And so those who had the head knowledge of what the Eucharist is in second grade, did not lay a foundation. Otherwise we would not be having this discussion. If there is no responsibility of parents for children pre/post, then the only response is: “it’s the cultures fault”.
Where do you see the disconnect between:
1960 Catholics
and
Their children who were born in 1960 and lived through the cultural earthquake?
Did these children not grow up in families who were responsible for them?
I happen to believe the Gospel is more powerful than the culture, and we have a responsibility not to merely learn the faith, but to live it and to give a reason for it, so that the next big lie does not throw us off course.
If those who lived before the council had laid this solid foundation, those who came after would have built upon it and not fragmented into a thousand different directions. To cast blame on the culture is an abdication of responsibility.
It’s no different with my own children. I have a responsibility to live the Gospel for them, and give good reason in response to their “why?”
They will ask why, and we no longer live in a Catholic culture that answers this “why” in a comfortable and certain manner. We need catechesis that goes beyond “because the catechism says so”.
The council was an inspired and brilliant thing, because it recognized the information overload that would challenge the faith. The council challenged the Church to sharpen it’s intellectual sword so that it might cut through the often deceptive information that is in abundance. It’s no wonder that someone like Saint JP2, who is a philosopher for the ages, was so present in the council.
I suppose that there is plenty of blame to go around, but it is not spread evenly. In my opinion, much of the blame can be attributed to those who were directly responsible for Catholic catechesis—teachers, RCIA teachers and coordinators, administrators. Often parents were simply unaware of how drastically the process of Catholic teaching had changed, and how quickly.
I grew up with five brothers and sisters. As I mentioned before, I was taught by nuns in a Catholic school. I was out of that school and in the military by the time my youngest siblings were in the same school. In the meantime, Vatican II had occurred, most of the nuns were replaced by lay teachers, the teaching materials had been radically changed. The practices had been changed. I was aware of many changes due to V2, but I had no idea that the teaching of the Faith would be so drastically altered. I assumed that my younger siblings were learning the same things I had, but they were not. That only became apparent in the course of casual conversations much later.
Now maybe I should have quizzed them more often. Maybe my parents should have. But they had no reason to think that catechesis had essentially ceased, and been replaced by happy talk. They had no reason to think that the Catholic school they had grown up with had suddenly ceased to teach Catholicism.
Later, I volunteered as a CCD teacher. At the beginning of the year, the administrator distributed some textbooks from different publishers asking for opinions. Looking them over, I noticed that only one series was strong on content, strong on Faith, and well organized. The others were eclectic and wishy washy, giving the reader no clue as to what it means to be Catholic. I wrote a review strongly recommending the faithful and orthodox text. But the other one was selected, which was nearly useless and without content.
Frankly, the radicals assumed control of most religious education. That’s why the future bishop did not receive a good Catholic education until he got in seminary. (And there was a period when the seminaries were also pretty much taken over as well. They had to fight their own battles to regain orthodox teaching.)
None of this was the fault of Vatican II. One can read through the documents of Vatican II and never find instructions to sing Simon & Garfunkel songs at Mass, to toss out Gregorian chant, to remove altar rails, or provide poor catechesis. No, those things were done by those who presumed to take control of “implementation” of Vatican II, whatever that means, and they took no prisoners.
My past and present experience exactly.