Pope John Paul II Helped Christians combat fear

Pope John Paul II helped Christians to be unafraid of professing their faith and living the truth, Benedict XVI noted at his predecessor's beatification Mass today.

The Pontiff addressed over a million pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square and surrounding areas for the ceremony in honor of the Polish Pope, who often urged Christians, "Do not be afraid!"
Benedict XVI observed, "By his witness of faith, love and apostolic courage, accompanied by great human charisma, this exemplary son of Poland helped believers throughout the world not to be afraid to be called Christian, to belong to the Church, to speak of the Gospel."

The Pope added, "He helped us not to fear the truth, because truth is the guarantee of liberty."
He affirmed that John Paul II "gave us the strength to believe in Christ, because Christ is Redemptor hominis, the Redeemer of man."

Benedict XVI noted that what his predecessor asked of everyone, "he was himself the first to do: Society, culture, political and economic systems he opened up to Christ, turning back with the strength of a titan -- a strength which came to him from God -- a tide which appeared irreversible."
He observed that Karol Wojtyła, now Blessed John Paul II, taught that "man is the way of the Church, and Christ is the way of man."

"With this message," the Pontiff said, "which is the great legacy of the Second Vatican Council and of its helmsman, the Servant of God Pope Paul VI, John Paul II led the people of God across the threshold of the Third Millennium, which thanks to Christ he was able to call 'the threshold of hope.'"
"He restored to Christianity its true face as a religion of hope, to be lived in history in an 'advent' spirit, in a personal and communitarian existence directed to Christ, the fullness of humanity and the fulfillment of all our longings for justice and peace," the Holy Father stated.
Marian devotion

He noted, "All of us rejoice that the beatification of John Paul II takes place on this first day of the month of Mary."

The Pope continued, "All of us, as members of the people of God -- bishops, priests, deacons, laity, men and women religious -- are making our pilgrim way to the heavenly homeland where the Virgin Mary has preceded us, associated as she was in a unique and perfect way to the mystery of Christ and the Church."

Benedict XVI affirmed that his predecessor was "fully aware" that "the Mother of the Redeemer is held up as an image and model of holiness for every Christian and for the entire Church."
Immense grace

He recalled: "Six years ago we gathered in this square to celebrate the funeral of Pope John Paul II.
"Our grief at his loss was deep, but even greater was our sense of an immense grace which embraced Rome and the whole world: a grace which was in some way the fruit of my beloved predecessor's entire life, and especially of his witness in suffering."

On a personal note, the Pope said, "my own service was sustained by his spiritual depth and by the richness of his insights."

The Pontiff continued: "His example of prayer continually impressed and edified me: He remained deeply united to God even amid the many demands of his ministry.
"Then too, there was his witness in suffering: The Lord gradually stripped him of everything, yet he remained ever a 'rock,' as Christ desired.
"His profound humility, grounded in close union with Christ, enabled him to continue to lead the Church and to give to the world a message which became all the more eloquent as his physical strength declined."

Thus, "with all due respect for the Church's canonical norms, I wanted his cause of beatification to move forward with reasonable haste," the Holy Father stated. "And now the longed-for day has come; it came quickly because this is what was pleasing to the Lord: John Paul II is blessed!"

Some Statistics about the Church in the USA

The following is from the book "Index of Leading Catholic Indicators" by Kenneth C JOnes

These statistics are astounding and the situation in Canada and Western Europe are far worse.

"Priests: After skyrocketing from about 27,000 in 1930 to 58,000 in 1965, the number of priests in the United States thereafter dropped to 45,000 in 2002. By 2020, there will be about 31,000 priests — and only 15,000 will be under the age of 70. Right now there are more priests age 80 to 84 than there are age 30 to 34.

"Ordinations: In 1965 there were 1,575 American ordinations to the priesthood, in 2002 there were 450, a decline of 350 percent. Taking into account ordinations, deaths and departures, in 1965 there was a net gain of 725 priests. In 1998, there was a net loss of 810.

"Priest-less parishes: About 3 percent of U.S. parishes, or 549, were without a resident priest in 1965. In 2002 there were 2,928 priest-less parishes, about 15 percent of U.S. parishes. By 2020, a quarter of all parishes, 4,656, will have no priest.

"Seminaries: Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700 — a 90 percent decrease. Without any students, seminaries across the country have been sold or shuttered. There were 596 seminaries in 1965, and only 200 in 2002. There were over three times as many total seminarians in 1930 as in 2002. There were over seven times as many religious order seminarians in 1945 as in 2002. There were over three times as many diocesan seminarians in 1945 as in 2002. There were more seminaries in 1955 than in 2002. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of U.S. diocesan seminaries decreased by 33 percent. In that same thirty seven year period, the number of U.S. religious seminaries decreased by 75 percent.

"Sisters: 180,000 sisters were the backbone of the American Catholic education and health systems in 1965. In 2002, there were 75,000 sisters, with an average age of 68. By 2020, the number of sisters will drop to 40,000 — and of these, only 21,000 will be age 70 or under. In 1965, 104,000 sisters were teaching, while in 2002 there were only 8,200 teachers. That is a reduction of about 92 percent. There were over nine times as many sisters teaching in 1945 as in 2002.

"Brothers: The number of professed brothers decreased from about 12,000 in 1965 to 5,700 in 2002, with a further drop to 3,100 in 2020. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of brothers teaching decreased by 80 percent. There were three times as many brothers teaching in 1945 as in 2002.

"Religious Orders: The religious orders will soon be virtually nonexistent in the United States. For example, in 1965 there were 5,277 Jesuit priests and 3,559 seminarians; in 2000 there were 3,172 priests and 389 seminarians. There were 2,534 OFM Franciscan priests and 2,251 seminarians in 1965; in 2000 there were 1,492 priests and 60 seminarians. There were 2,434 Christian Brothers in 1965 and 912 seminarians; in 2000 there were 959 Brothers and 7 seminarians. There were 1,148 Redemptorist priests in 1965 and 1,128 seminarians; in 2000 there were 349 priests and 24 seminarians. Every major religious order in the United States mirrors these statistics of decline.

"High Schools: Between 1965 and 2002 the number of diocesan high schools fell from 1,566 to 786. At the same time the number of students dropped from almost 700,000 to 386,000. There were more private Catholic high schools in 1945 than in 2002. There were more than twice as many diocesan high schools in 1945 as in 2002.

"Parochial Grade Schools: There were 10,503 parochial grade schools in 1965 and 6,623 in 2002. The number of students plummeted from 4.5 million to 1.9 million. There were more parochial grade schools in 1930 than in 2002.

"Sacramental Life: In 1965 there were 1.3 million infant baptisms, in 2002 there were 1 million. There were more infant baptisms in 1955 than in 2002. (In the same period the number of Catholics in the United States rose from 45 million to 65 million.) In 1965 there were 126,000 adult baptisms — converts — in 2002 there were 80,000. In 1965 there were 352,000 Catholic marriages, in 2002 there were 256,000. There were more Catholic marriages in 1950 than in 2002. There were extremely few annulments in the U.S. in 1968. In 1968 there were 338 annulments, in 2002 there were 50,000. Jones quotes the highly respected canon lawyer Edward Peters from his November, 1996 Homiletic and Pastoral Review article Annulments in America: "According to the 1994 Catholic Almanac, 59,220,000 American Catholics make up 6.2% of the world's 949,578,000 Catholic population. In 1991, the U.S. accounted for 63,900 (79%) of the world's 80,700 annulments."

"Mass attendance: A 1958 Gallup poll reported that 74 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 1958. A 1994 University of Notre Dame study found that the attendance rate was 26.6 percent. A more recent study by Fordham University professor James Lothian concluded that 65 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 1965, while the rate dropped to 25 percent in 2000."

Jones points out that "Mass attendance of U.S. Catholics fell precipitously in the decade following the liturgical changes and has continued to decline ever since." "This decline" he writes, "is not an isolated phenomenon, confined solely to the Church in America. In England and Wales, the time pattern of Mass attendance has been just as bad, perhaps even worse."

Jones' next point is critical: "Church attendance of Protestants, in contrast, has followed a much different path. For most of the period it was without any discernable trend, either up or down. In recent years it has actually risen. The notion that the Catholic fall off was simply one part of a larger societal trend, therefore, receives absolutely no support in these data."

But these sad statistics may even miss the worse news. That news is that the actual spiritual state of the remaining "Catholics" may be even more weakened than these miserable, falling numbers reveal. That is because those reduced numbers of "Catholic" people are still baptizing their fewer babies, are still going to deficient Novus Ordo Masses, and are still following the graduates of homosexualized seminaries. They are led by priests and religious who probably do not, doctrinally, believe what the Catholic Church requires them to believe. In other words, even these positive numbers — drastically reduced though they are — may be extremely soft because these positive "Catholics" may be practical Protestants, or even profoundly non-Christian in their beliefs.

Only 10 percent of lay religion teachers, Jones writes in citing a 2000 Notre Dame poll, accept Catholic Church teaching on artificial birth control. Although even Vatican II taught that the Eucharist was the source and summit of the Catholic faith, a New York Times/CBS poll revealed that 70 percent of Catholics age 18-44 believe the Eucharist is merely a "symbolic reminder" of Jesus. How ironic that the post-Vatican II freefall from the faith even left behind what good Traditional teaching could be gleaned from the sometimes ambiguous Council documents.

Jones presents the following data compiled from the National Catholic Reporter of October 29, 1999:

PERCENTAGE OF CATHOLICS WHO BELIEVE A PERSON CAN BE A GOOD CATHOLIC WITHOUT PERFORMING THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS:

1999

Without going to Church every Sunday: 77

Without obeying Church teaching on birth control: 72

Without obeying Church teaching on divorce and remarriage: 65

Without obeying Church teaching on abortion: 53

Without believing that in the Mass the bread and wine actually become the Body and Blood of Jesus: 38

Without their marriage being approved by the Catholic Church: 68

Without donating their time or money to help the poor: 56

Without donating their time or money to help the parish: 60

Without believing that Jesus physically rose from the dead: 23

(This is a excerpt form the following site)

Feast of Saint Robert Bellarmine - 17 September 2008

We live in an age of liberalism and relativism. Today we celebrate the feast of St. Robert Bellarmine who fought these very issues. Let us read about this saint through the explanations of Dr. Plinio Correa



Since the founding of the Church until our days, Divine Providence has always called illustrious men, who by their knowledge and sanctity have conserved and defended the truths of Catholic Faith against the attacks of heretics.

Among these men shines St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), who was celebrated for his teachings and polemic works as well as for his virtue and zeal for the Church. In truth, it would seem that the holy Cardinal had received from God the threefold gift of teaching the people, guiding the faithful, and confounding the Protestant heretics of the 16th century, a time when Protestantism was growing and spreading.

He was great as a preacher, professor and polemicist, receiving the title of 'hammer of heresies' from Benedict XV. He wrote prodigiously, and to understand the worth of his books one need only read what St. Francis of Sales, his contemporary and friend, said about them: 'I preached five years in Chablais with no other books than the Bible and the works of the great Bellarmine.'

His most famous work is The Controversies, a collection of the lectures he delivered at the Roman College. In it he set out the teaching of the Fathers, the Councils and the Church Law to victoriously defend the dogmas attacked by the Protestants. Clear, balanced, and forceful, this work is so well done that many considered it insuperable. When it was published, it raised as much joy among Catholics as hatred among the Church's enemies. Theodore of Baise, a Protestant leader, used to say: 'This is the work that defeated us.' Given the number of conversions for which it was responsible, reading it was forbidden under penalty of death in England by Queen Elizabeth. Only doctors of theology were permitted to read it.

Comments of Prof. Plinio:

Permit me to provide another fact from his life: St. Robert Bellarmine was the spiritual director of St. Louis Gonzaga. This alone would be honor enough in the life of a man.

What can be said about St. Robert Bellarmine? He was praised as 'the hammer of heresies.' There was a time, before Vatican II, when this was a great eulogy. Pope Benedict XV granted him this title. Various other great saints who worked considerable damage on the heresies received similar epithets. He wrote many books demonstrating the Catholic truth and attacking the heretics. His arguments were forceful and hard, but they converted many of them.

Theodore of Blaise, an important Protestant leader who succeeded Calvin, was fearful of St. Robert Bellarmine's work. This man had a famous debate with St. Francis of Sales. Elizabeth I, the Queen of England, was also in panic over his works, given the number of conversions they had occasioned. She was so fearful that she decreed that whosoever was not a doctor in theology was forbidden to read his works.

St. Robert Bellarmine understood that one cannot do away with a heresy only by preaching the truth. It is also necessary to attack and smash the error. Using this method he converted heretics, bringing them back into union with the Church. When the Catholic Church canonized him, she approved this method. She said that St. Bellarmine had practiced all the virtues in a heroic degree. Therefore, he acted according to charity, since it is one of the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity. He also acted according to justice and prudence since they are included in the four cardinal virtues: justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude. If his method was wrong, the Church would not have canonized him.

This is an important point to remember, since from the time of Vatican Council II, we have been taught that to attack heresy and heretics is harmful to the union of the churches. According to this conciliar mentality, every work of apostolate should praise and applaud the heretics, and never forthrightly combat their errors. The life of St. Robert Bellarmine proves precisely the opposite.

It is also interesting to note the presence of harmonic contrasts in the life of St. Robert Bellarmine. He was a champion of orthodoxy and a great fighter, but at the same time he was a man able to direct the sensitive soul of St. Louis of Gonzaga, and guide him to sanctity. St. Louis Gonzaga was very pure and so concerned about guarding his chastity that some bad persons close to him spread that he was unbalanced. St. Robert Bellarmine was the one who understood that difficult-to-understand soul, knew how to deal with him and to guide him to become a masterpiece of sanctity.

Therefore, at the same time that he was a very busy polemicist, St. Robert Bellarmine made the time to direct souls and to write profound spiritual treatises that earned him the title of Doctor of the Church. This capacity to revert back and forth from the middle of a fight and the direction of souls, along with maintaining a spirit of meditation to write his books, is only possible when a man has a great calmness of spirit. This calm is, in a certain sense, one of the most profound notes of the soul of St. Robert Bellarmine.

Let us admire such a great saint and ask him to do with each one of us what he did with St. Louis Gonzaga, that is, to lead us on the road of sanctity.