***Rating My Church***

        I am a Catholic because I am convinced that the Catholic Church is the original church built by Christ upon Peter, the first Pope. When Simon Peter first told Jesus that he was the Messiah, the Son of the living God, Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (See Matthew 16:16-19.) So how is the Church with over 2.4 billion Catholics today doing? Well, as in any big institution you'll find some good people and some not so good. Within the Church, we have great saints as well as corrupt traitors. Satan, in rebelling against the Lord, has made priesthood one of his prime targets. My rating of the current state of the Church is lukewarm+ at best.
        These three issues have figured in prominently in my evaluation. (1) Abortion: Way over a million unborn babies still get aborted in this country alone. This most serious offense against the Lord must end! The Church has remained relatively quiet on this issue. You rarely hear the clergy speaking out boldly against this evil. It's the laity that's doing much work on its own. (2) The Holy Eucharist: Surveys have shown that the majority of Catholics no longer believe in the real presence of Christ in this most holy sacrament. This is an absolute crisis! We need to initiate a worldwide campaign to educate all Catholics and there's no time to waste! Yet the Church doesn't seem to sense any urgency. To wish the Lord to safeguard us, it behooves us to do our utmost to "safeguard" him, not that he can't take care of himself. (3) Union with God: The Holy Eucharist is available to us, the Lord's invitation to seek union with him is there, and above all, he commanded us to be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect; yet we are not specifically encouraged to seek to attain union with God through the Holy Eucharist so that we may all become saints! Have the Church ruled out this possibility? Wouldn't that be limiting God's omnipotent power? To believe that we can't become saints is false humility. The fact is that wanting to be a saint is being obedient to the Lord and being truly humble! Abandoning ourselves totally in God is all it takes. In Luke 12:49, Jesus said to his disciples, "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!"