Posted on 04/15/2005 4:34:46 PM PDT by Grey Ghost II
In church's dreams, Vatican II never happened
April 13, 2005
BY ANDREW GREELEY
The American TV networks spent huge sums of money and sent scores of people to Rome last week. Characteristically, they spent little time or energy on research and hence provided weak and stereotypical journalism, limited to questions about married priests, female priests, gays and sexual abuse. They missed completely the most critical issue for the church in the 21st century -- Vatican Council II and the changes it created.
Many, if not most, of the cardinal electors would tell you that the council was an incident, a bump in the road. The council fathers wrote some useful documents. There was misguided enthusiasm after the council, but Pope John Paul II sternly reimposed order on the church. The council is interesting mainly now as a historical matter.
Leaders lost their nerve
They could not be more wrong. The council was a revolutionary event that had a profound impact on Catholics who lived through it and indirectly on their children, who have barely heard about it. It's still the green dragon lurking in the Sistine Chapel even if the electors can't quite see it.
The model of unchanging Catholicism in response to the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution assumed that the church would not change, should not change, could not change. Suddenly the laity and lower clergy experienced changes in liturgy, in Scripture interpretation, in theories of religious liberty, in attitudes toward other Christians and Jews, in trust of the modern world. The structures -- patterns of behavior and supporting motivations -- that had supported the church for several centuries collapsed.
The council fathers may not have foreseen this collapse, but they did vote for the changes (in overwhelming numbers) and hence the documents themselves and the action of the fathers (presumably in Catholic theology guided by the Holy Spirit) were responsible for the destabilization.
It was, as it seemed then, a new spring for the church, now flexible, joyful and confidently open to the world. However, the ferment frightened some of the leaders who lost their nerve and responded the only way they knew how -- repression. They issued new orders without any serious attempt to explain the reasons for them. They silenced some theologians. They appointed reactionary bishops, who were not always the brightest or most humane. They investigated seminaries. Their mood changed from optimism to grim warnings and solemn denunciations. The church, for a few years a bright light on the mountaintop, had once again become an embattled fortress afraid of the modern world.
House of cards collapsed
The leaders confidently expected that the laity would do what they were told. They could not have been more wrong, nor their strategy more counterproductive. The laity and the lower clergy for the most part simply ignored them and went about creating new structures in which Catholics would affiliate with the church on their own terms. Resignations from the priesthood and the collapse of priestly vocations began only after the desperate attempts to slow down change turned the mood of the council years sour. The present crisis of the credibility of church leadership arose precisely from mistaken attempts to reassert the old leadership style. The problem is not so much the council as restorationist attempts to undo it.
To be fair, no one realized how potentially frail was the so-called confident church of 1950, both in America and around the world. A push from a handful of conciliar documents and the whole house of cards collapsed. For many leaders who had known the seeming serenity of the pre-conciliar church, it was unthinkable that the structures had disappeared overnight and with them their own credibility. So they fell back on them to prevent a disappearance that had already occurred.
The restorationist style continues here in Rome, though it should be clear that it doesn't work. Despite the late pope's efforts to reassert the church's traditional sexual ethic, acceptance of it has declined everywhere.
Few willing to admit truth
In the pre-conclave atmosphere, it is necessary to pretend that this is not true. Or if there is a bit of truth in it, the proper response of the new pope should be yet tougher repression, more vigorous restoration. Almost no one is willing to admit even to themselves that the leadership strategy since 1970 has caused most of the problems in the church -- the decline of vocations and church attendance and the alienation of the young.
Vatican II is the dragon in their midst that they cannot see and they wish would go away. Unfortunately they have not, will not learn that you cannot repeal an ecumenical council and cancel its effects.
Ask "younger Catholics" what they think of contraception, and if they intend to use it.
I don't see any evidence in the polls of this theologically conservative resurgance among younger Catholics. In fact, at least in the US, I tend to recall the opposite.
Actually, those people really hope and pray the next pope will change doctrine. I can understand their enthusiasm in light of the actions of the post-conciliar popes.
Because it's hard to live a faithful Catholic life, the narrow gate and all, and it's impossible to live it without the grace of Our Lord.
Instead of berating them, telling them they're going to hell if they don't do what the Pope says,
Oh yeah like that happens.
Perhaps it would also be a good thing to find out why a significant number of clergy don't accept the teaching either.
That's easy, they've lost their faith or they never really had it to begin with. They're apostate.
The Church has its head in the sand on this issue. The tepid response of Rome to the sexual abuse scandal further compromised the Church's moral voice to Catholics.
I have seen at least one that support for Church doctrine on contraception is up 1-2% among younger Catholics.
Why? Do they have a vote?
You recall correctly.
If the younger Catholics are the future of the Church, they'll be a lot more liberal morally than their parents.
I think you missed my question on the other thread, so I'll pose it again here. I remember you said before that you do accept the conclusion of HV, but you do not accept its arguments. So what is the reason that you accept it? Perhaps we can use it on the dissenters ;)
You tell me where the difference is. The younger Catholics, young families in my chapel in their 20's and early 30's have 5, 6, and 7 kids.
The Church is one source that young people look to for guidance. In many cases, it's not the first place they turn.
There are a lot of families like that at the parish I attend...those with big families almost always take their church much more seriously...and we have a whole bunch of them here.
Better hope they change the rules so you can be a priest, Sinkspur. You already sound like Father Greeley . . . or maybe it's Father Drinan.
I suppose one question to pose, is what should be the mission of your Church? Is it to try to reach into and enhance the spiritual and human lives of the bulk of its flock, and expose them to the tools and message which will tend to assist them to be better and happier persons while on this moral coil, as a more enobling precursor to the heaven in which your Church believes, inspired by the example of the essential Christ, or to become a much more exclusive club, with the bar set so high, that it becomes more like the Marines, where only a few "good men" need apply, with the rest encouraged to take a hike? It is a choice for each to make, and that choice I think animates much of what divides around here when it comes to matters of your Church. The grand thing is that each are free to choose.
Instead of jumping to conclusions about why Catholic couples use contraception (as you did), I am suggesting we ask them and let them answer.
Didn't you say on the other thread that no "rational human beings" would accept HV based on the argument from authority?
Free Republic is no more representative of young Catholics than it is about the opinions of Republicans.
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