Maronite Might

Thursday, April 26, 2012 Real Catholic Tv Maronite Might! vort-2012-04-24 Hello everyone and welcome to The Vortex where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed. I’m Michael Voris .. coming to you from Sydney .. Australia. Here in Australia .. the Church is going through the same travails as the Church in other parts of the western world .. slumping Mass attendance .. rejection of one Church teaching after another .. shrinking numbers of native born Catholics. Like the United States .. if it weren’t for immigration numbers artificially propping up the overall numbers .. the Church would be fading into non-existence. But here in Australia .. there is a hidden success story that goes largely unnoticed because the over all picture is so bleak. First a little background. The Catholic Church is comprised of a number of different rites. By far the largest one that nearly every Catholic is familiar with is the Latin Rite .. this is the rite to which nearly every Catholic in the western world belongs. But there are nearly two dozen OTHER rites in the Church .. all perfectly in communion with Rome and the Holy Father and every bit as Catholic as Latin rite Catholics. And here in Australia the hidden success story within the church at large is .. the Maronite Catholic Church,one of those almost two dozen eastern rite Catholic churches. It’s booming,growing, and intensely faithful .. certainly by ANY comparison to the Latin rite Church here down under. The LATIN rite Church has been undergoing a continual slide in Mass attendance for decades,now standing at less than 14 percent. The strange phenomenon with the Latin rite here as in other places in the west is that while its overall raw numbers may be increasing,the actual number of faithful Catholics WITHIN that number is actually declining,as measured by Mass attendance. Here are the supporting numbers. Since 10 years ago,the overall Catholic population grew by about 2 percent.But even as the number of Catholics increased,less and less of them went to Mass .. dropping to near 13 percent from above 15 percent over the same time. This means that as more and more people come to the Church,less and less attend Mass. And THAT suggests that an entirely different type of Catholicism, or rather .. what purports to be Catholicism .. is emerging. But when you look at the Maronite Rite .. it’s an entirely different story. Their overall numbers here in Australia are increasing AND so are the numbers of those attending Mass .. exactly what you would imagine SHOULD be the case. But there is an even MORE telling piece of data. Not only are more Maronite Catholics attending Mass .. but the RATE of attending Mass is also increasing. 10 years ago .. 30 percent went to Mass .. today .. it’s almost 50 percent. In short .. as the Maronite Catholic population continues to increase in numbers here in Australia .. greater share of them are also going to Mass. The bottom line reason why is this .. they are much more involved and intense about their faith and its role in their lives. They not only attend Mass more frequently .. but they are much more engaged in other ways as well. We saw this with our own eyes. All over our Australian Charity with Clarity speaking tour .. we spoke before hundreds and hundreds of Latin Rite Catholics in Melbourne ..Wagga Wagga .. Adelaide .. and Canberra .. as well as Sydney. But at the venues we were invited to speak at in front of Maronite Catholics .. the crowds numbered over a thousand .. even though they are a relatively small percentage of the over-all Catholic population. One Church .. St. Charbel in Sydney was packed and standing room only. And this happens with almost every Catholic speaker who shows up. Maronite Catholics have simply remained more devoted to their faith despite living in the same culture ..working the same jobs .. and living in the same cities. The one overriding difference is this .. while the liturgy in the west has become abuse ridden and in some cases almost unrecognizable as the Catholic Sacrifice of the Mass ..these abuses have resulted in a mass falling away of the faith because they have resulted in a loss of Catholic identity. This is NOT happening in the Maronite Church. The liturgy is largely unaffected by the wave of abuses that has swept over the Latin Rite. If leaders in the Latin Rite are looking for a way to stem the suicidal loss of faith that has crippled the Church for decades .. perhaps they could learn a lesson from the Maronites. Reporting from Sydney, In New South Wales, Australia. GOD Love you. I’m Michael Voris. For those who wish to hear the above(which I find easier) click below, cut and paste in the address line. http://www.realcatholictv.com/free/index.php?vidID=vort-2012-04-24&ssnID=196