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.
Father Greeley likes to blow smoke...the same, old, tiring smoke that he has blown for decades. His politics is the same as the DNC; his religious outlook belongs with the Griswolds of the Episcopalians. He's a smug, wealthy, self-promoting priest just like his fellow Chicagoan, the ever-smug, boring, repititious, left-wing Studs Terkel.
That he has a collection of groupies should come as no surprise. The Church still has a lot of dead wood left over from the traumas of the 1960s. Aging priests and nuns often, who just won't ever learn or grow up, and echo the Greeley blarney, ad nauseum. Many of these folks are heading off soon to retirement where they can chew their cud as they watch the sunset grow ever closer.
Ya, one option is for the Catholic Church scholars to churn out books about hell (is the place still hot?), and see how it pans out.
I agree! This probably would help some. Most in our culture seem to have little clue of the dangers into which they place their immortal souls.
Pope John Paul II authentically implemented Vatican II and started the curbing of the heretical abuses conducted in its name.
Interesting question. I would love to see the stats on that.
It is as if Greely had ignored the last two hundred years of history himself and how the Papacy and the Church changed after 1789. Can't separate Vatican I and Vatican II. John Paul II combined Pius IX and Leo XIII and his pontificate is inexplicable except in the light of their experiences. A revolution took place, alright, but John Paul rode the waves of it like a master surfer, unlike Paul VI who was engulfed by its power.
I'm sorry to hear about the state of your parish. It sounds like the complete opposite of our parish. Plenty of larger young families faithful to the Magisterium.I sure love St. Mary parish!
And what directiion is this? If their local pastors tech that contraception is right, thast married married is "the answer,"--meaning they don't have to give their own sons to Christ or if they do then they can still have their grandbabies, if they have lost sight of fatherhood as a leading principle whether in the Church or in daily life. it is because they have been wrong taught by their local Talleyrand.
One faithful young family was blessed today with a beautiful 9 lb. 9oz. baby boy, making me a grandpa for the second time.
Not in my parish. In fact, the women have gone to wearing chapel caps and mantillas. And believe me when I say there are a lot of little kids. The lines for Penance have gotten awfully long, too. On Good Friday, they had to add a few hours with five confessionals going after the service to accomodate everyone.
You read Humanae Vitae with the eye of a legalist but you can't defend it? That means you don't grasp its argument or you reject it. Which is it? I hope it is the former.
Well, funny or not, it is a lie. It was more like the Lutheran Revolution, where the monks and nuns fled their orders to follow the new prophet.
The odd thing about Humanae Vitae is that most people read one line, not the other, what, 40 pages (?), of justification. I never have quite figured that out.
Humanae Vitae is a critique of American bourgeoisie society. I think that if I had bothered to read it thirty years ago I would have lived my life a little differently.
BTW, Greeley is the modern counterpart of the fat, cynical prelates who were Luther's chief justification for rebellion against their authority.
"Vatican II is the dragon in their midst that they cannot see and they wish would go away."
I pray for a Pope George who will slay the beast!
I think you're wrong here. Hell is an etenity without God's grace. I think most practicing Catholics believe that to their core.
>>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.<<
My church as well! The norm is four children. With the exception of people like me who were old bags when we started having kids and/or have health problems connected with Pregnancy, big families are it.
But then again we are the weird ones. We have only Altar Boys, sing some Latin at our EWTNlike Holy Mass, no guitars, no dancing girls, May Crowning, Corpus Christi........should I go on?
Excellent insight! Very, very well put!
>>In fact, the women have gone to wearing chapel caps and mantillas.<<
Me too!
1 Corinthians 11:3
"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God."
1 Corinthians 11:4
"Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head."
1 Corinthians 11:5
"But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven."
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