The crisis of our age is not merely rebellion against truth. It is the slow training of souls to forget it. 

Not all at once. Not through open hatred of Christ in every case. Not always through direct attacks against the Church. The enemy has learned a quieter strategy, a more subtle corruption. If souls can be taught to forget, then eventually they will surrender truths they once would have died defending. 

And so we find ourselves living through a crisis of forgetting. 

A forgetting of who Jesus Christ is. 
A forgetting of why He came. 
A forgetting of what He taught. 
A forgetting of what He suffered.  
A forgetting of what the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass truly is. 
A forgetting of why souls must be saved. 
A forgetting of sin. 
A forgetting of judgment. 
A forgetting of eternity. 

We are living in a time when many Catholics no longer fear merely the hostility of the world. Increasingly, they fear amnesia within the Church herself. Many faithful souls feel as though the sacred memory of Catholicism is slowly slipping away before their eyes. 

The language of sacrifice fades. 
The language of penance fades. 
The language of conversion fades. 
The language of reverence fades. 
The language of spiritual warfare fades. 

What countless saints defended with blood is now often treated as excessive. What martyrs embraced joyfully is now dismissed as rigid. What generations of Catholics recognized instinctively is now questioned, softened, negotiated, or forgotten. 

And perhaps nowhere is this anguish more visible than in the growing unrest among faithful Catholics throughout the world – Catholics who feel increasingly treated with suspicion simply because they cling to what the Church herself handed down through centuries. 

In recent days, many Catholics have watched with sorrow as tensions have risen again surrounding the Society of St. Pius X and possible canonical penalties connected to episcopal consecrations. While opinions differ regarding prudential matters and canonical questions, the deeper wound underneath these conflicts cannot simply be ignored.  

The wound is this: many Catholics fear that remembering has become dangerous. 

They fear that attachment to tradition, reverence, doctrine, clarity, sacrifice, and the ancient treasures of the Church are increasingly viewed not as signs of fidelity, but as obstacles to a new vision of Catholic life. And that fear does not arise in a vacuum. 

For decades now, the faithful have watched confusion spread where clarity once reigned. They have watched the sacred become casual, certainty become ambiguity, and eternal truths become topics of endless negotiation. Many are exhausted. And exhaustion is one of the enemy’s greatest weapons. 

Because exhausted souls eventually stop resisting. They stop studying. They stop remembering. They begin adapting themselves to confusion simply to survive. But the Church was never sent into the world to forget Christ. She was sent to proclaim Him.  

And providentially, we reflect upon these things between the Ascension and Pentecost. 

Our Blessed Lord has ascended into Heaven. The Apostles stand looking upward as Christ disappears from their sight. The world around them remains hostile. The Cross has scandalized many. Fear still grips their hearts. The future seems uncertain. 

And yet, before ascending, Our Lord entrusted something to His Church. 

Not a political program. 
Not a constantly evolving message. 
Not a faith rewritten by every generation. 

He entrusted a Deposit. A sacred memory. The revelation of God Himself. 

And then Our Lord spoke these words: “But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you” (John 14:26). 

The Holy Ghost comes not to erase memory, but to preserve it. Pentecost is Heaven defending remembrance.  

The fire that descends upon the Apostles is not the fire of reinvention. It is the fire of divine remembrance – the grace to proclaim fearlessly what Christ already revealed. That is why the crisis of forgetting is ultimately a spiritual crisis. Because once sacred memory fades, identity fades with it.  

If the Church forgets why the Mass exists, then reverence disappears. 
If the Church forgets sin, then repentance disappears. 
If the Church forgets judgement, then urgency disappears. 
If the Church forgets the Kingship of Christ, then the world rushes to enthrone itself in His place. 
If the Church forgets that souls are eternally at stake, then evangelization becomes merely dialogue and accompaniment without conversion.  

The great danger of our age is not merely that people reject truth openly. It is that they are slowly conditioned never to think about it deeply enough to defend it.  

Souls are distracted into forgetfulness. Civilizations are entertained into forgetfulness. Even within the Church, Catholics are often pressured into forgetfulness. 

Forget the old devotions. 
Forget the old warnings. 
Forget the old reverence. 
Forget the old moral clarity. 
Forget the saints who spoke with fire. 
Forget the martyrs. 
Forget the sacrifices that built Christendom. 
Forget the language of spiritual combat. 
Forget the necessity of conversion. 
Forget the uniqueness of the Catholic Faith. 
Forget what earlier generations believed so firmly that they surrendered their lives rather than betray it. 

But the Holy Ghost does not descend upon the Church to teach forgetfulness. He descends to preserve memory against the darkness of every age. And this is why faithful Catholics must resist despair. 

Remember Christ. 
Remember His words. 
Remember His Passion. 
Remember His Eucharistic Presence. 
Remember the saints. 
Remember the martyrs. 
Remember the Faith handed down through centuries. 
Remember what the Church taught before the modern world demanded compromise. 

And above all, remember that truth does not age. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.            

And this brings us again to something many Catholics are watching with great sorrow and intensity in our own day. The Society of St. Pius X released a public declaration addressed to Pope Leo XIV amid growing tensions and warnings of possible canonical penalties connected to future episcopal consecrations. 

Now, many Catholics will immediately enter into arguments about canonical status, jurisdiction, prudential decisions, and decades of painful history. Those questions are real and serious. But beneath all ofthose debates lies something deeper that faithful Catholics cannot ignore. 

The declaration itself was not written like a political manifesto. It was written like a plea of remembrance. 

Again and again throughout the document, one hears the same cry: 

Remember what the Church has always taught. 
Remember the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. 
Remember the necessity of the Catholic Faith. 
Remember the sacrificial nature of the Mass.  
Remember the moral law. 
Remember the Deposit entrusted to the Apostles. 
Remember that the Holy Ghost was given to preserve revelation, not reinvent it. 

Whether one agrees with every prudential conclusion or not, many Catholics reading that declaration recognized something profoundly familiar within it: the anguish of souls who fear that sacred memory is fading. And perhaps that is why the unrest surrounding these events has become so intense. Because many faithful Catholics increasingly feel that what earlier generations regarded as treasures are now treated as problems. 

Many Catholics feel they are constantly being urged to loosen their grip on these things for the sake of modern acceptance. And that is why this crisis is a spiritual crisis. For the Church does not have the authority to forget Christ. She does not have the authority to forget what He has revealed. She does not have the authority to forget the truths guarded by saints, councils, martyrs, missionaries, monks, faithful fathers and mothers, and countless holy priests throughout two thousand years. 

The Church is not the owner of divine revelation. She is its guardian. And that is why the words of Our Lord before Pentecost matter so deeply now. The Holy Ghost was sent not to erase memory, but to preserve it. 

The Apostles were not empowered to create a new faith suitable to changing centuries. They were empowered to preach faithfully what they had received from Christ Himself. 

And faithful Catholics today are crying out not for innovation, not for adaptation, but for remembrance. Because once sacred memory fades, confusion always rushes in to occupy the empty space. 

And so, dear faithful Catholics, this is not an hour for despair. It is not an hour for hatred. It is not an hour for surrender. It is an hour for remembrance. 

The Church has passed through crises before. She has endured betrayal before. She has endured cowardice before. She has endured confusion before. And every age of darkness has demanded the same thing from faithful souls: that they remember Jesus Christ and refuse to let His truth disappear from the earth. 

That responsibility now falls to us. 

We cannot simply drift silently while sacred memory fades around us. We cannot remain quiet while eternal truths are softened into ambiguity. We cannot act as through reverence, doctrine, sacrifice, and holiness are relics of another age. 

The saints did not preserve the Faith through silence. The martyrs did not preserve the Faith through silence. The Apostles did not preserve the Faith through silence. 

And Pentecost itself is the proof. 

When the Holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles, He did not teach them to hide the truth in order to avoid conflict. He gave them the courage to proclaim openly what they had received from Christ. That same courage is needed now.  

Faithful Catholics must hold firmly to sacred memory.  

Remember the teachings of Christ. 
Remember the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. 
Remember the reverence due to the Eucharist. 
Remember the moral law. 
Remember the saints. 
Remember the Cross. 
Remember that the Church exists first to save souls. 

And having remembered, we must speak. 

Speak with charity, but speak. 
Speak with reverence, but speak. 
Speak without hatred, but also without cowardice.  

Because silence can become cooperation with forgetting.       

So again I want to emphasize this – the crisis of our age is not merely that the world rejects truth; it is that souls are being trained to forget it. And if faithful Catholics surrender sacred memory through fear, exhaustion, or discouragement, then confusion will spread even deeper into the life of the Church and the world. 

But Christ has not abandoned His Church. 

The Holy Ghost still guards the Deposit of Faith. 
The fire of Pentecost has not gone out. 
The truth handed down through centuries has not changed. 
And no darkness, confusion, or pressure from the spirit of the age can erase what Jesus Christ has revealed. 

So let us remain faithful. 
Let us remember. 
And let us speak before the world forgets Christ entirely. 

And may Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen. 

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland 
Bishop Emeritus