As the Flame of Catholic Dissent Dies Out

[edwest2]

Speaking as a baby-boomer, I watched an attack on the Catholic Church beginning in the late 1960s and for every decade after. It began subtly and from people who claimed they were sincere. If anything, those of my generation were taken in by those who sowed seeds of agitation and frustration. Our sincerity, our compassion, was taken advantage of time and time again by total strangers. We were too naive to recognize wolves in sheeps’ clothing.

Out of our desire to be compassionate to the stranger, we listened. But we trusted the wrong people. It was a mistake.

The Hippies were the anti-Humanae Vitae squad. Millions of dollars in birth control pill sales would have been lost. Catholics generally did not know that a few priests sent letters of protest about Humanae Vitae which told Catholics to avoid artificial birth control and outlined the consequences if they disobeyed.

It would take 40 years, but because of a gradual, consistent and always escalating media complicity, we went from Playboy to graphic pornography in the 1970s. Then we had topless go-go bars. The line between what was legal and what was right and moral was blurred. So the judiciary needs to share part of the blame along with high priced lawyers who helped.

The Catholic Church did not cause this.

We were thoroughly distracted and totally naive about how legalizing abortion was marketed in 1972: “Please, please have compassion on young women who will likely die at the hands of back-alley abortionists. Please!” And the important marketing addition for the religious: “Abortion is the most difficult decision a woman will ever have to make and is between her and her God.” We were also told it would only be used in cases of emergency, like rape and incest. Who among us, at the time, allowed the thought that this would become an alternative method of birth control or a “health” related procedure in the future?

Was the Church suddenly pro-choice in 1973? Did a single Church document appear that gave primacy of a woman to decide whether her unborn child would live or die?

In the 1960s, too many Catholics thought that American society as described by the media was generally on the side of a morality that was compatible with Judeo-Christian values. Did the Church encourage adult bookstores, topless bars and Roe v. Wade?

Look at where so-called Catholic dissent was heading. Women priests, homosexual acts are OK, get rid of celibacy. And realize where we are today with the same issues.

Realize again, that the primary “problems” both then and know have to do with human sexuality and the proper roles of the sexes: abortion, gay marriage, fornication and cohabitation, easy divorce, and treating sex as ‘just sex,’ a virtually meaningless act.

Did the Church encourage television producers to abandon the standards they held in the 1960s? An announcer would appear on TV to let viewers know that the Standards and Practices Department watched every program to “make sure they were suitable for the entire family.” What happened to allow the gradual sexualization of most TV programs?

For years, I would hear the following phrase on the radio: “Tame by today’s standards.” Whose standards? What standards? Are these standards written down somewhere and who decides to change them?

I heard a priest on Catholic radio saying that modern instruments at Mass are going to be done away with. That a more reverent atmosphere is necessary for worship. This is a good sign. We need to realize that Christ is there and the Mass is about worship.

And I heard a lot from the outside world about how repressed Catholics were – about sex. Apparently, marriage wasn’t good enough. We had to fornicate. What was wrong with us? We should be Swingers and wife swappers.

And did the Church aid or abet any of that? Those who desired to increase our temptation level did it very gradually, and we were gradually poisoned and some of us fell asleep.

Wake up, my fellow Catholics.

Peace,
Ed

 

[chriso]

Did the Church encourage television producers to abandon the standards they held in the 1960s? An announcer would appear on TV to let viewers know that the Standards and Practices Department watched every program to “make sure they were suitable for the entire family.” What happened to allow the gradual sexualization of most TV programs?

Wake up, my fellow Catholics.

Peace,
Ed

Great post Ed,

Along with my disgust about the nature of sexuality in most modern cinema and television, I share and equal disgust about language with respect to the so-called ratings they give … you cant curse without getting an “R” rating, yet they routinely take the Lords name in vain for any and all ratings with no thought whatsoever… more of the “tame by todays standards” I guess?

 

[Usbek_de_Perse]

So, you are rejoicing at the deaths of these men. Very impressive.

According to the Wikipedia article on Hans Kung, it was Kung that helped Joseph Ratzinger get a job a Tubingen. This may explain the continuing good relationship between these two men of rather different views.

 

[sedonaman]

…
And did the Church aid or abet any of that? …
Ed

I say it did because it rarely does anything about “that”. It’s always looking for the “common ground” with dissenters, as though there can be common ground between those who believe in the real presence and those who don’t, for example. A few years ago, the bishop of the diocese of Nebraska excommunicated everyone in his flock who had anything to do with Call to Action. The Vatican [finally] backed him up. Now, one would think that this would be a red flag to those sympathetic to CTA and that they’re playing with dynamite and therefore distance themselves from the group. But one would be wrong. Every year, come October, when time comes to recognize the various groups that make a parish community work, CTA is never left out. This is defiance, pure an simple.

My question to the defiant, is that if Church teaching is so contrary to your conscience and/or your personal beliefs, go join a church that isn’t. Stop trying to take away the Church that I and others believe in. In fact, one might make the case that they have a moral obligation to find truth elsewhere if they think it doesn’t exist in the Catholic Church.

 

[reggieM]

Anyway, now that the tide has turned, I sometimes sense a similar flood pouring in from the other side of the argument, and find myself labeled similarly by folks who once sought my support in standing against the changes and abuses being committed by these “dissenters”.

Well, I think if we spend a lot of time on traditional-Catholic sites like CAF we might think that the tide has turned (or even with the death of Mary Daly think such a thing). But we have to remember also that 60%(?) of American Catholics voted for a pro-abortion presidential candidate and a very large number also support gay marriage and other immorality like that.

So, while I would like to see it as a flood of orthodox Catholic teaching sweeping through our dioceses, I think it’s more like the thin cutting-edge these days has a traditionalist spirit.

I think your words of caution are good though. It’s easy to become over-zealous or over-confident about one’s successes. God has always given his prophets and people a chance to rebel against evil, because that kind of fight and revolution brings energy and excitement. Maybe the evils change for each generation so youth can have new targets and bring new solutions.

For myself, I won’t feel there is a victory until the National Catholic Reporter is out of business due to lack of support.

 

[Onegin]

Ed,

I agree that the church did not cause the cultural changes that occurred in the 1960’s. However, I think it is fair to say that, at a time when people needed the Church to give them clear answers and directives they responded with a Council that gave them only more confusion.

Vatican II came at a very bad time. But I don’t believe it’s timing was accidental either. There were people within the Church that wanted the council to happen at the time when the culture would be most receptive to it’s consequent “reforms.”

 

[sedonaman]

Results since the (Vatican II) Council, seem to be in cruel contrast to the expectations of all, beginning with those of John XXIII and Paul VI. … The Popes and the Council Fathers were expecting a new Catholic unity, and instead one has encountered a dissension that – to use the words of Paul VI – seems to have gone from self-criticism to self-destruction. A new enthusiasm was expected, but too often there has been boredom and discouragement instead. A new leap forward was expected, but instead we find ourselves facing a process of progressive decadence. … It must be clearly stated that a real reform of the Church presupposes an unequivocal turning away from the erroneous paths that led to indisputably negative consequences. – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

 

[reggieM]

Vatican II came at a very bad time. But I don’t believe it’s timing was accidental either. There were people within the Church that wanted the council to happen at the time when the culture would be most receptive to it’s consequent “reforms.”

I used to buy into that idea at one time in the past. But then I actually began to understand what was going on in Vatican II – from talking with the generation that supported and implemented it (in crazy ways or good ways). I’ve spent 30 years reflecting on what happened and why, and I’ve only just recently reached some understanding. The restoration of the Tridentine Mass and my involvement in a Byzantine Rite parish helped me appreciate Vatican II and the Ordinary Form much more – I finally “get” what the reformers were trying to do and why they found it necessary. Institutional change is a massively difficult thing to design and implement.

I’m very sympathetic with those who find the Council to be a sort of evil – a curse that decended on the Church from conspirators, etc. I don’t agree with that view but I understand how it helps make sense of things. I used to hold that view myself for a long time.

I agree with Ed West’s view that the Church did not cause the evils that we have faced.

Cardinal Ratzinger was a periti at Vatican II – hugely influential. He drove a lot of the reforms. In his book, Salt of the Earth, he explains that he does not repudiate Vatican II but rather, sets limits to “what the text actually says”. Those who took the text as a program for future experimentation and unlimited change (as many did) were acting rashly and dangerously (even if some of their innovations were later accepted). Some of those changes will also be turned back.

We might wonder - all of this experimentation, at what cost? What part of that chaos was absolutely necessary?

In my view, it all was necessary. God allowed it, knowing it would play out that way.

Does God desire evil to befall the Church?

No, but he does allow evils to purify the Church – as the Arian crisis did, and Protestantism did.

 

[edwest2]

Ed,

I agree that the church did not cause the cultural changes that occurred in the 1960’s. However, I think it is fair to say that, at a time when people needed the Church to give them clear answers and directives they responded with a Council that gave them only more confusion.

Vatican II came at a very bad time. But I don’t believe it’s timing was accidental either. There were people within the Church that wanted the council to happen at the time when the culture would be most receptive to it’s consequent “reforms.”

I understand why you would view it this way but Pope John XXIII did let people know it was coming and why. I was there the day before and the day after the changes in Church. It should have affected nothing. But there was another threat, and the Church knew about it.

1960 The Pill. Can’t have the Pope telling Catholic women not to use it. History and our lives as Catholics would be much different today if more of us had listened.

1966 Betty Friedan co-founds the National Organization for Women. The message: you are oppressed by men. The man you’re married to, the men who run big business, the men in the Church. Does anyone recall the song by Helen Reddy? “I am woman, hear me roar.”

Woman, in order to be free of the patriarchal society around her, had to become a man. No more staying home and watching the kids – her own kids. Get a career. No more man is the only legitimate bread winner. Go out and become a high-powered executive. Join the Army.

Not only that, Schizophrenically, women were encouraged to separate themselves from men. Feminist icon, Gloria Steinem, publisher of Ms. magazine, whch was the origin of that word, said, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

I’m surprised that men were not required to sign a legal form regarding future liability on the first date starting in the late 1970s. After all, it was assumed that all men were male chauvenist pigs who viewed women as nothing more than sex objects.

Starting in the late 1960s, the temptations increased. Catholics were called sexually repressed. Artists and intellectuals were demanding their freedom. Which turned out to be the freedom to show boobs or other body parts.

The Hippies helped market illegal drugs. Dr. Timothy Leary told young people that psychedelic drugs were ‘mind expanding.’ This was entirely false. Organized crime got more people hooked on dope in the late 1960s and 1970s because some people thought it was cool.

Now remember, just a few years previous, we trusted the media and the vast majority of the people around us. No, everyone was not perfect but we did not lock our doors at night. Our neighbors offered to help if they saw us working on the family car or even cutting down a tree.

Once again, who benefited?

Organized Crime - more dope was on the streets and even an organization to legalize marijuana, the National Organization for the Repeal of Marijuana Laws (NORML). And look where we are today about legalizing marijuana.

By legalizing graphic pornography, organized crime got a lot of guys addicted to high priced magazines, film, video and DVDs.

Lawyers - By defending pornographers, and with vague laws about ‘community standards,’ Adult Bookstores proliferated everywhere. It’s legal, so it must be OK. Right? You know you want it, anyway. What’s the big deal? We were told it was all about consent and no one is getting hurt. And that line has been applied to a lot of other social issues today.

I cannot stress enough, that the outside media, who just a few years prior to the start of the 1970s, was a real, welcome guest in our home, very gradually turned into a sexual pervert. I was there. At first, there were a few risque and off color remarks on TV and I thought, it’s not that bad. But year after year, like turning up the volume, it gradually got worse and worse.

And artists, writers and intellectuals were constantly yelling First Amendment. You can’t censor us. Censorship is evil!

We were being told, year in and year out, that traditional life was wrong and we needed to act on new ways of living. We needed to accept ‘alternative lifestyles.’ We needed to reject traditional intergenerational bonds of love, heritage and nationality.

With all the yelling and screaming against men, including some women on TV burning their bras (another symbol of oppression since it turns out ‘men’ design women’s undergarments), a chasm opened up between men and women. Instead of hoping for and anticipating trust, compassion, respect and love, women wanted to be treated like men. Don’t open the door for me, don’t bring me flowers, don’t act like those old, traditonal men.

Recently, an article appeared about actress Jada Pinket-Smith. It described the real her. She did not like Will Smith at first. Why? He was too nice. She went on to describe how she can drink Will under the table and how ‘wild’ she really was. She had achieved the feminist ideal, she’s actually a man.

We went from trust, to confusion, to disbelief, when my generation, which had grown up with Leave it to Beaver and I Love Lucy, turned on TV in the late 1990s and saw a warning on ABC that the program we were about to watch contained Profanity and Partial Nudity. As a writer, my first thought was, What? Who asked for this? No way is this ‘necessary’ for telling the story. Again, what was normal on TV just a few years earlier had to go in this direction? Why?

I remember when rap (now strangely relabeled as hip-hop) was just coming on the radio. I pull up to a stop light and the car next to me is blaring this garbage. Women are being called ho’s. Gunplay is considered cool. One ‘rap artist’ is selling a shirt wrapped up in plastic like a kilo of cocaine. I pick up a related magazine and a young black man is on the cover. On his belt buckle is the word rape.

We were too trusting. Too naive. And we were lied to.

Peace,
Ed

 

[chriso]

Well, I think if we spend a lot of time on traditional-Catholic sites like CAF we might think that the tide has turned (or even with the death of Mary Daly think such a thing). But we have to remember also that 60%(?) of American Catholics voted for a pro-abortion presidential candidate and a very large number also support gay marriage and other immorality like that.

So, while I would like to see it as a flood of orthodox Catholic teaching sweeping through our dioceses, I think it’s more like the thin cutting-edge these days has a traditionalist spirit.

I think your words of caution are good though. It’s easy to become over-zealous or over-confident about one’s successes. God has always given his prophets and people a chance to rebel against evil, because that kind of fight and revolution brings energy and excitement. Maybe the evils change for each generation so youth can have new targets and bring new solutions.

For myself, I won’t feel there is a victory until the National Catholic Reporter is out of business due to lack of support.

I’ve always been amazed at how folks could call themselves Catholic and vote that way… Thats funny about the National Reporter. We had similar issues with our local dioscesan newspaper here. In spite of many of our prayers, it never went out of business, but when we got our new Archbishop, it was only a matter of a short while before the editor and staff got changed out. Its much more palatable now.

 

[Onegin]

I understand why you would view it this way but Pope John XXIII did let people know it was coming and why. I was there the day before and the day after the changes in Church. It should have affected nothing. But there was another threat, and the Church knew about it.

1960 The Pill. Can’t have the Pope telling Catholic women not to use it. History and our lives as Catholics would be much different today if more of us had listened.

1966 Betty Friedan co-founds the National Organization for Women. The message: you are oppressed by men. The man you’re married to, the men who run big business, the men in the Church. Does anyone recall the song by Helen Reddy? “I am woman, hear me roar.”

Woman, in order to be free of the patriarchal society around her, had to become a man. No more staying home and watching the kids – her own kids. Get a career. No more man is the only legitimate bread winner. Go out and become a high-powered executive. Join the Army.

Not only that, Schizophrenically, women were encouraged to separate themselves from men. Feminist icon, Gloria Steinem, publisher of Ms. magazine, whch was the origin of that word, said, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

I’m surprised that men were not required to sign a legal form regarding future liability on the first date starting in the late 1970s. After all, it was assumed that all men were male chauvenist pigs who viewed women as nothing more than sex objects.

Starting in the late 1960s, the temptations increased. Catholics were called sexually repressed. Artists and intellectuals were demanding their freedom. Which turned out to be the freedom to show boobs or other body parts.

The Hippies helped market illegal drugs. Dr. Timothy Leary told young people that psychedelic drugs were ‘mind expanding.’ This was entirely false. Organized crime got more people hooked on dope in the late 1960s and 1970s because some people thought it was cool.

Now remember, just a few years previous, we trusted the media and the vast majority of the people around us. No, everyone was not perfect but we did not lock our doors at night. Our neighbors offered to help if they saw us working on the family car or even cutting down a tree.

Once again, who benefited?

Organized Crime - more dope was on the streets and even an organization to legalize marijuana, the National Organization for the Repeal of Marijuana Laws (NORML). And look where we are today about legalizing marijuana.

By legalizing graphic pornography, organized crime got a lot of guys addicted to high priced magazines, film, video and DVDs.

Lawyers - By defending pornographers, and with vague laws about ‘community standards,’ Adult Bookstores proliferated everywhere. It’s legal, so it must be OK. Right? You know you want it, anyway. What’s the big deal? We were told it was all about consent and no one is getting hurt. And that line has been applied to a lot of other social issues today.

I cannot stress enough, that the outside media, who just a few years prior to the start of the 1970s, was a real, welcome guest in our home, very gradually turned into a sexual pervert. I was there. At first, there were a few risque and off color remarks on TV and I thought, it’s not that bad. But year after year, like turning up the volume, it gradually got worse and worse.

And artists, writers and intellectuals were constantly yelling First Amendment. You can’t censor us. Censorship is evil!

We were being told, year in and year out, that traditional life was wrong and we needed to act on new ways of living. We needed to accept ‘alternative lifestyles.’ We needed to reject traditional intergenerational bonds of love, heritage and nationality.

With all the yelling and screaming against men, including some women on TV burning their bras (another symbol of oppression since it turns out ‘men’ design women’s undergarments), a chasm opened up between men and women. Instead of hoping for and anticipating trust, compassion, respect and love, women wanted to be treated like men. Don’t open the door for me, don’t bring me flowers, don’t act like those old, traditonal men.

Recently, an article appeared about actress Jada Pinket-Smith. It described the real her. She did not like Will Smith at first. Why? He was too nice. She went on to describe how she can drink Will under the table and how ‘wild’ she really was. She had achieved the feminist ideal, she’s actually a man.

We went from trust, to confusion, to disbelief, when my generation, which had grown up with Leave it to Beaver and I Love Lucy, turned on TV in the late 1990s and saw a warning on ABC that the program we were about to watch contained Profanity and Partial Nudity. As a writer, my first thought was, What? Who asked for this? No way is this ‘necessary’ for telling the story. Again, what was normal on TV just a few years earlier had to go in this direction? Why?

I remember when rap (now strangely relabeled as hip-hop) was just coming on the radio. I pull up to a stop light and the car next to me is blaring this garbage. Women are being called ho’s. Gunplay is considered cool. One ‘rap artist’ is selling a shirt wrapped up in plastic like a kilo of cocaine. I pick up a related magazine and a young black man is on the cover. On his belt buckle is the word rape.

We were too trusting. Too naive. And we were lied to.

Peace,
Ed

Agreed. I think many people probably thought at first that what was happening would be good, that society would benefit by ushering in a culture of “free love” etc but the fallout from it has been awful, especially in the form of increasing subjectivism and some of the very real horrors we have seen with the rise of abortion-on-demand.

Hopefully we can turn it around. From what I understand, the 1920’s and the industrial revolution were, in many ways, similar to the 1960’s.

 

[Lormar]

Onegine, you are correct. I read many times that had it was the stock market crash of 1929 that brought everything to a screeching halt.

 

[chriso]

Ed,

I agree that the church did not cause the cultural changes that occurred in the 1960’s. However, I think it is fair to say that, at a time when people needed the Church to give them clear answers and directives they responded with a Council that gave them only more confusion.

Vatican II came at a very bad time. But I don’t believe it’s timing was accidental either. There were people within the Church that wanted the council to happen at the time when the culture would be most receptive to it’s consequent “reforms.”

I’ve long felt that there are those who wished for much of this change who made a concerted effort to influence the directoin of the teachings of the colleges, seminaries, and now even the hight school and elementary schools to further missinform the masses and chart a course they view as beneficial. Traditional Catholic teachings happen to stand counter to these ends so in many ways we became “collateral damage” as things evolved to this present state of affairs.

Consequently, many of this past generation of Church leaders here in America were educated by proponents of this secular “liberal” view. What took several decades to infest, will likely take quite some time to set right again as well. Thankfully I see many signs of this happening, and in a compassionate fashion as well. I often observed that this battle was unfair in that those “liberal dissident voices” had nothing to loose, in fact, they hoped I’d quit showing up for their courses, and that I’d quit showing up at Mass. In comparison, when our new Archbishop wasnt moving fast enough to right the course of things for my “traditional” friends, I noticed that he was taking the time to keep from completely alienating the entire group of the dissidents… he wants to shephard us ALL to Christ, not just the ones who have stayed reverent and devoted and obedient. Its a far greater challenge for him to affect these changes than it was for those who swung the pendulum to the left so to speak.

Like has been said here already, some small victory can be clamined in that Gods people are being called back to him and are gathering in greater numbers to preserve the Church and all her traditions. On the other hand, many Catholics still do vote with small regard for the tenets of their faith and instead throw their loyalty with secular issues… and clearly this “enlightened society” we live in (especially here in America) is at odds with our values and our Church.

 

[edwest2]

In the past there was this line: “The devil made me do it.” I guess I’m a little surprised when I read posts that seem to say: “Vatican II made me do it.” As if changing from Latin to English and the priest facing the congregation put evil or non-Catholic thoughts in our minds. No more abstaining from meat on Fridays? That does it! I’m going to do something against Church teaching!

In 1973, us guys understood that we should not have sex with our girlfriends or move in with them in an unmarried state. We understood that marriage was a serious, life-long commitment. We got that.

But we trusted these other people. Some of them would go on and on about how ‘free’ we needed to be. And stupid us, after spending most of our lives till then trusting other people, we thought we’d at least give them benefit of the doubt. They said, “trust us, we have a better way.” By the time many of us found out we had been led down the wrong path, it was a bit too late. Oh sure, some of us came back to the Church, thank God, but too many are still out there, lost. Too far away from Church and prayer they don’t know where to turn. That’s one reason the Church is running ads inviting Catholics to return.

I encourage each one of us to do our part.

Peace,
Ed

 

[reggieM]

I’ve always been amazed at how folks could call themselves Catholic and vote that way… Thats funny about the National Reporter. We had similar issues with our local dioscesan newspaper here. In spite of many of our prayers, it never went out of business, but when we got our new Archbishop, it was only a matter of a short while before the editor and staff got changed out. Its much more palatable now.

I hope the same thing happens with our diocesan paper when we get a new bishop.

 

[Lormar]

We’re waiting for a new bishop too, and I hope he throws the entire staff of heretics that currently have control of our diocesan paper out the door, along with the liturgical “expert” that they feature who is anything but.

 

[otjm]

Modern edifices or music, which seek to emphasize the works of man, to take his eyes away from the splendor of God and focus it on the work of an “artist” or modern “visionary” are ugly. These things say “let us make this building plain and boring, or this music dull and lifeless because that is what we are” reeks of a skewed philosophy. And ultimately, it speaks to an underlying protestant mentality: the idea that we are little more than, as Luther put it, a pile of dung with snow covering it. That, at the end of the day, people are fundamentally worthless and bad.

I have been following this thread, but not necessarily at full throttle. However, part of what catches my attention is a tendency to speak in very broad swipes, and to presume (it would appear), that it convers much or all of what is going on.

I have never sat down and gone through the music, for example, of OCP, but I intend at some point to do so if for no other reason than that I think a lot of people who criticize music do it with overly broad comments.

Let’s take Gregorian chant and Eagle’s Wings as a starting point. And perhaps a bit of background: I started seminary college level before the last documents of Vatican 2 were promulgated.

Gregorian Chant was included in the documents; and if one knows much of what was actually going on in the parishes prior to Vatican 2, one would understand that Gregorian Chant was singled out for the document because it had been falling out of favor for some time before Vatican 2.

I happen to love Gregorian chant when it is sung properly, and most choirs nowdays (and a number of them before V2) did not know how to sing it properly - that is, technically. It is impossible to sing correctly by the congregation; it takes a trained schola or choir. And rightly or wrongly, choirs as such have been out of favor and singing by the congregation has been in favor for 35 to 40 years now. I was part of a group in the seminary who sang an a Long Play record of Gregorian chant, and we had a fantastic monk leading us who had studied chant in Europe. He knew more than 90% or choir directors in parishes, and possbily 100% of them, and knew how it was to be sung.

And I can’t stand Gregorian chant slaughtered by groups who have no clue. It is no better than Palistrina by a group who has no clue.

And as to Eagle’s Wings- perhpas you don’t like the congregation singing; that is a different issue; or perhaps you don’t like single voice music - that too is a different issue - but singing a psalm - which is the direct source of the words to Eagle’s Wings - is hardly something “secular” or “modernist”. Or perhaps it is simply the tune which you don’t like. I would rather hear or sing Eagle’s Wings than the sappy “Mother Dear oh Pray for Me” which I was subjected to in grade school, during the reign of Pius XII, and is about as sing-songy as they get. So music post-V2 is hardly the marking point for poor religious music.

There is a dichotomy between those who want a choir to sing Palistrina or Gregorian Chant, and those who want the congregation to sing music which does not have a prerquisite of being able to try out for a choir, and require voice or music training before being accepted.

I am not anti-choir. It has its place, but I don’t see much movement towards an all-embracing all parish occurance. One might keep in mind that world wide, about one in 250 parishes have a regular EF. That is not to say that the OF cannot have a choir - it most certainly can - but the direction has been for congregational singing, and I see nothing coming out of Rome changing that.

 

[otjm]

I just finished reading Sisters in Crisis by Ann Carey. It is a history of the sisterhood from the ‘60s to the present. She divides them into “change-oriented” and “traditionalist” as opposed to liberal and conservative. Those who were traditionalist for the most part were happy living in a convent with other sisters, praying together, working together in their order’s original mission, and wearing religious garments, and kept fairly quiet. Those who were change-oriented were unhappy with communal living, praying together “one mass a week was enough”], not being involved in their favorite political causes, and above all wearing identifiable religious garments; these were the vocal ones who went off and took control. Those who kept quiet suffered in their silence.

As a result, the number of new recruits fell off drastically because you didn’t have to join a convent and take vows to engage in a political movement.

that is a bit simplistic as to why recruiting fell off; there were multiple issues at play over the last 40 years.

By the time the Vatican found out about what was going on, it was too late to make them scale back to what Canon Law specified without the media painting them as a bunch of patriarchs beating up on some poor helpless nuns.

I am not sure that it can be substantiated that the Vatican had much of a clue for 20 to 30 years after the exodus started. they did, after all, have a few other fish to fry at the same time.

Some of these change-oriented sisters left the religious life, but why any of them entered a traditionalist 2,000-year-old institution was not explained.

Some is a bit of an understatement. In 1965 there were 179,954 religious sisters. In 2006 there were 66,608, or a 63% decrease.

They must have known in the beginning what they were getting into, and no one held a gun to their heads and said, “Put on that habit!”

18 year old girls didn’t know a whole lot more then than they do know, and they were not any more wise. In fact, 18 year old girls now my know a lot more, simply because the means of communication and the depth and breadth of communication now is so much wider.

In fact, in the first 10 years ('65 - '75) they lost 44,729, or almost 25% were lost. And stop and think; those who left were not necessarily the msot recent recruits; they included those wh joined in the 50’s, and in the 40’s…

The book is a good book, and gives a fairly decent analysis. It is all too easy to reduce the exodus out of the religious life to changes made by Vatican 2. with the rapid changes in the world, it may have been slower for those in a habit to react; but it is presumptious to assert that there would not have been horrific losses even if Vatican 2 had not occured. There is a vast difference between looking back at history from a book, and having lived through it. A historian filters through the almost impossible number of facts with a theory designed to explain a result, and shapes their historical report based on what makes it through the filters. That does not mean that the facts reported did not impact some of the actors; but that there may have been many other facts also impacting which the historian simply filtered out.

 

[reggieM]

There is a dichotomy between those who want a choir to sing Palistrina or Gregorian Chant, and those who want the congregation to sing music which does not have a prerquisite of being able to try out for a choir, and require voice or music training before being accepted.

That dichotomy is at the heart of the Western liturgy. It’s not something that can be easily understood, in my opinion. As a result of the clashes between scholas, choirs, rank and file Catholics, aesthetes, reformers, purists, sentimentalists … I’ve lost all taste for liturgical music of any kind. I cannot tell the difference and do not want to know the difference and don’t care if there is a difference between Mother Dear Oh Pray for Me, Eagles Wings, One Bread One Body, Palestrina, Tallis, Mass of the Angels, Holy Holy Holy, Lord of the Dance … I’m not there for the music, and none of us really are there for that. It’s unfortunate that we do need to go through this development though and come up with something better for the future.

 

[otjm]

We’re waiting for a new bishop too, and I hope he throws the entire staff of heretics that currently have control of our diocesan paper out the door, along with the liturgical “expert” that they feature who is anything but.

That will depend on who actually owns the paper and/or who is on the board of directors.