Review: ‘Revitalizing Catholicism in America: Nine Tasks for Every Catholic’

[Michie]

If Bing Crosby playing Father O’Malley in “The Bells of St. Mary’s” and Bishop Fulton Sheen preaching on national television captured Catholicism in mid-20th-century America, then predator priests and empty pews represent the Church nowadays for many people in the U.S. culture.

Russell Shaw’s and David Byers’ new book, “Revitalizing Catholicism in America: Nine Tasks for Every Catholic” (OSV, $17.95), tracks the Catholic Church’s decline in esteem and membership during the last 60 years. The abuse scandal and the pandemic are the most recent evidence. Yet, despite the real challenges facing the Church, the authors do not predict certain doom for the future. Rather, they foresee a renewal for the Church that could come from a faithful remnant who practice and pass on the faith of Jesus Christ. The remnant will include clergy and laity, but the renewal will happen only when lay people become active participants in the life of the Church as envisioned by the Second Vatican Council.

What happened?​

How did the Church in the U.S. go from a vital, thriving institution with active parishes around the country to a corporate body barely breathing? A major contributing factor, according to the authors, was the easy assimilation of individual Catholics en masse into secular culture. Even before the pews started emptying, parishioners prioritized fitting in to their social circles rather than evangelizing them. The Church and the faith of Jesus Christ ceased being the organizing principle of people’s lives. Their minds and hearts had left the Church long before their hands and feet. Some of the clergy provided reasons to ignore ecclesial life. Now, the statistics compiled by organizations like the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate confirm the exodus.

Continued below.

Review: 'Revitalizing Catholicism in America: Nine Tasks for Every Catholic'

Russell Shaw’s and David Byers’ new book, “Revitalizing Catholicism in America: Nine Tasks for Every Catholic” tracks the Catholic Church’s decline in esteem and membership during the last 60 years.

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[jamiec]

If Bing Crosby playing Father O’Malley in “The Bells of St. Mary’s” and Bishop Fulton Sheen preaching on national television captured Catholicism in mid-20th-century America, then predator priests and empty pews represent the Church nowadays for many people in the
U.S. culture.

The trouble is, both are nauseating - if in rather different ways. The Church does not need to be "puffed" by the surrounding culture, which, like the emotions of which it is born, is unreliable, treacherous, and temporary.

The trouble with flying high is that one is always in danger of being brought down. A Church that preens itself on how much better it is than those wretched Protestants, is riding for a fall. Which has duly occurred. And there is no reason to think it will end soon. The Arian crisis lasted 250 years - Protestantism, over 500; and will probably last a long time yet. So there is no reason to think the present degraded and rotten state of the Church will end for centuries. There is no hope of any remedy, other than time, which destroys everything. The Popes have proved themselves to be the blindest of blind guides - they are the chief problem, not a remedy for it. The only Apostle they follow is Judas Iscariot.

This "faithful remnant" that so many people dream about will definitely not include the Papacy, for the Papacy is the source and strength and enabler of the infection. The Church got on fine without the Papal Pharaoh for several centuries, and that particular institution needs either to be abolished, or to be weakened enough so as no longer to be a danger to the Church. Cutting it down to size would be very "ecumenical", and "ecumenism" is what the Popes claim to want, isn't it ? So let the CC take them at their word, and abolish the Papal Pharaoh, and gratify both the Orthodox & Protestantism at one stroke.