Francis and the Journalists

More and more, the Irish bishops appear to wish to curry favor with those who despise the Church, and to dismiss and disparage those who defend Christ’s proposals for humanity.

John Waters is of course correct. The hard reality is that, even more than in the United States, progressives of various stripes have firmly secured control of the Catholic hierarchy. And it happened decades ago, not yesterday. Too many Catholics of a more conservative bent on both sides of the Pond have been in denial about this, misled (usually willfully) by the presence of a conservative pontiff at the top of the pyramid. But 34 years of Communio governance never really changed the fundamental composition of either hierarchy, save to make them appear a little more housebroken. The last fives years has made clear just how little really changed from the Paul VI years.

But in victory, liberal hierarchs in both the U.S. and Ireland face two grave problems. The first is that prosecutors, office holders, and victims groups have not yet had their full pound of flesh, and are clearly keen to seek more of it from the hierarchy. This will deeply erode not only the remaining resources of these dioceses, but also much of what little moral or spiritual credibility they retain.

The other problem is simply demographic. Mass attendance continues to drop to record lows in both countries. Vocations are close to nonexistent where a local liberal bishop can have free rein, and this is especially true in Ireland, where you can count the number of remaining seminarians on, quite literally, two hands. What remains in most Irish dioceses is a very elderly clergy.

The result is that in Ireland and in large parts of the U.S. - and you can see this across the Channel in France and the Low Countries, too - there simply will be very little at all left of the Catholic Church as a visible entity by the 2030's. The worst part is that this clearly looming fate seems not to bother most of these hierarchs, or indeed many of their laity. So long as there's enough money left for their pensions, it's simply a natural development with no real supernatural significance to them, unless it be of a vaguely Teilhardian one. I recall an interview with aged Catholics in the Netherlands a few years back, querying how they felt about the virtual disappearance of the once vibrant Church that existed in their youth. To a person, they responded with a shrug, and only a slight wistfulness. The Church had its time, and now it is going. Secularization had run its course.