It has always been thus...

In the Constantinian Church?

Or, the Church of believers vs. the Church of numbers. (per Fr. Louis Bouyer)

Rod Dreher links to a comment by Leon Podles on a previous post.

I have been reading about popular Catholicism in the medieval and Counter-Reformation periods, and it has made me less alarmist about the current situation.

Peasant societies had their own ideas about sex and marriage, and largely ignored the teachings of the clergy on the sacrament of matrimony, on the sin of fornication – and on the seriousness of homicide.

The clergy tried to repress the animal spirits of young men (half the male population of Dijon at one time seems to have engaged in gang rape) by preaching self-control and condemning anything that might excite young men, including fireworks and dancing. I feel sympathy for both the Jansenists who wanted Catholics to be morally serious, and for the populace, who wanted some joy in their short lives of hard work.

Moralists can sometimes sound like kill-joys, but we need them, and the clergy often have that unenviable and unpopular role. But if they want to be a s rigorous as the Curé of Ars, they had better be as austere as him, or no one will take them seriously.

Adam DeVille writes in the current thread:

I would second Podles. A little history goes a long way. I’m just finishing John O’Malley’s superb new book on the Council of Trent, and the cases of corruption it had to try (not very successfully, at least initially) to deal with make today’s Vatican scandals look like a “glee-singing contest in a garden suburb” (to quote Waugh’s Brideshead). That’s not to justify any of them, of course, but simply to introduce a little sobriety to those inclined towards what I call apocalypticism on the cheap–Benedict’s resignation is the end of the papacy, Church, civilization, etc., etc.

Those who contrast the pious with the morally lax might distinguish between "true" Christians and "nominal" Christians. Others might talk about sinners who seek recourse in God's grace and the sacraments and sinners who don't. Rather than focusing on the blame that is due to those who knowingly commit sin, should we ask not ask whether there is something that we as members of the Church and instruments of Christ can be doing better in order to aid in the salvation of the world? Given that God wants us, in union with Christ, to participate in His saving plan, if we were less lukewarm and strove to grow in charity, could we remove some obstacles in the human heart to Christ?

Were things different in the early Church, before the legalization of Christianity? (What do we make of the severe penances given to sinners?)


Related:
John O'Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council - his opinion on Vatican II.