Signs of the times people. Signs of the times. The news coming out of Cincinnati looks bleak. They can call it a “reorganization” or an “adjustment.” But let’s call it what it is. A disaster.
WLWT: “There will be new pastors, new clusters of churches, and new challenges ahead as the Cincinnati Archdiocese takes the next steps in its major reorganization process. On Monday, it gave parishioners in the 19-county Archdiocese a peek at the changing landscape starting this summer.
According to the Archdiocese, all of the assignments have been made and accepted. Archbishop Dennis Schnurr has said the reorganization is necessary in order to reposition the church for future growth.
For 450,000 of the Catholic faithful, the adjustment period has arrived. In phases over the next five years, the number of parishes will be trimmed from 210 to 57.”
Wow. That’s a staggering number. We can call it an organizational shift. We can talk about new realities but in the end it would seem that the Catholic Church is dying in the USA. We can say it. We should say it. And then we should talk about why and stop doing it.
I’ve read conflicting things about Archbishop Schnurr. On the one hand, I’ve seen he’s prayed in front of abortion clinics but then, on the other hand, the archdiocese recently pulled its support of a men’s leadership conference because Jim Caviezel and Raymond Arroyo were speaking.
What?
But this isn’t a Cincinnati story. This is an America story.
The Church needs heroes right now, not administrators. Not reorganizers. The Church needs people willing to stand up for the faith. Saints aren’t supposed to act like normal people.
The Church in America is in an existential crisis but what do we get:
“LA, Cincinnati archbishops announce friendly Super Bowl 2022 wager.”
I’m not even critiquing that in particular. But that’s what we get. We get silliness. We get politics. Look at the twitter pages of most of the bishops. It’s ridiculous stuff. You’d never guess from reading them that the Church was in crisis.
We should be on fire with the news that Jesus has saved us all. We should take seriously His words and work to live by them. He is the Truth, the Way, The Life.
The time of the martyrs is approaching. It could be prevented with some faithful courage now but there’s little sign of that happening.
“The Problem Is Not That The Churches Are Filled With Empty Pews, But That The Pews Are Filled With Empty People – Charlie Shedd.
HT Big Pulpit
February 16, 2022 at 1:12 pm
Not too many decades ago, Cincinnati was a vibrant, very Catholic city. The beginning of the end started under Bernadin in the 1970’s. (I lived there then.)
It makes me sad to see this.
I still remember fondly the beauty of their Cathedral.
February 16, 2022 at 4:40 pm
The Latin Mass parishes have been the ones blooming and growing but they are targeted now because they are a block to the decimation of the Church.
February 17, 2022 at 9:27 am
“LA, Cincinnati archbishops announce friendly Super Bowl 2022 wager.”
Some might say that this is such a small thing that it’s not worth critiquing, but I think that paradoxically the fact that it’s not a big deal is precisely why it’s a big deal, or at least a microcosm of the deep disorder in much of the hierarchy today. They are supposed to be successors of the apostles, and while they keep their mouths shut about things that actually matter when they matter, and while they’ll shutter their churches because Caesar tells them to, they’ll make sure to make cute banal and trivial gestures in honor of our culture’s true high holy day.
February 17, 2022 at 10:37 am
20 years ago when I came to Cincinnati, we boasted over 500,000. Note they finally admit 450k and shrinking. That is a preshutdown number. Went chicken on TLM to stop that growth. Only the orthodox laity are keeping it that high here. Make Lent count in ’22.
February 17, 2022 at 11:34 am
There is nothing courageous for Bishops and Archbishops and Cardinals to publicly demonstrate their opposition to abortion. As long as there are no pro abortion politician involved. It’s expected.
Their “public opposition” is a tool, to represent a certain orthodoxy. To seem
Catholic.
February 17, 2022 at 11:49 am
The altar is backward.
February 19, 2022 at 1:46 pm
Change is difficult. It’s neither inherently good or bad, it’s what we make of it. Neither the people in the pews, nor the people out of the pews, can be so easily dismissed as “empty.” At worst, they’re unmotivated by a spiritual philosophy in need of reexamination. At best, they’re moved by a more broader range of ways God speaks to us.