Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

Our StinkyInky, under NEW MANAGEMENT, is running a five-parter on the American Catholic church. There isn't much to say, even in one part; like too many churches it has become a self-supporting irrelevance; owning so many schools and colleges and hospitals it's a glorified social-services agency. We see that in the church's high-mucky-mucks, who spend more time worrying about the minimum wage than about their cathecism. And the "faithful," with good reason, don't take it too seriously either.

It's not just the Catholic Church's problem of course. There is not a single American church that combines moral strength, intellectual rigor and cultural excellence. At least one quality is always missing. Thus with the Catholics, for whom the official musical instrument is still the gheetar. Thus with the Baptists and the evangelicals, who undermine their conviction with outright pandering and the musical equivalent of a smiley button, or worse. Thus the liberal Jewish congregations, religious in name only. Thus with the so-called mainstream Protestant denominations, home to droning and political wishy-washiness. Nor do some churches help themselves by turning the other way at internal corruption.

I must confess I haven't been inside a church in ages. Part of me regrets that. Religion is crucial to life; it gives reason to live, and hope. But our churches are in the same funk as everything else. America is several centures removed from the conditions that justified her existence and gave her guts; we're now coasting, like the Europeans, only with a healthier economy. Cranks and rabble-rousers and SUMNERS have a huge void they can fill, and they're doing it nicely.