In these times of a Church governed to some extent by degenerates, buffoons, and clods, and presided over by a Pope of whom the less said and thought, the better, it is salutary to recall the Church as it was in the time of St Augustine of Hippo:
(From Wikipedia)
The Circumcellions or Agonistici (as called by Donatists) were bands of Berber Christian extremists in North Africa in the early to mid-4th century. They were considered heretical by the Catholic Church. They were initially concerned with remedying social grievances, but they became linked with the Donatist sect. They condemned property and slavery, and advocated free love, canceling debt, and freeing slaves. Donatists prized martyrdom and had a special devotion for the martyrs, rendering honours to their graves.
The term "Circumcellions" was coined by others, based on "circum cellas euntes", they go around larders, because "they roved about among the peasants, living off those they sought to indoctrinate."
The Circumcellions regarded martyrdom as the true Christian virtue (as the early Church Father Tertullian said, "a martyr's death day was actually his birthday"), and thus disagreed with the Episcopal see of Carthage on the primacy of chastity, sobriety, humility, and charity. Instead, they focused on bringing about their own martyrdom.
On occasion, members of this group assaulted Roman legionaries or armed travelers with simple wooden clubs to provoke them into attacking and martyring them. Others interrupted courts of law and verbally provoked the judge so that he would order their immediate execution (a normal punishment at the time for contempt of court).[ The sect survived until the fifth century in Africa.
I am not saying it could be worse, because at least those poor deluded souls were not elevated to bishoprics, but simply that the current situation is not the end of the Church.
Be angry and pray. They have got to die sometime.
