Decline of the church (60)

Them too....

My opinion is that you dont have to go to church to be close to god, god is everywhere!

Very true Lisa....but a visit to a friend is better than a call on the phone....so if you beleive that the church is his house (not talking about the priests...that's another issue) a visit every now and again would be nice.

Gosh.......I'm sounding like my mother

Innit scary when that happens?

Yes it is......i'm growing old that's why

Do you feel that God agrees with you 'not being allowed to take part in the mass'

No...but then again i'm not blaming God....he made earth pefect and man destroyed it, he made the church and they are doing whatever they want to as well.

Not a bad analogy at all; a personal visit is far better in any case.
I have always regarded the old, our ancient churches and cathedrals as a sanctuary from a world gone totally mad, a world teetering on the bring of catastrophe. Even a an old way-side shrine along some mountain road.
I cold and have just sat for hours soaking in the ambiance of what I feel is God's presence in His Home of many Houses. I've tried some of the "modern" structures and feel nothing,; I sense only emptiness, totally devoid of any connection with His spirit. To me, they are stale and sterile of God's Presence.
For me, the priests aren't an issue; they are human beings and thus are prone to any and all of the usual vices the rest of are; their lack of true commitment and dedication has only increased ten-fold in a mostly secular world governed by totally unrestrained behavior and morals. I do find it ironic that they do now, truly reflect our societies more , which is exactly what the critics of the Church has always wanted...and now they complain that many of the priests are in fact only too human...another endless circle of futility.
Just what is "spirituality"??? Given the endless enlarging of parameters as to what it entails, our ancient ancestors, pagans though they were, were certainly "spiritual", so were the Carthaginians who threw their newly born into the sacrificial ovens of Baal...Jehovah ,El etc. For them it was a positive experience; would we be so tolerant of that today...Perhaps this strangely vague term would be close to the ideas of Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in one of his books such as The Phenomenon of Man or The Divine Milieu, perhaps in Man's Place In Nature...or the "spiritual" writings of St. Bernard de Clairvaux, the Church's greatest "mystic" or wold it be closer to what author Fritjof Capra in his book The Web of Life or his other books ...but not many people read such "heavy" tomes about such "serious" matters... people also don't like to think much on these matters either, but then again, they already are "enlightened"; they don't need learned priests to show, teach and guide them closer to not only God's Spirit but to God...we read only the latest magazines and ads that tell us, instruct us; order us(!) in what to think, how to think and when to think, otherwise, this church of secularism lets us all run and play; it's all the usual boring "bread and circus" routine.
It is also very ironic that in these times of growing "spirituality" that the numbers of people going to the old fashioned "retreats" are increasing for the monasteries and nunneries...of and for people seeking guidance and recuperation from the very secular world that many proclaim to be Salvation and the next best thing to "Godliness" itself. I just wonder what god; which one...can't be that useless old Christian one whose churches are run by senile old semi p*dophile, according to the secular press outlets...can't be.

As long as you don't LOOK like her............