Replies

My great objection to the reforms of the last thirty years is that, ironically, the laity has had so little participation in them. The excesses are the result of the worst sort of clericalism, whwre individual priests have imposed their tastes on their congregations with indifference to the feeling of those reared in "the old style." It is one thing to do as St. Bernard did, who objecting to the gaudiness of the monastic churches, went into the wilderness and worshipped in the most austere manner. Those who chose to worship this way were free to come or to go. Pity the poor old lady whose piety was dismissed with contempt by arrogant "reformers," who acted with a total lack oc charaity toward those too simple to accept the new progressive tone.

That's an excellent point. I would take it a step further. It's definitely true that liberal clergy have their own clericalist style of shouting and bullying down lay critics. We were in a parish quite some years ago which had a very verbally iconoloclastic and flamboyantly liberal pastor. He would insult and condescend to the congregation from the pulpit. He talked down to us. Now, one of his claims and one of the claims of a lot of Catholic liberals is that old Catholicism was nothing more than a peasant ghetto church obsessed with sin, guilt, and damnation. I would argue that Catholic liberalism is even more guilt-obsessed than ever. According to the pastor's liberation theology we were guilty for every American imperialist sin from capitalism, to bourgeois crassness, to exploitation of Latin American countries, consumerism, the investments of pet food corporations in South Africa, you name it, etc., etc. The list of social sins was even longer than 1950s guidebooks on the horrors of sexual sin.

There is one thing which the "spirit of Vatican II" absolutely did not do. It did not result in less guilt. It took it to a Marxist dimension not dreamed of by 1950s Catholics.