“It is not hysteria on my part to warn that the Church could be lost in the States” one priest wrote in an email. “There are dioceses where there once was a vibrant community, and today there is only secularism—Norway for instance.” “The Church will never recover” claim those Catholic Americans whose faith is like the seed that fell on rocky ground. “Did you listen to the bishops? Not one addressed the real issue of episcopal accountability. Not one offered to resign! There is no faithful leadership in the NCCB,” lament some conservative voices.

Meanwhile across the theological divide their dissident Catholic counterparts are chalking up a victory, “We succeeded in keeping homosexuality out of the document.” Counting eggs before they are hatched these liberals believe they see the AmChurch approaching over the horizon. “The US church will become the church of the laity, now” smirk the dissident Catholics in their Internet chat rooms.

The Village Voice, a pro-gay New York based newspaper summed up their view of the future–church post Dallas with this boast, "…because of this crisis, the stage has been set for the kind of debate about church governance that has not occurred since Vatican II in the early 1960s. This discussion will probably not take place before the election of a new pope, but that will happen sooner than the disappearance of the scandal. The most likely outcome of such a process is a change in the character of the American church. Some power will devolve to local bishops—and even to the laity."

Another infamous dissident, self-professed lesbian Mary Hunt, was also smug, “The bishops have met alone for the last time.” Hunt is the director of a women’s group that openly performs parody masses where women preside as “priests.” Hunt said there will be “..a shift from bishops setting the agenda to the people setting it.” Of course, “the people” Hunt has in mind are not orthodox Catholics.

There were several prelates who stood before their brother bishops in Dallas urging that the crisis could not be solved by a failure to accurately diagnose the injury to the Body. Bishop Bruskewitz has been widely praised for his courageous remarks. Cardinal Bevilacqua stated stance that “homosexuals cannot be admitted to the priesthood.” Cardinal George delivered a serious warning that the Church must find the will to be authentically Catholic in this “Protestantized, secular culture.” Another handful of bishops engaged in behind the scene efforts to persuade the NCCB committee to acknowledge that dissent from Catholic teaching must be addressed—all to no avail. One bishop decried the reality that the wider body of bishops “have no control over the agenda for the Dallas meeting.”

This is evident in the committee’s selection of two prominent liberals to address the this historic gathering, Scott Appleby of University of Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism and Peggy Steinfels, editor of the liberal journal, Commonweal. Appleby is the co-author with Mary Jo Weaver of Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America. The book sneers at prominent American orthodox defenders of the faith, such as Professor Ralph McInerny and Professor James Hitchcock. Worse, Appleby and Weaver lump these eminent Catholics with several fringe characters who hide in the hills of Idaho spouting “Catholic” prophecy. Both Appleby and Steinfels call for laicization of the Church. Both are proponents of “shared power” as an ecclessial model.

The average Catholic is confused. The nightly news lists poll numbers showing church attendance and collections are holding steady, while fully 50 % of Catholics have lost faith in their bishops. Individual bishops have delivered comforting and encouraging messages, others are overshadowed by the threats of lawsuits and the selling of assets to pay for the huge judgments. Ninety-six percent of Catholics want the Holy Father to take disciplinary action against bishops who do not remove child abusers from the ministry, according to Zogby International and Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.

Serious Catholic thinkers have delivered their reasoned post-Dallas analysis to their respective audiences. H.W. Crocker, III author of the acclaimed one volume history, Triumph: The Power and Glory of the Catholic Church, wrote:

…far from being the authoritarian institution of black legend, the Catholic Church, in America in particular, has tolerated dissent to the point of criminality. When a Catholic priest can publicly embrace the agenda of the North American Man-Boy Love Association, as the now notorious Father Shanley in Boston did, and have his superiors treat this as a tolerable eccentricity, something is seriously wrong. And that wrong will not be righted by the introduction of more liberalism into the Church.

Troubled by what they perceive as the bishops plan to be more liberal—as indicated by the presence of Appleby and Steinfels-- some Catholics have even whispered the “S” word. While schism from the “AmChurch” is not an option, the fact that it is mentioned, even in frustration, is indicative of the magnitude of the crisis in the Church in the United States.

The real frustration is the dawning reality: we must extricate the Church form this sinkhole. That is the most cogent perspective, post Dallas. How can we have any confidence in such a mission?

First, the Catholic population has been aroused. The issues of orthodoxy and liberalism will be openly discussed and studied. It is the time for orthodox Catholic laymen to be very visible --respectfully—but persistently. God raises up His people to do His work. Placid, timid Catholics now know they are in a battle for the life of the Church in this nation—Dallas should be understood as a call to arms! To the degree that Catholics laity fail to defend authentic Catholic teaching, they are themselves complicit. To the degree that Catholics fail to become involved at the schools, university, parish and diocesan levels, they are equally to blame for the state of the Church in the US in the coming years. That is a sober charge, but it is point made by a great Father of the Church, St. John Chrysostom:

“He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but even the good to do wrong.”

Secondly, the Vatican will, however slowly and with deliberative care, take a stronger hand behind the scenes. One lesson learned from this crisis may be critical for the next pope. The Vatican II understanding of collegiality is still developing. As the universal Church examines how well national conferences, such as the NCCB/USCC have or have not served their flocks, the hierarchical Church gains a clarified picture of how the Church must proceed.

And last, as the history of the Church amply reveals, we have faced each internal crisis and survived not be cause we are a faithful people but because God is faithful.