Anyone shocked by Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde's shrill, partisan lecture on Tuesday hasn't been paying attention. Christianity has been in a sad state for years.
Ostensibly, the "interfaith service" was meant to ask God to guide the new administration. For her part, Budde dwelled on the here and now, chastising President Trump for not sharing her traditional liberal faith in open borders and "trans children."
The Church I knew, for all its flaws, had real values. Today, it reeks of compromise and moral decay.
Take the Catholic Church, in which I was raised.
Like a true Irishman, I served my time as an altar boy, sweating in cassocks during weddings, whispering amens at funerals, and nervously stumbling through the odd reading at Mass.
I served during Ireland’s transition from the Irish pound to the Euro, which meant that, on top of my altar boy duties, I had to grapple with exchange rates and figure out if I was being fairly compensated. This was a daunting task for a young boy who disliked math.
The rituals were ingrained in me, as much a part of life as Sunday roast or schoolyard scuffles. Years later, I look at the Church — broken, bereft of meaning, barely recognizable. Once proud of its rich history and claim to divine truth, the Catholic Church seems to have sold its soul for scraps.
Or maybe even to Satan himself.
The heart of this betrayal lies in the seismic shifts unleashed during the early to mid-'60s by the Second Vatican Council. Convened by Pope John XXIII and concluded by Pope Paul VI, Vatican II set out to “open the windows” of the Church to the modern world. What followed was the end of the Latin Mass, with centuries of solemn, unified worship being tossed aside for vernacular language.
The council embraced aggiornamento, or “updating,” a move that rattled the Church’s traditionalists, none more so than Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.
For him, this wasn’t renewal; this was outright surrender. He and like-minded believers considered this the start of a human-centered agenda, shifting the Church’s focus from heaven to earth and reducing its mission to a shallow type of activism.
A former Vatican insider turned fierce critic, Viganò has accused the Church of becoming a pawn of globalist forces, abandoning divine doctrine in favor of political expediency. He sees the Church as having been infiltrated by what he calls a "deep state" of ideologues bent on subverting its sacred foundations.
His critiques are blistering, targeting not just Vatican II but the current pontificate of Pope Francis, whom he describes as the embodiment of this counterfeit church. For Viganò, the Church has turned its focus away from God, redirecting its devotion to modernism, relativism, and a misguided pursuit of secular approval.
Central to Viganò's argument is the belief that Vatican II’s reforms were the gateway for moral and theological decay. By abandoning the Latin Mass, the Church, in his view, severed a vital connection to its past.
The universal language of worship, transcending culture and time, was replaced by a fragmented and often turgid liturgy. What was once a mystical encounter with the creator has been reduced to a pedestrian exercise in community gathering.
Sure, community gatherings have their place — but that’s what community centers are for. A church is meant to be something far greater: a sacred space where the mystical touches the mortal, where the eternal meets the temporal. Strip that away, and all you’re left with is a meeting hall with fancy windows and some man in a dress.
Under Pope Francis, Viganò's critique has sharpened. He accuses the Argentine of not just following an unholy agenda but actively promoting it.
Whether it’s the vague statements on morality, the relentless push for environmental and social justice causes, or the softening stance on traditional teachings, Viganò sees a Church that has essentially undergone a cultural identity swap.
Speaking of which, the now infamous “Who am I to judge?” comment on LGBTQ issues epitomizes the Church’s rejection of divine law. Viganò views the discussions about blessing same-sex unions, expanding women’s roles, and other progressive measures not as signs of compassion or inclusion but as evidence of a Church betraying its original mandate.
Viganò’s criticisms extend beyond liturgy and doctrine to the Church's internal decay. He has been one of the most outspoken voices exposing financial corruption within the Vatican and the complicity of Church leaders in the sexual abuse crisis.
To him (and anyone with a functioning brain), these scandals aren’t isolated incidents. Rather, they’re glaring symptoms of a deeper sickness. Essentially, we have a Church that moralizes to the masses while acting in ways that utterly betray fundamental Catholic principles.
This schism has turned the Church into a battleground, with each side accusing the other of betrayal.
Traditionalists demand a return to the old ways — the Latin Mass, authentic doctrines, and sacred liturgy that lift believers toward the transcendent.
Progressives, on the other hand, clamor for reform, insisting the Church must evolve or die. They dress their agenda in the language of compassion and progress. However, it’s nothing more than a blatant attempt to remake the Church in their own image — secular, self-serving, and, at times, outright perverse.
Both sides claim to defend the true essence of Catholicism, but their visions are so irreconcilable that the Church now represents a house divided.
As someone who grew up immersed in Catholic rituals, I can’t help but feel a mix of anger and deep sorrow. The Church I knew, for all its flaws, had real values. Today, it reeks of compromise and moral decay.
Its desperate push to modernize leaves it indistinguishable from any other pandering secular institution. In its chase for cultural approval, the Church has abandoned the very thing that made it powerful: its otherworldliness.
A Church that desperately attempts to please the world becomes irrelevant to it. A house divided always falls. By renouncing heaven, the Church has found hell.
Of all the divisions troubling Protestantism today, perhaps none is as hotly debated as women’s ordination.
All seven mainline Protestant denominations have adopted the practice, while evangelical and fundamentalist denominations have defiantly refused to entertain the notion on biblical grounds.
Even progressives in the church were apprehensive about this direct assault on the 'patriarchal' status quo, fearing that it would undermine the legitimacy of the church.
Scripture seems to speak quite clearly on women’s capacity for leadership in 1 Timothy 2:12. As St. Paul writes, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man."
But as advocates for women’s ordination argue, female religious leaders in the New Testament like Phoebe, Priscilla, Lydia, and Mary seemed to hold positions of greater respect than St. Paul suggests. Many point out that Phoebe is described as a deacon or deaconess (diakonos) in Romans, which would suggest that there was a model of female authority within the church.
However, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, which claim apostolic succession and a direct ecclesiastical connection to the apostles, are defiantly against the practice and defend male-only holy orders as the orthodox teaching of the church.
On July 29, 1974, 11 female priests were ordained in the Episcopal Church. The act was largely symbolic, but real change soon followed. Those ordinations became legitimate in 1976 when the House of Bishops conditionally recognized them.
In response, hundreds of parishes broke away from the Episcopal Church as part of the Continuing Anglican movement, paving the way for the founding of the rival Anglican Church in North America in 2009. Ironically enough, that denomination is now split over women’s ordination.
Margo Guernsey’s new documentary “The Philadelphia Eleven” commemorates the 50th anniversary of this watershed moment through interviews with several of the surviving 11.
It’s clear that Guernsey sees women’s ordination as a righteous act of liberationist defiance progress; these women, she writes, “provide a vision for what a just and inclusive community looks like in practice.”
The women in the film depict their quest for greater female participation in the church as inspired by the civil rights movement. It was also an act of “obedience to the Spirit,” which took precedence over adherence to tradition.
The film admits how radical this was. Even progressives in the church were apprehensive about this direct assault on the “patriarchal” status quo, fearing that it would undermine the legitimacy of the church.
In retrospect, it’s clear that their fears were justified.
The ceremony caused extensive turmoil within the Episcopal Church. Several clergy involved had their careers severely damaged. Dozens of bishops and priests condemned the ceremony as an illegal farce, even as the women publicly defended their ordinations as valid. One quoted St. Paul during a television appearance: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
It did little good in the short term, as none of the woman were able to find positions. Ultimately, however, they won. By 1988, the Episcopal Church would even ordinate its first female bishop.
“Half of the human population was acknowledged as being important enough to take on one of the strongest institutions in the world,” said Philadelphia 11 member Nancy Wittig.
That’s certainly one way to look at it. Another way is to acknowledge that the institution Wittig and her cohort defeated is now but a shadow of its former self.
The Episcopal Church has continued down the path the Philadelphia 11 set it on, abandoning traditional Christian teaching on other issues like sexuality and abortion. It revised its canons to the point that bishops aren’t allowed to deny women’s ordinations.
The church now is deeply committed to social justice and tolerance, and it does much admirable work in trying to address many of the world’s wrongs. But it is also on the precipice of demographic collapse and will functionally cease to exist by 2040.
The Philadelphia 11 may have turned the tide against the patriarchy within their church and given women permission to be priests, but the resulting schism may prove too deeply wounding to celebrate their victory beyond the passing of this generation. It leaves a film like “ThePhiladelphia Eleven” balancing awkwardly over the abyss.
An Episcopal church in Wisconsin has paid a "voluntary tax" to Native American tribes in the state as part of a larger "land acknowledgement" movement within the greater Episcopal Church.
St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church in Madison, Wisconsin, has begun adding what it calls a "voluntary tax" to its annual budget in order to repatriate local indigenous tribes for the lands which the church now owns.
According to historical research conducted by members of the church, the land on which the church sits was once owned by the Ho-Chunk tribe. A statement posted on the church website claims that, through war, speculation, federal government seizure, and ultimately, private purchase, the church's lands were stolen from the Ho-Chunk people and that the Ho-Chunk were then "largely exterminated or pushed westwards" as a result.
In order to make amends for the stolen land, the church has added the tax, which has already yielded between $3,000 and $4,000 for the Wisconsin Inter-Tribal Repatriations Committee. According to reports, the donated amount represents 1% of the church's total budget for the year.
"We intentionally put it with our buildings and land expenses, with the other expenses related to owning our property," said the Rev. Miranda Hassett, rector of St. Dunstan’s.
"This isn't an outreach donation," she added, "because we also have outreach stuff in our budget. We have money we give away to organizations that are doing good in the community. This is different from that. This isn't from our charity or generosity. This is something we owe. That was important to me."
Rather than give the money to current members of the Ho-Chunk tribe, the church elected to donate it to the entire indigenous community within the state so that tribal leaders could appropriate the money as they saw fit. Representatives from St. Dunstan's reportedly handed the donation to the Committee in a purple envelope, a color which many Christians believe symbolizes repentance.
Hassett indicated that she hopes her church's donation will inspire other churches to do the same.
"[I]f this church does it, maybe other entities will follow suit," she suggested.
Back in July at its 80th General Convention, the Episcopal Church passed a resolution which encouraged its members to research their history to determine whether their congregation had ever benefitted from the mistreatment of Native Americans through ill-begotten land deals.
The people of St. Dunstan's — who, according to the website, claim to "affirm and celebrate the lives, marriages, and vocations of LGBTQ+ people" and who sometimes list their preferred pronouns on their church name tags — have determined that they have.
"St. Dunstan’s is mindful that we gather to worship on Ho-Chunk land, taken unjustly," the statement concludes. "We don’t know what it looks like to make peace with that history, but we wonder."
Rev. Hassett filmed a short video regarding the history of the St. Dunstan land. It was published on YouTube by the Wisconsin Council of Churches.
H/T: Not the Bee
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