What were the post-Vatican II changes like to live through?

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Off topic. Personal anecdotes are good but living through the changes covers a 45+ year period.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
I always find that you can pretty much tell about the nature, the general “vibe” of the parish, by reading their weekly bulletin online. Websites are nice, but I find that bulletins tell you more. Put another way, if I look at a parish bulletin, then attend Mass there, I almost always say “yep, it’s pretty much what I expected”.

I refer here to legitimate Catholic parishes, not schismatic or sedevacantist congregations. I find that these are fairly obvious, though sometimes the latter can be somewhat coy about the sede vacante question. I found this so obscured on one chapel’s website that I contacted the chapel and just asked them point-blank. They were.
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The good thing is the number of dioceses that have links to parish web sites and even maps of where the parishes are. It makes planning so much easier. (Masstimes.org is also a good resource, but I’ve found that it is important to verify Mass times in parish bulletins and for daily Mass even whether or not Father is going to be having the usual Masses this week.)

But I digress…
 
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I bet! Many of these people are highly resentful - bad enough they had their way and were able to destroy trust for many.
 
PetraG said:
I’d say there was a general rush in some quarters to the “new is better” theory, just as there is now. They weren’t all trying to destroy the Church. Maybe some were, but others were convinced that everything modern was going to be an improvement. It was naive and more than a bit arrogant, but not vicious. At the same time, we are also experiencing a parallel “the old way was better” theory, and that has its own problems. That, too, can cross over into a certain arrogance, a certain naive over-confidence and definitely an inappropriate willingness to get combative with those who resist rather than leading and educating them to honest appreciation.
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The number who think “the old way was better” is miniscule. More often we have the same dynamic, except the new way today is the Latin mass. The ‘old’ way, of the 70s and 80s, is unabashedly attacked, much more than anything was attacked in those years.
 
Dovekin said:
The ‘old’ way, of the 70s and 80s, is unabashedly attacked, much more than anything was attacked in those years.
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Attacked by that minuscule faction of traditionalists, you mean? I agree, we are often very vocal. And some (sede vacantists, for example) are ludicrously over the top with their condemnations of other groups. One of the SSPV’s “sworn enemies” is the SSPX.
I will wholeheartedly agree, that the Mass of Paul VI is good. But I’ll never agree with all the changes or say it is an improvement. So unnecessary.
 
edwest211 said:
I have covered that period in my previous responses. A highly coordinated attack occurred inside the Church and outside of it, all designed to destroy the family, and distort Catholic teaching.
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I tend not to subscribe to conspiracy theories. I rather think it was, at least in my part of the world, an understandable backlash against a highly clerical, very strict and borderline Jansenist Church where even NFP was considered a mortal sin. In an era when nothing was free, in particular education above secondary school, it resulted in a very impoverished society where Anglo-Protestants dominated the Francophone-Catholic population. Think British vs. Irish without the violence.

As such, it was nothing more than an emancipation movement, and a very necessary one. As in all such movements, the pendulum swung too far and we threw the baby out with the bath water. However the (local) Church has nobody to blame but herself and her (local) perverted and heretical view of sexual morality.

The only good to come of it was that the very high birth rate ensured the survival of French Canada. But now the pendulum has gone too far and we no longer reproduce at even the replacement rate. We’ve attempted to recruit more Francophones largely from two communities: Haitians, who have integrated well with time (largely Catholic), and Maghrébin, largely Muslim, which has resulted in some social friction.

The backlash started in the early 60’s. The liturgical and liberal excesses in the Church at the time were not part of a conspiracy, but rather the effect of a Church caught like a deer in the headlights, and trying to save the furniture from the meltdown in membership. Alas, it didn’t work and while there are pockets of hope (and the EF Mass isn’t one of them), the Church here has been decimated. If you want to buy Catholic items for your home, there are lots of auctions and fire sales from church and religious community closures.
 
Sorry about it but the “bad fruit” spread far and wide - as we know from present day. The struggle to recover and follow the Faith needs to return to the Truth that our Catholic Faith embodies.

“Management has been at fault and has made Sales down.” So to speak.
 
I meant to speak more broadly, about not just the mass but the “hippie priests”, guitar music, etc. People feel free to attack these traditions as much as anybody attacked the older traditions. Comments like “the bad fruit spread far and wide” are just like what was said of the tridentine mass and culture.

And that was my real point. The enthusiasm for the “new” and criticism of the “old” is the same today as it ws 50 years. Now the “new” is a supposedly ancient ritual and the “old” is hippie guitar music, but it seems like the same attitude to me.
 
There’s nothing supposedly ancient about the Tridentine Mass. It was regularised at the Council of Trent, but it’s roots are traceable all the way to the 4th century. I’ve often hear the year 500 as being around the time when we’d easily recognise the Mass.
By comparison, guitars at mass is a relatively new phenomenon, wouldn’t you say? 😉
 
I’ve actually read all the previous posts and find them fascinating. But also sad, because–as always in this forum–people assign motives to others and attack them for not thinking exactly the same way they do.

I will offer my own thoughts: I went to a Catholic grade school, graduating from grade 8 in 1961; I went to a public h.s., and went to weekly catechism classes in grades 9 and 10; then I went to a Catholic university. After graduation in 1969, I lived outside the US for over 20 years in three different countries and travelled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. So I was insulated from a lot of the things happening in the US.

My first reaction to all this is that, yes, a lot of things were going on in the 1960s, in case anyone didn’t notice. And what went on in the Catholic Church reflected what was going on in the world at large. If not a perfect mirror of the wider society, it was a good approximation.

Personal recollections are going to be exactly that: personal and individual. I suspect it’s like trying to piece together a battle by drawing on individual accounts. It depends on where you lived, your family, your friends, what church you went to, what schools you went to, etc. And of course your individual taste–ornate vs. plain? English vs. Latin?

I am unaware of a good summary (book or good article) that takes an objective view of the changes. First, because even during the Council (or perhaps better: BECAUSE of the Council), sides were taken. I’m unaware of anyone who hasn’t taken a side. And to write such a summary, you would really have to have been there and aware of what was going on in, say 1960–in other words, you would need to be 25 or so in 1960, so born in 1935 or earlier. If someone this age hasn’t written such a summary by now, they’re not going to.

In grade school (until June 1961) we went to daily Mass. I actually loved the Latin–to me it was a beautiful language and very poetic. I went on to take Latin throughout high school. I understand this is a matter of aesthetics, of personal preference. But I honestly don’t understand people who claim they “didn’t understand” the Latin they repeated about 60 times a year for x number of years. The beginning of Mass has always struck me as particularly beautiful: " Introibo ad altare Dei. Ad Dei qui laetificat juventutum meum…" (I will go to the altar of God, to God who brings joy to my youth…") Who would want to get rid of that? And yet they did. And altar rails disappeared, and so on. New churches began springing up as theaters in the round (a catchy 1960s idea). All very 1960s thinking. And I remember thinking at the time: “Hang on here, this is all very fashionable today, but what about in 20 years from now? 50 years?”

continued…
 
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Having said all that, I was vaguely aware there was a council going on in the early 60s but didn’t pay any attention to it. Sophomore year in college (1966-67) we all had to take theology. The professor was a Jesuit from Uruguay. In any case, we were required to read a book a week and write a one-page summation and criticism of it. For the most part, these books were by Protestant theologians popular at the time: Harvey Cox, William Stringfellow, Joseph Fletcher, etc. The intent was that we would see the flaws in the books. But of course the flaws that were clear to a Jesuit were obscure to 19 year olds who had been brought up reciting the catechism. And the Jesuit never ever started a class by saying “OK, you’ve all read about situation ethics. Here’s the problem with it…” So we were exposed to all these ideas without being exposed to the Catholic counter arguments. Not a great idea.

By the late 1960s things began to happen I took notice of: the Mass was said in English. And yes, I noticed that the translations were “secularized” as much as the translator could manage it. For example “His Holy Church” (ecclesiae suae sanctae) was reduced to “his church” …without the ‘sanctae’ (‘holy’). And I remember thinking “Why are we singing all these Protestant hymns? A Might Fortress Is Our God? Really? Does anyone here understand the context of this???” And as soon as they were introduced, I remember thinking how insipid the songs of the St. Louis Jesuits were. And they still are. I remember going to a church in the US in the late 70s (I was travelling) and after a few minutes I actually went outside to check the sign: Was I in a Catholic Church? When they all held hands at the Our Father (I had never run across this before) I thought it was very cult-like. I fired off a letter to the archbishop. Similar incidents occurred whenever I went to Mass in the US. It was one thing after another. My parents stopped going to Mass in the late 1970s—they simply had had enough of the guitars. They said it was like going to a guitar concert.

The first book I read that had anything to do with the upheaval of the 1960s was in 1982: “Has Sin Changed?” I occasionally read a few books in the 1980s, but in the 1990s I read 12 books in all. This coincided with my return to the US and my sense of “What is going on here???”

I am fully aware that my tastes are not shared by everyone. However, there have been two incidents that show the problem. About 15 years ago I was on a parish council. When I brought up the fact that the sanctuary in the new church they were building was going to be in a separate room, and that did not seem to be appropriate, I was attacked by several other council members. I can still quote them word for word: “We’re not interested in some unreconstructed pre-Vatican II opinion…” A few years ago I attended an RCIA class, just to see what was being taught. One deacon (!) preceded his talk on the church with an attack on–you guessed it–pre-Vatican II Catholics. An attack out of the blue, unprovoked! And the parish priest, sitting nearby, said not a word. So clearly what started in the 1960s is far from over.
 
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Dovekin said:
The number who think “the old way was better” is miniscule. More often we have the same dynamic, except the new way today is the Latin mass. The ‘old’ way, of the 70s and 80s, is unabashedly attacked, much more than anything was attacked in those years.
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Well, yes, lol, if by “old way” we mean the that particular span of time, kind of like the clothes and carpeting of the 1970’s and 1980’s are viewed, the support is miniscule.
No, I mean that even now, if you compare “the way things our parish does things now” and “the way the new pastor wants to do things,” and the new pastor is well-formed liturgically and doesn’t commit outright liturgical abuses, you’re going to get partisans for both directions. That holds whether the new pastor is more traditional or less traditional than the last one, provided the last one was also within liturgical boundaries. (Are there people who are partisans of liturgical abuses? Sure, but they don’t admit that what they like is actually an abuse, but rather an allowed variation.)

Back in the 1970s, though, there was a “overthrow it all” mentality by which “the old way” vs “the new way” was a decision involving metaphorical bulldozers and jackhammers. In our country parish, we changed to be obedient, but not beyond that. On some college campuses, in contrast–well, you know where the naive went in that case. Jackhammers were employed, and not just to take out the altar rails.

It reminds me of the Mark Twain quip: When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
 
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A very wrong view. I understand what’s going on in Ireland but there is an additional dynamic.

Men will never overthrow God. Sure they can overthrow temporal authority from time to time but what those people did was barbaric. The Church saw what was happening and intervened at the end of Vatican II, in 1967 and 1968. The revolution has fizzled out. Young people are finding their way. And the abuses of the 1960s are being left behind as Churches are being restored. The young generation will learn why that is.
 
It’s winding down. Man will not be able to overthrow Christ’s Church.
 
PetraG said:
Back in the 1970s, though, there was a “overthrow it all” mentality by which “the old way” vs “the new way” was a decision involving metaphorical bulldozers and jackhammers. In our country parish, we changed to be obedient, but not beyond that. On some college campuses, in contrast–well, you know where the naive went in that case. Jackhammers were employed, and not just to take out the altar rails.
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My point is that people are using jackhammers now, and not just to put in altar rails. It is just as strongly “overthrow it all” as it ever was in the 70s.

Living through the wreckovations of today is just like it was living through those of 50 years ago. People try to force their styles on others.
 
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TheMortenBay said:
There’s nothing supposedly ancient about the Tridentine Mass. It was regularised at the Council of Trent, but it’s roots are traceable all the way to the 4th century. I’ve often hear the year 500 as being around the time when we’d easily recognise the Mass.
By comparison, guitars at mass is a relatively new phenomenon, wouldn’t you say? 😉
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It depends on what you identify as the ritual.

So you think that 1500, or even 1000, year ago, priests came in with a mass produced missal in a language few understood and read prayers without caring if anyone could hear them. They followed precise rubrics that were uniform and binding throughout the world.
Give praise with blasts upon the horn,
praise him with harp and lyre.

Give praise with tambourines and dance,
praise him with strings and pipes.

Give praise with crashing cymbals,
praise him with sounding cymbals.

Let everything that has breath
give praise to the LORD!

Hallelujah!
Psalm 150
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Not a Baby Boomer here, I’m a Millennial. But I just wanted to chime in and say the parish where I was baptized and confirmed (I’m a convert) in was a VERY 1970’s feeling parish. The sanctuary especially had very 1970’s décor and simple little in-house made banners. The sanctuary was entirely in brick with a very primitive art style for the stained glass windows. There is a free standing stone altar, but there is a wooden tabernacle stand behind it to the rear. (That was a new addition. The tabernacle used to be placed off to the side I was told, and a statue of Saint Joseph now rests where the old tabernacle stand is) On Sunday’s for the 6PM Mass they have guitars and drums, and it all felt very “hippy-like” to me.

However, that should come as no surprise to me, as the parish council are mostly Baby Boomers, so it’s very “Back to the 70’s” when you go there.

After experiencing my first Traditional Latin Mass, I fled the “Back to the 70’s” parish I was received at and never looked back. The parish I now go to (and am registered at) is run by ICKSP and celebrates the Extraordinary Form exclusively. I was like “Ah, tradition! Where have you been my whole life!”

I noticed in my diocese, there is a new Ordinary Form parish that opened up near where my girlfriend lives. This parish has a lot of statues inside the sanctuary, altar rails, a very beautiful altar with a depiction of the Last Supper on it. It looks very traditional!

I noticed among my generation (and Generation Z) we really don’t care much for all that “1970’s” stuff. We really hunger and yearn for the old traditions of the Church. The Baby Boomers are the opposite of us.
 
That’s very refreshing to know! A lot of the Boomers I have come across prefer that “1970s’” vibe.
 
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