The Decline Of Western Christianity Gradually Then Suddenly
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Western Christianity suffered a hit as it neared its peak about a thousand years ago when the Orthodox and Romans had a dispute about a vowel (I do not jest). Yet, in the end, this was more a practical than a spiritual split. The real decline began with events leading up to some Christians Protesting certain excesses, but drawing from their success the unfortunate conclusion that every man could, should, and would be his own priest.
“Ethical Christianity has failed. Western Civilization is not just suffering from a famine of spiritual values; it is not even caring about them. It is now seeking to stuff itself with the husks of the secular, the economic, the political, the worldly. This new thing which no longer is concerned with the soul, but with the belly, is a philosophy of life which mobilizes souls for economic and secular ends, a Ceasarism or adoration of the State, a glorification of the human collective through the depersonalization of man, and a suffocation of human personality and its subsequent absorption into the mass.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen