I read an article today about Evangelicals gaining steam in still-nominally Catholic Brazil. I've read a lot lately on the sad state of the Church in Ireland. I also just read that even the Vatican can't seem to balance the budget, ending the year with more than 15 million in debt.
Yes, there are places the Church is growing. In many places around Africa it grows, but slower than Islam, and sometimes even slower than Mormonism. In the U.S., the northeast has been declining though once having been a strong hold, but in Texas and the south there's a bit of an uptick.
Overall, and I don't believe you'll read this in Osservatore Romano, I think its clear to anyone trying to be objective that the Church's influence and size are trending downward.
Of course at first this seems a terrible thing. As Catholics, we believe that our faith is the one true Church established by Christ and administered by apostolic succession. It is the pathway to salvation and serving God. If that is trending down, isn't that terrible?
Maybe I'm being callous, but I'm not sure that it is so bad. In the short term, for many it is of course bad. Shortages of priests and funds have seen parishes close, restricting or for some even causing them to lose, access to the sacraments.
Many who could be hearing the fullness of truth are now hearing only parts of it, or none at all. And yes, those are bad things.
But our God has created a world where our actions and inaction have consequences and bad things can and do happen. As a result of complacency, cultural change and a host of other issues (not the least of which is the appalling global sex abuse scandal) the Church doesn't have the position it once did. It doesn't have the numbers and it doesn't have the zeal.
It is an ancient faith, and when a faith is old as this, there are many who are Catholic by culture (Church festivals, Bingo, showing up at Christmas and Easter only) and not filled with the faith. This happens, but perhaps we let it happen too much.
Point is, this down trend could spawn so much more. Our leader, Pope Benedict, has taken it upon himself to work to expose scandals, rather than hide them. He aims to rejuvenate those in the pews, before taking our message back to the rest of the world. He aims to consolidate the teaching authority and make sure we're all on the same page again.
In short, he sees it too. He sees that we're not in a good place globally. He sees where the Church has failed and he sees, at least in part, why we've lost so many good people.
He also knows what all good Catholics know. That Christ will preserve his Church. A difference between this era and the past, between this pontiff and those before, is that despite that knowledge, we're seeing that we have to play our part in that better.
A decisively NOT Catholic writer, Hunter S. Thompson, once explained a bit of his own theology by saying "Call on God, but row away from the rocks." He's not wrong in that regard. We must have faith that God will be there to preserve the Church, but he acts through us, and if we don't act, things will only spiral.
Christ promised the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. He didn't say they wouldn't get the upperhand from time to time. He didn't say the Church wouldn't dwindle and lose influence. He simply said the enemy wouldn't prevail. I believe that. I believe we all must believe that.
But that said, we must take this downward trend for what it is. A failure on our parts. A failure to live the faith by example. A failure to make our Church the light for the world based on THE Light of the World himself.
But what comes from failure, or what should rather, is learning. As a Church we learn slowly sometimes. It took until last month for the Vatican to really ever hire a PR person. It took the way too long for the Church to learn how to handle the sex abuse issue, and again too long to deal with what had happened already. We took a while to learn that violence isn't the best way to stop heresy and it will take a while to learn how to exist in a world that doesn't see us anymore as top dog in the religion category.
To many, we're a symbol of the old world they've left behind. We're a relic. We're dated. We're part of a system that seeks to control.
We know better, yes. But it's our job to make others know better too.
It's ok to be discouraged, but we don't get to despair. Failure or losing is like fire on steel. It can make us stronger.
I'm not saying accept the trend, by all means let's buck it if we can. But even if we can't, let's make the best of it by becoming something better and stronger — by becoming what we're meant to be in the first place.
Great post. I think that you're exactly right when you say that while Jesus promises that the gates of hell won't prevail against the church, He doesn't promise that the church will always have an easy time in the world. I think that much of what you say about the RCC in this post is true of Christianity generally - in many ways, it has fallen on hard times. But Christianity has fallen on hard times before, and it's still here. We need to remember that all is in God's hands. However, we also need to remember that we all have a job to do. I think it's great that you emphasize this point. Too often Christians bemoan the state of the church today without realizing that we are partly to blame for the state of things, and that we are all called to do something about it.
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