Church: Decline or renewal? - Periods of decline in the Church’s life are often followed by phases of renewal

Liberal Catholicism: Requiescat in pace

by Samuel Gregg

If Church history teaches us anything, it’s that periods of decline in the Church’s life are often followed by phases of renewal. The corruption, scandals and heresies (sound familiar?) which sparked the Reformation were followed by the evangelical energies unleashed by the Council of Trent and Counter-Reformation that took Christ’s message literally to the ends of the earth. Likewise, the Church’s abasement at the hands of philosophes, Jansenists, Febronists, absolutist monarchs, and French revolutionaries during the eighteenth century was followed by nineteenth-century Catholicism’s profound spiritual revival, a rejuvenation which produced giants such as Thérèse of Lisieux, a saint and doctor of the Church.


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