Burning the Churches, by David Warren

By David Warren, The Catholic Thing, April 8, 2022

David Warren is a former editor of the Idler magazine and columnist in Canadian newspapers. He has extensive experience in the Near and Far East. His blog, Essays in Idleness, is now to be found at: davidwarrenonline.com.

Note: Robert Royal files his second report from Rome today for our new The Vatican Thing page. This new initiative will be ongoing, and in today’s second installment, “Religion – and the Pope – Still Matter,“ Bob writes about reactions in the Eternal City to the Holy Father’s evolving comments about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Click on the title or choose EVENTS above and, from the drop-down menu, THE VATICAN THING to see all the reports so far.

Perhaps I have imagined that the Catholic Church in Canada is suffering from a death wish. Surely, this could not be so. But little information is available to contradict this unfortunate impression. And what there is tends to confirm it.

It did not help that the Church largely closed down in response to COVID. Her bishops allowed government public health measures to take priority over the teachings of Jesus Christ, and were obedient to all bureaucratic whims (phrased, usually, as orders). The Catholic Mass was “modernized” in a way more stark than anything we had witnessed in the time since Vatican II. …

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