1970 PROPHECY FROM CARDINAL RATZINGER

I don't know what the future Pope had in mind when he spoke these words but I would have to say they bear reflection. I think this is the future of the Church. It will be broken, nearly destroyed and forced to rebuild itself. This is part of a process of purification necessary to prepare it for the role it will assume in the future. We're still in the beginning of this process; the Church is suffering, being scourged, but the crucifixion is still to come.

"From today’s crisis, a Church will emerge tomorrow that will have lost a great deal. She will be small and, to a large extent, will have to start from the beginning. She will no longer be able to fill many of the buildings created in her period of great splendor. Because of the smaller number of her followers, she will lose many of her privileges in society. Contrary to what has happened until now, she will present herself much more as a community of volunteers... As a small community, she will demand much more from the initiative of each of her members and she will certainly also acknowledge new forms of ministry and will raise up to the priesthood proven Christians who have other jobs... There will be an interiorized Church, which neither takes advantage of its political mandate nor flirts with the left or the right. This will be achieved with effort because the process of crystallization and clarification will demand great exertion. It will make her poor and a Church of the little people... All this will require time. The process will be slow and painful."...+Joseph Ratzinger, 1969 lecture on Bavarian radio."
Vox Cantor