[Antoninus]

I love how Fr. Greeley frames the argument. The young are the reactionary "fogeys" while his generation is the eternally youthful revolutionary change agents breathing new life into the Church--even though most of them are now in their seventies.

No, Fr. Greeley, you've got it exactly backwards. Your generation accomplished a major upheaval which altered many aspects of Catholic life and worship. But it's been a miserable failure, particularly in the West, where it was carried to and beyond its illogical extremes. Now, those who haven't abandoned the Church entirely are recognizing the failures of the Robert Weaklands, Roger Mahoney's, Margaret Steinfels, and Andrew Greeley's.

The cheesy liberal interpretation of Vatican II has been rejected and the young who remain are finding enrichment and fulfillment in the traditions, history, and true teachings of the Church, stretching back hundreds and thousands of years before the 1960s.

The old fogey reactionaries are those who are continuing to focus on things that happened 40 years ago instead of embracing a truly traditional Catholic renewal.

[Snuffington]

The cheesy liberal interpretation of Vatican II has been rejected and the young who remain are finding enrichment and fulfillment in the traditions, history, and true teachings of the Church, stretching back hundreds and thousands of years before the 1960s.

Well put.

The most striking difference I see between Greeley's "young fogeys" and his own generation is that the "fogeys" lack the emotion-driven love affair with Vatican II. They view it as one of many Church councils, primarily concerning itself with contemporary pastoral matters, some of which seem rather dated now.

They're only being "reactionary" if you assume Vatican II was a revolutionary break from the pre-Concillar Church. Thankfully, that is not the contention of either the Council itself, nor the post-Concillar popes. But it does seem embedded as such in the minds of the heterodox who dominate Greeley's generation.