How Not to Renew the Church

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Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

Just like virtually everywhere else in the postmodern world, the Catholic Church can feel like a pretty polarized place these days – which is to say that it can be hard or even impossible, at times, to get various parties to agree on anything.

But one thing we should be able to easily recognize is that something needs to change in the Church – and fast. Every survey out there reminds us that there is a crisis of faith as numbers are dramatically declining, successive generations are walking away, vocations are plummeting, and scandals seem to preoccupy all our attention.

And even if you happen to like what you see happening right now in the Church, let me offer a bit of a crude analogy. Let’s think about the mission of the Church for a second. If there’s any doubt what it is, it comes to us directly from Jesus when he said, “go and make disciples of all nations by baptizing them and teaching them to obey what I have taught you.”

Which is to say, go and proclaim what I have revealed to you in such a compelling way that people will be inspired to lay down their current lives so that they can be reborn through water and fire – through baptism – dedicating themselves to following Jesus and his teachings.

And that’s what they did. They went out preaching and inspired countless people to become disciples of Jesus. Pope Paul VI clearly taught in Evenglii Nuntiandi that the mission and purpose of the Church is to evangelize.
Well, in the 15 years or so that I’ve been Catholic, I know of more people who have left than have converted in and this is one of the largest parishes in Archdiocese.

When I joined, there were young families who brought their children to mass who are now old enough to decide for themselves, and I’ve noticed that they aren’t still around. And I don’t mean to dump on my parish. That isn’t an exception – it’s the norm.

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