Posted on 12/29/2006 8:37:29 AM PST by Alex Murphy
Greely's also wrong, because Trent did affect Latin America. One of the things never acknowledged is that the Church had a huge number of indigenous American peoples to convert. The native population of South American was much higher than that of North America, and in addition, the Catholic approach was to attempt to approach and convert rather than to exterminate. Even though the Spanish government paid for missionaries, it was difficult to find enough to supply the needs in the Americas (including Florida, which was a Spanish possession and had enormous trouble getting priests to work with the Indians).
A lot of superstitious peasant practices were not entirely eliminated but were at least held at bay in the following centuries. I really think that the big problem was the lefty politicization of the Catholic Church after Vatican II. If you take away from people their good pious practices - the blessing of animals, prayers to St. Anne, the processions, etc. - they will be out looking for this level of religiousity in all the wrong places (santería, for example).
IMHO, Vatican II (or the "spirit" thereof) was 100% on the side of the Puritans; it was essentially an iconoclast movement, and it destroyed a Catholic culture that had been built up from the shared experience of many centuries, not just since Trent.
If you want to read a great essay, read Joseph Bottum's piece in the November First Things. I think it was entitled something like "Will the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano?" It dealt with the destruction of Catholic practice and culture. I don't agree with some of his analysis, but it is a great image.
With all due respect, this is about becoming more fully Catholic rather than Orthodox. I fear that you have a distorted few of the Catholic faith because of your encounter with it in the U.S. The present U.S. church is mostly the product of the Irish clergy whose own faith was damaged by its subjugation by the English protestants. This resulted in a faith that is more rationalistic and intellectual, loosing the truly Catholic charismatic and experiential elements of the faith. We can see this reflected in the acceptance of the Low Mass as the norm for the liturgy.
Even 50 years ago the Irish clergy were threaten by the more vibrant faith of the Italian immigrants whose practices they often viewed as superstitious and semi-pagan. In Europe, the further you go south and get away from the Protestant areas the more did the Catholics retain their historic ways of belief and worship. Even in Germany you will find the faith of the Bavarians quite different from their Rhineland Catholic brothers. Coming from an Italian background, I can tell you that the Anglo-Celtic experience of the faith is not the only one nor the norm for the Church at large. So what you see here is the Church in the U.S. shedding some of this damage and returning to our true Catholic roots.
"In Europe, the further you go south and get away from the Protestant areas the more did the Catholics retain their historic ways of belief and worship."
Its got to do with the climate and Magna Graeca! :)
I guess that explains why Southern Italian men would rather play cards on Sunday while their wives (less so now than in the past) go to Church.
"I fear that you have a distorted few of the Catholic faith because of your encounter with it in the U.S. The present U.S. church is mostly the product of the Irish clergy whose own faith was damaged by its subjugation by the English protestants. This resulted in a faith that is more rationalistic and intellectual, loosing the truly Catholic charismatic and experiential elements of the faith. We can see this reflected in the acceptance of the Low Mass as the norm for the liturgy."
No doubt. Half my family is Irish Catholic. I went to school with Irish nuns. Their religion has no joy in it at all. In fact the whole operation is/was run like an ecclesiastical terror regime. I've seldom run into a group of people more terrified of God. The French Canadian priests and nuns ran the same kind of show with the same results. Interestingly, the Roman Church made the same compromises with the English both in Ireland and in Quebec.
"I guess that explains why Southern Italian men would rather play cards on Sunday while their wives (less so now than in the past) go to Church."
I suspect it does, except in Greece it was tavli at the caffeneion. :)
Test Greeley's theory a little. Ask the Mexicans that you know which of the Basilicas of Our Lady of Guadalupe (which stand side by side) they prefer. Over 80% will say, "the old one." The new one has Vatican II written all over it. Sorry Andy. Also, who is Trent? I'd like to meet him. Sounds like my kind of guy.
Do not mistake this for the norm of Catholicism. If you were to go to a feast in an Italian parish you would come away convinced that we belonged to two different religions.
"...........Opposition to the Reformation's affirmation of Protestant Heresy".
And Protestants say the Reformation was a reaction to Roman Heresy.
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