Losing a Patrimony

In 567 BC, the Temple of Solomon was destroyed, along with Jerusalem, by the Babylonians.  The temple had stood for over three centuries, built when the Kingdom of Israel was united and at the height of its power. Over the three succeeding centuries, the kingdom slowly collapsed.  First, internal dissension born of the pride and faithlessness of Solomon in his old age and of his foolish son, Rehoboam, the united kingdom divided into the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south.  Both kingdoms would lose all sense of their covenant with God, with the northern kingdom embracing idolatry immediately, and the southern kingdom going back and forth, from reign to reign, until the time of the Major Prophets when the Valley of Hinnom to the south of Jerusalem was polluted with the stench of the worship of idols.  More and more, Israel was becoming indistinguishable from their pagan neighbors. Leadership largely failed. The great patrimony granted them by God, built up by faithful men, was now to be taken from them.  In embracing the worldly idols they had shoved God's protecting hand away and paid the consequence for it.  God would not let them profane His Holy name and demand His benefits and protection. Corruption flowed from the Valley of Hinnom to the Temple Mount to the palace of the kings.  Israel had placed its hopes not in God, but in alliances with foreign powers and pagan gods to stave off threats.

When one reads Ezekiel 22:25-27, God lays the blame for Judah's downfall squarely on the leadership who had abandoned the covenant.  In verse 26, we read, " Her priests have despised my law, and have defiled my sanctuaries: they have put no difference between holy and profane: nor have distinguished between the polluted and the clean: and they have turned away their eyes from my sabbaths, and I was profaned in the midst of them."  We know that the prophets were persecuted for telling of God's anger with the House of Judah for their worldliness and infidelity.  For their lack of fidelity, the patrimony given them by God was stripped away from them and they were exiled for 70 years.  God had not written them off.  Like a parent, though, if His children would not listen Him, He would take away their toys to get their attention and call them back to faithfulness.  I fully believe the Catholic Church in the west finds herself at such a crossroads.




By the Numbers
  It is no secret that the practice of the faith in Europe and the Americas is in a downward spiral. In the United States, the numbers are terrifying (or they should be) http://cara.georgetown.edu/frequently-requested-church-statistics/.  Although the numbers of Americans who self-identify as Catholics keeps going up (largely due to an influx of Latin Americans), almost every measure of participation is sharply down, Catholics are more likely to believe as the world believes when it comes to moral issues, and the number of weekly Church-going Catholics continues to plummet to less than 1 in 4 Catholics.

The last 20 years have been gravely difficult for the Church in the United States.  A Church of immigrants who labored hard to build churches, schools, hospitals, and other structures, are finding all that blood, sweat, and tears being auctioned off because the buildings stand empty or to pay for settlements levied against them in civil lawsuits having to do with the ongoing sexual scandals and cover-ups. That bleeding is far from over. In New York, new legislation passed regarding the statue of limitations for child victims of sexual abuse.  Within hours, starting at midnight of the effect date, hundreds of lawsuits were filed (https://nypost.com/2019/08/14/child-victims-act-takes-effect-with-many-lawsuits-targeting-catholic-church/ ) with the diocesan insurers balking at what is sure to be huge settlements ( https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Archdiocese-sues-insurance-firms-14068132.php). Things look grim.  One can easily imagine other states following New York's lead.

Such press coverage and lawsuits, I would imagine, will only serve to drive the numbers of practicing Catholics even lower as their faith is shaken more and more in leaders who seemingly do not have the good of the flock at heart. One can imagine it will be driven still lower as the patrimony gets sold off to pay for the misdeeds of a minority of priests and the covering-up of those misdeeds by many prelates, who ironically enough covered-up the crimes because they were afraid of losing the patrimony.  God didn't select the Babylonians to scourge Israel for its iniquities because the Babylonians were themselves just. They weren't. They were Israel's enemy and as Israel pushed God aside, they were the plague that destroyed them.  Those going after the Church aren't selected by God because they are more righteous, but because we became worldly and pushed Him aside.  The Babylonians are at the cathedral doors and we put them there.

How Did This Happen?

For the House of Judah, the central reason that they witnessed the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple was their faithlessness. They acted as their pagan neighbors did.  They worshiped their gods. They held their pagan beliefs.  They became their own enemy; an enemy that so rotted them from within that by the time the Babylonians came, there was little left to defend.

For decades now, Catholic catechesis and faith has been in a downfall.  That downfall has fueled the numbers we now see in regards to the attitudes and beliefs of Catholics. There is an old Greek saying, 'The fish rots at the head first."  The clergy of the West has long adopted worldly ways of thinking and believing.  They are more likely to agree with progressive policies of the left.  They are more likely to find sophistry to protect such polluted thought. They are more likely to cuddle up to politicians than with the prophetic voices of our time.  They are likely to dismiss, sometimes with great scorn, the teaching of the Church and her Magisterium, and push for laxity on a host of moral issues.

In the local parish, the priest who preached for covenant fidelity got replaced with Fr. Feelgood.  Obligations and rules were seen as impinging on freedom and archaic trappings of an oppressive age.  Liturgy moved from being centered on God to centered on man, more often than not bordering on a cult of personality of the priest who was more likely to want to be liked than to be truthful. Great harm was done by the ultimate act of cowardice and spiritual malpractice: "just follow your own conscience". This would be fine and dandy had the clergy bothered to form consciences in union with the teachings of Christ. They did not. They left truth to be a matter of subjectivism and relativism.  They fed their flock the very same poison they ingested. Like the false prophets of the Old Testament, they misled the flock and persecuted true prophets. Like Pashur persecuting Jeremiah because Jeremiah actually prophesied faithfully (Jer 20:1-6), so many within the Church persecute the Jeremiahs of our own age.  Pashur's persecution, though, could not stave off Judah's downfall.

The main culprit for our agonies in the West is as old as the Old Testament itself.  Read again the highlighted quote from Ezekiel above.  The Church of the West is too worldly.  For example: last week  a disturbing study came out regarding the core Catholic belief of transubstantiation/Real Presence, with only 28% of self-identified Catholics saying they know and believe this teaching. That number should terrify clerics who know they will have to stand before God to answer for a starved flock. The response from our leaders in this country?  Largely crickets. Let's make them read more.  That will do it. No questions about whether the rampant abuses we have allowed in Mass have had an effect.  No questions about the belief of the clergy. No critical calls for a wholesale renewal. It faded in and out like a putrid scent; a scent that many just hope will go away on its own.  What is that scent, you ask?  It is the scent of decomposition of a dying body. Our bishops are much more likely to weigh in on political issues than such core issues as this.

Catholic politicians who openly thumb their nose at Church teachings are rarely reprimanded, rarely told to not take Communion until they have changed, and are cozied up to for photo ops. Our leadership in this country reminds me of the Judean kings, who instead of trusting in God, made alliances with foreign powers who either failed them or turned on them and destroyed them. Worldly leaders will do that. I believe this has contributed to cheapening of the Eucharist. If a Catholic politician can believe immoral things, why can't the person in the pew? Immorality and infidelity constantly build upon one another. Abandoning the pews and the core beliefs are a natural consequence.  It is worth noting that these same politicians will be all too happy to feast on the carcass of the Church's patrimony as the former allies of Judah feasted on the spoils of Jerusalem's destruction.

All Is Not Lost

We might well see a severe dent put into the patrimony of the Church in this country.  We might well look in horror and shame as did those leaving Jerusalem for exile as they looked upon the billowing smoke of their beloved city and temple.  However, we must remember the rest of the story.

Jerusalem fell and the temple was destroyed to be sure. But the Jewish faith did not die. In fact, it ending up spreading. It's communities spread throughout the pagan world became the seedbeds from which the Apostles started their preaching about Christ. The people were allowed to return and rebuild.  The temple rose and fell a few times before it was destroyed altogether.  The one sacrifice of Christ on the Cross made the temple obsolete. The Church Militant will exist until Christ comes again.  It will persevere.  However, that perseverance is based on her ability to be faithful.  If chastisements are necessary to get our attention and keep us from final destruction, they come at the hands of a loving God. God made clear that the Babylonians would pay for the destruction they leveled against Judah in Isaiah 13.  So those who have lashed out against the Church to destroy her for profit,  expediency, or sport will also have to face God. We will survive.

Survival depends upon whether we are ready and willing to lay aside our worldliness and turn back in faithfulness to God. We cannot be insurgents against the Kingdom of God and God's children at the same time. In how we worship, in how we live, in how and what be believe, in how our consciences are formed, in how we instruct, and in how we witness to the world, we must show a profound trust in God's will for us. Our leaders must look to our core beliefs first; a people who don't believe in the Eucharist cannot be masked by a group of social justice warriors.

We must pray.  We must demand better of our leaders.  We must demand better of ourselves. We must not still the tongue of the true prophet no matter how much conversion he calls for us to undergo insofar as he is teaching in union with God.  We must make our worship focused on God again. We must be willing to be despised by the worldly, the sophists, the immoral, and the elite. We must be willing to be of no account to the powerful.  We must be willing to become like a child, as Christ tells us.  Hubris got us into this mess; humility will lead us out.

Jesus tells us that He is THE way, THE truth, and THE life.  We do well  to remember that, teach that, live that, and be willing to suffer for that. Will our faith be shaken? Yes, of course it will.  But as Hillaire Belloc once remarked, "The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine - but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight."