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NEED FOR REVIVAL INDICATED BY ATTACKS ON CHAPELS AND STRANGE MANIFESTATIONS  

Last week we were speaking with a reputed seer from South Phoenix who was one of the more reliable in that upsurge of alleged apparitions in America in the 1980s.

The visionary no longer receives regular apparitions of Mary, but she was reminiscing about those days and one of the things about which she reminisced was the time she woke up in the middle if the night and heard someone wailing mysteriously.

At first she thought it was her husband -- who often prayed in the wee hours. But eventually she discovered that it was the Blessed Mother, weeping over the Church -- specifically those who guided it -- and informing the reputed seer that there was a great crisis in the priesthood. A big one. A severe one. She wept bitterly.

That was in the late 1980s -- years before the sexual-abuse scandal exploded -- and a terrific crisis was indicated.

A terrific crisis came. A terrific crisis remains. During an apparition attended by more than a dozen priests in the 1990s, the same seer heard Mary stress that priests were her special sons, and that they must realize such and remain true to their call no matter what is going on around them. Most recently, a priest known for his traditionalist bent was arrested for abuse in Upstate New York.

The seer's hunch is that the crisis has reached its peak and now will begin to wane. The purification reached its climax. There are still shocks. There are still arrests. And the Church still needs to complete the cleansing by purging not just abusers but any actively homosexual priests. It needs to tackle the seminaries.

But the crisis may be lessening, affording us the opportunity to tackle other crises as attacks against Catholicism only increase, she says.

The hour grows late. The purification moves elsewhere. The challenges are fundamental -- and can not be cured by nuanced steps.

The Church must rush back to the miraculous example of Jesus.

Most pressing: a return to old-fashion Catholic spirituality. We have often indicated that one of the challenges is the lack of active prayer in the Church and how dry theology has choked it.

That would empty the pews, many warned, and such seemed borne out this week with release of a new Pew Survey showing -- for the first time -- that those calling themselves "evangelical" now outnumber those who remain Catholic: 26 to 24 percent of the public in the United States.

Catholicism remains the single largest denomination (evangelicals can be classed as various kinds of Protestants), but more disturbing is that, as one report noted, "the Roman Catholic Church has lost more members than any faith tradition because of affiliation swapping. While nearly one in three Americans were raised Catholic, fewer than one in four say they're Catholic today. That means roughly ten percent of all Americans are ex-Catholics."

Hispanic immigrants have kept overall numbers up (the Catholic share of the population remains stable) -- and today half of all Catholics under the age of thirty are Hispanic. Worldwide, the number of priests, and congregants, led by Third-World nations, has slightly increased. But we see the point:

In modern, non-devotional nations, Catholics have left their faith in droves, often moving to evangelical, Pentecostal, and non-denominational charismatic-type setting where theology is set aside in favor of more direct evocation of spiritual gifts.

There are plenty of questions -- and potential problems, to be sure -- with such branches of Christianity. A shame it is that anyone strays from the Mother Church. Nothing can replace the sacraments.

But it is time to dramatically alter the way seminarians are trained; to teach them how to mystically discern; to instruct them on how to pray the deeper devotions, how to bless a home, how to bless salt, how to lay on hands; and to teach them especially how to conduct spiritual deliverance.

If we do, the numbers will reverse and we will begin to win against the outside force that is coming against us. A demonic force. It is a time, in our Church, when the weapons of spiritual warfare are essential. We have been attacked from within and are also being attacked from without.

For that, we need only know that there are direct satanic attacks even on our chapels.

We carried an article two weeks ago about vandalism at a church when one woman was adoring, and in southern Minnesota a series of vandalisms (most recently at a Rochester cemetery) caused the Winona diocese to observe that it was more than just a prank or teenage foolishness. "Bishop Bernard Harrington says it seems to show 'hostility, perhaps even a satanic attitude toward' Roman Catholics," said the Pioneer Press about a ten-year string of destruction at Catholic cemeteries. Last month, a statue of the Virgin Mary was defaced.

Meanwhile, in Emmitsburg, Maryland, police charged two men with defacing religious property at a well-known Catholic shrine at Mount St. Mary's University after  allegedly catching them trying to set fire to papers on the altar early Sunday morning.

Satanic assaults indeed -- attacks that can not be fought with the intellect but must be tackled spiritually.

It is time, Mother Church, to fight back with the weapons Jesus gave. Only then will there be a springtime.

"You have several articles about church vandalism recently," wrote viewer Terry Fuentes. "I wanted to tell you about Our Lady Queen of Peace in New Port Richey, Florida. Last Sunday my husband and I went to the nine o'clock Mass. We park on the north side of the building and enter through the north double door. The natural brown wooden doors are carved with lovely holy images. The holy mother on the left side and Cross on the right.

"Well we were shocked to see a cream colored paint heavily splattered all over Our Lady's image, and  splattered over to the right door. There was sand all over the sidewalk and on the carpet. We were met at the door by a lady with oxygen tubes in her nose and pushing an oxygen tank. When she saw the shock on our faces, she said, 'Pray for those misguided souls.'