The Swiss-based SSPX has about a million followers worldwide compared to 1.1 billion for the official Church. It maintains the old Latin Mass and rejects Vatican II reforms such as dialogue with other religions.
So it's a numbers game, huh?
Guess what -- a HUGE portion of those "1.1 billion" don't even follow Catholic Church teaching as it is taught today in mainstream parishes. Worse yet, it's not just a question of morality. Catholics have always had to fight sin just like everyone else. But no, most of those 1.1 billion don't even BELIEVE as the Church teaches! You can never reach proper morality without proper belief.
If you deny JUST ONE dogma, you are a heretic. Period. The dogmas of the faith are all inter-connected.
Now I realize that there is material heresy and formal heresy -- but I wouldn't say that ALL the material heretics out there today are "doing their best to know God's will for them". I'm sure many are tainted by wanting to fit in, desire for pleasure, wealth, etc. which means their WILL is involved -- they start to become culpable then.
How many Catholics don't believe in purgatory, the exclusivity of salvation only in the Catholic Church "Extra Ecclesia Nulla Salus"?
How many Catholics treat religion as something nice to do on Sundays? How many relegate the Most High God to the lowly station of "lapdog" -- they want Him to give them pleasure (sweet emotions, love, peace) on Sunday morning, then they tell Him to go away when they have work to do?
So many Catholics don't want God (or the Church) to tell them what to do -- how to vote, for example. Or how to dress, what books to read, what to do for entertainment, etc.
How many Catholics practice contraception? How many tolerate abortion? How many voted for Obama?
And most important of all, how many of those Catholics stand out as Catholics? How many have lifestyles that completely blend in with their non-Catholic friends?
If your friends don't all KNOW you're a Catholic, there's a very big problem. It has to do with being "fundamentalist" = having actual beliefs which affect your daily life. That's why Mormons stand out.
Being fundamentalist is NOT a bad thing, as long as it's the Catholic religion you get your beliefs from.Burn that into your brain -- Fundamentalist = having beliefs. So many Protestants today are "mainstream" which means they're no different from those who don't attend church.
It's not as though they're all good Catholics and we're "rebel scuм" -- don't let them lie like that.
Matthew