Pastor's Page:   Pope Benedict’s Global Perspective – Part 2

It seems that the prevailing theory among Catholic Church leaders in the Vatican and bishops
elsewhere is that moral relativism and moral decadence, a ‘culture of death’, has seized the
industrialized nations of the north in a choke hold, suffocating gospel values and the centrality of
Christ in what was the center of Christianity. Materialism, consumerism, a cult of narcissism and
the lure of power and prestige seem to be the idols of the northern nations.

Church attendance has fallen rapidly over the decades with most nations of Western Europe
(283 million Catholics) showing five to ten percent church goers. (We have about 20 percent at Sts.
Peter and Paul, with our nation at 30 percent according to the latest CARA poll). All the traditional
Christian churches of Western Europe show similar percentages. And Catholics are ignoring
Church teaching and practicing artificial contraception with a little over one child per family
average even in heavily Catholic countries like Italy and Spain.

John Allen, a respected Catholic journalist (National Catholic Reporter, www.ncr.org ) and religious commentator, believes that the Catholic southern hemisphere is key to the development of the faith in this century. These nations, the non-industrialized undeveloped ‘third world’, have populations struggling for survival and the necessities of life – food, clothing, and shelter. Catholicism is thriving in an African continent that has leaped from 2 million Catholics in 1900 to 130 million a century later. Allen reports that 37 % of baptisms in Africa are adult baptisms! Adults are turning to Jesus Christ and often bringing their families with them into the faith. Even in Africa,
however, ordinations are not keeping pace with the expanding population. The entire continent has 30,000 priests, while the United States with 66 million Catholics has 40,000 priests in active ministry.

After the sex abuse scandal in our country, many Catholics are concerned about safe environments for our children, about openness and accountability by bishops, about financial transparency and lay oversight, about homosexuality in the priesthood and women’s equality in
church and society.

The bishops of Africa, Allen says, have very different issues that weigh on their hearts. Dire poverty, malnutrition, war, tribal warfare, ethnic genocide, arms trade, AIDS/HIV, and the need for a more just distribution of the world’s wealth, preoccupy them.
More than half the world’s Catholic population is in Latin America. 520 million Catholics in total with Brazil (144 million) and Mexico (126 million) ranked one and two, are wrestling (as Africa is) with poverty and exploitation by more powerful nations, and the added threat to
Catholicism of aggressively evangelizing Christian churches.

Is the Catholic Church’s future in the South?

Can the North revive a vibrant faith?

What role are Pope Benedict and the world’s bishops and lay leaders to assume?

What message will they offer? What strategies will church leadership employ?

Peace, Father Bruce