Since the death of Saint John Paul II (the Great), the Church has lurched, sometimes dramatically, from the world of “moto propios” and “decreta,” the “consubstantials” at one end, to the “openness” and “tolerance” and “mercy,” the Latin here too (“amoris laetitis”), at the other.
The ship Saint Bosco envisioned keels. We are in a time of extremes.
The root crisis comes when religosity is more the focus than spirituality, when it is politicized, when average folks — folks who don’t read legalistic blog arguments, who don’t follow every nuance of every exhortation, who don’t study encyclicals, who find homilies of little interest, and rectories bureaucratic — can’t find what they are looking for when they are looking to touch God, to reach Heaven.
All we need to know: in Australia, Catholic church attendance is now twelve percent.
Jesus told us what brings forth Church crises when He said to the crowds and His disciples (Matthew 23):
“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
“They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others…
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
“You shut the door of the kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
“You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
“You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
“You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
“Blind Pharisee!
“First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean…”
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