Every day we read about declining church attendance as the number of priests dwindle. The perfect storm is quickly engulfing the Catholic Church. We are life-long practicing Catholics and it pains us to see the Church suffer. As membership declines and costs increase the squeeze will only get worse as parishes try to do more with less. That said, it is time that the Church–now at that proverbial fork-in-the-road–re-visit some of its basic attitudes. We are not theologians but it seems to us that the role of any Christian church is to help its members prepare for eternity. All the rules of any religious institution should be focused on that objective. When the Catholic Church finds itself in danger of failing its objective by losing members and not able to minister adequately it needs to adjust. Another way of looking at the situation: which is worse…to fail in your primary mission or to make changes so as to “redeem” your plan of saving as many souls as possible? Issues like priest celibacy, abortion, divorce, capital punishment, homosexuality, women priests and other major debate points need to be re-examined. We expect “blow-back” from staunch Catholics who will strongly resist policy changes in these and other issues but to do nothing is to simply ride the current wave into a death spiral. We need a Catholic Church that addresses its role in today’s realities. To do nothing is just not going to work….
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