Seems to be confirmed on a regular basis.

Father Longenecker on why Progressive Christianity will die out.

//2. Progressive religion is essentially individualist and not communal. Each person makes up his own mind about matters. Therefore when it comes to religion the fissiparous nature of progressive religion will become more and more acute. Individuals with firm opinions will form ever smaller and more passionate groups with like minded people and the smaller the groups, the more they will eventually wither and die.

Progressive Christianity is also subjective and sentimentalist. It eschews doctrine and favors individual spirituality and sentimental responses to doctrines and moral issues. It is not long, therefore, before the individualist and sentimentalist inclinations drive a person from a church that is dogmatic and demanding. Modernists will prefer their own spirituality and emotional experiences to any sort of formal, corporate religious commitment. Thus the modern admission, “I’m interested in spritituality but not religion.” When this attitude prevails, modernist religion dies because it’s devotees don’t see the point of belonging and believing.//

Certainly, belonging at least, which leaves the default of being forced to belong by the State.

The spiritual "thinness" of Catholicism thickens.

Father Longenecker writes:

The historic ritual of Catholic religion is rooted in an acceptance of the metaphysical. In other words, we believe that through the ritual we are making a transaction with the other world. The supernatural impinges on us at all times. We are at the threshold of heaven and on the doorstep of eternity. Most AmChurch Catholics don’t understand this. I am convinced that it is simply not a part of their world view. Why should it be? They have been educated in a culture and by a system that is essentially materialistic, utilitarian and secular. There is no sense of the immanent, no sense of the awesome presence in life. The Protestant founding fathers weeded out all that “nonsense” and the deists and materialists finished the job. Such poetic and otherworldly ideas are not even dismissed by the typical American. They are not even misunderstood. They simply do not exist in their vocabulary.

Worship has become for most American Catholics therefore a mixture of civic duty, a way to inculcate good values into their children, a matter of family tradition which is presented in a way that is comfortable, easy going and entertaining. The idea that we are in touch with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the pillar of fire and the burning bush, the idea that we are on the threshold of a life changing mystical experience is utterly foreign to their imagination.

The desire for the mystical, however will not die, so instead of finding this mysterium tremendum et fascinans in the ritual, music, architecture and art of ordinary Catholic worship or in the religious traditions of contemplative prayer, monasticism and devotions the American Catholic is most likely to wander off into the misty mystical mess of New Age practices, Eastern religions or the occult.

Tales of the Unexplained.

Mark Shea links to Father Dwight Longenecker for a story of the inexplicable.  Here's the story:

My parents were driving home from the youth club they ran every week. It was late and they were making their way down the country lanes of rural Pennsylvania. I was asleep in the back of the station wagon with my older brother and sister--all of us little children.


My Dad said as they came over the brow of the hill they saw in the distance another car coming at high speed directly in the oncoming direction. The country lane was only wide enough for one car. There were steep banks on either side, and they knew that as they went down into the dip the oncoming driver would not be able to see them.

There was no place to turn. There was no space to get over to let him pass. All of this happened in a split second. Sure enough, the car came over the hill and my mother and father, sitting up front, said later that they braced themselves for the impact. They even saw the shocked and terrified face of the other driver as he prepared to crash into them head on at high speed.

Next thing they knew they were looking out the back window of the car at his fast receding tail lights. There was no way he could have got around them. There was simply no space for two cars. Instead, one car passed through the other, and went on its way. The laws of physics as we understand them were suspended for a moment and we were delivered.

Cue the Twilight Zone music.

The interesting thing is that these stories are not that uncommon.  Peter Kreeft says that "angel sightings" are for more common than "ufo sightings," and "angel sightings" do not involve watching odd moving lights in the sky.  They commonly involve things like, well, what Father Longenecker describes.