CARDINAL MARX: AN EMBARRASSMENT TO THE CHURCH AND HIMSELF

Last week, the Vatican convened a forum titled “(Re)thinking Europe: A Christian contribution to the future of the European Project”.  

It was billed as “a high level dialogue between Church and political actors” and was co-organized by the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) and the Holy See.

In launching an international Vatican conference on the future of Europe, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx stated:  “The European Union and all of Europe find themselves facing great challenges, for which citizens expect, if not conclusive answers, at least clear objectives and prospects from their politicians and from politics.”

And, what was Cardinal Marx’s first on the list of “the three greatest challenges facing Europe”?

Can you believe it?  His Eminence said it was  “climate change.”  

He stated:  “Climate change and the attendant need to change our unsustainable lifestyle in the mid-term. United to this is the problem of the costs of ecological change and their distribution.”  

The other two great challenges, Cardinal Marx declared, are “changes in the world of work” such as digitalization and robotics, and Europe’s migrant crisis.

Nowhere did His Eminence make mention of the situation of the German Catholic Church, or of European Catholicism in general, which has been hemorrhaging members over the past 20 years.

As I described in recent posts, the Catholic Church in Germany lost an additional 160,000 members in 2016, and 537 parishes were closed down. Since 1996, the Catholic population in Germany has shrunk from 27,533,000 to 23,582,000—a decline of over 14 percent.

The situation of the German Church is so problematic that in 2015 Pope Francis cited statistic after statistic before a group of German bishops, asking why the Church in Germany is in “freefall”.

And Cardinal Marx states the greatest challenge facing Europe is “climate change”!

Is there any wonder why the Church in Europe is dead and the Bishops there are its pall bearers?

This is the legacy of the failed Pontificates of Pope St John Paul II and Benedict XVI who put in place or advanced to positions of influence such lack luster leaders as Marx and Prelates of his ilk who espouse such drivel and nonsense.

Europe itself and the Church is in chaos.  

Listening to Cardinal Marx explains it all.