Catholicism

This is a hard time to be Catholic. Sure, there have been worse times: it's not as bad as when our country was first starting, for example: Catholics were openly persecuted here, then. And it's not nearly as bad here as it is in other countries right now, like China or Pakistan. In those place, the Church is suffering horribly; the price of being caught practicing the Faith is often imprisonment or death. I suspect, if the Church in America were to be subjected again to such persecution, it would quickly lose a whole lot of members.
A recent poll claimed that 59% of Catholics have no problem with Obama's decision to force tax payers to fund fetal stem cell research again. That sounds a little high to me, but it's possible. Years ago, polls were saying 1 in 3 Catholics thought using artificial birth control was ok, and about that many didn't believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, either.
So it doesn't surprise me that our diocese is going to have to close some churches in order to stay afloat. If somewhere between one-third to over one-half of people who call themselves Catholic are that far gone, they probably aren't attending Mass, anymore. Why should they?
The Church- the REAL Church- has been heading underground for a while now. We aren't there, yet, and we may never have to completely break off from the mainstream as they did in Russia when it became the USSR.
But there is already a transformation taking place within the Church, and it had its start in the fallout of Vatican II. It will continue, unless or until we get a pope who will address the Modernism, Radical Feminism, and other heresies that have infiltrated every part of the Church.
Meanwhile, real Catholics are making do. My kids attend an independent Catholic school that was started by homeschoolers. It presently does not receive any funding from the state or the diocese, and probably never will, since to do so requires allowing them to dictate our curricula. Our school is dedicated to providing a traditional, orthodox Catholic education to its students, and is doing a fine job of it.
Real Catholics are forming groups and supporting one another in engaging our society on issues such as the sanctity of human life and true social justice- not the cockamamie version the radical feminists have convinced too many Church leaders to embrace.
Real Catholics are not going to just give in when the government says we have to provide abortifacient birth control or abortion referrals- if not actual abortion, itself- or be put out of business. There is a higher law that mandates civil disobedience to unjust laws, as anyone who ever heard of the Civil Rights movement would agree.
It will be interesting, to say the least, to see how this all works out.