Monday, February 11, 2013

Excerpt from La Popessa * ~

"In the rapidly changing world of the 1960s, Pascalina saw her Church torn between excessive change and excessive resistance to change.  A time of social upheaval and public question was at hand, and violent convulsions were occurring throughout Catholicism.
"As she had warned long before, the Holy See was already in deep trouble.  Those after Pius, the hierarchy that attempted to bring the Church into the modern world, had destroyed most of the old Catholic culture.  In the clerical revolt against authoritarianism, tens of thousands of clergy and nuns throughout the world were defecting.  The seminaries were half empty, and one fourth of all priests requested Rome's permission to get married.  Catholics by the millions were staying away from the Church.  Only 50 percent of those who ordinarily went to Sunday Mass continued to attend.  Surveys slowed that nearly 90 percent of Catholic married couples were using Church-banned forms of contraception.
"The Holy See's treasure suffered as severely.  Donations to the Church were cut in half, and only 50 percent of those who once gave regularly to the Church continued to give.  The papacy was stunned by the extent of Catholic mutiny at the grass roots.
Eight out of every ten Catholics were disregarding Church laws governing birth control, divorce, and sex outside marriage."

p. 307 * The Controversial Biography of Sister Pascalina, the Most Powerful Woman in Vatican History, Paul I. Murphy, 1983.  Warner Books, Inc.