They just don't matter.
Not to John Allen.
One might wonder why any of this matters to the Vatican. The Society of St. Pius X claims a global following of around 1 million, which, if true, would represent .01 percent of the full Catholic population of 1.2 billion. Investing resources in trying to lure such a relative footnote back might seem disproportionate.Not to others whom we hoped would be more pastoral towards them.
From: Thomas Rosica [mailto:rosica@saltandlighttv.org]
Sent: March 24, 2011 2:53 PM
To: david.domet@xxxxx.com
Subject: For your VOX!
Source URL: http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/april-may-be-cruel-month-relations-traditionalists
More news for you and your VOX. May the Lord grant you the peace you are seeking this Lent. No
guarantees you will find it this side of the Resurrection but keep seeking.
Fr. Rosica
April may be cruel month for relations with traditionalists
By John L Allen Jr
Created Mar 24, 2011
For anyone hoping that longstanding ruptures between Rome and the traditionalist wing of the
Catholic church are on the brink of swift resolution, it may turn out that April is indeed the cruelest
month.
Sometime in early April, ...
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/april-may-be-cruel-month-relations-traditionalists
Indeed. Quite the email. Quite the report from John L. Allen, Jr.
Do these 1,000,000 plus Catholics matter?. As many have stated, they are a greater portion of the Church than Allen lets on. There may be 1.5 billion Catholics in the world but when you look at Europe and the Americas how many actually practice their faith.
If they are schismatics, which I content that they are not, then do they not matter? There is sure a lot of ecumenical outreach for heretics and interfaith outreach with those who deny Christ but precious little for these, our own brothers and sisters.
I am sorry for Bishop Williamson. I have great respect and sympathy for the bishops, priests and religious of the Society of St. Pius X and I understand the desires of those who worship at their chapels. I believe that one day Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre will be declared at least a Servant of God by the Church if not made Venerable. Who are we to say that the Holy Spirit was not acting through him to preserve the traditional Mass?
Father Zuhlsdorf and Father Hunwicke have some thoughts worth pondering.
As for Allen and company, they know and we know something. They have no progeny. There time is short, very short. They are working feverishly because they know it but they will not succeed.
They will fail.
This won't last much longer.
All we have to do is hold fast to the faith.
6 comments:
Typo: You put "0.01%" instead of "0.1%".
I don't suppose that many of them read Crux, indeed I wouldn't recommend it to any Catholics.
Lynda, the math is John Allen's.
There may be 1.2 Billion baptized Catholics but let's face it, 75% do not actually practice the faith.
Of the remaining 25% most of them attend Mass monthly, not weekly.
Of the weekly attendees, a sizable portion do not believe in Transubstantiation.
The vast majority of Catholics confess their sins semi-annually or longer, if at all.
I don't know many people who make up the 1 Million SSPX but those who I have met ALL make their Sunday Obligation, believe in Transubstantiation, and confess their sins regularly - like weekly.
So if you were to compare the actual number of practicing, faithful Catholics to the SSPX I'm sure the differential would be a lot more than 1%. Could it be as high as half?
When Pope Francis said we can't look back in regards to the Novus Ordo/Usus Antiquior I immediately wondered if the captain of the Titanic said the same thing.
But who am I to judge?
When I go to Confession, which is not once weekly, but more like once monthly, there are the same people there, and at that just a handful. I feel so sorry for Fr. as he is lonely in there waiting to free people of the weight of their sins. Once I went and was the only one there. Even upon leaving the Confessional and praying for a while no one came in. But there is another side to this coin. One time about 2 years ago I had not been there in almost 4 months, and the Priest told me that was really not too long to space my Confessions!!! I was so flabbergasted, I was really speechless. But among many, sadly, this is the attitude.
If Priests would talk about the importance of receiving the Sacraments regularly and of sin, the damage it causes and punishment, and then on the positives of freedom in Christ and boundless graces, peace of soul etc, but hush is the word. There is nothing that seems to come from the pulpit at times but sheer FLUFF. And then they wonder why the Churches are empty. And many of them even want to 'ratchet it up' a notch. Unbelievable. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again that has never worked in the past??
I do go over to Crux now and then just to see how far over the cliff they've gone.
Post a Comment