THE EMERGING CATHOLIC DIVISIONS IN AMERICA, AUSTRALIA, AND IRELAND............

Even as the Roman Catholic Church numbering some 1.8 billion members worldwide celebrates the papally proclaimed Year Of Faith, and commemorates the 50th Anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, the unity of the Catholic Faith is being seriously strained by increasing differences between Catholics in various parts of the World, including the United States of America, Australia, and Ireland.  In the United States the acuteness of differences between traditional and conservative  American Catholics views on substantial matters and Church teaching and those of progressive and liberal post cobciliar Catholics, continues to divide in largely the same percentage as with other Christian denominations and Religious / Spiritual persons, and the general population,  There is no longer a  unified Catholic viewpoint or support for the Church's teaching on Abortion, Contraception, Social Justice, and Religious Freedom, to name a few topics of substantial concern to the Catholic Church and the American Hierarchy.  These differences of opinion are so split that even after a vigorous effort by U.S. Bishops to publicly fight and organize American Catholics against President Obama's Health Care Contraception Mandate, as a violation of Religious Freedom  and Conscience, including a designated "Fortnight For Freedom"; and the perceived preference of a number of the Bishops for Governor Romney and against President Obama; American Catholics who voted for President on November 6th, chose Obama over Romney 50%; to 48%; according to exit polling.  The contentiousness between the Vatican and American Women Religious and the effectiveness of the, "Nuns On The Bus", tour has also caused the American laity to pick between the two points of view and the majority are siding with the Sisters.   In Australia, fall-out from the Sexual Abuse Scandal of the past decade plus, and the Australian Hierarchy's mishandling of these matters in the minds of a growing number of Aussie Catholics is opening holes in the relationships between Australian Bishops and a significant number of the laity, priests, and religious women and men.  Ireland, who for centuries disportinately porovided priests and nuns to evangelize and minister around a great degree of the globe, and undeniably one of the most Catholic countries worldwide also is undergoing a major reversal in terms of Catholicism.  Earlier this year, a credible survey of 1,000 Irish Catholics found three quarters of the laity responding on a wide range of Church teachings and societal issues, that the Teaching of the Catholic Church is no longer Relevant to their Personal and Family Life.  Sunday Mass attendance by youth through middle age Catholics is declining as well.  The disagreements between Irish Bishops and the Association of Irish Priests, and the reprimanding of the AIP's leadership is also driving wedges between Irish Catholics.  How deeply wounding and long lasting these opposing viewpoints and disagreements take to resolve, or re-unify the Laity, Clergy, Religious, and the Hierarchy may not only determine the result of our present divergence, but shape the ongoing and future credibility the Bishops of the United States, Australia, Ireland, - and perhaps other places, as the Shepherds of the People of God and Teachers of Truth, they are intended to be............Fr.  Troy