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.
"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..."
Your post is mush. The Church should do what it can to get its members into heaven, and that necessarily entails telling to avoid sins which will send them to hell. Contraception is one of those sins. So is cutting heads off babies.
"Instead of jumping to conclusions about why Catholic couples use contraception (as you did), I am suggesting we ask them and let them answer."
You mean we don't already know? They want to enjoy sex anytime they like, but not have to worry about a baby. Following NFP entails work and, at certain times, abstinence.
No, we don't.
"I don't accept the arguments of Humanae Vitae. I tell Catholics what I am supposed to tell them as a representative of the Church. But I don't defend Humanae Vitae or the Church's teaching on contraception, because I can't do it."
HV itself does a perfectly good job.
That's why Catholics observe it, right?
Congratulations, Gramps!
The heterodox (Greeley, Weakland, et al.) get it, the Traditionalists orthodox (FSSP, Una Voce, SSPX, etc.) get it, only the N.O. orthodox do not - why? Because they ARE orthodox, they know that one can be N.O. and orthodox and they blind themselves to reality. The STRONG can survive anywhere, it is the rest of our brethern that get harmed by the Modernisms that the Drinan/Hunthausen/Mahoney factions spew.
"That's why Catholics observe it, right?"
They don't observe it because it's easier to pop a pill than practice NFP.
Exactly. They are in schism, or worse. They live in MORTAL SIN (in your words, "none of those younger families follow Humanae Vitae,...", they have beliefs that are profoundly not Catholic (again, in your words, "...they're OK ... with women priests.", and you celebrate this! Amazing.
And what did Vatican II get us? I moved to the suburbs (unrelated to Vatican II) and guitar masses, and tambourines, and people who were very impressed with their ability to sing folk songs during a Catholic Mass.
V II allowed those who wanted to change to Church into a Humanist organization free rein to do so. In your case it was a classic "look at me, look at me" series of events. This is why I go to the Latin Mass.
"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 - a sexual deviant masquerading as a priest is NEVER going to accept the teachiong of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Most of the young families in my parish have many children - usually one every year. But then we don't see the innovations of the AmChurch much.
Big baby! Congratulations!
"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." ROTFLMHO!!!
I think you put your finger on the pulse of the article.
First of all I would like to know when that happened. Hopefully it's still in the future.
If he can slip that one by us then we deserve what we have, it's a formula for increased, even desired, tolerance of modernism.
"If the younger Catholics are the future of the Church, they'll be a lot more liberal morally than their parents."
I wish that it were otherwise, but I fear that you are correct.
In my Modernist parish(as well as throughout this area), most of our young folks, Catholic or not, shack up for a period of months or even years before marriage.
Very few of these kids, even those who attended (pseudo)Catholic colleges, care much about traditional morality or the faith.
You're wrong. We are VERY much are interested in who the Pope is AND what he says! I am praying for a conservative Pope who will lead Christ's One True Church back where it belongs. We have thrown aside much of what makes our church CATHOLIC. You can talk to the "younger" Catholics all you want, about contraception, abortion, etc. It doesn't matter what they're opinions are. Sin is still sin. The youth of our church need to learn about their church and its teachings. The last 30 years of chaos and liberalism has produced a generation of young people who don't know their church at all. They don't understand that the Real Presence of Christ is there in the tabernacle at all times and they need to be in solemn, quiet reverence. They don't understand the need for, and value of, confession. If these are the people who we must talk to to find out what our church needs, then we are in even more trouble than I thought.
In several weeks, my husband and I will be going to visit my son at Great Lakes, where he is in Navy A-school. I have already searched for a Tridentine mass and we will be attending. I want my 21 year old to see a REAL Catholic Mass.
This is one Catholic who wants her Church back!
This is false. The Church teaches that marital intercourse must always be open to the possibility of life. Apart from absolutely foreclosing any recourse to physical means, this means that even if there is a desire to avoid conception through licit means, this may not be the couple's specific goal.
Not agreeing with you, but am appreciating the honest discussion...and your humor :)
carry on...
And that's why your job, Deacon, is to uphold that teaching; i.e. if you are sincerely concerned about the flock.
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