AP Alarmed by Conservative, Fundamentalist Catholics

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Catholics in the United States are moving closer to fundamental Christianity, as older priests, who were ordained during Vatican II are dying off, and are replaced with younger, more conservative clergy.

The AP saw this as a cause for alarm.

But maybe they need to look beyond Catholicism and examine Christianity as a whole, and then take a look at the chaos we’ve created in the world we live in.

"The shift, molded by plummeting church attendance, increasingly traditional priests and growing numbers of young Catholics searching for more orthodoxy, has reshaped parishes across the country, leaving them sometimes at odds with Pope Francis and much of the Catholic world," wrote Tim Sullivan for The AP.

In truth, "much of the Catholic world" might be "at odds with Pope Francis," given his approval of same-sex marriages within the Church, and other decisions he’s made.

The AP said that as a direct result of the church’s move to the right, church attendance is up, with more men wearing ties and women sometimes seen with laced head coverings.

"They attend confession regularly and adhere strictly to church teachings. Many yearn for Masses that echo with medieval traditions — more Latin, more incense, more Gregorian chants."

But where The AP predicted doom and gloom with this new development, OANN’s Liz Wheeler, herself a Catholic, saw only good:

"A silly hit piece that arbitrarily uses the word ‘medieval’ multiple times to try to scare people away from Catholicism — brings joy to my heart because it means the TRUTH of Catholic doctrine scares the opposition," she posted to Twitter/X.

"As it should. Praise the Lord so many are coming home to faith."

But this "coming home to faith" isn’t limited to Catholicism.

Nor is it limited to the United States.

Last week Russell Brand, a bawdy, irreverent, British actor and comedian, announced that he was getting baptized — and it was going to be an old-timey, full immersion in the River Thames baptism.

"This Sunday I’m taking the plunge — I’m getting baptized," he said.

"At the moment I’m very curious as to what you, who have been baptized, feel about it."

The replies came pouring in.

Said Glenn Beck, founder of TheBlaze, "Welcome to the family," and writer Jon Gabriel replied, "Welcome home, brother."

He received nearly ten thousand similar responses, but the best one came from Brand himself — after his baptism.

He called it an "incredible, profound," and "very intimate and personal" experience.

"The truth is this," he concluded: "As a person that has in the past taken many, many substances and always been disappointed with their inability to deliver the kind of tranquility and peace and even transcendence I always felt I've been looking for, something occurred in the process of baptism that was incredible, overwhelming."

But what’s really at play here may be a deep-seated sense that something is fundamentally wrong, that what we’ve been told lately is a pack of lies, and we’re simply yearning for sanity and truth.

For example:

• International organizations like the World Economic Forum (WEF) push us toward a global government, when we instinctually know would necessarily be fascist, overbearing.
• Medical "experts" tell us that school children can determine their own sex, apart from their sex at birth, when we know deep down is nonsense.
• Many of the world’s most developed nations permit unrestricted immigration, when we can see with our own eyes is destroying society.
• Here in the United States we have a government spending money like a drunken sailor, fueling inflation, and their only response is more taxes, more spending.
• President Biden has destroyed Title IX protections for girls and women, thereby making private, safe spaces like locker rooms and shower facilities open to males.
• Hamas terrorists savagely invade Israel, our strongest Mideast ally, and we’re supposed to condemn Israel and Jews worldwide and feel sorry for the terrorists.
• The president repeatedly demonstrates that he’s cognitively deteriorating, yet the mainstream press pretends he’s fine.

And the list goes on, and we all know deep down in our gut that it’s wrong.

One last point: The AP article was headlined "A step back in time," but the "step back in time" only went 60 years, when Vatican II liberalized the church — less than an average lifetime.

On the other hand the Church itself goes back thousands of years.

Maybe they just want a return to a simpler time, a time when life made perfect sense. And yes, if a smidgen of Latin, a whiff incense and a few Gregorian chants are part of the deal, that’s fine too.

Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.