"Appropriate" Change

[EasterJoy]

I’d invite opinions on this idea:

"Whenever changes are introduced into an organization, assuming the changes are appropriate, there will be at least five groups responding:
a) innovators…those who initiated the changes
b) early adapters…those who welcome the changes and change readily
c) moderate adapters…those who change, but not readily. Require a certain amount of circumspection and study of changes before signing on.
d) late adapters…those who adapt only after an extended period of consideration, sometimes after certain amount of grieving and active resistance, but certainly after a deep review of the substance of what is involved, to assure themselves that the changes are appropriate.
e) non-adapters.

The person speaking to the continuum commented that the role of a good leader was to explain, reassure, and be patient with the late adapters while not discouraging the innovators…and to leave the non-adapters alone!

Question: To what extent did this apply to the changes of Vatican II? If you don’t think all the changes were appropriate, then confine yourselves to the ones that were.

In other words, I’m not looking for a referendum on Vatican II. I’m looking for opinions on how you think appropriate change takes place within the Church.

Is this possible? Is “appropriate change” oxymoronic? Is “non-apapter” a fair description of a Traditional Catholic? If you have to do it in order to be respectful of authority, imagine you’re a bishop. Or the Pope. Whatever.

NO ABSOLUTE TRUTHS ON THIS THREAD, ONLY OPINIONS.

PLEASE DON’T TELL OTHER PEOPLE THEIR OPINIONS ARE WRONG. THEIR OPINIONS ARE THEIR OPINONS. IN THAT CONTEXT, THEY CAN’T BE WRONG.

 

[Miles_Mariae]

A traditional Catholic is not a “non-adapter”. He agrees with adaptation and change where it should take place, but prays against the changes that would constitute a break with what the Church has always taught. He is dismayed when people throw away treasures that have been closely guarded by the Church in the past, and longs for them to be returned.

 

[Pax]

This list of (a) through (e) seems to fit more perfectly with the culture, society, and politics as opposed to the Christian Faith.

Christian truth is not relative. We can gain a better understanding of the truth, but it is otherwise immutable. It is for this reason that I think the listed items and terminology don’t necessarily fit well in a discussion of Vatican 2 or the faith in general.

The “perceived” realities outside of the Catholic Church, and within the realms I listed above, are all “relative” and they not only can be modified but they can also be reversed. Some mistake these things as truths and thus relativism vis-a-vis the truth runs rampant. Truth does not change, but values under go enormous changes within our world. Those things outside of the realm of divine truth as given to us through scripture and the Church, can be looked at using the tools described, but I don’t feel comfortable with using them as tools for analyzing what goes on within the Catholic Church.

 

[cothrige]

A traditional Catholic is not a “non-adapter”. He agrees with adaptation and change where it should take place, but prays against the changes that would constitute a break with what the Church has always taught. He is dismayed when people throw away treasures that have been closely guarded by the Church in the past, and longs for them to be returned.

I think this is true. Under normal circumstances those called traditional have always been open to adaptation and change, when it was sensible and of a natural kind, and that is why we have the traditions we have right now. But, I think the reason that traditionalists are what they are right now because situations are what they are, right now. In a normal situation tradition adapts to slowly reflect the people that are in the Church in any given time. As the faith moved into new places those people naturally brought new methods or points of view with them, and these affected traditions. That is why tradition often varies from place to place and time to time. That is the natural way that tradition grows and how every generation of the Church can both receive what is given to them from previous generations as well as leave something even a little more relevant for those that then come after.

However, it seems to me that after Vatican II there was a crisis in the Church in which the traditions were jettisoned en masse. This terrified, naturally, many Catholics and they found themselves in a defensive posture, maintaining the traditions but in a frozen way. Nothing was allowed to be changed. This is, I think, unfortunate but necessary. What inspires me, as a run of the mill Catholic, are the many actions of the Holy Father at this time in relation to bringing tradition back into the natural life of the Church rather than having them treated as museum pieces. I think it will be very slow going, but in time because of things like Summorum Pontificum I think we will find that traditional forms like the TLM will be a true part of the life of the Church again and will start to reflect the people a little more naturally. Perhaps the calendar can be updated to celebrate great saints not now being included. Or maybe the readings will be expanded, or such.

It is my belief that up to now traditionalists have had to be very defensive and fight to keep things just as they were forty odd years ago. But, as we embrace tradition more and more we will, I hope, find it more and more natural and alive. That is when things really can begin to heal and move forward and we can see real reform, both of the old and the new. But, this time hopefully the reform will be more healthy and organic, and both reflect us and those who came before us in a better way.

That is my take anyway.

 

[Miles_Mariae]

There is great insight in the previous post. In essence, in the face of wild changes made in the name of “progress”, traditionalists have decided to weather the storm and found shelter in the advice of St. Vincent de Lerins:

“What if some novel contagion seek to infect the whole Church, and not merely a small portion of it? Then he will take care to cling to antiquity, which cannot now be led astray by any novel deceit.”

 

[rpp]

Generally in life, I tend to fall into the third category, moderate adapters. At my job, I I am one of those responsible for keeping several critical computer systems running and stable. When new versions of software come along, my team and I need to evaluate them carefully to ensure that there will be no surprises. I tend to apply this to the rest of my life as well.

When it comes to liturgy, that is, public worship, That kind of thinking does not really apply, in my opinion. Rather, it is an evaluation as to whether something is permissible.

Within the realm of the permissible, there are also artistic aspects to worship that cannot be ignored; music, vestments, works of art in the church, etc. Different styles appeal to different people. Not everyone appreciates the same style.

I feel that in many cases, accepting changes in liturgy is not really about being an early adapter or non-adapter or whatever. Rather, and presuming that the change is within the bounds of what is permitted, it is more about the individual’s tastes rather than a somewhat consumerist evaluation of how rapidly people accept new stuff.

 

[Dauphin]

NO ABSOLUTE TRUTHS ON THIS THREAD, ONLY OPINIONS.

Sounds like the dictatorship of relativism to me.

 

[EasterJoy]

Sounds like the dictatorship of relativism to me.

Fair question, but that’s not what I meant. I’ll take that as an invitation to clarify.

I mean to say that the debate is not about what is true or not, but about changes within the boundaries of what, for the sake of debate, we would all agree is somewhere within the boundaries appropriate. Do you think that within those boundaries, there are innovators, non-adapters, and so on, and is the task of leadership something like described?

I am excluding illegal or immoral changes, in other words, or changes that declare the true to be false or any of that. I would hope that any ethical person, let alone any Catholic, would be unequivocally non-adaptive under those circumstances.

Now, it may be that there are those who think that either something is right or wrong or else it is “would you like vanilla or chocolate”? Or some think that choosing vanilla when you could have chocolate is just wrong, too, or that a humble person takes what they get, as long as it is not the wrong masquerading as the true.

Let us say that objections to the premise are allowed, of course, but don’t object to other people’s opinions directly, please. That’s off subject. Let all flames fly in the direction of the original premises of the thread.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Well, from your original post and from the clarification, it would seem that if changes are appropriate, there could be a broad-based delineation (with a lot of overlapping of the groups you gave) as some might be ‘innovators’ for some ‘change’ and let ‘slow to adapt’ for others).

For example, the innovators of one time (or for one particular change) might, in the event that their innovation itself was found to need change in due course, turn into reluctant or ‘non adaptors’, feeling that their change had become an ‘absolute’.

The ‘slow to adapt’ of one time for one change might become the innovators of another proposed change, even in a ‘different’ area than that which they had been ‘slow to adapt’ previously.

 

[EasterJoy]

Well, from your original post and from the clarification, it would seem that if changes are appropriate, there could be a broad-based delineation (with a lot of overlapping of the groups you gave) as some might be ‘innovators’ for some ‘change’ and let ‘slow to adapt’ for others).

For example, the innovators of one time (or for one particular change) might, in the event that their innovation itself was found to need change in due course, turn into reluctant or ‘non adaptors’, feeling that their change had become an ‘absolute’.

The ‘slow to adapt’ of one time for one change might become the innovators of another proposed change, even in a ‘different’ area than that which they had been ‘slow to adapt’ previously.

It seemed that way to me, too: that is, that although there are a few people who like change for the sake of change and people who just want you to pick a way of doing things and stick with it, for most people it depends on
a) how much the first way of doing things either suited them or didn’t
b) whether they really believe the changes are in fact within the boundaries of appropriate/permissible or not: and for the purposes of their behavior, their response is going to depend on what they are initially ready to believe is or is not apppropriate.

So…When the changes of Vatican II came, was this model of leadership anything like how slow and non-adapters were treated? Would that have made any difference? What do you think the difference would have been?

Again…in a sense, what would have been is what was. We can’t really know what would have been. I’m not looking for someone to try to be right or prove anyone else wrong. I’m interested in what people have as their own opinion. For those who were there, what did you, at the time, feel was the case?

 

[ethelzguy]

I would be in category “B”.

If it’s good enough for our Church leaders, it’s good enough for me.

It never occured to me to rant, rave, and rail against the changes.

Obedience is Catholic tradition. The changes weren’t developed overnight by a couple of drunken bishops.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

The changes weren’t developed overnight by a couple of drunken bishops.

No. . .but a lot of those changes were developed extremely quickly and without authorization from bishops. . .and in fact were not what the documents of Vatican 2 themselves called for.

Ask those of us who were young (I was a pre-teen) when one week we went to Mass with the priest ad orientam, prayers in Latin, communion rail in place, women with heads covered, nuns in full habits, organs playing, silence before and after Mass, vibrant Catholic schools, community devotions, a real “Catholic identity” in everything from eating fish on Fridays to having home holy water fonts, holy cards and pictures throughout the house, blessed candles always ready, the family Bible in pride of place, kids with confirmation names of a favorite saint who knew all about that saint and many others, grace before and after meals even when dining out, family rosaries at night as Father Peyton had taught, etc.

Next week–sometimes literally, sometimes done in a series of small changes each week for perhaps a month, at most a few months, to bring about:

The communion rail: Gone. Hats off the women. Nuns in pantsuits. Statues and devotions ‘swept out’ of the church. Organs locked and neglected while guitars abounded --choir down from the loft and ‘onto the altar’. Prayers in the vernacular–and seeming to change faster than a speeding bullet as the ‘prayer’ one week would change or ‘rotate’ the next week. Missals gone. “Contemporary” moving into every facet–gone were the altar cloths of decades, replaced by stark ‘tables’. The church altars (which faced the ‘wrong way’) were demolished or abandoned. "Old’ vestments were abandoned for tie dye. No more ‘fish Fridays’. Catholic identity was stripped away as we were told to be more ‘ecumenical’. Rosaries were abandoned except by the tragically unhip. “New” saints entered the calendar, which was great, but ‘old’ saints were dropped and the ‘reason’ was never made clear.

Sermons focused on ‘me, me, me’ but not on real Catholic teaching. The priests emphasized ‘conscience’, not doctrine. Our leaders made headlines for being arrested in ‘protests’ against war (Fr. Berrigan), for being ‘innovators for social justice’.

Meanwhile, the actual changes that Vatican 2 spoke of were not done.

Nowhere was there a call for having the Mass ‘entirely’ in the vernacular. Nowhere was there a call for ‘guitar’ (though there was no specific contraindication).

However, some priests and some bishops took it upon themselves to ‘interpret’ the documents and to go much further than called for.

And of course, being obedient Catholics, we obeyed. Most of us had not seen the documents of Vatican 2. Most of us trusted that what was being done was being done for our benefit.

How were we to know (remembering that those of us who lived through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, etc.were, at the time, not AWARE as we are now, since we were THEN ‘looking forward’ and we are NOW’ looking back? That we have much more information ‘now’ and can see what was NOT right. . .but that THEN we couldn’t–that much of what was being done was not being done ‘appropriately’ or in line with the Church’s actual documentation and instructions–

but on the personal ‘sayso’ of certain priests and bishops who ‘interpreted’ and ‘inferred’ and outright just decided, “Well, I am going to do this because I want to–I think it’s right–I HAVE the right” etc.

Ask those of us who lived through sermons and personal counseling that okayed premarital sex as a ‘matter of conscience’, contraception as a ‘matter of conscience’, pooh-poohed confession, ‘changed around’ so that children had first communion in grade 2 and confession in grade 4–or even later–because, “kids that young can’t sin --in fact, almost nobody is REALLY capable of committing mortal sin”; invited ‘all Christians’ to receive the Eucharist, promoted "female priests’ as something right, noble, and inevitable, even after Ordinatio Sacerdotalis; scoffed at “Rome” as being ‘out of touch’, etc.

Remember, all these things were not just done ‘one-on-one’. These messages and many others which are not authentic teaching were embodied by these priests, spoken from the pulpit, disseminated over and over through the ‘staff’ that they assembled to run the ‘liturgy committee’, etc. so that it trickled right down into the RCIA AND into the catechesis of the children. . . for the last 30 years and more.

So you would get Father’s BLESSING on the teachers who would tell the children and teens that they were ‘free’ to follow their conscience and not the ‘outdated rules’ of the Church. Who would fill the children full of their ‘personal interpretation’ of what Jesus was (who would even teach them that Jesus may not have existed), that the ‘bread’ was symbolic, that they should ‘question authority’ because they had the right to, that nothing was ever ‘really absolute’. . .

It is horrendous, the amount of misinformation and actually destructive teaching and modeling of “Catholic thought” that has gone on in virtually every part of the U.S.A. Some places are ‘emerging’ from it now due to vigorous action from truly inspired and obedient bishops. Some are still embedded in the bitterness of decades of dissent. May God help us.

 

[EasterJoy]

No. . .but a lot of those changes were developed extremely quickly and without authorization from bishops. . .and in fact were not what the documents of Vatican 2 themselves called for.

I was very young when all the changes came, but I think it depended a lot on the proportion of people in a place who are ready to slip the harness, so to speak, as not a few of the innovators were (but not all), and how many were only open a slower change-over, and only to the necessary changes, or which of these groups the local clergy fell into.

I think I was very lucky. We had changes, but a lot slower and a lot less drastic than other places. Our parish was in a rural area, full of a lot of German farmers and loggers. You don’t change a place like that overnight. They changed what they were told they had to, and pretty much not a single thing more. I think the parishioners knew, too, what Rome did and didn’t say we had to change. We did not have a quorum of innovators.

I was born right around when Vatican II started to convene. I was taught CCD out of the Baltimore Catechism, for which I am thankful. The parish could not afford to change out any vestments or attire for the servers, and they didn’t want to. The kids wear something like little friar’s habits now, but they wore cassocks and surplices until those needed to be replaced.

The high altar was one brought to Oregon when it was still a territory. It is still there, and the tabernacle has always been used. The altar rail and a lot of the baroque detailing is gone in the church, but the pictures of Sts. Peter and Paul and the big one of the Lord coming on the clouds for the Final Judgement is still over the high altar. The confessional box stayed put.

The organ added some pieces by the St. Louis Jesuits, but it also kept playing “Panis Angelicus” and “Immaculate Mary”, and still does. Father never, ever, attempted consecration on homemade bread (the parish had the same pastor from before Vatican II until 1991, and has had retired priests as pastors since then). We still had forty hours’ devotions and processions for Corpus Christi. The family that wanted guitar Masses and was capable of doing it eventually got to play some of the music, too. They do a nice job, they aren’t a rock group, and so their patience eventually won out.

Non-adapters were left alone, but nobody felt a particular need to encourage innovators. If you have a good idea, great, ask around, see if it catches on. If nobody likes it, take a hint and give it up. That was how innovators were regarded. Arm-twisters were not liked and the few attempts at strong-arm tactics did not work. What Father said, we did, but he wasn’t one to get everyone stirred up doing something unnecessary that they didn’t want to do.

I think there is a difference between how things happen in the towns and how things happen out in the countryside. In the countryside, everybody knows you (all prophets are from their own country) and you have to keep in mind that these people will be your neighbors until you die.

As for vocations, we didn’t have a vocation to the priesthood before Vatican II, but we do now, and it’s from the family that plays the guitar. They are charismatic, but they are not pitch-the-rosary or no-such-thing-as-a-sin Catholics! They’re still very much traditional. So I can see that vocations come from ardent families that love the Church and the priesthood, regardless of how their taste in liturgical music runs, even if they do like to hold hands for the Our Father…but, according to the rules of the thread, that is my opinion.

 

[rpp]

The changes weren’t developed overnight by a couple of drunken bishops.

Do you have any sources to back up this assertion?

 

[Frosty]

I was born in 1948 so I do remember the times very well. Where I grew up, the progress of change was a slow process. It definitely did not happen overnight and only those who paid no attention to the Church were caught unaware.
I don’t ever recall the Readings being in anything but English. Even before V2 began, one of the Sunday Masses was a dialogue Mass. English hymns were sung at that Mass. The hours of fasting before Communion had been shortened. The change that caused the most commotion before V2 in my parish was that instead of preaching from the pulpit, from its position high up on one of the columns about 8 rows down from the first row of pews, the priests began to preach from the ambo. This upset the many parishoners who habitually sat in the front rows and thus could not be seen by the priest during the sermon. A good number of these people dozed, read books and were generally inattentive. The change was a reason for consternation for them particularly At the Sunday High Mass when the pastor always gave the sermon. He was not a good preacher .He had an eagle and did not tolerate inattention in any manner. Every Sunday, he would call out people by name which did not endear himself to his flock. Once he called out my father who was only wiping his eyeglasses and told Dad that the sermon would not continue till he had finished with his “frivolity”
After the Council ended there wasn’t really any change in our parish life. The teaching nuns continued to wear their full habits as did the nursing sisters. Both of those orders gradually started to wear a modified version of the habit beginning in the 1970’s but never went completely to street clothes. We still had Sunday evening Benediction services, week-long parish retreats during Lent, Fourty Hours devotions etc. Once Pope Paul VI promulgated his Mass, we had lots of time to be prepared for it. There were countless parish meetings where the priests described the changes about to take place. The Archbishop made visits to each parish in the Archdiocese to answer any questions and the schoolchildren were prepared well.
The High Altar remained in place as did the altar rails. The new altar was made of marble and it was [and still is] as beautiful in its own way as the High Altar. The organ stayed up in its choir loft and continues to be the only instrument ever used in that church. Between 1970 and 1971 when the Novus Ordo was fully implemented, one of the Sunday Masses in each parish of the Archdiocese was said using it. In our parish it varied from week to week as to whether it was one of the early Low Masses or the High Mass but the parish bulletin informed us as to which it was to be and there was a schedule posted in the narthex for all to see.
By this time I had already begun my teaching career in a different Diocese but the changes were following the same pattern. I di know that the Bishops of both those Diocese were very orthodox and genuinly concerned for the well-being of their flock and that example was followed by the majority of the priests who served under them.
That was my personal experience with what happened just following V2. Almost all the people I knew approved of the changes and in my opinion they were handled with great care and moderation.

For those who think that the Mass in the vernacular and the priest facing “versus populum” originated with the Novus Ordo and directly following V2, here is an article from Time Magazine in 1964. I fnothing else, reading the article just might clear up a few misconceptions.

time.com/time/printout/0,8816,871416,00.html
.

 

[BSHoop96]

I have enjoyed reading the experiences of those who actually went thru it. Very interesting.

 

[EasterJoy]

The changes weren’t developed overnight by a couple of drunken bishops.

Do you have any sources to back up this assertion?

Do you have any sources to refute it?

Seriously, though, there is the matter of what the changes are and then there is how changes are made. Both matter, I think. There was nobody bemoaning the loss of the altar rail in my parish or what I thought at the time were little doilies that were worn on the head. That might have had a lot to do with the fact that 40 hours’ devotions and Corpus Christi processions did not go away. Taking down the altar rail was never used as an excuse for irreverence. The kids still learned the four marks of the Church. There were no felt banners installed. No one felt that we’d all of a sudden become Lutherans. I think the sense of loss was much less than some other places.