One thing most Catholics agree upon--for various values of the term "agree"--is that the Church was in need of some kind of reform prior to the most recent ecumenical council.
The disintegration of the church in the wake of that council--observance, organizations, publishers, etc.--illustrates that the strength of the edifice was more apparent than real. The centralization of the church had become such an exercise in micromanagement that parish art was given the kibosh--directly from Rome itself. Read it all--it is a remarkable bit of history, and not an edifying one. No less than Jacques Maritain shows up--to defend the decree against the Stations.
"You had nothing better to do?" applies in spades to HQ's behavior here. And elsewhere, as I think most people could agree--at least on a few points.
Then the agreement ends, of course, as arguments over baby and bathwater cycle on endlessly.
But here's the thing: the same church that policed parish Stations of the Cross also set the agenda for reforming itself at the 21st ecumenical council.
My question is straightforward:
Was it capable of doing so honestly?
How could that process of discerning the proper path for self-reform not be contaminated by the same arrogance, centralizing, we-know-better clericalism that led it to the brittle, parlous-behind-the-facade state it was in 1962?
And don't give me that "but the Holy Spirit!" bit of apologetic magical thinking.
The Holy Spirit protects councils from damnable error. It does not positively-inspire them, turning the attendees into faultless stenographers of God's will. Put another way, He keeps the church from a fatal loss of blood, but not from shooting itself in the first place.
The litter of failed-but-Holy-Spirit-protected-and-valid councils is pointed evidence to the contrary.
From my perspective, at VatII it just looks like one group of confident centralizers stole a march on another. And Group One never questioned its own premises, either.
And here we are, with a still-micromanaging Rome licensing a handful of parish priests to say the same mass that was celebrated at Vatican II.
Or, if you'd prefer: the Church learned nothing and forgot nothing.
Irony: the Almighty's favorite kind of humor.
I think you have another instance of correlation instead of causation here. You can blame Vatican II or you can blame the Beatles. More likely, you can blame the perfect storm of American cultural shifts: the mainstreaming of US Catholics and the shift from urban ethnic parishes to the suburbs, television, Humanae Vitae and other issues involving sex and single people, a mobile workforce, and factors within both the counterculture and Reaganism. Europe was well in decline earlier in the 20th century--likely why the Council was seen as a necessity.
ReplyDeleteRome isn't micromanaging TLM priests, by the way. It permits the local bishop to govern his clergy rather than try to herd cats on priests disconnected from the needs of most of the laity.
Yes, huge problems with implementing the Council. "Vatican II done in a Vatican I way" as my wife has said. She's not wrong.
Not really getting a handle on the point.
ReplyDeleteThe question is whether the Church was capable of grasping reality correctly in trying to reform itself at V2. History demonstrates that it isn't always capable of doing so, especially when it's riddled with corruption and ossified thinking. Lateran V is the most dramatic example.
A lot of assumptions held by the reformers proved to be either false or had short use-by dates.
That will happen when defective groupthink permeates the entire process. Paul VI's technocratic notion that the Church was "the expert in humanity" is Exhibit A. If Tridentine categories eventually wore out their welcome in various spots, it is quite likely that Tridentine-formed thinking applied to the New Frontier era would be, at best, subject to being overtaken by events. Which is exactly what happened.
Yes, the world of 1965 had a lot to commend it, and looks far more sane and amenable to honest discussion than 2021. But it's 2021, and the world of 1965 is long dead.
And goodness gracious, if demanding that bishops get Rome's "by-your-curial-leave" to let priests celebrate the Mass of John XXIII isn't micromanagement, the term is meaningless.
But the Listening Church's Puritanism is never more restive when it comes to such things: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is happy with the old Mass brings out the Commissars every time.