On how "wonderful" the Church is ...

Greg Krehbiel writes in his Crowhill Weblog:

I would really like to sit back and say, "Look how wonderful the church is. The bishops are so wise and godly. See how they address social problems? See how they stand up to evil? See how they teach and preach? The gospel message is so clear that everyone knows where the Catholic Church stands."

He goes on to relate his disappointment at the inertia of the bishops on the "same sex marriage" issue in the face of

"an aggressive, well-financed, intelligent, zealous bunch of revolutionaries who think Sodom would have been a good place if it had just invented some sort of anti-Brimstone missile defense system."

I can't say that I disagree. In fact, while I think few of us Catholics would classify ourselves as pessimists, I think that a significant number of us find the state of the 'Church Militant' today anything but encouraging. There are so many facets to the issue. It's not just the public policy questions of same-sex marriage, abortion, stem cell research, and the Iraq War that preoccupied many voters in the last election. It's also the intermural problems within the Church, including the hijacked implementation of Vatican II 'reforms', including the 'reforms' that have all-but banned the oldest liturgical rite in the world and replaced it with a liturgical experiment that has institutionalized abuses that bishops seem helpless to correct and a whole generation of Catholics has come to accept as normal, as well as two generations of uncatechized Catholic illiterates who couldn't tell you if an abuse or a heresy slapped them in the face, a majority of traditionally Catholic flagship universities who now view Church doctrine as anathema and openly promote a Kerry-Clinton-Chirac-EU agenda of one-world liberalism and culture of death, and a generation of bishops who view themselves as helpless to do anything about it.

I have never regretted my conversion to the Catholic Faith over a decade ago. But neither can I say that I'm "proud of my church." I have pondered writing an article entitled "The Anguish of Being Catholic," but held off as yet because of not wanting merely to whine. But Catholics are besieged and confused today. They need clarity. They need the splendor of truth. They need the beauty of their ancient liturgy. They need bishops who are willing to teach and discipline, not merely politicians eager to please. They need a Church that is clearly a Church Militant, not a Church Indulgent promoting slogans about our new post-Vatican II "springtime." The world has a right to expect of the Catholic Church that she will eschew fuzzy ambiguities and speak so clearly that not even the simplest individuals will have any doubt about what she means. The world has a right to expect of the Church that she will not only teach clearly what she believes, but show that she believes what she teaches, stand before the bloody face of history and, come what may, stand by what she has said.