A Depressing Discussion...But Necessary: Vortex

Tell it, Mike!

I hope you’ve been following the Vortex the last couple of weeks. Are you all signed up for at least the free subscription to the Vortex? If you have serious concerns about the state of our Church (especially in the US, but really, pretty much world-wide), then you need to have Vortex motivation to keep fighting the good fight.

Yes, it’s depressing at times, as Michael Voris admits in today’s Vortex (embedded below).  He says:

To be as kind and charitable as possible…it isn’t a pretty picture. We have actually shared some of the information privately with some clergy to get their initial reaction. One bishop – a very solid, faithful man – told us he found the report summaries downright depressing and startling, and even started questioning his own efforts at renewal in his own diocese – wondering if, in view of the actual realities on the ground, what he was doing was enough.

If there is a message we want viewers to get from all this, it isn’t that we should become despondent or depressed; it’s that we have to be realistic and look the problem squarely in the face and assess it correctly.

Here are a few more of the “money quotes” from today’s episode, with a little commentary from me. The full script is below the video.

Ignoring it – or more to the point, choosing to not confront it – won’t make the crisis go away. Informed people in the Church know this, and privately, are not only concerned, but growing increasingly concerned. There isn’t one indicator among any of the generally accepted institutional markers that anything is; in fact, many of the signs point to things becoming worse.  

This discussion has simply got to be had – and had in earnest. And since it doesn’t seem like anything of real substance is coming from the Establishment, it’s high time a discussion is had among the peasant Catholic crowd.

And by “peasant”, we don’t mean poor; we mean those who for a variety of reasons simply aren’t respected or considered in the day-to-day decisions by the Establishment types – the crowd that Pope Benedict labeled Professional Catholics.

Michael Voris is one of the “peasants”. I am one of them, too. If your letters to the bishop are ignored, you are one, too. If your parish priest ignores or criticizes your requests for correct liturgical practices, you are a “peasant” Catholic as well. Frankly, if you read this blog regularly, and like what you read, you’re a “peasant” Catholic.

The “Establishment” priests and bishops are not interested in what we think…even – or maybe especially – when we back up our “opinions” with references to Church documents.  The “Establishment” Church feels a need to pacify those who want guitar Masses and communion in the hand and altar girls; but they seem to wish the more traditional types would find a different parish. I really cannot understand why the people who want liturgical propriety are dismissed, while our shepherds bend over backwards to accommodate the (incorrect) liturgical desires of the “liberal progressive modernist crowd” (as MV often describes them).

Hmph. Well, back to the Vortex:

As Venerable – catch that…VENERABLE – Archbishop Fulton Sheen once told a large gathering: “Who is going to save our Church? Don’t look to the priests, don’t look to the bishops. It’s up to you, the laity, to remind our priests to be priests and our bishops to be bishops”.

Seriously. I think that for too many decades, the truly faithful Catholics have been beaten down, and they stayed quiet and put their heads down out of respect for the bishops. Well…the bishops, by and large, are betraying that respect.

Michael Voris and CMTV are promoting the upcoming “Retreat At Sea” (January 2014), which will have as its focus the “Reformation of the Church”. Here’s the link – check it out, give it some thought.

And here’s the Vortex, with the script below.

The script:

We are putting the finishing touches on an upcoming series of reports here about the decline of the Catholic Church in America that we are calling “The Demolition of the Faith”.

To be as kind and charitable as possible…it isn’t a pretty picture. We have actually shared some of the information privately with some clergy to get their initial reaction. One bishop – a very solid, faithful man – told us he found the report summaries downright depressing and startling, and even started questioning his own efforts at renewal in his own diocese – wondering if, in view of the actual realities on the ground, what he was doing was enough.

If there is a message we want viewers to get from all this, it isn’t that we should become despondent or depressed; it’s that we have to be realistic and look the problem squarely in the face and assess it correctly.

It’s true that there is occurring something of a slow waking up – like from a long Rip Van Winkle type slumber… like when Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York last year admitted to the Wall Street Journal that priests and bishops, including himself, had gotten “gun shy” – his words – “gun shy” about teaching the truths of the faith regarding the hot button issues – like contraception, for example.

And while admitting something like that is good, JUST admitting it – and still doing painfully little about it – isn’t good enough.

This is what we mean here at ChurchMilitant.TV when we say the confronting of the disaster is more like a long waking up from a deep sleep than acting like the house is on fire and springing from the bed into immediate action.

It is the second reaction that is needed; not the first.

The Catholic faithful – the fewer and fewer of them that there are – don’t have a clear picture of just how DEEP and pervasive the decay in the Church really is. And this isn’t just some hearkening back to the “good ‘ol days”. That line is thrown out like party favors by some in the Church every time the topic comes up – almost in an attempt to shut down any discussion because, if the discussion is allowed, then the crisis must be admitted.

After all, it was Cardinal Dolan himself nearly three years ago, on the day of his election as head of the bishops’ conference that said there was no crisis in the Church… and then doubled down on that statement a short while later at the annual Knights of Columbus national gathering when he jokingly dismissed the idea of a crisis.

Ignoring it – or more to the point, choosing to not confront it – won’t make the crisis go away. Informed people in the Church know this, and privately, are not only concerned, but growing increasingly concerned. There isn’t one indicator among any of the generally accepted institutional markers that anything is ; in fact, many of the signs point to things becoming worse.  

This discussion has simply got to be had – and had in earnest. And since it doesn’t seem like anything of real substance is coming from the Establishment, it’s high time a discussion is had among the peasant Catholic crowd.

And by “peasant”, we don’t mean poor; we mean those who for a variety of reasons simply aren’t respected or considered in the day to day decisions by the Establishment types – the crowd that Pope Benedict labeled Professional Catholics.

This has unfortunately become a showdown between the inertia of the Professional Catholics versus the alarm of the Peasant Catholics.

Well, if the establishment that runs the day-to-day of Church affairs won’t get on board with a discussion, then its high time the Peasantry do so. In so many ways, the peasant Catholics are actually better equipped to have this discussion, because they are the ones more impacted by the sleepy indifferent attitude of the professional bureaucratic establishment crowd.

As we said in Monday’s Vortex, this is exactly why this next Retreat at Sea this coming January will deal specifically with this topic: The Restoration of the Faith. What can the peasant Catholic – the faithful marginalized by the Establishment Catholic – do in response to such a indifference and lukewarm-ness on the part of the establishment. How can souls IN the Church, be won back TO the Faith? These are our loved ones, friends, family members, old college buddies, former high school friends – all of whom have been mowed down by the culture, in part because the Church Establishment simply didn’t care enough – because they were too “gun shy”, too concerned about their own rears, to do what needed to be done – AND STILL NEEDS TO BE DONE.

We’ve attached a link for you with all the relevant information about our 2014 Retreat at Sea and encourage you strongly to consider it. If you know someone who is among the Catholic Zombie crowd who you love and care about – but are concerned they haven’t gotten the authentic faith in plain speak – encourage them to come along. Tell them that even if they hate the message, they can still enjoy a nice time. We as a people have got to get back to BEING Catholic, and in the absence of any effective bold leadership – then it’s high time we tap into the graces from our baptisms and confirmations and do something ourselves.

As Venerable – catch that…VENERABLE – Archbishop Fulton Sheen once told a large gathering: “Who is going to save our Church? Don’t look to the priests, don’t look to the bishops. It’s up to you, the laity, to remind our priests to be priests and our bishops to be bishops”.

Please click on the link; get the info; pray about it; talk with other like-minded

Catholics; talk with loved ones who have strayed from or even have no real passion for the Church and try to bring them along.

We need to act, and we need to act while there is still something of a Church in the west left to save.