The Springtime Has Failed, The Time Has Come For The Sowing Season

[mortify]

From http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/03/conclave-springtime-has-failed-time-has.html

 

===QUOTE===

 

 2013 Conclave - Il Foglio editorial
The springtime has failed, the time has come for the sowing season

 

[Italian daily Il Foglio, Editorial, March 4, 2013. Translated and adapted by Contributor Francesca Romana]

 

 

Hoping for autumn sowing in the Church, not springtime pollination

 

I do not believe in the myth of the Vatican springtime, nor in the springtime of the Catholic Church and the Papacy. The Church must sow as is done in autumn and not be pollinated like an April flower. The owners of international public opinion, even the Catholic one, are demanding a new embracing of the present world, that is meeting it halfway, going along with the temperament of peoples and cultures, being skillful imitators, formalizing new rules of life in the Church which copy the criteria of the judgment of the world from the waves of modernity, from the 16th century onwards, thus abolishing old rules and cancelling old features.

 

If this is the case, it might be better [for the Church] to close up shop. The experiment of pollination has already been done. It was a highminded moment and it was certainly ambitious, but it has failed and it is not the fault of the Roman Curia if the way of treating old and new problems in the religion business has caused the numbing of souls, if hearts are not being warmed, and if faith and reason are not built upon that sovereign balance which was attempted by both John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

 

We already have the United Nations and UNESCO, we already have the universal philosophy of human rights, we have humanitarian consciousness and we have contemporaneous idols and myths such as equality, liberty and fraternity. In fact, we have a perennial breeze of springtime light that hides every semblance of pain, sin, redemption, of the supernatural, of interior and collective salvation, of penance, reconciliation and mercy. Furthermore, we have a realistic and mediocre idea of personal faith, seen as a lifestyle, not as an experience that cannot be explained, a greater, efficacious grace transcending conscience - a measure of irrationality inside rationality -, and also the exterior beauty of the evangelical vision, in imitation of Christ - of relying on the Messiah , God Incarnate.

 

The problem does not lie in allowing priests to marry; so be it. The problem is that, even if one is married or not, the flesh remains the place of concupiscence, the sweet pleasure of a moment, an instant, in contrast to the immaculate fragrance of trusting in the Eternal. If in governing the great body of the Church it were necessary to emancipate Her from the reformism of the great Pope Gregory VII (as Hans Küng suggests), and if this should be left to an assembly of debating bishops instead of the infallible Vicar of Christ - a theological elaboration which is becoming less and less Petrine and less and less Roman, more connected to the patterns of life and spirituality of those primitive, praying ethnic groups, which only the reforms of Paul, Augustine, Constantine and Gregory transformed into Ecclesia, into the People of God, into a universal institution, modeled on the pre-Christian and secular organization of the Roman Empire - then so be it, so may the will of the clergy and lay and progressive theology be done. But, in the end, what we will have is a copy of an already well-known Kantian moral-code bent to the demands of the childish hedonism of our times with no sign of grace nor a return to God - whatever this may mean for believers and unbelievers alike.

 

I hope that the [General] Congregations go to the root [of the problem], and that the sowing will begin, after years of pollination and abandonment.

[Evangetholic]

^"15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

¹⁶ Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

¹⁷ The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep." John 21

 

If I am to have Christ, I must have Peter--without him I'd get lost and starve. If the Church's spring has not come, then yes, it's time for autumn's work. In the United States 70% of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence--let's start there.

 

 

 

[Basilisa Marie]

The Springtime has failed? Um how about no. 

 

I see your grumpy Italian editorial, and raise you a hopeful American Theologian essay from Communio: 

 

http://communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/portier31-1.pdf

 

An excerpt: 

 

I first encountered evangelical Catholics according to O’Brien’s

unorthodox pairing of charismatics and Catholic Workers. The early

1980s brought an influx of Catholic charismatics to Emmitsburg,

Maryland, where I had begun to teach at Mount Saint Mary’s College

in 1979. Bright and clean cut, they were some of the best theology

students I’ve ever taught. I hadn’t expected them to be. At conferences

during the same decade I began to run into Stanley Hauerwas’

Catholic graduate students. Like the charismatics they had a nose for

real theological questions. But they combined it with an unabashed

devotion to Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero. 

 

Also during the 1980s, David Schindler, longtime editor of

Communio’s English-language edition, introduced me to a host of

young people who impressed me with their theologically sophisticated

refusal to separate “orthodoxy” from social justice. For nearly two

decades, Schindler has struggled to save the social thought of Pope

John Paul II from a Wall Street takeover.

 

By the 1990s, a new breed of student started turning up in my

theology classes. Far from a majority, their small number often

includes the most intellectually gifted. These students are interested in

Catholic-specific issues. They want meat. They love the Pope. They

are pro-life. They do service trips during breaks and gravitate toward

“service” upon graduation. All during this time as well, I observed the

150 or so seminarians at Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary on our campus.

Often dismissed as “conservative” throwbacks to the 1950s, they strike

me as undeniably contemporary.

 

According to the binary common sense of contemporary

American Catholicism, especially in the academy, these people that I

mention are not supposed to exist. Neither liberal nor conservative,

they confound the categories of my fifty-something friends. The

evangelical Catholics O’Brien had foreseen back in 1989 have arrived

in force. This essay offers a preliminary account of them. 

 

...

 

 

In the struggle to re-theologize Catholic theology in the

United States, one of the most contested sites will be natural law. As

inherited from modern scholasticism, natural law has been the

hallmark of Catholic approaches to God and to areas of moral theology

such as just war theory, bio-medical ethics, and Catholic social

thought. Appeals to natural law lie at the heart of the Americanist

tradition. From a theological perspective, the manifest weakness of

modern natural law approaches is the very theological indeterminacy

that is supposed to make them “public.”

 

The way forward is not to jettison natural law but to retheologize it.

To this end the pope’s work on war and on the relation

between faith and reason is path-breaking and paradigmatic. To take

another example, most forms of Catholic social teaching in the U.S.

today are designed to be detachable from Catholic theology as a whole

so they can be put to “nonsectarian” use in public policy debate. The

claim here is that this body of thought will remain impotent to inspire

people to evangelize culture in the name of Jesus until it receives an

infusion of theological energy similar to the one Pope John Paul II has

given to Catholic thinking about war.

 

This essay began with David O’Brien’s notion of evangelical

Catholics and with his prediction that their tribe would increase.

Trying to read the signs of the times, I have argued that his prediction

has come true. The evangelical Catholics have arrived in our midst.

They will never be the majority of Catholics in the United States. But

the images of contrast society, diaspora, and little flock suggest ways

their presence might help overcome the pernicious effects on the

Church of the modern distinction between public and private. May

their joy at being Catholic help revitalize the churches and the world!

And help to re-theologize Catholic theology as well! 

 

History is pushing American Catholics in an evangelical

direction sociologically. Theologically that can be a good thing both

for American Catholics and for other Christians in the United States.

Let us pray that it will be so. 

 

 

My point is that "springtime" isn't just a silly fluffy theological idea of failure.  It's produced a new breed of young Catholics - the kind that love orthodoxy and service, that are discerning religious life and holy marriages, a kind of evangelical Catholicism that drives the very heart and soul of Phatmass. We're the ones with popes on our coffee mugs, snappy phrases on our T-shirts, and dirty hands from sowing mustard seeds in our wake.  

 

Autumn is not the time for sowing - it's the time for reaping.  Spring is the time for sowing. People are wrong to despair in our efforts to engage with the world - what the heck is wrong with people?  They think we're supposed to close our doors, ignore the world? What about the mandate to preach the Gospel to all nations? Closing up shop is just another form of Laodicean complacency.  The attempt of inculturation has not been a failure.  It's the very reason why we have a new generation of vibrant Catholics clamoring to inherit our Church's ministries. 

[Seven77]

 God is not impressed with depressed-faith Catholics.

[Seven77]

 Well said.

 

 

My point is that "springtime" isn't just a silly fluffy theological idea of failure.  It's produced a new breed of young Catholics - the kind that love orthodoxy and service, that are discerning religious life and holy marriages, a kind of evangelical Catholicism that drives the very heart and soul of Phatmass. We're the ones with popes on our coffee mugs, snappy phrases on our T-shirts, and dirty hands from sowing mustard seeds in our wake.  

 

Autumn is not the time for sowing - it's the time for reaping.  Spring is the time for sowing. People are wrong to despair in our efforts to engage with the world - what the heck is wrong with people?  They think we're supposed to close our doors, ignore the world? What about the mandate to preach the Gospel to all nations? Closing up shop is just another form of Laodicean complacency.  The attempt of inculturation has not been a failure.  It's the very reason why we have a new generation of vibrant Catholics clamoring to inherit our Church's ministries. 

 

[Evangetholic]

70% of American Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence.

[Basilisa Marie]

70% of American Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence.

 

So closing our doors and shutting up and leaving them out in the cold is the answer?  Ignoring them is going to change their minds? 

 

No.  

 

We need to be pulling out all the stops, using any tactic that works to get these people to understand and get them back into a state of grace in the Church.  If we just give up, we have failed and deserve to be vomited from the mouth of Christ with the Church at Laodicea. 

 

WE have failed 70% of American Catholics.  If we know better, why aren't we trying to get them to understand?  If it's so important to us, why don't we try to get them to understand?  Do we not take our faith seriously?  We're the ones who know better, so we're the ones with the responsibility to instruct the ignorant.  Are we saying that the woebegone culture is so great that we are powerless in it's face?  We, who are charged with the duty of bringing the Light of Christ to the world, are too lazy to shine in the darkness?  Do we lack the necessary creativity?  The rhetorical skill?  The empathetic ear?  What is it, then? Do we dare to despair in the power of the Holy Spirit promised to us?  I'm sick of hearing excuses about our woebegone culture.

 

 

 

 

I have a lot of feelings about evangelization.  :|

[Evangetholic]

So closing our doors and shutting up and leaving them out in the cold is the answer?  Ignoring them is going to change their minds? 

 

No.  

 

We need to be pulling out all the stops, using any tactic that works to get these people to understand and get them back into a state of grace in the Church.  If we just give up, we have failed and deserve to be vomited from the mouth of Christ with the Church at Laodicea. 

 

WE have failed 70% of American Catholics.  If we know better, why aren't we trying to get them to understand?  If it's so important to us, why don't we try to get them to understand?  Do we not take our faith seriously?  We're the ones who know better, so we're the ones with the responsibility to instruct the ignorant.  Are we saying that the woebegone culture is so great that we are powerless in it's face?  We, who are charged with the duty of bringing the Light of Christ to the world, are too lazy to shine in the darkness?  Do we lack the necessary creativity?  The rhetorical skill?  The empathetic ear?  What is it, then? Do we dare to despair in the power of the Holy Spirit promised to us?  I'm sick of hearing excuses about our woebegone culture.

 

 

 

 

I have a lot of feelings about evangelization.   :|

 

Neither I nor the article are advocating giving up on the wayward baptized or the pagan culture. The language of bloom and blossoming seems Pollyanna to me though.

 

But I agree with the rest of your post. We must reach the world with the Gospel, starting with the Church's own children. I just think we need to understand how dark the picture is, how unlike the people on this website, and the other islets of orthodoxy most Catholics are. But whether we see the glass as half full or half empty (my personal choice)--you make me excited to evangelize. :)

 

''Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full." Luke 14:23

[mortify]

The Springtime has failed? Um how about no. 

 

My point is that "springtime" isn't just a silly fluffy theological idea of failure.  It's produced a new breed of young Catholics - the kind that love orthodoxy and service, that are discerning religious life and holy marriages, a kind of evangelical Catholicism that drives the very heart and soul of Phatmass. We're the ones with popes on our coffee mugs, snappy phrases on our T-shirts, and dirty hands from sowing mustard seeds in our wake.  

 

Autumn is not the time for sowing - it's the time for reaping.  Spring is the time for sowing. People are wrong to despair in our efforts to engage with the world - what the heck is wrong with people?  They think we're supposed to close our doors, ignore the world? What about the mandate to preach the Gospel to all nations? Closing up shop is just another form of Laodicean complacency.  The attempt of inculturation has not been a failure.  It's the very reason why we have a new generation of vibrant Catholics clamoring to inherit our Church's ministries. 

 

BM, that was a well written post and I agree with you concerning some of the positives but we have take a hard look at reality, we are not living in a springtime of the Church. Check the statistics, in every single category the Church has met a significant drop as in the example of priests. In 1965 the United States had 58,632 priests and by 2012 we have 38,964, that is a wopping 34% decrease in the number of priests despite the total number of self professed Catholics increasing. Religious sisters took an even greater hit, in 1965 there were 179,954 sisters serving the Church and community in numerous ways, by 2012 that numer dropped to 54,018, that's a 70% decrease(!) Now I think it's great we have snappy T-shirts and drink from mugs that read "I love JP2" but let's get real, this is a very grim period and we're just looking at the quantity of Catholics, what about the quality? In 2012 survey results reveal 78.2 million Americans identified as "Catholic," but of those only 24% attend mass regularly, of the 66% who don't  most say it's because they don't feel missing mass is a mortal sin. We saw another infamous statistic by another poster, 70% of American Catholics don't believe in the real presence. In other words, the average "Catholic" is at best a material heretic! So take the grim figures showing sharp shifts downward and add that to the fact that most Catholics are not Catholic, they are grains of sand calling themselves salt, and what is salt if it loses its saltiness? So I'm sorry but I can't agree with you. This "new spring-time" business is just another way of saying we ought to stay the same course. The course we are on is leading us to inevitable destruction, and something has to give way. We simply can not keep deceiving ourselves with romantic phrases and false hopes, there are clear reasons why we are where we are today and it's time things really change.

 

Let's accept the reality of our situation, see where we went wrong and ask ourselves why the Catholic Church in the first half of the 20th century was on the rise while since then it's been on a steadfast decline. This is not an easy task, it is very uncomfortable and painful, and it will require us to lose some of our most deeply held notions. Sometimes however, you must sacrifice a hand so that the rest of the body may live, and so it must be with us.

[mortify]

(The statistics I refer to above can be found here: http://cara.georgetown.edu/CARAServices/requestedchurchstats.html)

[Evangetholic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir4eA8jf5Ss