The following article was written by Armstrong Williams for the Washington Times.
I try not to mix politics and religion in my columns. There are too many variables and circumstances that impact the subject far beyond what a few hundred words can cover. But I feel the situation is so dire today with respect to the Roman Catholic Church and its rapid decline in everyday society that I can't help but point it out.
Full disclosure: I'm not Catholic, practicing or otherwise. This South Carolinian from the Bible Belt was raised more along Protestant lines. But Catholic and Protestant alike believe in and serve a living God. Still, I am well aware of the major importance and influence the Catholic Church wields in this country, and the role it must and should play as this nation plunges headlong into the 21st century.
This country is crying out for leadership, on both political and religious levels. America is in desperate need of a revival. It's during these dark days when the Catholic Church should rise to meet the challenge. Yet it remains so tangled in its own web of deception and institutional cover-ups to offer any credible, moral leadership.
The first evidence of this decline is also some of the most powerful. Worldwide, membership in the church is dropping at an alarming rate. While the institution still remains a close second among major religions with 1.1 billion members (compared with 1.5 billion Muslims), rolls are trending in the wrong direction.
In the United States, four American-born Catholics have left the church for every new member, according to Pew data examining membership since the 1960s. In 2008, Catholic membership plummeted by more than 400,000. Almost half of all Catholic high schools have closed since 1965. In that same year, 1,575 new priests were ordained in the U.S. By 2002, the number was 450. As the National Catholic Reporter stated in the Week magazine in April, it's "the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history."
There's a cause and effect here, and as painful as it is to address, the topic must be dealt with. The years of reported sex abuse scandals have taken their toll; to the point where I believe they are the single greatest contributor to the church's struggles of late. When the first wave of allegations and outright admissions later by church elders were revealed, it rocked Catholicism to its core.
The latest wave of abuses created seismic reverberations as stories percolated to the highest echelons of the Catholic inner circle, including Pope Benedict XVI himself. Such episodes unfortunately are not isolated to the United States alone. In Latin America — a Catholic bastion — the same sickening behavior haunted parishioners in countries such as Mexico and Brazil. The latest reared its head in March with allegations of sexual abuse of altar boys in Germany. Ireland, too, produced reports detailing repeated advances and sexual violations by clerics.
Clearly, there's a problem, but is the average layman aware of the church moving to offer a solution? Judgment of any sort? What punishments have been meted out? Has anyone in the church gone to jail for such crimes?
As a society, we have a zero-tolerance policy for these predators. Yet with the church, tacit acknowledgment translates into passive condonement. It's almost as if leadership has adopted some twisted version of "don't ask, don't tell" in hopes it will all go away.
To put it bluntly, the politics of religion is impacting the practice of religion in the church, and doing irreparable harm as a consequence.
I speak for millions when I say I'm disappointed in the current leadership of the Catholic Church. And the church, frankly speaking, should be disappointed in itself.
The times are too demanding and so many are in need of its leadership that something must be changed. The church can't afford to be on the sidelines of moral leadership. Not now.
For centuries it was known as the purveyor of truth — a corporate body of fallible men, yes, but speaking for an infallible God. Today it seems as though the institution is wandering in the wilderness; its greatest sin is that of situational ethics.
These actions are the failings of man, not the failings of a great theocracy-based, God-fearing sanctuary. No one is above the law, not the laws of man and certainly not the laws of God.
By sweeping this under the rug, the church is saying when things skate too close to the pope himself, then perhaps it's time the public backed off a little — in the interests of the church and all the good it's done through the centuries. To hear the argument, drawing attention to our one fault, our one sin, potentially blots out the benevolent things we've done. Or in the case of these pedophiles, the benevolent things they've done. Is it asking too much to overlook their predatory behavior?
Critics will say I've taken too many liberties with this column. That I'm overlooking key developments or that such talk will serve only to weaken the church. I want to see a stronger Catholic Church. One that leads. Not one that is sheepish or keeps to the shadows because of unconfessed sins and unreconciled behaviors.
We stand in the midst of questionable times. Doubt creeps and lurks all around us. Like the great economic and political revivals of the 18th and 19th centuries, they also contained equally powerful spiritual revivals such as the Second Great Awakening. We need such a revival. Our very souls cry out for such an awakening. The Catholic Church should take up that mantle, but first it must get right with its Maker.
Be sure to email this page to all your friends.
Pope Benedict XVI's email address: benedictxvi@vatican.va
“Bishops and cardinals in My Son’s Church, you have fallen asleep. You go about with your heads in the clouds, dusty clouds, dark clouds that blind you. Awaken from your slumber while there is time. The time is growing short. How many earth-years do I come to you to warn you? You cannot hide the truth now, My children and My pastors. It is too late. The time of the Apocalypse is upon you; your days are numbered. You must save now your soul and the souls of all under your care. Convert the unbeliever while there is time.” - Our Lady, May 30, 1978
"The judgment of your God is not akin to the judgment of man. The Eternal Father will only judge by the heart. Your rank, your accumulation of worldly goods does not set you up before another. Many have sold their souls within the holy House of God. Better that you strip yourself and remove all worldly interests now while you have the time to make amends to your God, for many mitres will fall into hell." - St. Thomas Aquinas, August 21, 1972
The awesome
Bayside Prophecies...
https://www.tldm.org/Bayside/default.htm
These prophecies came from Jesus, Mary, and the saints to Veronica
Lueken at Bayside, NY, from 1968 to 1995:
MANY HAVE
BECOME JUDASES
“My children and My child, in past counsel to you I hastened with great urgency
to warn you that My Son shall be recrucified by His own. In the Holy City of
Rome many Red Hats have now become the Judases in the hierarchy. As men of the
cross they have now won for themselves the title of ‘evil men of the cross.’
Many have entered My Son’s House, His Church, upon earth to do harm. I warned
you, O pastors, bishops, cardinals, that you have been infiltrated. Your
actions now have brought a reverberation from about the world, and it has been
in wake of a coming cataclysm and tribulation to mankind.” - Our Lady,
September 13, 1978
CARDINALS
OVERSTEPPED THEIR BOUNDARIES
“You
will inform Our bishops that intellectual pride has been their downfall. You
will inform the Red Hats that they have overstepped the boundaries. They are
like rodents burrowing into the structure of My Son's House. Many mitres shall
fall into hell.” - Our Lady, July 15, 1972
MANY HAVE
BECOME JUDASES
“My
children and My child, in past counsel to you I hastened with great urgency to
warn you that My Son shall be recrucified by His own. In the Holy City of Rome
many Red Hats have now become the Judases in the hierarchy. As men of the cross
they have now won for themselves the title of ‘evil men of the cross.’ Many
have entered My Son’s House, His Church, upon earth to do harm. I warned you, O
pastors, bishops, cardinals, that you have been infiltrated. Your actions now
have brought a reverberation from about the world, and it has been in wake of a
coming cataclysm and tribulation to mankind.” - Our Lady, September 13, 1978
MESSAGE
FROM HEAVEN
"My children, I cannot impress you more with the urgency of going faster forward
in the time that is left, forward to save your brothers and sisters. I ask you
to approach My priesthood. Bishops and cardinals must now accept all of the
Message from Heaven, even though it will bring about controversy among them. For
it will be bishop against bishop and cardinal against cardinal. For all that is
rotten will fall and must not be retained.” - Jesus, November 20, 1978
SECRET SOCIETIES
"It is through My voice-boxes throughout the world that We must send this
warning of caution to all of Our cardinals and bishops. The Father will not
tolerate their entering into secret societies! The discipline and rules set down
by My Son and those He chose to write the Book of life and love must be adhered
to. We direct, in the name of the Trinity, that you bishops and cardinals of the
world must use your full powers as hierarchy to excommunicate and defrock all
who seek to dethrone My Son and destroy the Faith!” - Our Lady, August 21,
1974
EXCOMMUNICATE
"The
Eternal City of Rome must now take action by those in rule, the cardinals and
the bishops, to restore this city to the light. Those who seek to build a church
of man must be removed by the power of excommunication given to those who rule
as representatives in My houses, churches upon your earth.” - Jesus,
December 31, 1975
ENTERING THE HIGHEST PLACES OF THE CHURCH
"As I warned you in the past and you did
not listen, unless you prayed more, did more penance, sacrifice, communism would
go throughout your world, ravishing nations, destroying your Faith, entering
into the highest places of My Son's House. Can you deny what is happening now in
your world? Remove the blindness from your eyes and look!" - Our Lady of the
Roses, March 18, 1977
SATAN HAS DONE HIS
WORK OF FOLLY WELL
"Satan has done his work of folly well. Yes, satan has gone into the highest
positions in My House, but he will not triumph. In the final count the victory
will be with Us, for he will only proceed as My Father deems." - Jesus,
August 15, 1971
MANY HAVE GIVEN THEMSELVES TO SATAN
"Do not be misled by the outer
clothing of man, for there are many wolves in sheep's clothing, wearing the
apparel of rank. Know that many have given themselves to satan.
"Pray, pray much for those who wear the highest mitres, for they, too, have
set themselves onto the road to hell. Your prayers and your acts of sacrifice
and those who hear My voice, pray much for the Red Hats that have gone onto the
wide road." - Our Lady,
October 2, 1974
“WHY DID YOU NOT GIVE MY MESSAGE TO THE WORLD AS I GAVE
IT TO YOU?”
"I cry to you, My children, that
immorality is the gauge, the measuring point for the fall of a nation. Your
country, My children, the United States, has fallen to satan. The great eagle
has been plucked by sin. Corruption has entered into the highest places of your
government and in My Son's Church. I say unto you, and I say this with counsel
from high, the Lord high God in Heaven, the Father of all creation, that as you
sow so shall you reap!
"My children, why did you avoid giving My counsel to the world? O you of
little faith in the high places of My Son's House, His Church, why did you not
give My message to the world as I gave it to you? Pride and arrogance! That is
why, My children." - Our Lady,
December 31, 1977
“DO NOT DESERT MY
CHURCH”
"My children, you will all recognize the faces of evil. Satan has entered
into the highest ranks of My Church. Pray now for your priests: your bishops,
your cardinals, your clergy. Many prayers are needed, for many are on now the
road to perdition and taking many others with them.
"My children, do not cast aside your sacramentals. They are your armor in
the days ahead. Do not desert My Church. Do not judge it by the man who has
stood there in ignorance or in pride and changed it until it will almost be
unrecognizable. I am still with you, My children. Do not leave. You must stay
and fight. In this manner, My children, shall the sheep be separated from the
goats. It is a form of cleansing." - Jesus, July 15, 1977
SATAN AND HIS AGENTS HAVE ENTERED IN
FULL BATTLE
