Reflections of a stormy petrel

This is the sort of question that makes me wonder how to answer it. If you do not understand that the complete loss of relevance by a Church, its fading to a mere sideshow in the society it helped create, is a historical disaster for that church, I cannot explain it to you. The Episcopal Church has sold its soul, and found that it gained nothing by the exchange. That is what the American Catholic Church was in danger of doing under such "leaders" as Weakland and Mahoney; and the rise of brilliant orthodox leaders such as Chaput is significant exactly because it marks the point where the sale stops and the process of recovery begins. I greatly fear the extremism and uncharity which will attend it, but it is a necessary process, and on the whole a beneficent one.