The official web site of A.H. Lloyd

Whenever he came across Catholics who were in favor of abortion, or wanted to ordain women as priests, my father would nod sagely and say:  "You know, there's a term for people who feel like you – Protestant."

Apparently a bunch of Catholic bishops in Germany have decided that the way to put more people in pews is to stop being Catholic.

Which is weird, because all the "reforms" being trotted out are already available in the German Evangelical (i.e. Lutheran) Church.

What's interesting is that this is generating a backlash amongst the Catholic hierarchy of global proportions.

By the way, none of this is in any way new.  One doesn't even have to go back to Martin Luther – a century ago the same bromides were being advocated to "modernize" Christianity.  One of the amusing things about reading G.K. Chesterton or Evelyn Waugh is that the would-be reformers of past years sound just like the ones of today.

The difference of course is that we've had a century to see where that leads.  The fruit of the trees is plain to see, and it's a wasteland of unfaith and depravity.  The same Protestant church I mentioned a few weeks ago has a new message on its jumbo-tron style sign out front:  "You are enough."  The words appear amidst sunlit clouds, implying that God is the one saying this.

Which is absurd, because if we are enough, who needs God?  Why go to church?  Why donate?  I'm enough, so I can sleep in or maybe stream the service between binging on Netflix.

The whole point of Easter is that we aren't enough.  If everything's okay, if God loves me no matter what, why did Christ have to suffer death and then conquer it through the Resurrection?

One gets the sense that a great many German clerics never really bought into any of the Church's teachings.  Perhaps they assumed that the Church would fall prey to modernity and that by now women would be in wearing priestly vestments and they could be having licit homosexual relationships (since that's also always a key feature of "modernization").

There is a certain irony here, because Pope Francis – who is the least dogmatic Pontiff in generations – is being driving into the same corner as the hard-liners.  He also wants to change the Church, but I'm fairly certain he does not want to go down in history as the Pope who lost Germany for the second time.