The Journal of Ecclesiastical History
Church historians are divided on the precise date or year of the extinction event. Some push it back to encyclicals of Pius XII: Divino afflante Spiritu and Humani Generis. At the other end, some church historians think the last Catholic died during the Francis Pontificate. While other church historians think it happened under John XXIII, Paul VI, or John-Paul II. But all church historians agree that somewhere within that period, Catholics became an extinct species.
To be sure, untold millions continue to attend Catholic churches, but there's not a single living Catholic among them. In the end, it came down to two factions: traditional Catholics who didn't believe in establishment Catholicism and establishment Catholics who didn't believe in traditional Catholicism. Between those two groups, there wasn't a single believing Catholic left on earth.
I think you meant "Catholics become an 'extinct' species." That position seems too extreme. People of all religions, and of each division within them, do change as their culture changes. Institutional religions, in most countries, have lost many followers. Even 'spiritual, but not religious' are being replaced by 'who cares?' That is unfortunate.
ReplyDeleteCatholic theology is inseparable from institutional Catholicism in a way that's not the case for, say, evangelicals. It's the institution that authorizes the dogms.
ReplyDeleteIt is a drawback of the Catholic philosophy that if any priest of of the hierarchy had mental reservation on the integral details of their office, they did not accomplish the sacrament that they were doing. If a priest did not believe he was actually transforming the wafers into the body of God, then there was not any forgiveness and atonement for sin. The recipient remained dead in their sin. If any bishop or any higher official did not believe correctly in the Catholic essentials, then any ordination was null and barren. The recipient priest had no idea that his office was ineffectual. All his flock would remain dead in their sins or marriages were not blessed and deficient, or last rites not operant.
ReplyDeletePeople hungry for God's grace should bravely read the bible, God's Word. They should attend churches that work to correspond to God's Word. I know they have been told that even reading it they cannot really know its meaning. But they should come as a beggar and do the best that they can as I do also, trusting in God's work in this world.
I am trying to use an internal critique of how things work in the Catholic institution. Break out of that Catholic paradigm-----! Go to Jesus!
Rob.