How did the Catholic Church Fall Into This Pit? How The Heaven Do We Get Out?

+

JMJ

Although Pope Francis was elected over the space of a few days, his election has been planned for a very long time.

The Free-Masons understood (read: Alta-Vendetta), that combat between the Church of Christ and the World / Flesh / Devil is measured on a scale of centuries.

No this is not a conspiracy theory post, it is about a frank (abeit brief) review of the roots of the crisis, how they erupted during the Second Vatican Council and how the Church will recover.



In reality, this particular crisis has its roots in the Lutherian revolt.  However, the Church became infected shortly before the election of Pius IX and it is from that date (1846 ) that I mark the beginning of this crisis.

The key difference is that while Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X strove against the errors of the day, I believe, missteps were made by Benedict XV, Pius XI and Pius XII.

In particular, I believe that the neo-modernists took advantage of Pope XII's failing health (as they did with Pope St. John Paul II's) to gain the advantage.

From that point forward the Church has basically had a rough time of it.  There were slight respites and points where the sun broke through the fog of war.  However, as a whole the neo-modernists et al have been in control from the Second Vatican Council onwards.

One way to gauge the health of the Catholic Church is the ratio of laity to ordinations.  I am, of course, assuming that when the Laity is faithful and fervent, that Grace and the environment foster a Catholic generosity of spirit that results in the blessing of vocations.

Priestly vocations are a particularly good metric because we have access to a good amount of data from which to make inferences.

The following chart shows the ratio of Laity vs Ordinations for the UK, USA and the World.  While we only have data from the 1960's for the USA and World - I found extensive history for the UK.  I have to give credit to a researcher from the Centre for Research in the Apostolate (CARA) who pointed me to this metric.  The Laity are the fountain from which springs the vocations and therefore this metric provides a good thermometer of the temperature of the Church.  In this diagram a 'low' number indicates a level of Charity within the Church, whereas 'high' numbers indicated a lukewarm, tepid or cold Charity.

So what do these numbers indicate?

First it is important to understand that the Church contains a dominant culture and a plethora of sub-cultures.  So we can't expect to see a perfect alignment between the macro (Church) and micro (UK / USA) trends.

Here are the following inferences that I draw from the data represented in the chart:

• Up to the mid 1960's the Church (at least in the UK) things were relatively stable. The only significant perturbations were the world wars. 
• During the Pontificate of Pope Paul VI, the Church entered a free-fall in Charity.
• At the level of the Church this free fall was turned around with the election of Pope St. John Paul II.
• The recovery halted somewhere between 1980 and 1990 and was reversed in 1998.  For me the bookends to these events are the first Assisi meeting and the onset of JP2's Parkinson's.
• Pope Benedict's relatively short Pontificate did not reverse the trend.
• The USA and UK trends seem to be delayed, which makes sense as the Bishop's appointed by the Pope have a lasting effect on their local Churches, whereas the Pope affects the Church as a whole.
• The ratio is a useful indication of the health of the Church as these trends were accompanied by a great drop in the attendance of Catholic and abandoning of the faith.
• At this time we don't know how Pope Francis has affected these stats.  I am willing to bet that the indicators will go up for some time (ie bad effect).

So - where's the silver lining?

First, the effect of even a moderate Pope such as Pope St. John Paul II, while insufficient to turn things around did appear to act as a brake on the modernists.

Second, the effect of a Pope of the calibre of Pope St. Pius X would have a marked and approximately immediate effect on the Church as a whole, but there is a lag of ~5-10 years at the level of the particular Churches (ie USA, UK etc).

Third, the effect of a bad Pope like Pope Paul VI and presumably Pope Francis is immediate and obvious to all!

Conclusion

The Church can actually 'turn on a dime' - we've seen it with Pope St. John Paul II.  What we need now is a Pope St. Pius X.

So the Pope is the key to getting 'out' of this pit.

1. Good Popes invigorate the Church,
2. Moderate Popes keep the Church on the course their inherited,
3. Ambiguous Popes, depending on which way the wind is blowing can be either good or bad for the Church.  Unfortunately, the good they do appears to be overshadowed by the bad.
4. Bad Popes (I'm thinking specifically of Paul VI) are devastating for the Church.

How Pope Francis affects the Church in terms of the above stats remains to be seen.  From a point of view of doctrine, he has created a mess.

P^3