By Kevin Wells, Crisis Magazine - For the same reason, the Catholic Church finds itself in a long wintertime. It, too, has mostly lost its way. It has abandoned traditional customs, de-emphasized the sacred, and refashioned its Christ-imposed mandate to proclaim the Good News of salvation. Sermons on sin and the need for absolution, the reality of Purgatory and Hell, the significance of life’s cross, and daily striving for virtue and holiness, etc., have been replaced by gentler and less hassling messages... Millions of faithful Catholics today feel a visceral inner sadness. Why? They know spiritual leaders’ genuflection to the world and piecemeal abandonment of the sacred over the past decade have plunged their Church into a withering crucifixion—and they know it has only just begun.