The Catholic Church, Christendom, and Western Civilization - Facing Satan Again - Part 1 of 4 Notes

By Natalio A. Yaria - Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Catholic Church is facing now not a particular heresy as were the Arian, the Manichean, and the Albigensian in the past; or it is in front of the controversies that separated the Roman Catholic Church with the Eastern Orthodox Church; neither is it struggling today with a generalized division within the Church as it was when it had to meet the Protestant reform around five hundred years ago; nor does it stand in front to anything of the size and violence of the Germanic, Hun or Islamic invasions from the fall of the Roman Empire in the V century to the end of the XVII century.

From the end of the XVIII century, either the Terror of the French Revolution, and its by-product, or the Napoleonic Era and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution experimented and failed to destryed the Catholic Church. During 70 years, Soviet Communism was also determined to destroy the Church and Christendom and establishe under "the leading role" of the Comunist Party the "socialist paradise" on earth; but close to the end of the XX century the USSR suffered a strategic defeat.

We must admit, however, that after the end of WWII in 1946, we did not know the extent of the area over which the Church would have to survive; our enemies had doubts on the Catholic Church power of revival. We could not identify what was precisely the capacity and power of "dialectical materialism" to push our Church to its last defenses, and sometimes it appeared as though it had come to the final battle.

Throughout many centuries all of Satan's emissaries have attempted to destroy the Catholic Church and all of them have failed. Their worst elements have already been disposed into the cesspool of history.

During all those aggressions, the Catholic Church resisted and confronted its adversaries and during those experiences that lasted for centuries, The Church purified itself from elements even inside the Church. As St. Peter tells us, we must “Stay sober and alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him solid in your faith, realizing that the brotherhood of believers is undergoing the same suffering throughout the world.” 1 St. Peter 5

We know, of course, as was promised by our Lord Jesus Christ, that as in the many attempts of the past, the present and future efforts of Satan’s emissaries to destroy the Catholic Church shall not prevail. But make no mistake; Satan’s moral depravity is still around. His emissaries have not given up; they just changed their tactics. We are engaged on a definite line of cleavages, involving the survival of Christendom and Western Civilization - and all of what the Church stands for - not just a portion of its teaching. The enemy of the Faith, camouflaged today in "modern relativism," has launched a wholesale assault upon the fundamentals of the Faith and Christendom and upon the very existence of Western Civilization.

The enemy has already presented and has already begun to implement their “plan of battle” against us. We must agree, however, they have a well thought out plan; they developed highly provocative and no necessarily original perspectives on contemporary society and culture.Their approach is what we shall call here the "gentle seduction strategy" which we will present in Part II of these Notes. Yet, the emissaries are increasingly conscious of the fact that there can be no question of neutrality on our part on their programs on eugenics, population control, birth control, sexual and family law reforms, sex and health education.

This is their battle objective: changing “the subjective conditions of the masses” for a final assault which is already underway. So far they seem to be successful. But, time will prove them wrong; what we are witnessing is a set of very rough skirmishes that eventually they will lose. The final battle is ours because they have made two fatal miscalculations: first, they have underestimated the powerful role of Faith in the development and permanence of order and peace in society; and, second, they have overestimated the role of historical economic determinism in the cultural transformation of societies.

Before we advance any further, here are few Words of Caution:

To those who have no sympathy with Catholicism, who inherit the old doctrinal animosity to the Church and who may think that any attack on the Catholic Church must somehow or other be a good thing, the present attack is on Christendom which includes the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches and the lineal or collateral descendants of former members of the Catholic Church that today call themselves "Christians.” There can be no neutrality in these skirmishes; the lines are drawn, the enemy is facing Christendom.

Now, a few words must be said about the present and future relationship between Christendom and Islam. First of all, we predict that, contrary to the current belief, the clash will not be between these two powerful civilizations; it will be between the joint forces of those who believe in one God’s teachings against those trying to impose Satan’s to the world. Secondly, after the emissaries of Satan are defeated, a new quiet period will arrive and a new world must be rebuilt. Thirdly, it might very well be then that, as Satan regroups new forces, Christendom and Islam may have to guide jointly the process of upgrading human affairs into a new world of order and peace.

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Number of baptized Catholics in the world grows by 15 million

Vatican City, Feb 19, 2011 / 01:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).-

Catholics in the world continue to increase in number by the millions, according to the latest official statistics from the Catholic Church. Although the number of baptized Catholics in on the rise, Church officials say that with the exception of Asia and Africa, the "crisis remains" in vocations to the religious life throughout the globe.

The 2011 Pontifical Yearbook was presented to Pope Benedict XVI on the morning of Feb. 19 by a delegation led by his “number two,” secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and members of the Central Office of Church Statistics.

The book contains information on all Church jurisdictions and organizations, religious and cultural institutes and structures worldwide. Some information was released about novelties in dioceses and other church jurisdictions created in 2010 yet the main focus is on statistics from 2008-2009.

The standout figure of the new yearbook is the jump in the number of newly baptized Catholics over the two-year period.

In the 2,956 church jurisdictions in the world, the number jumped by 15 million from 2008. The total number of living baptized Catholics on the globe in 2009 reached 1,181,000,000.

North and South America account for a fraction under half of this number. European Catholics amount to 24 percent, Africa rings in at 15 percent and Asia at just over 10 percent; the remaining number, totaling less than one percentage point, live in Oceania.

Growth figures for all continents were not provided for the individual continents in the Vatican statement.

The yearbook also showed that the number of bishops and priests grew in direct proportion to the number of Catholics worldwide. For the 1.3 percent more Catholics in the world, there was 1.3 percent more of both bishops and priests in the period from 2008 - 2009. In 2009, there were 5,065 bishops and 410,593 priests.

The numbers also show a net increase of priests on every continent except Europe, where both religious and diocesan numbers decreased over the two-year period examined.

This increase was perhaps overshadowed, however, by what Church officials called a troubling statistic. Consecrated religious numbers decreased worldwide by nearly 10,000 to 729,371.

"So the crisis remains, notwithstanding Africa and Asia where they increased," read the Vatican statement.

Numbers also show that deacons worldwide increased by more than 1,000 men to a total of 38,155 and seminarians are on the increase led by significantly higher numbers again in Africa and Asia. Decreases were registered in Europe and in the combined total of North and South American dioceses.

The 2011 Yearbook has not yet been released by the Vatican Publishing House to the public, but it will be due out soon.

The Pope traditionally receives the first three copies of the volume bound in white cloth. It is made available to the public with a red-colored binding, which has led to its common name - the "red book of the Church."

According to the statement from the Holy See's Press Office, the Pope thanked the delegation and all contributors for the volume and showed "great interest" in the data it contains.