A Neocatholic Strikes Back — Part III

Vivificat! - A Catholic Blog of Commentary and Opinion ^ | 6 August 2005 | Teófilo

[Teófilo]

A response to Father Joseph O'Leary's The Rise of the Neocaths. Continued from part II. Where Teófilo waxes nostalgically about his life to provide some experiential context.

Folks, before you start reading this one, I have to warn you that I wrote it with some autobiographical contents. Why did I do that? No, it is not for self-promotion, no this is not about me, yes, I'm aware about the demands of humility.

I bring it up because I believe in the power catharsis found in autobiographic narration, and on its ability to illustrate one's Catholic pilgrimage and life experience. Faith doesn't exist in a vacuum: it is lived. Otherwise, I would be a mere abstraction. Therefore, please, don't ascribe to me motives beyond these. Oh, and if you get bored reading this kind of narrative, well, you are now forewarned.

Fr. O'Leary was saying and I was retorting:

• [Pope John Paul was able to] communicate to them a world view that the Vatican II generation would find problematic on many points. Implication: that Fr. O'Leary's worldview is unassailable or at least, that we—the neocaths—lack the intellect to assail it. Somehow, before Fr. O'Leary's eyes, we're either incapable or unqualified to find Fr. O'Leary's worldview "problematic on many points."

Still, there's another, deeper issue here. Who is this "Vatican II generation"? Is it Fr. O'Leary's? I submit to you that the good priest forgets one teensy little detail. The Vatican II generation is not the generation that consciously lived before and through the Council. The Vatican II generation is that generation that didn't know that there has been a "before" until someone else told them as they got older.

I'm part of that generation. I was born in the mid-1960's in Puerto Rico. I went to Catholic school in the 1970s. When I started going to Mass and appreciate what it was all about, it was the Novus Ordo. When people spoke of "the Latin Mass," I thought they were talking about the Novus Ordo Mass in Latin, which was actually done in some Pontifical Masses. I was vaguely aware of a previous rite and discipline because I inherited the old St. Joseph's Missals containing the 1962 Mass and noticed that something was different, but similar.

I didn't attend a Tridentine Mass until I was in my late 30's—that wasn't that long ago—and when I did, I did it both out of curiosity and because I wanted to reclaim it as part of my heritage. By that time I was already a veteran of numerous Byzantine liturgies. Today, as it has been the case most of my life, I continue to attend the so-called "New" Mass which, as far as I'm concerned, it's "old" for me now.

My religious books throughout elementary and middle school were imbued with both Vatican II teaching and that from previous conciliar and papal declarations. The books in 9th and 10th grade were atrocious; they were flimsy pamphlets containing even flimsier, sentimental teachings based upon the worst interpretation of Vatican II, watered down for teenagers to understand. I've repressed the 11th grade, so I can't remember it.

What I remember is doing my own self-education back then, which also happened to be the days in which I got involved with the Charismatic Renewal. Again, my whole view of the Church was transformed; I learn to read the Bible rightly as a Catholic book, under the tutelage of learned priests and outstanding lay leaders. Otherwise, I probably would've minimized the role of faith in my life down to mere externals; I would've been lost to the Church as another "cultural Catholic" with no real, deep faith.

Praised be the Lord, that didn't happen. Later on, in the early 1990's, I earned a B.A. in Theology from St. Mary's University in San Antonio Texas. I remind Fr. O'Leary that my graduation date was almost 30 years after the Council closed. I don't get much post-Conciliar than that! I dare to say that most of my colleagues who care about these matters are as bona fide members of the Vatican II generation as I am.

I dispute, then, Fr. O'Leary's biased reference to the "Vatican II" generation and his restricting it to those likely-minded to him. That was very self-serving of him, and ridiculous, to say the least.

Why then, having been educated fully in the post-Conciliar environment, do I reject Fr. O'Leary's approach to Catholic life? Because I find it inconsistent with previous New Testament, Patristic and classical Catholic thought and life and therefore incoherent and confusing. Worse: I can't derive any meaningful life of moderation, prayer, and contemplation, from it. I find Fr. O'Leary's, Küng's (not Rahner is ok) and other's thoughts an unstable foundation for a Catholic sacramental and contemplative spirituality, it is too psychobablish, too ethereal, impractical, abstract. In the end, I think, no meaningful integral Catholic life is possible from the ideological Left.

[Teófilo]

All typos and such minutiae are my fault. Part IV will follow tomorrow.