Our Church Needs Revival!

by Admin · August 20, 2015

From Deirdre Lewis, Cape Town

Your editorial �Lure of other churches� (August 5) refers. Many years ago, while living in England, I attended services and prayer meetings held by an independent church. I found their simple ability to talk to God, as opposed to reciting prayers, refreshing.

(Image: The Southern Cross)

However, I found that I could not walk away from my Catholic heritage.

I am an unconventional Catholic, in that there is much in the Church I cannot agree with. I don�t see blind acceptance as necessary.

As I see it, the main issues are these:

The Catholic Church is very good at teaching about God but useless at teaching people to actually know him and form a relationship with him. This I learned from my evangelical friends.
We had a wonderful English liturgy, almost identical to the Anglican liturgy. We’ve replaced it with a 19th-century translation, pretty much incomprehensible to anyone under the age of 60 and not that comprehensible to those of us over 60 either.
There is little fellowship in the Catholic Church. Most parishioners know each other only by sight.
The ongoing in-fighting between progressive and conservative Catholics does nothing to endear us to anyone!
Yes, we have access to the riches of history and tradition, but many see the past as just that: the past! It is no longer relevant.

We, as a Church, need to find a way to become relevant again. If we don’t, despite the influence of our current pope, we risk becoming what Pope Benedict foresaw: a small remnant, outdated and largely discarded.