believe in what is being taught?
Pretty racist to assume that colour has anything to do with it. I might be wide of the mark but I didn’t imagine the non-Goans in the flock to be all white if they are in West London. The answer to the 5 residents who have issues (as mentioned by the commentator) can’t be “it doesn’t matter”. This is basically a church plant from Goa. I think that is a wonderful thing but do they need to go into an established church community to do it?
Please define the word ” racist”or more correctly ” racialist” ?
Of course “Goans” could well be “Aryans” like hundreds of millions of Indians. Last I heard Goa was part of Portugal also for many centuries. Ignorance reigns.
Of course we have had experience of this in my home town in the north west (largish parish on the verge of closing) was given to the kerelan Catholics. Thing is it does alienate some, but if their children attended mass there wouldn’t be a surplus of churches. Where would a recent immigrant community get the money for a new church (particularly when Catholicism and it’s churches in England are already urban and many half full or emptying)
Because ethnicity and culture are important along with a sense of community that really doesn’t exist with those outside your community.
Despite hapless Palestinian propaganda, Jesus is God, not a Palestinian jihadist.
No they don’t.
That has happened all over the world. We missioned the faith to them, they’re returning the favor. I’m a traditional worshipper myself, so I’m happiest with priests who take it seriously.
The Hug-A-Homo movement is big in a church near to me which I no longer attend except for prayer based on a promise, decades ago to go three times a year to pray in a small side chapel.
That church too, is run by Jesuits, but the Western kind. It’s very awkward since they can tell I’m of that persuasion but have zero interest in being hugged, or in anything to do with their ‘reaching out’.
Do they play the blues on guitars?
Oh yes. More Jesuits. Enough drug dealers.
Well said Arthur. This women priest business is just a fad, run its course thank God.
While if I were a Catholic I would prefer more traditional forms, perhaps even the Latin Mass, this strikes me as a bog standard case of survivorship bias. There are no longer any social benefits to being a devout Catholic, and perhaps even a social cost associated with traditional religion, so of course those who choose this path will be particularly dedicated. Unfortunately, despite the fervor of traditionalists (of all denominations I might add), the hollowing out of Christianity in the West continues apace with many tens of millions of Christians having left the Church over the last few decades.
Selling church soul to Constantine is how the secularization began
Constantine was a conviction politician, Read his Oration to the Holy Assembly, a paschal homily given to Christians at his court, probably in Nicomedia of Bithynia (Izmit) probably in 325.
I’m unconcerned about any social cost to being a Catholic, whatever that means.
I will never desert the one true faith because He will never desert me. My eternity hangs in the balance.
Being in a parish has more to do with who you want to associate with. Or who you want your kids to associate with. The philosophy of the Catholic Church is good. However one bad priest means you have to explain a lot of things to your kids.
“Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”
Gramsci, 1915
Probably not a bad example of the universal church at work, unity in diversity and all that. I’d rather come along to your parish than a washed up suburban parish where the ageing congregation is waiting for the spirit of Vatican 2 to refill the church.
My parish also has a Nigerian priest, from a missionary order. His predecossor was from the same order. It’s ironic really, as when I was a child, at school during Lent, we were encouraged to give up sweets and the pennies saved were collected to help support the (largely Irish) missions to Nigeria.
That was quite a good investment.
I have regular copies of the Catholic Herald and monitor the outpourings from the Papacy, which are of course designed to advise Catholics in the problems of everyday life. Apart from regular features on abortion, the main aim is to stop Catholics slipping into the malaise of today. I might paraphrase it as, “How to respect other people around us.” or, “How not to play on the internet all day, when there are real solid things around us.”
These things I can see and understand. But the main problem with the Papacy seems to be to resist change in its own priests. – No, whatever the pressure, no women. – You must face the altar during mass, and not the congregation around you.
It is like a stand-off. No modern ideas because they would undermine Catholicism. The priests and some of the congregation want modern. The Papacy doesn’t.
I conclude that the whole arrangement must be past its sell-by date.
Modern has been a disaster everywhere it has been tried. As bad as the Catholic Church has it, it’s positively thriving compared to Liberal Protestantism. Catholicism may be moribund, but the CoE, Lutheranism, Methodism etc. are dead and buried, unless they’re evangelicals holding to traditional Christian morality. Meanwhile, Traditionalist Catholic groups are thriving.
There is no place for a Church that conforms to the world. A Church that takes its marching orders from whats popular among the elite and cognoscenti classes will end up empty. People can just stay home and watch the BBC.
Ask yourself when getting to know a parish: “what would St Paul think”?
Well said. People don’t turn to God because they want to hear the opinions section of the NY Times or the Guardian.
What is the modern idea behind facing the alter? Just like the congregation the priest is doing the same thing. As to women priests or deacons, I could care less but if you go into a church you may see a lot of women and one male priest. It might be the case that the Catholic Church is dei before everyone else caught on. So it’s very modern.
The Priest should face the altar when he is leading the congregation in prayer to God. When he is addressing the congregation (e.g. during the sermon) he should face the congregation.
Mass is not a lecture by the priest, it’s a collective act of prayer. You can have a perfectly beautiful Mass with no sermon. When praying to God, everyone should be facing the same way.
Agreed.
The Anglican Communion has reaped the whirlwind when it drank mightily from the cup of Modernism: it’s pews are empty, Anglicanism in the United States has halved over the last 50 years. The number of baptisms halved between 2000 and 2014. The Anglican Church of Canada has seen a significant decline in attendance and baptisms. In 2022, attendance was 40% of what it was in 2001, and baptisms have fallen by 90% since 1961. At his rate, the expression of Henry VIII will be extinction by 2075. Happy-clappy, lukewarm beliefs, women bishops, and a “priestess” at the altar have coincided with this downward trend. Coincidence? Not so much…
Where is Henry and his swords when we need them? OK, he was impatient. But goal focused.
Just a note, Roman Catholicism isn’t just dying in Europe. Protestantism (taken as one denomination) is set to overtake Roman Catholicism before 2050 and that shift is happening in the developing world. Latin America is well on the way to having protestant majorities by about 2040 – Brazil’s last census (2020) had a 48/33 split and that has only gone in one direction since. This is from a very low base at the turn of the millennium. African countries have seen huge, mass conversions from traditional religions over the past few decades but generally to Pentecostal churches.
Catholics don’t, as a rule, proselytize. We accept converts, but are largely born to our faith. Probably for that reason, we are also seen as an ethnicity in the Anglosphere, with centuries of political history, to boot. Much of it less than pleasant, but such is politics.
Pentecostals, Evangelicals, and some others do proselytize, as do all newer religious sects, and tend to offer people the attraction of communities – socializing, education, charitable assistance, mutual aid, etc – so therefore they will of course grow in size, depending on the efforts of their adherents.
This is a good thing. Judeo-Christianity in general has far, far sounder principles than whatever would replace it as the moral bedrock of the West. An absence of our founding principles creates a vacuum to be filled, lately by appalling, repellent beliefs in “liberating” revolutions, composed of the worst bits of Marx and Mohammed.
Our Lutheran, Episcopalian, or Methodist brethren are making mistakes if they adopt “social justice,” or “liberation,” or some other form of “critical consciousness,” and reject the founding principles of western societies. In the US, this tends to result in mannish priestesses preaching to empty pews, while megachurches down the street are expanding their parking lots.
Pope Francis should take note of this, as well.
We need women and married priests… urgently!
God focused or “me” focused?
Or the Church might make a comeback in Europe. Hard to tell.
Absolutely. To which list I would add misguided leadership, especially from Canterbury, and widespread attempts by “intellectual” clergy to provide scientific explanations / justifications instead of allowing individual members of the church to subsist on whatever they take as being “faith”…
Perhaps the Woke Beast will be slain.
It turns out the problem with the “modernizers”, or apostates as you may prefer, is that God said “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” and that really cheeses off the people that want you worshipping their idols of progressvisim, social justice, and The Science (distinct and separate from the actual scientific process.) instead of the God of Christianity.
Hopefully your different kind of Catholic will simply be a return to the normalcy of the Roman Missal of 1955.
It’s time to call out the attempted Masonic takeover of the Catholic Church and restore orthodoxy and reverent Catholic worship.
Conservative Catholicism is reviving in North America, in part because of this pope’s attempt to crush the Latin Mass out of existence. The mystery at the heart of Christianity is not helped by the sort of trivial chat found in all of the mainstream denominations of the faith, which are losing members at a pace that rivals the collapse of the Anglican church under the dunce Welby and his recent predecessors.