This is the question which all people long for an answer for, whether consciously or not. Catholics and most humans that consider themselves Christians feel it is to answer the question, by how we live our lives, of: Do we want to be happy now and for all eternity together with working to make those around us happy by living God’s commands? But if this is true why did the early Christians have to suffer so much. Are you trying to tell me their lives were happy? The answer of course is yes. All humans deep down, have the desire to be heroes. Our lord Jesus Christ gives humans the opportunity to be just that in every generation of every epoch by, as closely as humanly possible, following His example, despite threats of death or threats of ridicule. In the beginning the heroes battle was to stay alive long enough to preach the gospel of the incredible love of the living God, the creator of the universe, who came as Jesus Christ, in love of us, to as many people as possible before possibly dying a martyr’s death. Today true Christians mostly devout Catholics, though a great number of Catholics have fallen away from the faith, turning their backs on their loving savior, using their free will to refuse his free gift of happiness now and for all eternity, no longer face a martyr’s death in many places (thought in places such as Egypt and Afghanistan they still do) but face ridicule for their beliefs. Ridicule is the cross that substitutes for martyrdom of the days gone by. Most Christians, in our world grown soft, worried about offending people, not in doing the right thing to keep our fragile world from disintegrating again as NAZI Germany did by falling into the hands of deviants like Hitler, are afraid to be laughed at for defending traditional marriage/sex, verily even supposedly decided subjects as to what a man or a woman is (Mark 10:4-9, Genesis 5:2) and standing against practices such as cohabitation (living together), avoiding divorce in a difficult marriage and avoiding artificial contraception for natural family planning.
Though Catholics have been the target of much criticism and ridicule for at least the more than half century period from 1930 to the present, the current state of western culture have proved our stances predicting general moral breakdown in our culture (which lead to the accompanying evils of more widespread contraction of sexually transmitted diseases, single parent households and women being used as sexual objects used solely for the pleasure of an individual without regard for either their emotional wellbeing or the fact that such activity can cause an unexpected pregnancy), set out in documents by popes such as Pope Paul VI in encyclicals like Humanae Vitae, that the catholic churches reasons for taking our stances have been valid.
Those calling themselves Christians need to stand up for what they know is right and, when given a chance, influence their governments through voting, marches for life etc., as well as mass media advertising but most of all through example and speaking the truth and their minds when asked. The need to know the difference of right from wrong and defend what they know is right. We can never surrender to the culture of death. What can be done to curb the loss of attendance and the rapid closing of catholic parishes across the USA and most of the west?
The church, from what I see, has tried almost everything, from not talking about hell, to saying we have a reasonable hope that no one is in hell, not talking about the fact that the use of contraception leads to unhappiness, not emphasizing it is wrong to divorce and remarry without the benefit of an annulment or downright lying about these subjects. Though none of these things are supported either by doctrine, dogma or approved practice it is supported by silence at high levels. To me as a physicist the answer is easy: do what works!!! So what work? Whatever we were doing 60 years ago when the church attendance was growing and was literally the highest it was in history. This is easy to say but what were we doing 60 years ago that was different from now that made a difference?
1.
Return to the reverence given to the central miracle of the catholic faith – the Eucharist. I was not born yesterday and when I was a child, being taught about receiving the Eucharist also known as receiving holy communion, I was told the priests thumb and index finger were especially blessed to handle the Eucharistic material, the Host. We were taught to kneel for it’s reception and to only let it touch our tongue and inside of our mouth and to swallow it whole. We were taught that we should not use foul language because our tongue touched the body of Christ in communion. We need to put the communion rails back into churches and we all need to kneel again when receiving communion. We need to at least roll the clock back to where we have 3 hours fasting before communion if not to 12 midnight before mass. This fasting, in preparation for our Lord, is necessary to bring us into the ambiance of the sacrificial nature of communion. (Fasting is good in general along with prayer and alms giving as covered in the Old Testament in Tobit 12:8 and in the New Testament in Matthew 6:1-18) We must understand that in communion we receive (because of his total love for us and because of which He created the universe) the body, blood, soul and divinity of the almighty creator of our world and moreover the cosmos which includes our universe, heaven and hell. Priest who chastise people for kneeling to receive God, our lord and savior are way, way off base and they are the ones who should be chastised by their bishops for such conduct.
2.
We must teach the dogma of hell and Satan who rules it and who is responsible for much of the evil in our lives. Evil exists and, though God does not impose it, he allows it. It is allowed not as punishment to us but so that we can use our free will to embrace evil (think porn and moreover prostitution which are responsible for the sexual slavery of many humans aka. trafficking in persons – TIP, wars to get more resources which is responsible for child slaves used as soldiers and unbridled greed which allows for great profit at the expense of workers and abused consumers as in pharmaceuticals with known bad side effects) or embrace God, truth and goodness. We teach about hell not to scare us or little children but to inspire love in us in spreading the gospel vigorously so that as few people as possible are confused by the devil to making the choice to satiate their own selfish desires exacerbated by the fall and original sin, thereby choosing hell.
3.
We need to emphasize the celebration of the extraordinary form of the mass i.e. the traditional Latin mass (TLM) and start any new reforms of the liturgy with that as a baseline. This is because a revolutionary change was made after Vatican II (and from references I have read, changes that were not intended by the participants of Vatican II but twisted out of what was said, based on the latitude offered by the language used in the documents and taken advantage of by prelates with their own agendas) from this form of the mass to the new ordinary form of the mass.
4.
The pope, cardinals and bishops must eliminate those of their number and those priests that do not have faith in the supernatural truth revealed by scripture and perfected by Jesus’ example and preaching as to the order of the cosmos. This elimination must be carried out by to get rid of as many of these “defective” clergy by any means within their power. They should question postulants to the priesthood and to female religious orders and use the latest technology like MRIs to detect lying and insure people trying to come in to be examples and teach truly want to spread the faith deposit left by Jesus Christ not this or that person’s opinion of what the catholic faith should be. Only after they are fairly certain of the postulant’s sincerity to truly spread the true faith of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church should they allow him or her to start their proposed vocation.
5.
The clergy must pronounce loud and clear and frequently (until these heresies are under control at least once a month) dogmatic truths such as the reality of hell, the reality of the devil, the evil of contraception, the evil of abortion, the evil of divorce and remarriage without the benefit of a spouses death or an annulment, the evil of practicing homosexuality (emphasizing that homosexuals are not evil as Jesus emphasized prostitutes are not evil, evil is only involved if one practices the homosexual sex or the selling of any and all forms of sexual activity) and how we must not legalize same sex marriage, not to discriminate but to protect children. I believe same sex partners should have the same rights as married heterosexuals just not call it marriage thereby giving them the opportunity to freely adopt children. God gave us all a choice to do evil, which should not be taken from 2 consenting adults but they should not be able to drag non consenting or immature children into the relationship giving them a deficit of not having a parent of the other sex (see “Psychology Today” as well as Psychological Effects of Growing Up Without a Father – Owlcation on the effect of not having a father), and not having a norm to base their view of the world. Colleges are expected by law to supply
6.
The laity must vigorously and devotedly practice their faith to be an example to the world but most of all their children and realize that they are responsible for changing the world and take that responsibility seriously.
Supernatural faith is the cornerstone on which the whole church needs to be rebuilt and which must be emphasized, especially the truth of the real presents of Christ in the Eucharist. The church must base its decisions ultimately on truth and practices that reinforce belief in that truth, not because it makes things “easier” for rank-and-file Catholics, not because something like rock music in mass makes people feel better or because a prelate feels that something like receiving communion in the hand is cooler and will make people feel more “comfortable in God’s presence.” The church must put doctrine in place that amplifies dogma because doing so tends to emphasize the truth in our beliefs and helps reinforce belief in those truths. The Latin mass is good because it pulls our minds and hearts toward worshiping God, a deep feeling of awe and thankfulness in that he has created the universe and our free will to choose the option of eternal happiness and not focus on producing good feelings just for the sake of feeling good. We should feel good about, in awe of and thankful for what God has done for us. The Eucharistic celebration in the sacrifice of the mass must reflect this since it the central rallying point for the army of God. We fight for the happiness of all mankind and we all should strive to, like mother Theresa of Calcutta, to be the source of help to a hurting world. This is what Jesus calls all devout
Catholics to be. But how can someone as “insignificant” as me do things to help the world? What if mother Theresa had said that? We may think ourselves insignificant but Christ did not and as St. Paul said in his letter to the Philippians 4:13, we can do all things in Christ. We must constantly pray and ask for Christ help against the devil and ask the saints to pray for us in addition to following their example to be good followers of Christ. We can do little to help the dead except pray for their souls if they end up in purgatory but we can prevent humans from dying and allow them to possibly find a happy life by fighting against the killing of forming humans in the womb by opposing abortion. In turn, we must alms give to reduce things like hunger, to help victims of unjust wars etc. if we ever hope to see the face of God.
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 