Vortex: Lukewarm Shepherds Lose Souls

Ah, Michael Voris, you have done it again – hit the nail on the head!

In today’s (April 25) episode of the Vortex, Voris addresses a big, overlooked problem: many people have left the Church, NOT because of the “oppressive” teachings about sexual morality, but because the shepherds of the Church, along with many of the sheep, are so lukewarm in the way they talk about it and live it.

Voris says (my emphasis):

…after last night’s talk, a mother and adult son came up afterward and started posing a series of questions and comments.

They had ventured into a protestant congregation where the mother said she just felt that she was being fed more than at the Catholic parish she used to attend. She was more comfortable, she said, in this community and for her children as well since they enjoyed the services at the protestant assembly more.

So we talked for a while… about the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist and so forth. As she talked more and more it became clear that she didn’t reject any of that; she just never saw any evidence of it among the priests and congregation at the Catholic parish she had attended a few years earlier. She even pointed out that no one genuflected before going into the pew.

Her word was that the faith among Catholics was lukewarm, if even that. And she’s right on many points. The faith has grown cold in many Catholics. They have grown lukewarm towards Our Blessed Lord. The word indifferent springs to mind.

And this is a danger that never gets talked about very much in the Church these days. So much attention is heaped on Catholics who leave the Church because of the moral teachings – mostly about sexual issues – that almost NO attention is focused on Catholics who leave because they are not being fed.

I'd make a substantial monthly
donation if this parish promised to
make this a Catholic sanctuary.

This strikes home for me; in my brief conversation with Archbishop Sample the other night, I told him that I felt that my diocese is one of the most Protestant dioceses in the nation. He looked a little confused by that, and I hastened to add that while the Archdiocese of Portland (and others you can think of, I’m sure) has a lot of liberal and dissident individuals and groups trying to undermine the teachings of the Church, the sprawling but sparsely populated rural diocese next door simply lacks Catholic identity. In my diocese, I don’t think there are any “gay” Masses or even participation in “gay pride” parades, or outrageous things like that. There used to be some “Call to Action” groups here and there, but they were squelched…I think. Mostly what I see is a quiet, uninformed, lukewarm imitation of the Protestant church down the street. “Can’t we all just get along?” No one wants to make waves in our small communities. As Michael Voris says in the video:

Many Church leaders today seek to straddle the fence – on the one hand, not wanting to say anything in homilies that might offend the people or make them feel uncomfortable, while on the other hand keeping up appearances at least of being faithful to Church teaching.

When they do that, the result is homilies that sound like email forwards, or “shared” posts on Face Book. And like the woman Michael Voris describes in the video, many Catholics in these parts have jumped ship to a Protestant church because of the lukewarm approach of our priests.

The ones who are left in the Catholic pews are largely protestantized themselves. They don’t act like they believe in the Real Presence; the sanctuary is like Grand Central Station with all the lay ministers traipsing through it.  Where is the awe and reverence due Our Lord? I don’t see it in the parishes where I attend, or have visited.  Where are the homilies defending the Catholic beliefs that are being degraded and derided by the secular world? Again, priests don’t want to offend anyone, for fear the collection plate will suffer – or just because they don’t want to be unpopular.

This always leaves me with a burning question: why do our shepherds bend over backwards to placate those who ask for liturgical abuses and watered-down teaching, but ignore the pleas of those who simply ask for what the Church teaches? They are afraid the former will leave, but seem in a hurry to rush the latter out the door.

Aren’t our priests supposed to help us grow in holiness? Isn’t that their task as pastors? But that’s not what I see. I see the lukewarm teaching Michael Voris describes, and I see busy priests who succumb to the temptation to “go with the flow” rather than challenge their parishioners to walk that path to holiness. In so doing, these pastors sabotage the souls of the faithful, and their own souls as well.

Don’t try to tell me that they must do “the most good for the most people”, either. Jesus himself advocated doing what needs to be done for that one lost sheep. By allowing a parish to remain stuck in its protestantized lukewarm habits, they are doing harm rather than good. They may have the good intention of wanting to keep their flock from leaving the Church, but what good is a parish full of lukewarm Catholics who don’t believe critical Church doctrine? 

Here’s the Vortex, with the full script below.

We’re here in Melbourne giving a couple of talks to some very enthusiastic and faithful groups of Catholics – a great blessing to be able to do so, we might add. But after last night’s talk, a mother and adult son came up afterward and started posing a series of questions and comments.

They had ventured into a protestant congregation where the mother said she just felt that she was being fed more than at the Catholic parish she used to attend. She was more comfortable, she said, in this community and for her children as well since they enjoyed the services at the protestant assembly more.

So we talked for a while… about the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist and so forth. As she talked more and more it became clear that she didn’t reject any of that; she just never saw any evidence of it among the priests and congregation at the Catholic parish she had attended a few years earlier. She even pointed out that no one genuflected before going into the pew.

Her word was that the faith among Catholics was lukewarm if even that. And she’s right on many points. The faith has grown cold in many Catholics. They have grown lukewarm towards Our Blessed Lord. The word indifferent springs to mind.

And this is a danger that never gets talked about very much in the Church these days. So much attention is heaped on Catholics who leave the Church because of the moral teachings – mostly about sexual issues – that almost NO attention is focused on Catholics who leave because they are not being fed.

Many Church leaders today seek to straddle the fence – on the one hand, not wanting to say anything in homilies that might offend the people or make them feel uncomfortable, while on the other hand keeping up appearances at least of being faithful to Church teaching.

The strategy has proven to be an utter failure: appealing to no one so that BOTH camps leave the Church – those who object to the teachings, and those in search of them but who never hear them.

This mother and her children are a perfect example. She is Catholic at heart, but protestant in practice because she has been denied the authentic faith in reality. What a terrible condemnation of church leaders and their inept plans that such a situation exists.

The Catholic faith possesses the fullness of the truth, as we laid out for her, referring to Scripture and Tradition and walking her and her children through salvation history.

She said, quite correctly, that so many Catholics – including priests – have no passion or hunger for souls… so what recourse did she have? She said very plainly: she wanted her children to grow up with a love for Jesus.

Her words stand as witness against so much that has transpired in the last 50 plus years in the Church. And they are echoed in the recent words of the Holy Father. Pope Francis said at a Mass last week in reference to lukewarm Catholics:

“These Christians are not united in the Church, they do not walk in God's presence, they don’t have the security of the Holy Spirit, they do not make up the Church. They are Christians of good sense only: they keep their distance…to quote the words of Jesus in Revelation, 'lukewarm Christians'. The indifference that is in the Church ... They walk only in the presence of common sense common sense ... that worldly prudence.”

You constantly hear form the lukewarm clerical set that you shouldn’t beat people over the head, that you have to take people where they are, that we are all at different places in our spiritual journey. These expressions are cop-outs, pure and simple. They allow the priest and the bishop to hide behind the vague idea that people are not ready to hear the truth yet; that we will bring them along eventually.

But EVENTUALLY never comes. What is happening is that the lowest common denominator is being played to at the expense of those who DO want to hear the truth in all its naked glory and terrible earth shattering reality. THESE people are being – have been – driven from the church into communities that only have partial truth. They come to the Catholic Church for gold and are handed peanut butter; or to quote Our Lord, they ask for bread and are handed a serpent.

In St. John’s Apocalypse, Our Blessed Lord warns very clearly that the lukewarm he will vomit from His mouth. Too many people in the Church these days - and not just those sitting in the pews – most especially those NOT sitting in the pews – have had their faith grown cold. They are, as Cardinal Oulette has said, constantly measuring the preaching of the gospel against the political correctness of declaring it and anticipating the consequences. People will be offended; some people will leave; the pews will empty they say. Well, here’s a newsflash. That’s already happening with people who WANT to hear the truth.

For the sake of those who want to hear the fullness of the truth…for the Love of God…say it.

And just in case you are wondering, the woman and her family came to Mass with us this morning, her 20-something son is going to be getting in touch with the priest, who is very solid, and reconnecting with the Faith of which he was deprived during his youth by the lukewarm.

Keep him and her in your prayers.