Bieszad: A Massive Apostasy Is Taking Place Right Now As American Evangelical Christianity

An interesting article from Andrew Biezad on the failing Evangelical groups in America, as well as the failing of many Catholic Churches in America:

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"The essay by Rod Dreher that Eric Metaxas is referring to is well worth the read. In summary, American Christianity is rapidly disappearing, having lost its social strength and becoming a target of scorn and rejection by the greater society. In his view, Christians need to adopt a “Benedict option.” Named in honor of St. Benedict of Nursia, the patron saint of Europe and exorcists, Christians need to form small communities in which to transmit and pass down their faith as the greater society around them dissolves just as Christians of the world of antiquity did:

Millennials, even those who identify as Christian, are shockingly illiterate, both in terms of what the Bible says and more generally regarding what Christianity teaches. I trust you don’t need me to repeat again Christian Smith’s findings showing that Moralistic Therapeutic Deism — a bland, undemanding, non-specific religion parasitic on Christianity — has taken over US religious institutions and has displaced authentic Christianity, especially among the young.

In my own informal conversations with college professors — both progressive and conservative, and both at Christian and secular institutions of higher learning — this finding has been abundantly confirmed. The ignorance is so widespread and profound that most of their students don’t even know what they don’t know. Which leads us to:

If we lose the middle and upper classes, we lose the church. For various reasons, churchgoing in America is primarily something that educated middle and upper class Americans do. Charles Murray, among others, has highlighted research showing that the working class has largely abandoned church. If Christianity is to survive in the US, it cannot afford to lose middle class Americans. Of course Christianity must especially be for the poor and working classes, but at this point in its history in the US, the poor and working classes have already left, and the middle classes are hemorrhaging.College is (at least for now) a common middle class experience. If we lose these kids in (or by) college, they’re gone. According to my anecdotal information, supplemented by the research from Smith et al., this has already happened. (source)

Both of these articles are well worth the full read, as they discuss major issues that are often times ignored. They are well reasoned and thought provoking.

But I’ll give a simpler and more daunting reason why “American Christianity” is collapsing. That reason is because “American Christianity” is a social religion. It is a product of and subject to the spirit of the times in which it lives, existing an independent organism with a false conception of its very self. It could never survive long-term because it was inherently heretical and doomed from its inception, and what we are witnessing is its natural and really, inevitable death.

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Now it is only fair that at the same time in mentioning the evangelical Protestant sects, one also address the dire situation of the Catholic Church in the United States. Having been highly influenced post Vatican II by a desire to become like the world instead of standing in resistance to it (which was a major criticism of the encyclicals Gaudium et Spes and the infamous Rerum Novarum). This desire to become “Americanized” is a huge problem and has caused much of the scandal, heresy, and problems in the Church in America in the past and today. Just like the Evangelicals, the Catholic Church is also suffering its own free-fall collapse in the main Novus Ordo ranks. ..."

Read the whole article HERE

August 27, 2013: Quick look at the Missal

Today is the feast of St. Joseph Calasanctius.  He was canonized as a confessor of the faith.  Heres what my Missal says of him:

“ St. Joseph Calasanctius, a Spaniard of noble family, famous for his charity towards children, founded the Piarists, or the Order Clerks Regular of the Poor Schools of the Mother of God for the education of you. He Died at the age of 92 A.D 1648.”

Modern day Piarists. Notice the plad neckline the Rev. Father sports in the middle.  I know I'm knit picking, but really?

I thought it was important to take note of this day for a couple reasons.

1.  Common core implementation is going forward as quick as they can get it to go.  I urge all of you to make yourselves aware of the matter.  Below you will see a short introduction on this topic and why it needs to be stopped.
2. The Communion verse for todays liturgy reads as follows: “Suffer the little children to come to Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God.”

Not being a Father there is no way that I can understand the magnitude of this command.  Jesus tells us we must be like little children if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven, yet we sometimes put this off to the side and don’t delve too far into it because it’s a weird thought.  But let us remember a child is completely dependent on his parent to fulfill his needs.  Which brings me to last week ends Gospel were Christ reminds us not to be worried were we will get our food or clothing, for God provides for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.  Do we take a moment during our busy day to recognize our dependence on him, our absolute dependence on him for every breath, every movement?  And do we then come to him like a child with unconditional love and thanks for this gift of life?  I too often fail here. 

I must learn to trust him more and myself less. Or as the Blessed Baptist put it I must decrease and he must increase.  Until others see Christ in me, his meekness, his mercy his dependence on the Father, I cannot hope to attain heaven.  Yet in his response to St. Peters question of “Then who can be saved?” Christ reminds us of our dependence on him, saying, “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible.”

Thanks be to God for his Grace and Mercy in a world set on self-dependence.

Are many in the US destined for damnation?

So I was sitting at work and came across an article by the apologist Jimmy Akin on the issue of whether it is fair to say many in the US are hell bound.  Im convinced that this issue is continuously being brought up due to the diabolic trying to maintain its drive since after the council.  Theologians like Von Belthazar and Rayner were well known advocates of the issue and in a recent encyclical Pope Emeritus Benedict brought up the issue of semi-universalism and didn’t outright condemn the notion but maintained a somewhat ambiguous possibility can be afforded to advocates of the matter.  Such a statement is generally taken by Neo-Catholics as a broad papal mandate that should not be questioned whats-so-ever. 

I don’t propose to say anything new with this post, others like Michael Voris have done most of the leg work putting together magisterial teachings on the matter prior to the spirits takeover of Vatican II.  I have posted it below.  Instead I wish to take issue with Mr. Akin.  His main point is that most Americans don’t necessarily meet the criterion for a mortal sin so there shouldn’t be so much worrying going on.  A very nice pastoral approach.

Problem is even if most people are ignorant of the Catholic faith in all of her teachings they are not somehow less culpable then those that lived before them were.  Consider that you and I today have access to vast amounts of information about what the church teaches and why the Church teaches it.  Those who wish to ignore the teachings do so at their own peril.  So too those that wish to reject the teachings after learning of them do so at their own peril.  Im not saying that they are damned, I know not their heart but to play games like “well its highly unlikely that such people are bound for hell because of culpability issues”.  Mr. Akin saying that there are many hard teachings in the bible on the issue but also hopeful ones overstates the matter.  Jesus spends the greatest amount of time talking about hell and how to avoid going there.  He doesn’t talk about separating the goats and sheep at the end to tell a tale tale.  He doesn’t call it the wide and easy path for any reason.  People can have hope in their salvation and the salvation of others but that hope is not a blind one.  We have an intellect, an ability to know truth, to pursue it to its final end.  If we so choose to ignore it we do so at our own peril.  That there is one Church, the Catholic Faith is not a matter of dispute.  If people reject her they reject Christ.  They fail to preach him to others, so he will not speak for them to his father.  This notion that we can stretch invincible ignorance to the farthest ends of the universe is a sham, and its creating complacency among people of good will. 

Bishops, Priests, Religious and lay alike need to Preach Christ and him Crucified otherwise expect no more than what St. Paul received upon meeting with the Greeks in Athens.  Pray for Francis that his ecumania will not draw him away for his true responsibility to bring all to Holy Mother Church without compromise.

http://youtu.be/fExTlLZ2fcs

+JMJ+

Mary, Statues, Veneration and Adoration

Hey, Sorry I was a little late on responding.  I got tied up at work for a while longer than I hoped

Your question of in practice we make both concepts appear the same might just look so to an outsider but there is context.  First Bowing and praying to the statue is a confused saying.  The statue in itself is just a statue.  Just like when Christ references Moses in Numbers 21:8-9 in John 3:14 where Moses creates a serpentine figure and fixes it to a pole with the intention that if the people looked upon the figure, which by itself is just material not worth any veneration nor adoration of any sort, and are to be healed by it.  Now what are they healed by? The figure or the thing which it represents which is the foreshadowing of the son of man taking on the sins of the world and being lifted up on the crossSecond we don’t pray to statues or icons of Mary the saints or even to a picture of the Blessed Trinity.  Pictures, statues and icons are Holy images because of what they represent, what they call into mind.  In themselves they are not holy any more than Elijah’s material and dead bones in 2 Kings 13:14 or the objects that touched Paul and were venerated in Acts 19:11-12. So too its not the cape of Jesus nor Peter who healed the people that touched them but the thing that lies behind them, that is Gods Grace. If someone kneels or prays before an image that doesn’t mean that they adore the image. For instance when Jacob bows before Esau or Abraham bows before his companions at Mamre in Gen 18:2, Lot in Genesis 19:1. Any bowing that is done is done in a manner of reverence for the person (ie: honoring the person for who they are in Christ), not that we adore them and especially we don’t adore the image for the image helps us to call into mind the greater reality that lies behind itFor example have you ever looked at a picture of someone you love and kissed the picture?  You don’t  love the plastic and paper nor the ink that produced the image but the thing it represents. Venerating a statue of Jesus or any Saint which includes the Blessed Virgin calls into mind the person, who they were, what they did in Christ. And simply put why do we do this?  Because in these things we give glory to God.  Just think about it.  Why is Mary important, why

in here magnificat does she declare that all generations shall call her blessed?  Here blessedness is because of Christ, because from all time he thought of his mother and he practiced the 5^th commandment to a greater degree than anyone else.  So too we are called to imitate Christ in all things.  Did he adore Mary? No shes a creature, he is the eternal word, the logos, of the father.  In following Christ we recognize and come to love his Mother who he formed, who he choose among all to be his mother, the one who suffers along (not greater than or apart from) with Christ because of what God wanted of her as stated by Simeon in Luke 2:25-35.  If we are part of his body as we are once we are brought in by baptism then she is in a mystical sense our own mother and this is what the Church recognized from the very beginning, her role being of amazing importance in salvation history. Her be it done to me according to your word, her ability to do so is only by His grace, but she having free will submitted it to him, undoing the sin of the first women, the reversing of the Garden story.  So too Paul reminds us that being one Body we cant say to one part of the body I don’t need you, and death he also tells us doesn’t separate us in Christ. If the confusion rests in the times spent before a statue or a picture I can also help you with that.  Mary, as I have said before is our Mother we love her and like a child they have a father and a Mother.  We love to run to her that, she being righteous like James 5:16 says, she may seek his mercy for us, not because we cant go to him directly (because we do that constantly and especially when we receive him Body Blood soul and Divinity in the Blessed Sacrament which being him we do adore). But because the more help we can get the better off we are being sinners and all.  Consider that we spend the majority of the sacred liturgy kneeling, bowing and so forth before a crucifix, now in all reality how much time is spent before an image of Mary is most likely less.  But lets say for arguments sake that someone does spend a lot of time in front of a statue of Mary or a favorite saint.  The reason why the saint or Mary specifically is important is because of Christ.  For instance we can go to se the Grave of Leonardo DiVinci or we can go see his great works like the Mona Lisa.  Generally, and I could be wrong, more people go to see his great paintings then himself.  Does that mean that they think less of him then of his works of course not, it was he that made it in the first and in showing love for the work, as in showing love for the work of his creation Be it Mary, the saints or even a wonderful sunset to a lesser degree we glorify him and our actions whether amazement, kneeling or bowing before the beauty of the representation speaks to the one who is the cause in the first.

Finally all people who assist at the Holy Sacrifice adore Christ in his Eucharistic form.  The way that we do so is generally through prayers of adoration be it mental or vocal.  Sometimes we just behold him who is the way the truth and the life as Mary does when she sits at his feet doing nothing and Martha is frustrated by her inaction.  Every action has an intent just as veneration and adoration do.  Both are different things and might well look like the same thing to someone without the context or knowledge of the intent which in itself is in the person’s heart.  If someone adores an image or a creature they are wrong and should be called out on the carpet just as much as people that create their own personal understandings of the Trinity or Christ violate the one true God and need to be called out as Matthew 18:15-18 tells us.  But it is the Church that is the pillar and foundation of the truth that defines this, and explicitly teaches the difference between veneration and adoration as Luke 10:16 teaches along with many other examples like why are there 27 books that constitute the time after the Birth of Christ.

I do hope this helps, and feel free to ask more questions on this topic or anything else at your wish.  The following link might also be helpful:

Have a great day

+JMJ+

http://www.thecatholicanswerman.com/id54.html

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/do-catholics-worship-statues

http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/icon_faq.aspx