This Is An Unmistakable Sign Of The Times

0:00Brought to you by PrayLatin.com, makers of prayer cards featuring complete English phonetic renderings of Latin pronunciations. A lot of Catholics are not aware. We have seemingly hit the next phase of the consolidation of parishes, not just in the US but across the West. Numerous stories have come out, suddenly of dioceses announcing that because of the total number of people going to mass regularly and the financial status of the parishes has crashed so badly that they are now closing not a few parishes. They are consolidating dozens of parishes and dioceses, reducing them to shockingly small numbers of parishes and closing and liquidating the assets. We are here in the United States at LifeSight News with the headline, Iowa Arch Diocese cancelling Sunday Mass at 75 or more parishes as part of consolidation, 75 parishes.

1:13Unless you're in Los Angeles, that's going to be the majority of your parishes. Anywhere else? 75. I know we were all just celebrating large numbers of young people coming into the church or people who have never been confirmed, maybe baptizes a Catholic and then not raised in the faith coming into the church. It looks like record numbers across the board, nobody really asked a couple pertinent questions about that, including what parishes are they coming in to and what are those parishes teaching in their RCA programs because I showed you from some anecdotal stories given to me by people who before one reason or another forced to attend less than ideal parishes where less than ideal things or less than orthodox things are taught from Ambo. It's not all sunshine and roses with those conversions and nobody ever asked how many people then once are in the church, stay a year, five years, ten years, how many of

2:14them stay. What research we have is an exactly rosy on that, something like 50% of them leave depending on the research you look at. Despite all the conversions we have, because this wasn't just this Easter, last Easter, the numbers look pretty good too, diocese are closing massive amounts of parishes. They are article. The Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa, will be canceling Sunday Mass at over 75 parishes as part of its journey in faith consolidation plan. The Archdiocese shared on Saturday the final phase of a plan to organize Dubuque's Catholic Churches into 24 pastorates, groups of parishes that will share, quote, leadership, ministries and resources according to the plan's FAQ. Only 84 of the Archdiocese 160 parishes will hold Sunday Masses once the final stage of consolidation goes into effect on July 14th. The remaining churches will stay open, at least for the time being. For weekday Mass, adoration, faith formation, weddings, funerals and other uses.

3:19In a message to his flock, Archbishop Thomas is in Kula, cited declining mass attendance, as well as lack of priest's reason for the consolidation plan. Mass attendance in the Archdiocese is dropped by 46% over the past 20 years. Public marriages have fallen by over 50%, and infant baptisms are down by 22%. The Archdiocese currently has 85 priests, one for every two parishes, and predicts a further decline in the number of active priests as few as 55 by 2040. There are voices and concerns that restividing us, particularly around Sunday Mass and some communities, is in Kula told as flock. What is that in allusion to? Me being paranoid about these things, thinks he's talking about traditional Catholics wanting the TLM. He says, even so, I am confident that as we remain united in the Holy Spirit and grounded in the Eucharist, wherever we gather for worship, the Lord will bring this process to a good

4:21and grace-filled outcome. We've been following a synodal path, walking together, listening to one another, not as isolated communities, but as one church at the Bishop's said in his video message. That is why you're going to have probably more closures by 2040, down to around 50 parishes, because they're going to continue down the path that's led to this destruction, which in the last decade has become known as the synodal path. The decision to hold Sunday Mass at only 84 particular parishes was, quote, guided by a range of pastoral and practical considerations, including the proximity of church buildings to one another, seating capacity, overall facility condition, concentrations of mass attendees, and reasonable driving distances for parishioners according to the archdiocese. Groups of Faithless Some Churches with Sunday Mass is axed by the journey and faith plan are preparing to appeal the decision, including parishioners at Dubuque Saint Anthony, which will lose its weekend mass under the new plan.

5:21And it goes on, keep that in mind that it's coming to a diocese near you without question, because very few dioceses in the country, and of course the Westmore broadly, have what we would call sustainable vocations. So while the bishops, the lather on about politics, this is what's happening, these are the decisions they're making, and it's not just in the United States. We go here to Femile Cretienne, which is a French Catholic news website, to the headline, I arrived in a tired diocese, in Aras, the church is reinventing itself for a new missionary impetus. Yes, in France, they're consolidating and closing parishes as well. And I pray that these parishes they're choosing are ironically older parishes, in this case,

6:23which is the reverse of how I wanted it in America. That's because in France, the church property was built before, I think, 1904, that church property belongs to the state, and they tend to see them as historical treasures to be preserved, much more so than the bishops of America do, and so they won't be sold off to turn into a nightclub. Maybe you disagree with my take there. Here's the details from the story. Bishop Olivier Le Borne presented a significant point, turning, significant turning point at length of the pre-serving the diocese of Aras, the faithful gathered for the chrism mass on March 31st, the topic of pastoral transformation has been on the minds of the prelts and the teams working in the diocese for over three years. At this meeting, the bishop broke the news. They're going down to 11 parishes in that diocese. 11.

7:25Again, coming to a diocese near you. Again, while they all are worried about politics, and while they are all worried about crushing traditional Catholics, remember, it's in France, that the pope told the bishops, be generous to those attached, quote unquote, very troubling word, but attached to the traditional mass. Be generous to them. Find a way to solve the issues, French bishops in response in, oh, we will. We will just make every traditional priest swear allegiance to Vatican II. We will basically ask Rome to write a new missile for the traditional mass, that puts it on the same calendars the ordinary form, and essentially eliminates the traditional mass, and reimposes what was called the transitory mass from 1964. That's their generosity. While they do that, they're consolidating parishes, and it's not those trad parishes that

8:30have the problem here for mass attendance. Every indication of the Francis, those are packed to the rafters like they are in America, but that's what they're worried about. Maybe, just maybe, they should be worried about their own parishes, and their own formation, and their own lack of attendance in the normal everyday Catholic parish. I know what you think of that in the comments. And hit like and subscribe if you have not. It does help. Share this in social media that helps too, and please pray for everybody spoke about in a negative way today, especially when we're talking about pointing out that they're obsessed with politics for very dubious reasons, instead of focusing on the faith in the health of the church. Pray for them. They need your prayers. This is a time of testing for all of us, instead of responding to this stuff with unrighteous

9:30anger, and hate that's in our hearts, please pray for them. Don't lose your soul in this crisis, pray for the church, Anthony Stein of America.