Roman Catholic Church feels Europe slipping from its hands

[All Along The Watchtower]

Sorry to contribute to the clogging up of this board with Catholic topics... 

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More:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-catholic-church-europe-20130311,0,2846801.story

[Blue3]

Nothing new. This is what John Paul and Benedict were supposed to fix.

[7,052,770]

It may be too late, but if the church stopped being evil on birth control and gay issues, it would get a lot of people back.

It's a shame, since the church is so right on almost every non-sex-related issue.

[Obamanation]

Real Europe will always be culturally Catholic and that's the most important thing.

[DC Al Fine]

It may be too late, but if the church stopped being evil on birth control and gay issues, it would get a lot of people back.

What evidence is there for this? The Anglicans, Presbyterians et al. are generally liberal, yet their membership is declining rapidly.

[opebo]

Slipping in to the hands of the Caliphate?

[Obamanation]

Slipping in to the hands of the Caliphate?

In all honesty, Europe should do something to discourage Muslim immigration. Right now, they're acting as if the Crusades were for naught.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Boilerplate. Not entirely or exactly (or not exactly entirely?) wrong, but the sort of thing that could be written (with hardly a change) at any time over the past couple of decades. Or at any time over the next couple as well. And always from a perspective that makes no sense.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Slipping in to the hands of the Caliphate?

In all honesty, Europe should do something to discourage Muslim immigration. Right now, they're acting as if the Crusades were for naught.

Stop trolling.

[Obamanation]

Slipping in to the hands of the Caliphate?

In all honesty, Europe should do something to discourage Muslim immigration. Right now, they're acting as if the Crusades were for naught.

Stop trolling.

Not every opinion you disagree with is trolling...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

God willing you aren't long for this forum anyway...

[DemPGH]

It's really interesting. As long as the church could 1) write history, 2) define knowledge in the absence of technology (and that's the big one, and on which everything else hinged), and 3) wield secular power through kings and magistrates, it could enforce whatever ideology it chose. This is the Church's problem: it is now an artifact, in and of itself. It's going to struggle to make itself relevant and meaningful in societies that are not developing, that are already developed - because those developed societies derive their knowledge from other sources at this point. It's evolutionary, and it's to be expected. Ultimately, the fate of religion is to be an obscure, kind of esoteric sense of personal spirituality. Not a set of dogmatic instructions, insights, and decrees handed down from On High.

[Obamanation]

It's really interesting. As long as the church could 1) write history, 2) define knowledge in the absence of technology (and that's the big one, and on which everything else hinged), and 3) wield secular power through kings and magistrates, it could enforce whatever ideology it chose. This is the Church's problem: it is now an artifact, in and of itself. It's going to struggle to make itself relevant and meaningful in societies that are not developing, that are already developed - because those developed societies derive their knowledge from other sources at this point. It's evolutionary, and it's to be expected. Ultimately, the fate of religion is to be an obscure, kind of esoteric sense of personal spirituality. Not a set of dogmatic instructions, insights, and decrees handed down from On High.

And that is what makes people horrible today: their uppity aversion to authority.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's really interesting. As long as the church could 1) write history, 2) define knowledge in the absence of technology (and that's the big one, and on which everything else hinged), and 3) wield secular power through kings and magistrates, it could enforce whatever ideology it chose. This is the Church's problem: it is now an artifact, in and of itself. It's going to struggle to make itself relevant and meaningful in societies that are not developing, that are already developed - because those developed societies derive their knowledge from other sources at this point. It's evolutionary, and it's to be expected. Ultimately, the fate of religion is to be an obscure, kind of esoteric sense of personal spirituality. Not a set of dogmatic instructions, insights, and decrees handed down from On High.

And that is what makes people horrible today: their uppity aversion to authority.

What DemPGH is describing and predicting is, insofar as the prediction part is accurate, a social and historical process that has very little to do with conscious choices on either the individual or the 'generational' level to accept or reject different types of authority.

[TJ in Oregon]

The thing about the Vatican is that most of it's members are Catholic; that is to say they actually believe the Church's teachings are true. And truth is not determined by taking a poll. The wealthy western world has been leaving the Church in droves for a while now. I think part of it is that within a wealthy society we feel we have everything we need and lose our hunger for God. We don't feel like we need Him for anything. We whitewash all suffering away. Jesus was tortured and killed in grotesque fashion, pleading the Father to take away his suffering if it was in the Father's will but accepting it otherwise. Christianity isn't Christianity without sacrifice and suffering. That doesn't gel easily with a wealthy society looking at how to maximize its own comfort.

Of course there are other factors at hand but that's the main one IMO.

[DemPGH]

It's really interesting. As long as the church could 1) write history, 2) define knowledge in the absence of technology (and that's the big one, and on which everything else hinged), and 3) wield secular power through kings and magistrates, it could enforce whatever ideology it chose. This is the Church's problem: it is now an artifact, in and of itself. It's going to struggle to make itself relevant and meaningful in societies that are not developing, that are already developed - because those developed societies derive their knowledge from other sources at this point. It's evolutionary, and it's to be expected. Ultimately, the fate of religion is to be an obscure, kind of esoteric sense of personal spirituality. Not a set of dogmatic instructions, insights, and decrees handed down from On High.

And that is what makes people horrible today: their uppity aversion to authority.

What DemPGH is describing and predicting is, insofar as the prediction part is accurate, a social and historical process that has very little to do with conscious choices on either the individual or the 'generational' level to accept or reject different types of authority.

Yeah, I really do see it as a type of evolutionary process, perhaps in social psychology. Sure, there are elements of society that are less religious than they used to be, but I think what's really happening is that notions of spirituality and edification are evolving. There's a good chance that it's because people know things they didn't used to know, so God now is more personal or perhaps individualized than in centuries past. To me that's logical. But the desire to believe in something bigger and grander isn't going anywhere, IMO - that "something bigger and grander" just isn't as easily dictated to the masses as in the past, which again I would expect because our knowledge has multiplied exponentially. Now, when I look at the scale of the cosmos and its laws it's hard for me to think that looking at that scope of things would not excite someone's awe and wonder, a drive to figure out what it means, where it came from, and where it's going. That drive to order and understand the physical world is probably the one thing that faith and other kinds of knowledge, like science, absolutely have in common.

[angus]

"The Catholic Church can try to re-evangelize by getting the modern world back into step with it"

[ZuWo]

It may be too late, but if the church stopped being evil on birth control and gay issues, it would get a lot of people back.

It's a shame, since the church is so right on almost every non-sex-related issue.

Your first assertion is probably not accurate. Various European protestant churches have become liberal on a wide range of issues and it hasn't helped them at all with regards to church membership.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

Why should the church (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Pentacostal) compromise those core fundamental truths? Yes its to be a force for worldwide charity and compassion but to diminish in any way what scripture says regarding the moral issues is just as wrong as diminishing the charitable. People are leaving the liberal churches because of the corruption and hypocrisy that is so prevelant. I wish that they would join a more conservative church rather than leave the faith altogether. 

[LastVoter]

Why should the church (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Pentacostal) compromise those core fundamental truths? Yes its to be a force for worldwide charity and compassion but to diminish in any way what scripture says regarding the moral issues is just as wrong as diminishing the charitable. People are leaving the liberal churches because of the corruption and hypocrisy that is so prevelant. I wish that they would join a more conservative church rather than leave the faith altogether. 

Maybe because people are uncomfortable with conservative churches?