It can be read online here. A couple of excerpts:
The sacramental discipline of the Church in this country has largely broken down. Mass attendance in our Diocese of Brooklyn is 18%; in New York, 19%; in Chicago, 16% (those are pre-scandal figures). The Most Blessed Sacrament is so little valued among Catholics that the overwhelming majority of them are not faithful to Sunday Mass. I am sure, though, that most of those who only pop in occasionally have no hesitation about approaching for Communion.Read the article...You will find out what tomatoes are good for. God, help us and help our bishops and priests.
The Church’s catechetical program — a systematic, consistent method of passing on the faith that was Church-wide — was deliberately dismantled 40 years ago. Recently, a noted archbishop garnered attention because he told his peers that virtually all of the high school catechetical texts being used in our country are unsalvageable junk. There was much applause for his courage and insight; I choked over my coffee. Every one of the bishops knew this at least 30 years ago; dioceses were routinely marginalizing as kooks faithful Catholics who wrote letters protesting these developments.
Catholics routinely approach for Communion who are engaged in premarital sex, extramarital sex, masturbation, contraception, homosexuality. Public, nonchalant dissent from Church teaching in these areas is easy to find among Catholics — not just those in public positions, but among those on religious education staffs in parishes and schools. While mountains of postconciliar documents have been churned out on various crucial issues, they have minimal impact in parish ministry and family life. Indeed, we’re at the stage where cafeteria Catholicism, picking and choosing from among the teachings of our and other religious traditions, is regarded as a virtue.
We need to admit that we have strayed dangerously far from the path, as we look at our liturgy, catechesis, parish and rectory life, religious communities, seminaries, health care institutions, family life, moral theology. We’ve got to admit that there is something deeply wrong.
The clarion call needs to be sounded. One of our shepherds needs to stand up and challenge his brethren and all of us, needs to say, honestly, "Enough, dear God! We have been in a state of crisis for 40 years, and it gets worse by the day!" We need an Elijah. We need another Hilkiah, who found the forgotten Book of the Law in the Temple; another Josiah, the king who wept as he heard it read to him, and ordered a bright, fierce renewal (2 Chron. 34:19).
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