Religion? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Religion!

 In the 1948 movie: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, came this response from the bandido when asked: "Where are your badges?"  The phony leader of the "Federales" response: "Badges?  We don't need no stinkin' badges...!"   

Let's apply that response from the bandido to present-day America, if we ask: "Where's your religion?"  He might respond: "Religion?  We don't have, nor do we need any stinkin' religion!"

The statistics are grim indeed, according to recently revealed data from Gallup -- the entity that first asked the question back in 1937.  At that time, over 73 percent responded that they attended church, synagogue, or mosque...  

If we fast-forward to 2018-2020, we see that religion has become less important to the majority of Americans, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim, etc., with attendance down a whopping 23 percent, beginning back in the "good ole' days" of the 1950s.  

It took less than two generations to produce these horrific numbers...

From 1998-2000. when membership was at 76 percent -- Catholic church membership began a nose-dive, that revealed a disastrous drop to only 58 percent by the years 2018-2020!

One -- even more startling poll released during the past year or two, shows that less than a third of all Catholics believe in the Real Presence!  Looked at in another way, close to 70 percent of "Catholics" no longer believe in the Real Presence, and, by extension, they no longer believe that the bread and wine are transubstantiated into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord!!

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, during the decade of the 1950s, churches were packed (my church was, at least); marriages exploded; many children were being born and baptized; schools and convents were also on the rise...But was this all good news?  Unfortunately, weaknesses were already rearing their ugly heads, in the form of clergy (sexual) scandals, all the way up to the major heads of dioceses as archbishops, as well as cardinals were implicated.  As the 50s morphed into the early- and mid-60s, the onset of Vatican Two rendered a near death-blow to the more traditional orders of religious and priests, with thousands leaving their vocations so they could compromise with the zeitgeist. 

(Some of my readers may know when I mention the Second Vatical Council, I point to that "pastoral" gathering as not defining or declaring anything that would bind the Catholic conscience to follow.  In other words, nothing from that council was dogmatically declared; nothing.  Yet, the foul, poisonous fruits of that revolutionary council has done irreparable harm that continues to this day...)

There's more... the core dogma of the church: that outside of Her, there is no salvation, began to be dismembered to the point of becoming a "meaningless formula" (Pope Pius XII).  Once that is accepted as "fact," then everything is on the table for "clarification" or for "further explanation,"

When did that first come about in the Catholic world?  Way before Vatican II, and, as far back as the early to mid-1940s...

It was the great Pope Saint Pius X who issued an encyclical condemning modernism as the synthesis of all heresies; that was in 1907!  After the passing of 114 years, the situation is much, much worse...

Will the Church survive?  This has been debated over the years by various thinkers...  I prefer to look at the words of our Lord when He stated: The Gates Of Hell Will Never Prevail Against My Church!

Pray for the Church, and for strength and honor!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, pray for us...

Gene DeLalla