The Church is dying because it doesn't have a coherent answer to industrialization. Due to technology, NO ONE alive today suffers as much as EVERYONE did prior to 1800. We are ALL richer, we all live longer, we all suffer from fewer diseases, which have shorter durations.
Some diseases are entirely wiped out. There is no more smallpox, no rinderpest in cattle, almost no polio (only 1 case of wild polio virus (WPV) in Afghanistan, and 1 in Pakistan this year so far, map for last 12 months here). Guinea Worm is just about eradicated, inroads are being made against at least one dozen other endemic diseases.
The entire world used to live in abject poverty, now less than 10% of the world does. Natural disasters kill and injure only one-tenth as many people today as were killed or injured just 20 years ago.
We have the corporal works of mercy and the spiritual works of mercy, two sets, to deal with every kind of suffering there is. The spiritual works still apply, but the corporal works are increasingly irrelevant.
We are on the verge of totally wiping out famine. Same with concerns about potable water - I've seen at least four major pieces of tech in the last year (see here, here, here and here), that will literally dissolve that problem. We have so much clothing that we can't give it away. Shelter is next on the list of solutions, there aren't nearly as many sick and imprisoned to visit as there were, and we're cremating the dead.
Literally half of the work of the Church is either already irrelevant or on the verge of being rendered irrelevant. Christ may have come to share our sufferings, but we don't share in that suffering nearly as much anymore. It's harder to identify with the crucified Christ now than it ever has been in history.
For most of human history, mankind has been agricultural or hunter-gatherer. The man who wanted meat for supper had to kill the animal himself, watch the blood run out on the ground, see the suffering and death throes of the animal as it breathed its last. He would then skin, eviscerate, dismember and roast that recently living flesh. Everyone did this every week, week-in, week-out, for their whole life.
They saw their friends and family members suffer and die in accidents, from illness, on deathbeds that were as common as the dirt the corpses were buried in. But almost no one lives this way anymore. These experiences are almost entirely unknown to a plurality or perhaps even a majority of the global population. We preach Christ, and Him crucified, but most people simply have no way of connecting with that level of suffering because suffering, violence and death are no longer something we encounter every day.
Christianity was wildly successful in a subsistence-level, agricultural society, arguably better than any other philosophical or theological system the world has ever seen. As Julian the Apostate observed, the Church used the corporal works as a way to demonstrate charitable intent, and used the salving corporal works as a segue-way to the salvific spiritual works. But what happens when the corporal works of mercy are no longer necessary or relevant?
For the last two centuries, the Church has tried and failed to adapt its message to a surplus-goods, industrial, high-technology society. So far, it has not developed a compelling message for a world that is not suffering constant corporal want. Indeed, you would look in vain for a Church document that recognizes, in a detailed way, any of the successes listed above.
The Pope and other Christian leaders continue to preach the necessary message that the poor must be cared for, without acknowledging that the number of poor has been steadily disappearing. Leaders speak of famine without acknowledging how uncommon it is. While we certainly still have poor to care for today, what happens in that near future when we... don't? What is the message then? The goalposts can only move so far before the message becomes a parody of itself.
If you want to speak of a crisis in the Church, that is the crisis.
Part of what interests me is that it's not just Catholic Christianity facing this challenge and doing poorly. Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism are all grappling with the same forces and none are faring any better. Mainline Protestantism is already collapsing.
ReplyDeleteAn Orthodox friend of mine one observed that neither Rome nor the churches of the East have ever come to grips with the loss of imperial context for the ecclesial structures. You outline another front in which the shepherds fail and the sheep are, increasingly, dear to the Master's voice.
Have you any thoughts on a solution, especially on the personal/familial level?
I can't think of a solution to the problem. It probably has to start with the Pope and bishops stating the facts. Poverty has been deeply reduced. Famine is reduced, medical care has greatly improved. We may, indeed, manage to raise everyone above the level of extreme poverty, even the last 10%.
ReplyDeleteThe Pope and the bishops have to state the facts about the progress that has been made. If they don't, they look increasingly out-of-touch and doctrinaire. The corporal works of mercy just aren't going to work out the same way they used to. Christianity really has changed the ball game in that regard, it really has succeeded. Prior to Christianity, no one cared about the poor. But now, we have successfully cared so much about them, that there are very few left.
Recognizing that fact is the beginning of the solution.
The crisis is the disintegration of the family: divorce, day care, “gay” marriage, sex ed,
ReplyDeleteabortion. It is horrific. The silence of the typical pastor on these topics is the crisis.
"Is there still a need for the Church to teach us to love the poor, to recognize the rights of slaves and men, to heal and assist the suffering, to invent alphabets for illiterate peoples? Etc. All this, and it seems much better, the secular world does by itself; civilization walks with its own strengths"
ReplyDeleteSaint Paulus VI was prophetic in his speech (11. September 1974).