What is the state of the Catholic Church in the United States?

One has to ask in these trying times, what is the state of the Catholic Church in the United States?Is it getting stronger or weaker?  Is it faithful or backsliding? 

It seems that since Vatican II, the Church in America has been backsliding.  The lines for Confession before Vatican II used to be long, while the lines for Communion weren't nearly as long as today.  Today, hardly anyone, percentage-wise at least, goes to Confession, and it seems like everyone goes to Communion.  Is it because everyone now is leading a holier life?  I don't think so! I think most American Catholics have lost their sense of sin.  No one wants to call it sin any longer.  It's a "complex" or a "psychological disorder."  When we see 70% of people who claim to be Catholic not going to Mass on Sunday, and when we see 80% of married couples who claim to be Catholic practicing artificial birth control, we have to conclude that most American Catholics don't really know or practice their Catholic faith.Unfortunately, they follow the world rather than Jesus Christ, instead. One cannot follow both.

I think we can conclude that the root of the problem has been a lack of good, orthodox catechises.  We now have more than a generation of American Catholics who don't know their Catholic faith.  And because they don't know their Catholic faith, they don't practice their Catholic faith.  The old Latin phrase, Lex orandi, lex credendi, means "As we pray, so shall we believe.I think this hits the nail on the head.  I think it really means that we shall believe according to how we live our Catholic faith.  And we can't live our Catholic faith if we don't know what our Catholic faith teaches.  In many cases, our Catholic teachers don't know their Catholic faith either, and no one can give what they don't have. 

But, I think we have reason to take heart.The momentum has begun to swing back in favor of orthodoxy.Most of the priests coming out of the seminaries in the last decade or so are increasingly faithful, orthodox priests, faithful to Church teaching and practice.  Many parishes and dioceses are shoring up their catechesis programs, opting for more orthodox approaches to teaching the faith.  There are still many places where CCD, for all intents and purposes, still stands for just "Color, Cut, and Draw."  But, as I said, the pendulum is beginning to swing back!

What about those adults, though, who have "missed the boat" and been left behind?Fear not. There is an answer.  They can still study their Catholic faith as adults, on their own, without having it spoonfed to them.   Self-study is a very effective way to learn the faith.And, there are a slew of great, orthodox (means "right teaching") Catholic websites that they can access for free to get the information they need to learn the Catholic faith.  One such site is Alabama Catholic Resources, which offers many free Catholic audio files (.MP3's) that can be downloaded to one's PC, MP3 player, iPod, etc., and listened to at one's leisure.  There are other great sites, too, such as Catholic.com, that have many excellent documents explaining and defending the Catholic faith.

Start today!One great way to learn your Catholic faith is by listening to good Catholic audio files (.MP3's) or reading good, faithful Catholic docuemnts.PDF's, for example).

Author:  Steven J. Bergeron, cradle Catholic.  56 years old.                 Website: http://www.alabamacatholicresources.com

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