Pernicious anemia is a condition in which the body cannot make enough red blood cells because it does not have enough vitamin B12, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Symptoms of pernicious anemia include fatigue, loss of appetite, pale skin and difficulty concentrating. Shortness of breath; confusion; balance problems and numbness may also occur. Some people with pernicious anemia have no symptoms.
Looking at the progressive shift away from religious sentiment and practice that has been happening for a long time, one can say metaphorically that the European Catholicism is suffering similar symptoms from its own form of pernicious anemia. The cause: secularization.
In the various statistics which I have presented in numerous past postings, there is convincing evidence that the decline in Catholic practice throughout Europe is factual.
Likewise, there is little doubt that the official Catholic response throughout Europe to these developments has proved anemic and ineffective.
My consistent metaphor for European Catholicism is that the Catholic Church in Europe is dead and the Bishops are its pall bearers.
One has only to recall the recent remarks of Cardinal Marx who stated that the greatest challenge facing Europe today is climate change!
For pity's sake!
Many Western European Catholics have embraced a liberal theology as the best way of engaging the secular European mindset. The effect, however, has been to empty much of Catholic life of any distinct content.
Both in Europe and in the Americas, Catholics take their primary cues from whatever is happening in the world. In this effort, they gravitate towards secular left-liberal preoccupations rather than the Scriptures and 2000 years of Christian reflection.
This has left many Catholics with little to say about anything which has not be said by the typical secularist. So why listen to the what the Church has to say about anything at all?
What is particularly salvific in about global warming or a new world order?
The secularization of Europe, the harbinger of the fate of Western Catholicism in general, is of particular concern. In this regard, the bureaucratization of much of the Church throughout Europe is noteworthy.
In Germany, for example, the state levies a tax on people who belong to particular churches. These revenues help the church pay for the upkeep of historical buildings and fund its extensive welfare and humanitarian services. That is one reason why the Catholic Church is Germany’s second largest private employer.
Whether there’s anything especially Christian about how the German Church delivers social welfare is debatable.
But an associated and deeper problem is the accompanying bureaucratization of Church life. This contributes to unhealthy trends, such as prioritizing institutional maintenance over spreading the Gospel. Bureaucratization also facilitates resistance to any initiatives which imply that the present state of Catholicism is dysfunctional.
When combined with the liberal theology that dominates German-speaking Catholicism, the result is the worst of all worlds: a Church that resembles an appendage of the welfare state and which self-marginalizes its core messages.
Throughout Catholic Europe, there’s also plenty of resignation to secularization. In some instances, there is an unspoken assumption that Catholicism should morph into liberal Protestantism. One might conclude from his many remarks about the Protestant Reformation, that the Holy Father himself might welcome such a development.
But a secularized, anemic and ineffectual Catholicism would appear to guarantee little other than permanent decline and eventual extinction.
Europe is perhaps the poster-child for the way of contemporary Catholicism. And the symptoms of such a persistent and pernicious religious pathology are spreading quickly throughout the Americas (North and South) as well.
The antidote remains elusive.
One only hopes a spiritual remedy can be found before the patient, the Body of Christ itself, becomes terminal.
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