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.
UH, the "Free Republic" in the post cited is LINK that goes to an article posted and discussed here. The article is from The New York Times (next to NCR, the kind of source you rely on for the truth about your faith). Try clinking on that link.
On some matters, I am pretty "liberal." You just missed the mark. And for your information, Sinkspur is somewhat more conservative than I am, in general. I don't know why he gets all the heat.
Vatican II never happened? I wish...
I don't recall saying exactly that. 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.
The Church says that couples may regulate the size of their families. That means that couples may purposely engage in sexual intercourse with the express intention and physical means to avoid conception.
The method (NFP or non-abortafacient contraception) is secondary.
Both of you are hostile to the discipline and teachings of the Catholic Church. Your opinions on it are therefore worth about as much as the opinion of The New York Times.
I can understand why, especially if they live in Dallas - Fort Worth.
Me too.
As to myself, I suspect my opinions are "worth" much less. As many have correctly pointed out, what I think about the doings in the Catholic Church is close to irrelevant. I post them because this is a discussion forum.
Ah, but that is the entire difference, according to HV: "In the former the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In the latter they obstruct the natural development of the generative process."
You may be interested in this article, which was posted here on FR before. It makes a pretty convincing case for a real distinction between NFP and non-abortifacient contraception. (Emphasis original:)
In other words, the Pope's condemnation applies exclusively to conjugal acts carried out during what the spouses understand to be the wife's fertile period, but which they deliberately pervert (whether by 'withdrawal', condoms, pills, or any other technique) so as to deprive them of that fertility.
###"Instead of berating them, telling them they're going to hell if they don't do what the Pope says, we need to talk with them."###
I have not heard a priest say anyone is going to hell since the last mission I went to 50 years ago.
We start one this Sunday and I hope I hear the statement again.
One of the reasons the laity is lax is because they have been taught that God is all loving and merciful but the laity never hears that God is a just God.
It is why confession lines have 10 people and 300 recieve the Eucharist the next morning. To them they do not sin and besides God forgives me.
1) They don't think it's really sinful, because they really don't believe much is sinful nor do they have an understanding of the nature of sin. Many of them were never really taught about sin, just luv, luv, luv.
2) They believe God is all loving, and just wants them to be happy therefor he could not possibly ask them to do something that might require such a personal sacrifice.
3)They think that being a good Christianity means being a nice person and good neighbor.
4)They don't believe in hell, and they certainly don't believe that they could ever be punished eternally, after all, God is love.
5) And almost every one of them has had a priest or deacon tell them that it is perfectly OK, as long as they are following their conscience.
No, it is not.
The only mission of the Church is to save souls, to get them to heaven. There never was any other mission. That's the only promise it ever makes, that if you are faithful and avail yourself of the means of grace which Our Lord has provided to His Church, you can die in a state of sanctifying grace and your soul will not go to hell.
In any event, motivating through wielding the stick of hell, in order to inspire fear, to coerce changes in belief and behavior, is simply ineffectual in the present age. You might not like it, but that is my take.
It's not to inspire fear, it's to tell the truth. But sometimes the truth can be scary. That is the mission of the Church, that is what SALVATION means, not going to hell.
Amazing how many Catholics leave out the qualifier "for serious resons"
But I don't defend Humanae Vitae or the Church's teaching on contraception, because I can't do it.
Why? Is your problem with children or natural law?
Ha! You got it the other way around. The pastor and the bishops look to their flocks for leadership and direction. My guess is that the most agressive woman in your parish has more influence over the bishop than the pope did.
You need to get out more. Weekly Mass Catholics couldn't care less who the Pope is, or what he says. They look to their pastor and bishop for leadership and direction.
In other words, they aren't even remotely Catholic. What wonderful leadership they must be getting from their pastors, bishops, and deacons!
"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!!!
"In any event, motivating through wielding the stick of hell, in order to inspire fear, to coerce changes in belief and behavior, is simply ineffectual in the present age."
Bit of a contradiction, here, isn't there?
On the one hand, you rightly point out hell simply is discussed or considered anymore. On the other hand, you state 'the stick of hell' is 'ineffectual' in this present age.
How can we know if its ineffectual if, as you point out, it is never really tried?
Sorry, but at least the Sunday Times has a crossword. Even doing just the "across", you're more likely to get enlightenment than in the churches these guys attend.
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