The
so-called "great" Churches seem to be dying. This is true
particularly in AUSTRALIA, also in Europe, but not so much in
the United States.”
(Pope Benedict XVI, address to the clergy
of the Aosta diocese, Italy, 2005)
“Secularism and
de-Christianization
are gaining ground,
relativism is growing
and the influence of Catholic ethics and morals is in
constant decline.
"Many
people abandon the Church or, if they stay, accept only a
part of Catholic teaching,
picking and choosing between
only certain aspects of Christianity.”
(Address to the
German bishops, WYD, 2005).
In the
Record
newspaper, Archdiocese of Perth,
WA, Archbishop Barry Hickey referred to
“A particular Catholic secondary school,”
where
“not
one
boy or girl in Year 12 went to
Mass.
"This
floored me”,
he continued.
“I had no idea how bad the
situation had become.
The loss of young people to the active life of the Church
will have
catastrophic
long term effects
on our
Catholic population
if we do not address it with
energy, wisdom and prayer.”
(Record, 21.8.03)
Let’s face it: decades of poor or
no moral teaching in most Catholic schools; a sorely
defective Catecheses; lack of proper formation for parents
in many parishes and associations surely have something to
do with it.
There are, of course, some
honourable exceptions. But they are exceptions.
Whatever excuse one may come up
with to explain away this catastrophe, the hard truth is
that, by and large, a great many of us Catholics no longer
pass the Faith on to the next generations as we used to.
How many Catholics grieve as they
see their children losing the Faith, their relatives joining
anti-Catholic sects, their friends saying that they no
longer believe in God?
And yet, many of us simply keep
on wishing that things will get back on track without effort
on our part. This wishful thinking and lack of serious
action will get us nowhere - except into a worse state.
We must agree with Archbishop
Hickey when he said,
“We have to admit that the
drift away from the Church will continue [unless]
new initiatives
that we have not even thought of yet come from our
common consideration of the problems the Church is
facing”.
His Grace made it very clear that
“Every Catholic has a duty to
participate in evangelization for the sake of their
friends, family and society”.
What
new initiative
has started to respond to the challenge?
