I was first introduced to this book a couple of years ago when I was wondering what happened to the Catholic Church that I grew up with. I wished I had read this book before the pandemic because I think it would have better prepared me for what happened during the lockdown.
The churches in our area were locked up tight during the pandemic. We watched church on TV. At the time, it seemed fine, but looking back on it now, I think it was damaging to our spiritual lives.
This book filled in the blanks on what has happened over the years in the Catholic Church and what happened behind the scenes. I was aware of some of the events mentioned by Marshall, but some of the details were eye opening. Needless to say, I couldn’t put the book down. I kept saying to myself, “so that’s what happened”, “that explains much”, and “what in the world”.
The book is well documented and provided sources on assertions made throughout the book. Thus, you can go back and check on this or that, which I did because I remembered hearing about some of these events in the past, and it was a moment of where was I when all of this was happening.
Marshall pointed out several changes that really affected our Catholic faith. There are too many to list but two examples stuck with me; one was the liturgy.
When I was growing up, I was always told that the liturgy is the same around the world and that I can drop in on a mass wherever I was, and I would still be at home in the church; except this hasn’t been the experience for me. The liturgy has changed and has been a source of controversy to this day.
The second point was the changes to the process of the canonization of saints. We have great respect for saints in the Catholic Church and for good reason. Many saints have given their lives for the faith. It is troubling to me that this standard was modified. There were many holy people in the past who were beatified but not canonized because they did not meet all the stringent criteria of sainthood. Sainthood should be something to aspire to; by changing the standards, it seems to be sending a different message.
Like I mentioned above, there are many more examples of the changes to the tradition of the Catholic faith listed by Marshall, and they make a compelling case for the infiltration in the Catholic Church. All this makes me very sad, but I think it is important to understand what is going on, so you can hold on to the faith. It is very easy to let it all slowly slip away without realizing what has happened.
I highly recommend this book to get a glimpse into what happened to the Catholic Church in modern times.