on Wednesday that looks through unsentimental eyes at the post-Conciliar church. He finds many things wanting.
I suppose most NewGathering readers know that Ross Douthat is conservative, albeit one who thinks more independently and originally (and deeply) than many other conservative commentators. He is also a convert to Catholicism; previously he was a Pentecostalist. Occasionally, he writes about Catholicism in his NY Times column, and has authored two books on religion. He doesn't hesitate to criticize Francis when he thinks it's warranted.
The heart of Wednesday's article consists of three propositions, which I list here in Douthat's own words:
- The council was necessary
- The council was a failure
- The council cannot be undone
Of the three, the second one surely is most likely to stir up controversy and disagreement, and I'll spend the most time on it here. But permit me to say a quick word about the other two first.
I'll start with number 3. I agree with the proposition that the Council can't be undone; it is a rare toothpaste that can be put back in its tube. But any number of Catholics have refused to acquiesce to the proposition that the Council can't be rolled back. As NewGathering readers know, in the years after the Council, several alternative-reality forms of Catholicism, such as the Society of Saint Pius X, have sprung up in an effort to try to keep the horse of pre-Vatican II Catholicism in a barn (even though, in reality, the beast already had bolted).
As regards the first proposition, that the Council was necessary: I take that statement as virtually self-evident. But I'm aware that there were and are many Catholics, including both my parents, who were quite content with pre-Vatican II Catholicism and were not clamoring for a change. Both my parents were products of 12 years of Catholic primary school in the 1940s and 50s. They sincerely believed, and would happily repeat to anyone who would listen, what the preconciliar Church Militant believed and taught about itself. Their loyalty to the church ran - and still runs - so deep that all the changes, disruptions and conflict that came in the years following the Council didn't shake their attachment. But that is not to say that they didn't find those years trying. Douthat lists some of the changes my parents' generation has witnessed in the years following the Council: the disappearance of vocations; the transformation in liturgy; the changes in church architecture; the suppression of some saints from the calendar. One might add: the falling away of some of their friends and extended family; and the decline in the number, and affordability, of Catholic schools. My parents bore all of it, but applauded none of it.
Let us turn now to Douthat's second claim: that the 2nd Vatican Council was a failure. After insisting that Vatican II was necessary, both for reasons internal to the church (it conceived itself in a monarchial framework which no longer applied in Europe) and external to the church (especially World War II and the Holocaust), he writes,
But just because a moment calls for reinvention doesn’t mean that a specific set of reinventions will succeed, and we now have decades of data to justify a second encapsulating statement: The council was a failure.
This isn’t a truculent or reactionary analysis. The Second Vatican Council failed on the terms its own supporters set. It was supposed to make the church more dynamic, more attractive to modern people, more evangelistic, less closed off and stale and self-referential. It did none of these things. The church declined everywhere in the developed world after Vatican II, under conservative and liberal popes alike — but the decline was swiftest where the council’s influence was strongest.
The new liturgy was supposed to make the faithful more engaged with the Mass; instead, the faithful began sleeping in on Sunday and giving up Catholicism for Lent. The church lost much of Europe to secularism and much of Latin America to Pentecostalism — very different contexts and challengers, yet strikingly similar results.
And if anything post-1960s Catholicism became more inward-looking than before, more consumed with its endless right-versus-left battles, and to the extent it engaged with the secular world it was in paltry imitation — via middling guitar music, or political theories that were just dressed up versions of left-wing or right-wing partisanship, or ugly modern churches that were outdated 10 years after they were built and empty soon thereafter.
In reply, I'd like to make two sets of observations. The first is that Douthat seems to be attributing to the Council and its aftermath - and to its supporters - trends and outcomes that, in my view, are not attributable - or at least not wholly attributable - to the Council, or even to the church.
If "the church declined everywhere in the developed world after Vatican II", it seems to me the most likely root cause is not the Council, but social forces external to the church. Top of mind on that list of external social forces would be secularism, material prosperity and feminism; but probably there is a long list of other "...isms" one could point to: many folks would name clericalism and the sex abuse scandals.
All three of the external factors I've named have been, in some ways, positive developments for human society; but I might argue that the Fathers of Vatican II didn't adequately anticipate the profound changes these social forces would unleash, nor their potential impact on the church.
Thus: material prosperity may be the single most important reason that church attendance has declined, and vocations to the priesthood and religious life have dwindled. The mainstreaming of feminist values, and the church's inadequate response, also has had a profound effect. And it seems likely that secularism has weakened the faithful's bonds with the institutional church and has led to a loss of virtuous habits, such as regular mass attendance and habitual recourse to the sacramental life, which formerly strengthened the church.
My second set of observations is as follows. Douthat writes, "The Second Vatican Council failed on the terms its own supporters set. It was supposed to make the church more dynamic, more attractive to modern people, more evangelistic, less closed off and stale and self-referential." Perhaps that is indeed a fair summary of what advocates for the Council hoped for and dreamed of.
But while Douthat refers to the Council's
supporters' terms, I'd note that
the Council itself set its own terms - its own success criteria. It did this in the very first sentence of the first document it promulgated,
Sacrosanctum concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Before delving into liturgical matters, the Council Fathers said the following about their work in the Council (I'm presenting this in bullet format rather than in the paragraph form in which the church publishes it):
1. This sacred Council has several aims in view:
- it desires to impart an ever increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful;
- to adapt more suitably to the needs of our own times those institutions which are subject to change;
- to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ;
- to strengthen whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church.
Regarding the first bullet: we certainly could debate whether the Council succeeded in imparting "an ever increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful". Douthat presumably would claim that the Council tried but failed. My own conclusion, after a lifetime of parish life in a variety of roles, is that those who wish to take part in an increasingly vigorous Christian life, do so. Many apparently don't wish to. I'd say the results are mixed.
What about the 2nd bullet: did the church succeed in adapting "more suitably to the needs of our own times those institutions which are subject to change"? In a number of ways, we have to say, Yes, it has succeeded. I'd point to the engagement and improved relations between Catholicism and other Christian churches and denominations, as well as with Jews and Muslims.
As regards the third bullet, "to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ", I would say that good progress has been made; but there is still a long way to go. There was a burst of good feeling and ecumenical excitement in the immediate wake of the Council; then some slippage in ecumenical relations during the John Paul II and Benedict years. But if there was some regression, one can scarcely blame the Council; it was those who sought to minimize and perhaps even roll back the work of the Council at whom I'd point for the lack of progress in ecumenical affairs.
As for the 4th bullet: "to strengthen whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church", let's agree that, in the developed world, the trend seems to be in the wrong direction, but perhaps things look better when we look at the developing world.
To summarize: according to the Council's own criteria, I would give it a mixed grade, based on where we are today. Of course, there is no particular reason (save, perhaps, an opinion writer's deadline) that today should be the reference point from which we should award the Council a final grade. The impact of the Council's effects may be expected to continue to unfold in the days and years to come.
Or shall it continue to unfold? I noted above that there are some social forces exerting great influence in the world today which the Council Fathers may not have adequately anticipated. Is that a sign that the Council's time has passed, and we have entered a new era in human history? I would say that, in a sense, both are true: the world has changed (e.g. the Council didn't really anticipate the urgent concern about climate change); but the Council still has much to say to us.
I see Francis's strong advocacy for the Council, which Jack recently wrote about, as his insisting that the Council is still of great relevance today; and the cure for much that ails us today is to immerse ourselves more deeply in the words and spirit of the Council.
Was Vatican II a failure?
ReplyDeleteWas the Council of Trent a failure? Surely it was since it failed to heal the breach with the Protestants or even to stop their advance.
Surely Trent was a failure since it failed to give the laity a vernacular liturgy, a key element of the Protestant reform effort. However Vatican II did give Roman Catholicism a vernacular liturgy as the Orthodox also have.
Surely Trent was a failure since it failed to give the laity the cup, another element of the Protestant reform that is also present in Orthodoxy. Vatican II gave the laity the cup.
Surely Trent was a failure since it failed to give the laity the Bible and emphasize the importance of Scripture. Again, Vatican II made scripture much more important in the weekend liturgies, and recent world-wide surveys gave Catholics marks similar to those of Protestants in the knowledge and value of Scripture.
In many respects I would argue that Vatican II was the accomplishment in Catholicism of much of the reform that motivated the Protestant reformation. Indeed, it motivated a strong liturgical reform within mainline Protestant that resulted in the Common Lectionary much of which they share with us and with a much higher frequency of the Eucharist.
Were the centuries of wait worth it? Well, we did preserve the priesthood and the role of the bishops whose absence in Protestantism has surely accounted for its myriad forms and doctrines, and whose presence in Orthodoxy makes its essential for reunion with them.
Vatican II did launch two more initiatives which are essential for Christian reform.
The first is a deeper response to the essential critique of Protestantism, the importance (priesthood) of the laity. Vatican II did begin with affirming the universal call to holiness of the baptized, and made implicit answer to the critique of Protestantism that religious life in Catholicism had created a two-tier church.
I would argue that the clericalism of diocesan priests was largely the product of Trent which reformed the seminary system. In the needed improvement of the quality of diocesan priests it created an elitist group. We are still dealing with that today.
The second initiative of Vatican II was the move toward a more synodal form of government in the idea that the bishops together with the Pope constituted a college, and the bishop together with his presbyters also formed a college. However, collegiality failed to include the laity. We seem to be headed toward a concept of synod that includes bishops, priests, and laity.
Vatican II did fail to address the issue of married priests, a key element of the criticism of both Protestants and Orthodox. We may be headed toward some form of viri probati, the admission of married men who have raised their families while requiring celibacy for men who have a life-long vocation to the priesthood
Surely the Reformation, Trent, and Vatican II were all necessary reforms of Christianity. They were all flawed. However, it seems to me that Vatican II more that the Reformation or Trent provided a solid foundation for Christian reform and unity in continuity with early Christianity that we find among the Orthodox.
Trent's immediate goal was to "stop the bleeding" from the wounds of the Reformation. To the extent it shored up the church's identity and prevented additional dissolution, Trent may have succeeded. But it shouldn't be controversial to note that, by the 20th century, Trent's time had passed, and the world had moved on to a new set of challenges which the Fathers of Trent could hardly have foreseen.
DeleteI think it's an interesting question to ask, "Has the time of Vatican II passed?" As I note in the post, time has moved on, and some new issues have moved to the forefront of our awareness and concern, but there are many things that came out of Vatican II which still are relevant today.
If we are looking for culprits in the decline of Catholicism in the North America and Europe but not in Latin America, Africa, and Asia then the evidence for North America is the Paul VI condemnation of birth control. Andrew Greeley provided that years ago.
ReplyDeleteI would say the second reason for the decline of Catholicism in North America and Europe was the failure to permit some form of married priests. If we had moved slowly but surely in the direction of viri probati we would likely not have a priest shortage, and we would likely have far less clericalism.
It is interesting that birth control and celibacy were two issues that Paul VI removed from the council and reserved for himself. They were both controversial, and the bishops were getting tired of going to Rome each year for an extended period of time.
In some ways Francis is experimenting with doing the things a council regularly needs to do by means of this multi-layered diocesan, national, continental, world synod process. It spreads the process over several years and allows for the emergence of both diversity and consensus. Vatican II was a lot of change very quickly in part because many issues had built up over the centuries.
"the evidence for North America is the Paul VI condemnation of birth control."
DeleteRight. That controversy was, in a sense, before my time (I was a kid when it was raging, and I was blissfully unaware of it). I don't think it's very controversial anymore - mostly because there are very few Catholics who take seriously the church's condemnation of birth control in marriage - but I can easily believe that it was the original "split" between the church and a way of human life that was increasingly influenced by feminist thought.
The 'breach' between the church and women probably has been a major factor in the decline in religious vocations, too. Obviously, one can see that in the decline (almost to zero) of the number of women who step forward these days to pursue religious life. But according to Greeley, it also has been a major factor in the decline of vocations to the priesthood. His research showed there are two major influencers in a young man's decision to enter the seminary: his pastor, and his mother. If Catholic mothers are not enthusiastic about their sons becoming priests, it becomes less likely that the sons will seriously consider the vocation.
FWIW: from my Catholic high school graduating class, in 1979, I'm aware of three classmates who became priests. That is three out of a class of about 190 young men. (By contrast, my father's graduating class of about 30 young men in the mid 1950s produced a half dozen seminarians.) But of the three from my class, only one followed the "traditional" route of entering the seminary immediately following high school. The other two found their way to the priesthood after living as adults for some years; I believe both were in their 30s when they made the life change to enter the seminary. I'd expect that, for those two, the influence of their mothers over their life direction had waned considerably by then.
When the church insists it doesn't have a woman problem, but the women say it does, the problem exists, whether the PTB want to talk about it or not.
DeleteI didn't know about an "oldest boy" thing, but what I have observed is that a young man was more likely to consider the priesthood if there were other family members who were priests, such as an uncle or cousin.
DeleteIt would be interesting to know how widespread this was. Our retired bishop once wrote about being the only boy in a large family of girls and thus "predestined" for the priesthood.
DeleteDouthat would have written a much better article if he had allowed Pope Francis to speak for himself rather than characterizing him as a liberal in contrast to JP2 and Benedict. I accept Francis's self-definition as a centrist.
ReplyDeleteAs a former Jesuit novice, I see Francis as a Jesuit because he learned the same things I did as a novice.
First rules are important, but you always presume permission to break them. Nothing is more important than the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
Second, you always give the other person the benefit of the doubt, and interpret what they say and do in a positive way. Ignatius lived during the inquisition and was several times in its sights.
Third we (Jesuits) go in their door (i.e. adopt their framework) so that they might come out our door (i.e. adopt our framework).
I can understand how the media thinks all these things are very liberal but they are just being a good Jesuit. If you take away the liberal glow they provide, and don't compare him to JP2 and B12 but to John 23 and Paul VI then Francis is a centralist in continuity with Vatican II.
Councils in the history of the Church are more important than Popes. You cannot write them off as failures. You have to understand their context, what they accomplished as well as what they failed to do.
You cannot be Catholic and reject Vatican II. Both B12 and Francis had conversations with SPXX, and ultimately came to the conclusion that no matter what concessions were made about the use of the old Liturgy, they simply rejected key elements of Vatican II.
Thanks to Jim and Jack for their thoughtful comments on Vatican II and its legacy. I feel that Douthat is confusing correlation with causation. I don't think we can declare that any council is a "failure". The Holy Spirit is an influencer, the councils are instigated when they are needed.
DeleteI dunno. Ross Douthat is basically a young socially conservative evangelical Protestant convert with no life-long immersion in Catholic life and thought.
ReplyDeleteHis column struck me as more about his dying enchantment with the Church as it really is than as a cogent critique of Vat2.
Honeymoon's over, Ross. As a fellow convert, I get it. I hope he is better able to reconcile himself to the institutional Church than I have been.
"His column struck me as more about his dying enchantment with the Church as it really is than as a cogent critique of Vat2."
DeleteYes, that occurred to me, too. I hope he is able to stay attached - and maybe even enchanted!
I do pray for converts, and I also hope he remains attached. I think it would be a sin to hope otherwise.
DeleteUnsurprisingly, Douthat’s argument is simplistic. The decline in religious participation, and in affiliation, is not exclusive to the RCC. It’s not just the US and Europe, but also Latin America. The US RCC has suffered the greatest losses of the Christian denominations, even though ameliorated only by the millions who arrived in US pews from Latin America. The second and third generations of Latino Americans are now joining their Euro descended age mates in becoming SBNR/Nones.
ReplyDeleteConservatives in the US church loved to point to the evangelicals as an example of retaining members by being Uber conservative. But, they too are experiencing big losses of members, especially younger adults. Why? Because their young are going away to colleges where they discover that what they were taught, and what they were learning on their own, doesn’t mesh.
In the discussions of “Why is this happening” those wringing their hands over this continuously fail to pay any attention to the mountains of survey data that clearly identify reasons people leave active religious participation. Nor do they ever look in a mirror to ask how they might be among the reasons for the massive disaffection with organized religion. In a word – hypocrisy.
Conservative Catholics love to point the finger at Vatican II. Yet an examination of the data available at the Vatican website shows that the resignation of priests and nuns, and the loss of laity, began with Humanae Vitae, accelerated with the election of JPII, and continued to accelerate throughout most of B16s tenure. There was a countervailing trend though, starting in the 90s - a flattening of the curve, a stabilization in seminary numbers. This marked the beginning of the rise of the reactionary “John Paul II ” and “Benedict “ priests, raised in highly orthodox families, and attracted to the priesthood for all the wrong reasons, worsening the already deeply entrenched clericalism in the RCC. Jean’s new pastor sounds like an exemplar of this cohort of priests.
A conference at Boston College about 20 years ago revealed a deep divide in understandings between the older, VII priests and the younger priests, and between the young priests and the young lay adults who were also participating in the conference. Anyone who read the conference report would not be a bit surprised that the last few decades resulted in wide abandonment of regular participation in the RCC by younger adults.
The confluence of upheaval in multiple areas of life - the civil rights movements for women, racial minorities, and, eventually, the gay community - was a far bigger factor in the decline in RCC church membership than Vatican II. And these factors impacted all religious groups. I came of age during the early post-V II era, and I would say that it kept my generation in the church longer than if it hadn’t happened. But HV, and the course reversal by JPII and Benedict, eventually pushed out most of my Catholic friends. I was among the last to throw in the towel.
The common denominators in Europe, the US, and now Latin America were increasing economic prosperity after the war, and education- the opening of higher education to the children of the working classes everywhere, and to women and minorities. Add in the digital information revolution in the 90s and suddenly you had a huge number of well educated people with instant access to knowledge and information of all kinds - science, religion, history, culture, world affairs. They no longer had to depend on others to form their thinking. They had the tools to do it themselves. When the dissonance increased between what they had come to believe based on their own knowledge and experience, and what their religion taught, they walked away. For most of history western religion held people because they didn’t have the tools - literacy, access to books, including the Bible, education in science, literature, history. Etc. They were very often held captive by fear and superstition - all of those threats of hellfire.
The Church was probably due to shrink in numbers under any circumstances. I still think it's due mostly to internal inertias. The clericalism thing stayed with us even though it's a monarchical throwback. The related sexism hasn't gone anywhere. The Roman rule-based mommy-may-I is still what constitutes true religion for many. So many youth have moved away but I'm not convinced they've moved on to anything substantial. Their acceptance of LGBTQ is more an individualistic live-and-let-live than love-thy-neighbor. One thing for sure. The whole kit-and-kaboodle, religious and secular, is headed for the refiner's fire in the next 50 years. What comes out of it, I haven't the slightest idea.
Delete"So many youth have moved away but I'm not convinced they've moved on to anything substantial". Stanley, I think that is true to a large degree.
Delete"Add in the digital information revolution in the 90s and suddenly you had a huge number of well educated people with instant access to knowledge and information of all kinds - science, religion, history, culture, world affairs. They no longer had to depend on others to form their thinking. "
DeleteBut this openness to science, engineering, et al surely is very much in the "spirit of Vatican II", right? I've always thought our mothership, Commonweal Magazine, has been stellar in pursuing dialogue and trying to iron out the difficulties between science and faith. As for the Catholic universities, they have jumped into this openness to science and technology with both feet - so much so that many conservative Catholics have feared for the future of the colleges' Catholic identity.
I was a college student at a Catholic university during the post-Vatican II era. I am a graduate of a school of business which gave me a nice general background in many business disciplines such as management, finance, marketing et al - but I'd be hard-pressed to point to much that was distinctively Catholic about those classes. Most of my classmates were "young guns", as I was, sort of - ambitious and eager to make a mark in the business world. To be sure, Loyola imposed some curriculum requirements that the average state school wouldn't: we had to take courses in theology, philosophy and the liberal arts. I'm certainly a better person for those; in fact, I was more passionate about that core curriculum than I was about my major. And there were a myriad of Catholic activities available to students who were willing to try them. But a business major could ignore all those extracurriculars, focus on the business courses, jump through the core-curriculum hoops, and emerge from the four year immersion in a Catholic university more or less unscathed by Catholicism.
Whether Douthat would consider that post-Vatican-II openness to the world of research and academia, and the secularizing of Catholic universities, a failure of the Council, I am not certain.
The Council had nothing to do with the problems he sees. Like other conservatives, he looks for scapegoats. In politics the conservatives have two favorite scapegoats - immigrants - especially those with dark skin who follow non- christian religions, and, of course, the “libs”. In the RCC the conservatives prefer to scapegoat the Council, Pope Francis, and all the “liberal” Catholics who aren’t real Catholics.
Delete"Douthat’s argument is simplistic. "
DeleteHis litany of the ills that characterize the contemporary church, and which he traces to Vatican II - the decline in mass attendance; the uninspiring music; the worse-than-uninspiring church architecture - echoes things that have been said by the reform-the-reform crowd for decades. I assume he's aware of this, and more or less agrees with them on these points.
Personally, I don't think the reform-the-reform crowd is entirely wrong on those particular points. I deplore a lot of church architecture, too. And I can't stand church music which is badly done.
Well, the beauty of architecture, like all art, is in the eye of the beholder. Some love what others hate. This is true of music too. While some think only chant is acceptable in church, others are moved by the contemporary hymns based on the psalms. I always hated the Whitney Marian hymns of my 1950s childhood, but I have had tears come when singing some of the contemporary music. Classical church music can be lovely, but if I want to hear Mozart, I prefer professional musicians in a concert hall. I don’t go to a liturgy in order to be entertained but apparently some people don’t agree.
DeleteSo - do you dislike church music which is “badly done” - poor musicians- or do you dislike the music itself?
There is another article at America by Sweeney that seems to better grasp the real reasons for what happened after VII, including declines in mass attendance, than does Douthat.
Whiney Marian hymns…
DeleteKatherine and Stanley - you both fear that the young adults who have abandoned participation in institutional religion have not moved on to something else “ substantial”. What would be a substantial alternative in your minds? How would you define it? How would this move impact others in our society?
DeleteBy most measures of healthy culture, the countries of Western Europe do much better than the US, even though the US has long had much higher participation rates in organized religion, and still does.
What I would want for them is the same thing I want for myself, a relationship with God (specifically Jesus Christ in my case). I'm not saying that one cannot find a relationship with God outside of organized religion; obviously people do. But a lot of them find a relationship mainly with a comfortable life and material success.
DeleteAnd how do you know this, Katherine? You can’t perceive their inner life from external appearances. If you were to meet me, or the many like me, learn that I left the RCC ( or another christian denomination), and don’t attend a church at all these days, you would perhaps assume that the material success and comfortable life that my husband and I are now lucky enough to have is all there is.
DeleteI don’t share my spiritual life with many - basically only with a very few, very close, friends, my former CP group, and a few people here whom I’ve never met in person. I prefer to keep my spiritual life private. Many SBNRs do this because they don’t wish to attract attention from those who judge them based on outward appearances, mainly their absence from organized religion, and especially because they don’t want to fend off the well meaning folk who want to drag them back into the pews because they think that their way is the only way - the “best” way.
I look at it this way, Jesus ' last words before ascending were to "Go forth and teach the gospel..." I certainly have no intention of dragging someone to church who doesn't want to be there, and you're right, I can't see into anyone's soul. But I have to take the Great Commission seriously and do what I can to at least not be a negative influence to others, and hopefully be a witness to the Christian life.
DeleteAnne, my second ten-year career as a consultant gave me the chance to interact with a new generation after mine had mostly left the premises. I liked them and they liked me. They are nice people. But I interacted with them on a daily basis, had lunch with them. They seem to have less ability to connect or to collaborate. They're not evil, just disabled. I don't even sense spiritual but not religious. Yes, many exhibit scientism or as I say, Saganism, but sometimes I think if they didn't have Christians to scorn, they'd have to invent them. Otherwise they'd be left alone with only what they have.
DeleteCaveat: my exposure to younger people was to scientifically educated people. Their education had, at most, a very weak liberal arts dimension.
Thanks, Stanley. What would you see as an alternative to institutional religion? Why do you call them disabled?
DeleteI have had an adult lifetime of close interactions with younger adults. I have three married sons, three daughters in law, and I also know many of their friends fairly well. All were raised in religion, including their wives, mostly Catholic, and only two remain in the Catholic or other church. I worked mostly with men during my career, and most were much younger. Most were not religious, but I collaborated with them without problems, and forged a few real friendships with a couple of them that have endured to now, in spite of the age difference. But, the disaffection with organized religion began before they were even born.
Most of my friends, our age obviously, were raised in churches, most in the Catholic Church, educated in Catholic schools through college. Most of my Catholic friends left the church in the years after graduation, sometimes quite a few years later. We had all been excited by VII, it gave us hope that the RCC was finally changing for the better. But we learned later that it was not to be.
As Jim noted, in earlier generations many young men and women were pushed by their families to become priests or nuns, especially by their mothers. But many of my generation didn’t really want our children to enter religious life. I used to joke that if one of our sons, educated mostly in Catholic schools, wanted to become a priest that I would lie down in the driveway to prevent them leaving for a seminary. I certainly would have done my best to discourage the idea.
Katherine, one reason millions have left, according to their own responses to research studies, is that they didn’t see enough people in their churches like you who model what Jesus taught. Not the go forth parts ( too many do that and go about it all wrong) but the love thy neighbor, care for the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick parts; the welcome the stranger ( like refugees and immigrants of color?) parts, and the judge not parts. They don’t see love or joy, they see judgement and hypocrisy. The RCC parishes seem afraid to teach the gospels, especially the Social Justice teachings. The evangelicals focus heavily on the OT, which I often find hard to stomach because of how God is portrayed in them. Jesus did bring good news - his teachings about God were often the polar opposite of what we read in the OT. The Israelis liked that God because he would slay their enemies wholesale! The conservative churches, including the RCC, still teach that women are inferior to men, that gays are disordered, and that it’s ok to discriminate against them when they ask for someone to bake a cake for their wedding. They see churches that want to impose their own moral teachings on everyone via government legislation. No wonder so many leave - they don’t see Jesus’s teachings but the negative teachings developed by human beings.
DeleteAnne, I guess I just feel sorry the young 'uns growing up without a culture, an ethos and vibrant religion. In the past, one could reject one's roots but it was like having a large mass on a slippery surface you could push against and move yourself. They don't have that anymore. They're in the middle of a slippery lake with nothing but a bunch of swirling snowflakes to push off on. Also, they don't cohere much. I've used the example of my generation ordering pizza versus theirs. We'd sit down several at a table, order a single half-and-half pizza, and split it. These folks go in together and order individual slices. What seems to some as a trivial change is a paradigm shift to me. Again, I like these "kids". But what have they been given?
DeleteI guess I don’t understand what you are saying. That may be because I didn’t grow up in a Catholic ethnic culture in California. I am exactly your age or maybe a year older. The experiences you and the mid- westerners relate are very different from how I grew up even though we are all of the same generation, more or less. Jim P is about a half generation younger but his experience of Catholic/ethnic culture seem similar to yours. I’ve always thought that being able to order a slice when a group doesn’t agree about pizza to be a great innovation! So I guess I grew up in a slippery lake too, but somehow I never missed growing up in a narrow religious and ethnic culture.
DeleteI think tribalism can be very destructive. In the US, a return to increased tribalism seems to be harming the country, not helping it. I have been observing the young adults today and hoping the country - our democracy and the values America once stood for survive long enough for them to take over. They give me hope. But I fear time is short - probably too short - a takeover by the GOP at the state and national levels by 2024; will result in a rapid move towards an Orban/Hungary model that will guarantee GOP dominance going forward. My son and daughter in law have been researching and doing the groundwork needed to move to Europe in two or three years. They have lost hope in America’s future, especially for minorities. They have spent 6 weeks in Europe the last two summers, mostly Spain. They will do so again next summer. They also spent time in Portugal this summer because it’s easier to get residency there than in Spain. They attended some seminars In Portugal given to educate would be new residents on the laws related to visas, etc. They were apparently very well attended by dozens of other young adult Americans, mostly families with young children, who see the handwriting on the wall and are preparing to emigrate. I don’t think that the takeover of America by the Christian Right, including the Catholics seeking to impose Catholic beliefs on all, and to have taxpayers fund their schools, is good for the country. Perhaps it’s better that so many young adults are nones/SBNRs. They might end up saving America from the white Christian nationalist model of Hungary. In the meantime, we all now have a chance to order a slice of whatever kind of pizza we prefer. ;)
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DeleteStanley, it seems to me that what you're talking about is the "bowling alone" thing. You said "they don't cohere much", and I think that is true to a large degree. Not everywhere or with everyone, but enough to make it hard for people to find community. Especially young people who didn't already have a community.
DeleteIt's even been hard for us at times. I've shared before that we've lived in five different towns since we've been married. We have lived the longest in the town we're in now, but we have no family here.
Anne, I certainly don't see much hope for this country in the coming election. That plus the climate catastrophe has me considering the proper ethics of being a Christian in a sinking lifeboat. And it does look as if a christianized fascism, as Chris Hedges has called it, will provide the energy for this transition to autocracy.
DeleteI guess my religious upbringing could be considered narrow but it was always in dialog with the larger culture and always had a strong cosmic dimension so it never felt narrow. Whatever I have now allows me to conceive of being personally responsible for global things like the biosphere. It also makes me a socialist, I guess.
If the Repubs do finish off democracy, we may become a kleptocracy which makes its own people miserable but too vitiated to project power anymore which may be some benefit to some of the rest of the world.
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DeleteCheck out Michael Sean Winters' column in NCR today in which he discusses Douthat's piece : https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/vatican-ii-60-pope-francis-or-ross-douthat-right
ReplyDeleteI'll admit that Douthat at times gives me a right pain, and I thought MSW's take was good.
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DeleteStanley The whole kit-and-kaboodle, religious and secular, is headed for the refiner's fire in the next 50 years. What comes out of it, I haven't the slightest idea
ReplyDeleteYou might be interested in a book by Phyllis Tickle on the ongoing current upheaval in Christianity!
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Emergence-How-Christianity-Changing/dp/080107102X
Thanks, Anne.
DeleteI don’t know how many here can read the Douthat article AND the comments. NYT comments are usually worth reading. True in this case also. I recommend reading some of them to those who have access.
ReplyDeleteI just read some of them - selecting “Reader Picks” instead of All. They are mostly succinct analyses of the true reasons millions have left, in contrast to the superficial, simplistic analysis given by Mr. Douthat.