“The person who does not become irate when he has cause to be sins. For an unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices. It fosters negligence, and stimulates not only the wicked, but above all, the good to do wrong.”
–St. John Chrysostom
c. ARSH 347-407
Here is a short excerpt from the book “New Grub Street” by George Gissing published in ARSH 1891. It is available free online. I originally sourced it from John Senior’s “The Death of Christian Culture”. Emphases mine:
Jasper changed the topic of conversation, and presently Whelpdale was able to talk with more calmness. The young man, since his association with Fleet & Co., had become fertile in suggestions of literary enterprise, and at present he was occupied with a project of special hopefulness.
‘I want to find a capitalist,’ he said, ‘who will get possession of that paper Chat, and transform it according to an idea I have in my head. The thing is doing very indifferently, but I am convinced it might be made splendid property, with a few changes in the way of conducting it.’
‘The paper is rubbish,’ remarked Jasper, ‘and the kind of rubbish—oddly enough—which doesn’t attract people.’
‘Precisely, but the rubbish is capable of being made a very valuable article, if it were only handled properly. I have talked to the people about it again and again, but I can’t get them to believe what I say. Now just listen to my notion. In the first place, I should slightly alter the name; only slightly, but that little alteration would in itself have an enormous effect. Instead of Chat I should call it Chit-Chat!’
Jasper exploded with mirth.
‘That’s brilliant!’ he cried. ‘A stroke of genius!’
‘Are you serious? Or are you making fun of me? I believe it is a stroke of genius. Chat doesn’t attract anyone, but Chit-Chat would sell like hot cakes, as they say in America. I know I am right; laugh as you will.’
‘On the same principle,’ cried Jasper, ‘if The Tatler were changed to Tittle-Tattle, its circulation would be trebled.’
Whelpdale smote his knee in delight.
‘An admirable idea! Many a true word uttered in joke, and this is an instance! Tittle-Tattle—a magnificent title; the very thing to catch the multitude.’
Dora was joining in the merriment, and for a minute or two nothing but bursts of laughter could be heard.
‘Now do let me go on,’ implored the man of projects, when the noise subsided. ‘That’s only one change, though a most important one. What I next propose is this:—I know you will laugh again, but I will demonstrate to you that I am right. No article in the paper is to measure more than two inches in length, and every inch must be broken into at least two paragraphs.‘
‘Superb!’
‘But you are joking, Mr Whelpdale!’ exclaimed Dora.
‘No, I am perfectly serious. Let me explain my principle. I would have the paper address itself to the quarter-educated; that is to say, the great new generation that is being turned out by the Board schools, the young men and women who can just read, but are incapable of sustained attention. People of this kind want something to occupy them in trains and on ‘buses and trams. As a rule they care for no newspapers except the Sunday ones; what they want is the lightest and frothiest of chit-chatty information—bits of stories, bits of description, bits of scandal, bits of jokes, bits of statistics, bits of foolery. Am I not right? Everything must be very short, two inches at the utmost; their attention can’t sustain itself beyond two inches. Even chat is too solid for them: they want chit-chat.’
Jasper had begun to listen seriously.
‘There’s something in this, Whelpdale,’ he remarked.
We aren’t “quarter-educated” today. Oh, no. People today are something like “one thirty-second educated” or “one sixty-fourth educated”.
Next, a quote from Cardinal Pie, who lived back in the good old days when being a Cardinal was a function of true merit. Cardinal Pie also lived in the late 1800s, and was a favorite of Pope St. Pius X. After reading this, I’m sure you will be able to guess why.
“Is not ours an age of mis-lived lives, of un-manned men?
Why?
Because Jesus Christ has disappeared. Wherever the people are true Christians, there are men to be found in large numbers, but everywhere and always, if Christianity wilts, the men wilt. Look closely, they are no longer men but shadows of men. Thus what do you hear on all sides today? The world is dwindling away, for lack of men; the nations are perishing for scarcity of men, for the rareness of men. I do believe: there are no men where there is no character; there is no character where there are no principles, doctrines, stands taken; there are no stands taken, no doctrines, no principles, where there is no religious faith and consequently no religion of society.
Do what you will: only from God you will get men.”
And to confirm what Cardinal Pie said above, a large-scale study has been completed of Novus Ordo Catholics in English speaking countries, and the results show that only 5%, FIVE PERCENT, are actual “intentional desciples”. Many do not believe in the divinity of Christ, or even in a Personal God – but rather a “force”, or nothing. I can confirm these findings anecdotally. I’ll never forget the email from the weekly Mass attending Catholic woman who told me how stupid I was because everyone knows that “Jesus isn’t God. Jesus is God’s son.” In my reply to her, which I rarely do, I not only corrected her, but also took the opportunity to tell her that He was physically present in the Eucharist. I doubt very much that she believed me, but at least I tried, and perhaps planted some sort of seed.
“[W]e have asked hundreds of diocesan and parish leaders from sixty dioceses throughout the English-speaking world this question: What percentage of your parishioners, would you estimate, are intentional disciples? To our astonishment, we have received the same answer over and over: ‘Five percent.’”
More troubling still is her discovery – after working with hundreds of parishes, and personally interviewing a couple thousand practicing Catholics, most of whom described themselves as “active” and “heavily involved” in their parishes – that many of them have tremendous gaps in their understanding of the faith. They might be in Church every Sunday: ushers, lectors, parish secretaries, religious ed teachers [Say it. “Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion”.] and so on. Yet Weddell not infrequently discovered many who – upon sharing with her their own experience of the faith – did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, or who intimated that that they don’t even believe in a personal God at all! Her personal experience in these one-on-one encounters seems to confirm one of the most disturbing implications of the Pew study.
So, to review, more than 80% of Catholics simply stopped going to Mass at all beginning in the late 1960s when the Mass was turned into the effeminate, devirilized, illicit-yet-valid abomination that is the Novus Ordo. More yet have trailed off or joined pagan pantheistic protestant self-worship Sunday entertainment houses. Of those that actually remain in Novus Ordo parishes, only 5% can be called “intentional disciples”, meaning authentic Catholics who actually believe what the Church teaches on any level. So… five percent of less than ten percent.
1 x 0.1 = 0.1
0.1 X 0.05 = 0.005
0.005 = One half of one percent.
And this happened largely, not entirely, but largely, since ARSH 1968. 45 years. Not 450. 45.
This is why a plurality of self-identifying Catholics today voted for Obama and are in favor of sodomite faux-marriage.
One last quote:
“The Church is not falling to pieces. It has never been better. This is a wonderful moment for the Church, you just need to look at its history.”
Pope Francis Bergoglio
September 16, ARSH 2013
It is going to get worse. We are going to be made to suffer, and so we should because it is our responsibility to do something – anything – and we’re not getting it done on any level. Not even close.