Christian defeatism?

Our underground news correspondent, Guy Noir - Private Eye, recently sent me this:

There is widespread misgivings in every church about the increasing evidence of Christian defeatism. A monthly periodical created a sensation with an article entitled, “Have Christians lost Their Nerve?” Most of the bishops whom I met in Rome had read his article and none was inclined to dispute its depressing conclusions.... One feared that the ecumenical movement was taking what little was left of the fight out of the Church:

“Christ said ‘They will throw you out of the synagogues.’ Today we priests are being invited to preach in the synagogues. Too many of our Catholics are like the pale tepid lot who Dante said were not fit for Heaven and too cheap for Hell. He wasn’t going to bother to speak about them. Just look at them and pass on. The great word now is ‘Dialogue,' which means futile conversation between Christians of different communions, none of whom has any real belief in anything which he professes. Another popular word is ‘Encounter, which means meeting God rather less then half way.”

Arnold Lunn, 1968