The media, the Church and percentages

Nowadays the media are having a field day quoting all kinds of percentages of people who do not attend church any more or who do not obey Church rules and regulations.

My fertile imagination took me back 2,000 years to the times of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I started to imagine what would have been the media's reaction then. Imagine their exclamations at the way the Apostles acted when Christ was killed on our behalf on the Cross.

They would have told us that 8.3 per cent remained with Him to the end, 8.3 per cent disowned Him, 8.3 per cent betrayed Him, 75 per cent abandoned Him completely, or to top it all they would have given the more impressive percentage that 91.6 per cent left Him completely on His own in His time of need. I can imagine them exclaiming "What a disaster"!

Here one must keep in mind that these Apostles were all chosen by Christ. They witnessed all His miracles and were present and listened to all His teachings. With the percentage mania of the media, they are saying that the Church is failing in her mission, therefore by the same reasoning they would also have said that Christ was a failure. The history of the Church in the 2,000 years that followed Christ shows that facts give a completely opposite story.

During these last 2,000 years the Church was terribly persecuted and many Christians were tortured and killed and yet it still continued to grow. Nowadays the torture and killing of Christians has diminished significantly. Instead we have a different type of persecution. It is more subtle, yet just as harsh and forceful.

The media are doing their best, with the excuse of being modern, more forward thinking, more liberal and other such excuses, to try and stop the Church from continuing to spread the teachings of Christ.

We, who believe in Christ, are still of good heart and remember what Jesus Christ told us just before he ascended to heaven. At the very end of the Gospel of St Matthew, Chapter 28, 18-20, we have this quotation of Christ's actual words:

"All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world."