{"id":584,"date":"2011-08-04T10:39:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T10:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/08\/a-reader-writes-11\/"},"modified":"2014-12-31T13:29:34","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T20:29:34","slug":"a-reader-writes-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/08\/a-reader-writes-11.html","title":{"rendered":"A reader writes:"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><blockquote><p>Besides your blog, I like reading the stuff at \u2018thecatholicthing.org\u2019 it really is both authentically Catholic and intellectually stimulating. Have you ever checked it out? If you have not, I suggest you do, it\u2019s worth your time. So anyway I was on it today, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecatholicthing.org\/in_the_news\/in_the_news\/sad-exodus.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">saw this link in their news section<\/a>.   <\/p>\n<p>This is very sad news indeed. I know Europe is heavily secularized and has been for some time, but to have the numbers jump so high like that, that\u2019s terrible. Is there even a effort to re-evangelize Europe? If there is one it does not seem to be having a big effect, or am I wrong? Mark, in your honest opinion, do you think Europe will ever be Christian again, or is there even a chance of this happening? Seeing such low numbers in Europe depress me, its such a travesty to see the once gloriously Christian Europe succumb to the nothingness of secularism. It\u2019s like the story of Dracula, once great defender of Christendom, then turned satanic inverse, the arch enemy of everything Christendom stood for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Prophecy is above my pay grade and speculation about the future tends to lead us away from Hope and into either presumption or despair.  Rather then depressing ourselves with gloomy thoughts about events we cannot possibly foretell, I think wisdom says, \u201cLook and see what God is up to now and try to support that.\u201d  If we\u2019d have looked at Israel at the moment of the Babylonian Captivity, we\u2019d have said, \u201cThat\u2019s it.  It\u2019s the end of Israel and of the entire story of revelation to Abraham, Moses, and David. The whole thing was an illusion and the whole \u201cmessianic promise\u201d nonsense was just a lot of wishful thinking.<\/p>\n<p>Turns out we\u2019d be wrong.  It ain\u2019t over till it\u2019s over.  Hope lives while Christ lives.  And he lives forever.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Besides your blog, I like reading the stuff at \u2018thecatholicthing.org\u2019 it really is both authentically Catholic and intellectually stimulating. Have you ever checked it out? If you have not, I suggest you do, it\u2019s worth your time. So anyway I was on it today, and saw this link in their news section. This is very [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A reader writes:<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Besides your blog, I like reading the stuff at &#039;thecatholicthing.org&#039; it really is both authentically Catholic and intellectually stimulating. Have you\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/08\/a-reader-writes-11.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A reader writes:\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Besides your blog, I like reading the stuff at &#039;thecatholicthing.org&#039; it really is both authentically Catholic and intellectually stimulating. Have you\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/08\/a-reader-writes-11.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic and Enjoying It!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-04T10:39:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-12-31T20:29:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/3469526-4723160715250676783?l=markshea.blogspot.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/08\/a-reader-writes-11.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/08\/a-reader-writes-11.html\",\"name\":\"A reader writes:\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-08-04T10:39:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-31T20:29:34+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5\"},\"description\":\"Besides your blog, I like reading the stuff at 'thecatholicthing.org' it really is both authentically Catholic and intellectually stimulating. 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