Rebuilding the Fortifications

 It is unwise to lower one's defenses before an enemy whose only option is your destruction. In fact, when one is up against such an enemy, good defenses and fortifications are necessary. Otherwise one's enemies will despoil everything one loves.

Of all of the troublesome aspects of modernism that has found itself within the Church is the aspect of the dismissal of the devil, the demonic, and evil.  It is the flip side of the coin to the denigration of the transcendent that has become the norm in most Catholic liturgies as practiced, in our education systems, and in the waning of the devotional life. To downplay the transcendent is to downplay both the godly and the demonic and tame them into merely human overreactions to physical or mental phenomenon. As our liturgies became people-focused, so the demonic was regulated to scary movies and parlor games. The devil has been more than pleased for such a development.

I have been reading Fr. Gabrielle Amorth's " An Exorcist Tells His Story." Towards the end of the book he bemoans the dismissal of the demonic on behalf of the clergy and the unwillingness to see the demonic as a clear and present danger to the flock. Granted, there are many psychological disorders that were once treated as demonic possession, but we have now gone to the opposite extreme where everything is a psychological disorder and not demonic. Even in our blessings, exorcisms were dropped. The use of blessed salt and blessed oil got dropped. Fr. Amorth remarks in his book how much more effective Confession and Eucharist are.  But we have seen sharp declines in both. It is as if we have taken all of our ramparts and defenses and leveled them to where the demonic is having free reign to trouble us.

I am not going to assign blame for how we got here. It is counter-productive.  It suffices to say we are here now.

What do we do? We rebuild our defenses!  Inasmuch as we need to refocus Mass on the transcendent do we need to acknowledge and actively thwart the demonic. Simply dismissing the existance of the demonic will not dimiss the demonic; in fact it will only encourage the demonic. Here is what I purpose that can be done now.

1) Shut off the spigot!  The devil cannot make us do anything.  He can tempt.  He can influence. That's it. We need to look at the influences we allow into our lives. First, we expell anything of the occult from our lives and homes. Oujia boards, tarot cards, and other things used to conjure spirits have no place in a Catholic home. The use of mediums, seances, and other people associated with the occult are not to be toyed with. These are the most obvious sources.  However, take a good long look at what is being heard, watched, read, and played when it comes to TV, music, books, movies, and video games. What are you exposing yourself and your children to? What is being encouraged? What is being taught?   The devil isn't going to coming at you looking like a horned beast but as a shining angel.

2) Get back to regular use of the sacraments! The sacramental life of the Church is there is assist us with God's grace to get in and stay in a state of grace.  These are the ultimate ramparts and defenses against the influence of the demonic. Regular confession is necessary.  Frequent reception of the Eucharist builds our defenses. Fr. Amorth remarks on the power of these two sacraments towards the fight against the demonic.

3) Develop a healthy devotional and prayer life! Pray the rosary.  Develop spiritual reading. Pray. Ask for the saints' and the Blessed Mother's intercession in thwarting the devil.  Who better to ask that those who succeeded in being victorious over Satan and his demons? Pray the Divine Office. Spend time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. See each and every one of these as defenses against the devil and his minions.  It  will help us be watchful, intentional,  and aware.

4) Use sacramentals!  I caution here with warning you NOT to treat sacramentals like talismans or good look charms.  The use of sacramentals is to remind us of God's presence in our lives and to keep us focused on Him. The use of sacramentals in troubled times and fearful times is good as long as they are not being used as charms.

5)Make regular use of fasting and abstinence! Is it any wonder that the same time we dropped exorcisms we also wildly downplayed the use of fasting and abstinence? Both of these detach us from worldliness and are excellent weapons in the fight against the demonic. In Matthew 17:21 Jesus tells us some demons can only be fought through fasting and prayer. The selflessness of prayer, fasting, and abstinence works against the complete selfish nature on the demonic.

For many blessings I now use the Rituale Romanum specifically because exorcisms and prayers for the protection against evil are in those blessings. At the end of every Mass in my parishes, we pray the St. Michael the Archangel prayer.  Blessed salt and holy water are always available at my parishes. I hand out St. Benedict medals like Christmas candy. If we are to set our eyes on Christ, we must be aware that what He fought against, we fight against.  We do well to not dismiss the demonic, but to use the grace of God and the tools of the Church to be our protection and our defense against such powers.

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."             

Catholic and The Eucharist: What Happened?

Last week, Pew Research put out a study about Catholic Belief and the Eucharist. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/05/transubstantiation-eucharist-u-s-catholics/  The reaction has been varied. As much as I would like to believe that this will be a clarion call, I am doubtful.

By the Numbers

First: The numbers: 50% of self-described Catholics say they know that the Church teaches that the Bread and Wine become the Body and Blood of Christ.  Of this group, about half do not believe this teaching. It would be a likely consequence that the more one goes to Church the more likely one believes in the Catholic teaching of Real Presence/transubstantiation. One would quickly reason that someone who believes this teaching would be drawn to Mass. Of those who go regularly, only 63% believe that The Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ. The study shows that those below the age of 59 are 70%+ likely to believe the Eucharist is mere symbol. Those who are more educated are more likely to believe in Transubstantiation, even then, though, it is a high of 37%

Certainly this belief would be reflected in the percentage of Catholics who go to Mass.  According to Center for Applied Research in Apostolate (aka CARA) out of Georgetown, in 2018, only 21.1% of Catholics attend Mass weekly.  This is down from 54.1% in 1970.  Catholics who go at least once a month have fallen from 71.3% in 1970 to 54.9% in 2018.  Participation in the sacramental life of the Church as a whole has fallen greatly in that same time period.

Catholics who have their children educated has also fallen precipitously.  With the exception of those in Catholic Higher education, which has gone up in this time period, children in parish based religious education programs and parochial school has been halved over the period between 1970 to 2018.  That said, the number of self-identified Catholics has risen since 1970 from 54.1 million in 1970 to 76.3 million in 2018  Only 68.7 million are even connected to a parish. . Another 26.1 million were raised Catholic but no longer self-identify as Catholics.

That belief in the Real Presence is a s low as it is should come as no surprise to anyone who follows the studies.  Most pastors can tell you that less than half of the people they have on their parish rosters come to Church with any kind of regularity.

No Easy Answers

In the many responses to the newly released study, there have been many reasons brought forth as to why Catholic belief has fallen to such a low.  The cry from the USCCB is that we need better catechesis. There is great truth in that.  However, that is like saying the Titanic needs more lifeboats after the ship has hit the iceberg. For several decades now, we have known that we need better catechesis. We need better and more faithful material.  This is all true. However, when about half of those who know the teaching still do not believe, catechesis is not enough.

Brian Holdsworth, in his vlog response to this study, points out that we are dealing with a hard teaching.  When Jesus introduces the teaching in John 6, many of His disciples leave Him and go back to their former ways of life. That the Son of Man would be sacrificed on the Cross and His flesh and blood needed to be eaten by those for whom it was sacrificed was a hard teaching to take. It said much about His own mission, about the state of humanity, and what Jesus would expect of His disciples. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Catholic faith. Without it, as Jesus says, we have no life within us.  Belief in the Eucharist is not a nice added extra for following Christ, it is absolutely essential!  There is something that is deeply moving but quite unsettling about the Eucharist. It cuts viscerally into our minds, hearts, and souls.

So why are we not believing?

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi

St. Prosper of Aquatiane remarked in the 5th century about the connection between how we pray (lex orandi) and how we believe (lex credendi). For much of Christianity, literacy was low.  One simply could not hand a few books to you (which were expensive beyond words anyway) and have you learn. The churches were built to tell a story of Christianity through its art, stained glass, and statues/icons.  Churches were built to be more than a 'worship space', but a place where one's senses were carried beyond this world to the transcendent. The music used was singular to worship. Everything was designed to draw one into a great mystery. The focus was God...not the congregation nor the clergy.

Be honest.  When you walk into your parish on Sunday, what are you drawn into? Where is the focus?  When you look at the body of the Church, what strikes you as central?  When you listen to the words of the songs sung, where is the focus and what are the beliefs being expressed?  Is there any real difference between what you hear on the radio and in Church? Are you drawn to the Transcendent God or kept firmly in the temporal order?

I argue that when we are kept in the temporal order, we lose as reason for even coming to Church. If the way we pray focuses on the congregation or the clergy, we have as disoriented prayer. We may well prefer the temporal because it is familiar and comfortable, but if we feel no connection with a transcendent God, why go? I can get good feeling from being out in nature.  I do, in fact. I can good feeling from a good meal, a pleasant conversation, a night out with friends, or so on. Certainly worship of God should lead us to a place of transcendence.  That, however, can be disquieting and unnerving at first if we are temporal minded people.

When we come into a building that is largely indistinguishable from a theater we will bring what we bring into a theater; the expectation to be entertained. When the music and preaching are mundane, banal, ordinary, or commonplace, we feel no real difference between heaven and earth. As Pope Benedict XVI pointed in saying that beauty is necessary in liturgy as beauty is an attribute of God. Beauty is meant to lift us up beyond ourselves and be fixed on another.

Over the past 50 years, what transpired in Mass, from architecture to music to ritual to art became more and more commonplace.  In some cases it became cheap and disposable. The primary way of catechesis for when it came to sacraments, the lex orandi, became banal and uninspiring, which has reflected itself in the way we believe, the lex credendi.

Handling the Beloved

You can tell much about how much one treasures something by the way they handle it. A surgeon who understands that his every move matters and shows great care will handle the surgical instruments and organs with great care out of respect for what is being done.  A mother who loves her child will handle that newborn with great diligence and care as they treasure that new life given them. How we handle something says a great deal about what we believe.

I believe that you can tell two things about a priest rather quickly within Mass. You will come to know his belief and spirituality in how he preaches. More often than not, a homilist than regularly lacks substance or challenge will be a priest who lacks substance or challenge in his own spiritual life.  Secondly, you will be able to tell whether the priest actually believes that the bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ by how we handles the Sacred Species and the attention he pays to. These moments are perhaps the most instructive for catechetical purposes.  I have seen priest who handle the Sacred Species with great care and who take their time when elevating the Sacred Species and in how they give Communion. I have also seen priests who have treated the Sacred Species as if they were short-order cooks, slinging them about as if they were common and unworthy of reflection or care.

One must also look at how the priests handle the beloved, that is the flock of their parish. Part of the scandal brought forth in the sexual scandals of the Church is one I have frequently remarked about:  How can a man believe that what he holds is the Body and Blood of Christ yet do such outrageously sinful acts as well?  Before I get accused of the heresy of Donatism (a belief that the validity of a sacrament depends upon the holiness of the priest), it is another example of lex orandi, lex credendi. If there is reasonable doubt that the priest doesn't believe either because of how he handles the Sacred Species or because of a critically sinful lifestyle, why, then, would those in his care believe?

The needed catechesis is more than matter of books and videos; it is in how the belief in Real Presence is comported by those who lead. Mass is the ultimate catechesis on the Eucharist.  Its words, actions, music, and ritual are called to point to the belief that at Mass we come into the heavenly court.  If it is not experienced there, then all the written words and videos in the world will do little more than confuse or frustrate.

The Search Has not Gone

Many of those who quit coming to Mass have not quit looking. A minority will dismiss religion altogether (atheism) or deny the existence of a personal god (agnosticism).  Many will try and find meaning in the material world.  Many more will describe themselves as 'spiritual but not religious.'  Some will dabble in other forms of Christianity.  Others will dabble in other religions. Oftentimes they will have an sadness or animosity towards Catholicism.  Maybe some will identify a teaching.  My take is that their disappointment is in their experience of the Church not being what it says it is engenders that anger.

They will search.  Many will not come back for fear of being burned again. Some don't know quite what they are looking for. However, if they do come back across the threshold and find the same banality or hypocrisy they found before they will never come back.  I posit that should the come back and see a true and abiding belief in Christ in the Eucharist that is witnessed by word and ritual, by the life and attentiveness of the priest, and by a community focused on the transcendent so as to convert build up the temporal, they are more likely to stay.

The battle is far from over.  The sheep are not lost forever.

What Now?

If the Church in this country wants to right this ship, she must look at how Mass is celebrated and how Catholics are taught about the faith.  We must lay aside the catechesis that was watered-down and made it seem that Catholicism was whatever you were comfortable with. We must look at how Mass is celebrated and asks ourselves whether what we are doing teaches the Real Presence. Does it point to transcendent quality of the Eucharist?  Where does it point us? Lex orandi, lex credendi!

We must evaluate our teaching tools.  Are they quality or banal?  Do they lead or mislead? Where do they point?  This is more than catechetical materials.  It includes music, art, architecture, ritual, homiletics, and other aesthetics.        

All this said, beautiful churches with beautiful rituals are not enough if the parish is not a place of devotion, charity, compassion, mercy, evangelization, and prayer!  The Real Presence in the Eucharist is given to us for a reason directly connected to the mission of the Church: to go make disciples of the nations!  If discipleship is not lived by those who do believe and receive the Body of Christ, then it makes others wonder what is the use of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ.

This leads to a final point: a sinful heart will be blinded to truth.  It is no wonder that the collapse of belief in the Eucharist has been accompanied by a even greater collapse in Confession. The state of grace is necessary for the effective reception of Communion. Many parishes access to Confession is stingy to non-existent.  We must once again allow our parishes to be field hospitals; that is, places where those wounded by sin can find healing.

I would like to think that perhaps the Church in the United States would finally see the dire straits she has placed her flock in and extract herself from worldly concerns and get her house in order. I don't see much desire for that because it will be a difficult road. Pray that we wake up.