[Slyfox]

When were you in school? After Vatican II there seemed to be a terminal rejection of what was tried and true. I remember that before Vatican II it was possible to go to any parish and ask the same question and get the same answer. If fact, when the Baltimore Catechism was thrown out it took at least 10 years before it was replaced with anything in hardback. So, it depends on which 'older and wiser' generation you are referring to. The late sixties and through the seventies? Or the one they mean in this article, the pre-Vatican II 'older and wiser'?

[a history buff]

The confusion of V2 may play a role. But of course, until V2, the Syllabus of Errors was official church teaching, which held that reporting criminal acts by priests to secular authorities was grounds for excommunication. For all the ills of our age, getting rid of that nonsensical idea has been a step forward, not backward.

[ventana]

When you research the incredible power that Joseph Cardinal Bernardin obtained, and see the pattern that emerges from understanding his rise to power and what he did when he got there. You understand why, when you look around, the church in the US today is as emaciated spiritually, as a gay man dying from AIDS. V's wife. (there are many faithful within the church, however)