You should transform all your articles into a hard-hitting but readable book that could be given to the faithful, the priests, and the bishops. If I was the publisher I would call it “The Bad News: What We Have to Accept (and fix) to Get Back to the Good News”
Thanks for this thoughtful article. To be fair, that Franciscan church in NYC was an outlier back then, even among city churches: probably dozens of active friars lived in the attached residence. The OFM place in Boston was also a "factory" with 31 Masses each Sunday in 1980; now only five. Three smaller Franciscan "worker chapels" in Boston, Providence, and New Bedford were given up by the order. That story of collapse, with the disappearance of numerous city religious-order churches and chapels, is worth telling, but it's distinct from the collapse of general parish life.
You state that, "... revolutionaries first went after the most successful in the Church, to ensure a state of dependence and shortages so that their revolutionaries would hold sway over those who remained."
Do you believe there was a concerted effort in the 60-70s to purposefully drive out the "most successful" or do you think there was a naive optimism on the part of the Fathers of Vatican II, the Pope, and the reformers of the liturgy about how the "modern man" would respond to the Council and liturgical changes, which happened to destroy the most successful/ faithful unintentionally?
The "reform" of religious life followed by the persecution of faithful Order decimated the Sisters and Brothers and other religious Orders and that continues today with the closing of many hundreds of convents, etc. It has been a suicidal mission that the Church embarked upon with the VII aftermath and is still continuing. There is indeed an crisis. Recall that in the Arian heresy, only a few clung to the true faith such as the persecuted and exiled St. Anathasius. And when countries embraced the ease of protestanism, again only a few would hold fast and there were mane martyrs. We must also cling to the true deposit of faith and hold fast. There are consequences of course.
You should transform all your articles into a hard-hitting but readable book that could be given to the faithful, the priests, and the bishops. If I was the publisher I would call it “The Bad News: What We Have to Accept (and fix) to Get Back to the Good News”
Thanks for this thoughtful article. To be fair, that Franciscan church in NYC was an outlier back then, even among city churches: probably dozens of active friars lived in the attached residence. The OFM place in Boston was also a "factory" with 31 Masses each Sunday in 1980; now only five. Three smaller Franciscan "worker chapels" in Boston, Providence, and New Bedford were given up by the order. That story of collapse, with the disappearance of numerous city religious-order churches and chapels, is worth telling, but it's distinct from the collapse of general parish life.
Yes, right.
It’s still emblematic of the broader story of what happens when priests get stretched thin.
I am going to write soon about the devastation of religious orders during this time period and why that happened in particular.
I put this on audio mode doing chores this PM and was like “why does he keep saying my name??” 🤣😅
You state that, "... revolutionaries first went after the most successful in the Church, to ensure a state of dependence and shortages so that their revolutionaries would hold sway over those who remained."
Do you believe there was a concerted effort in the 60-70s to purposefully drive out the "most successful" or do you think there was a naive optimism on the part of the Fathers of Vatican II, the Pope, and the reformers of the liturgy about how the "modern man" would respond to the Council and liturgical changes, which happened to destroy the most successful/ faithful unintentionally?
Likely both. I’ll be writing something soon on the former and want to look a bit more into the latter about naivite.
I have written tangentially on both of those here:
https://grainofwheat.substack.com/p/the-mass-psychosis-of-the-catholic
https://grainofwheat.substack.com/p/filtering-out-the-faithful
You hit it right between the eyes.
The "reform" of religious life followed by the persecution of faithful Order decimated the Sisters and Brothers and other religious Orders and that continues today with the closing of many hundreds of convents, etc. It has been a suicidal mission that the Church embarked upon with the VII aftermath and is still continuing. There is indeed an crisis. Recall that in the Arian heresy, only a few clung to the true faith such as the persecuted and exiled St. Anathasius. And when countries embraced the ease of protestanism, again only a few would hold fast and there were mane martyrs. We must also cling to the true deposit of faith and hold fast. There are consequences of course.