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

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HomeschoolDad said:
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phil19034:
But WHY did the Religious teachers, textbook authors, Catholic publishers, theologians, & clergy feel the need to change the English pronunciation of Amen? We were pronouncing it the same as the Episcopalians (“Ah-men”).

But after Vatican II, we changed to the Baptist way of “Aay-men.” I’m curious why the text books, etc all felt that change was needed?

Why did they feel that the American English pronunciation of Amen needed to be different from the British English pronunciation (which was the same as the Latin pronunciation)?

The ONLY thing I can think of was it was part of the “Americanism” heresy.
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I don’t think it was at all related to the Americanism heresy. I use both pronunciations interchangeably, and have never given it a lot of thought, but if pressed, I would say that AH-MEN is the Latinate pronunciation, and AY-MEN is the vernacular English pronunciation. Either is correct.

It may have been an attempt to imitate the Baptist et al pronunciation. Even if so, it’s not incorrect. Just two ways of saying the same word and expressing the same idea. I have heard “Extreme Unction” pronounced as both “EX-treme Unction” and “Ex-TREME Unction”.
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Yeah, I don’t mean it was heretical to change the pronunciation. I’m just wondering if it was something the Americanists were in favor of?
 
phil19034 said:
For the love of me, I still can’t understand why Catholics felt the need to change the way we pronounced Amen?

The Anglicans have been doing their service in English for hundreds of years and they still say “Ah-men.”

What was the reasoning???
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Aay-men (or Aye-men, if you prefer) was fairly commonly used by Irish Catholics (and some English Catholics) long before Vatican II.

It wasn’t used at Mass, of course. But when praying the rosary, Hail Mary, Our Father, making the Sign of the Cross, and any number of other common English language prayers outside of Mass, it would not have been unusual for people to end with Aay-men.

At least in the United States, it was probably more common in southern, midwest, and western states.
 
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edwest211 said:
There were no warring factions. . . But total strangers came into our communities to scatter. And scatter they did.
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Who were these “strangers” if not our opponents in a clandestine war? You use the language of war, with “dissidents” opposing the Just. I do not think that is an accurate representation of what happened. There were people who worked together for the good of the Church, not warring factions.
 
Americanism was a “heresy” of the 1890s. It is doubtful that anyone ever was an Americanist heretc; the closest we might come to it is the Servant of God Isaac Hecker, the founder of the Paulists.
 
SMHW said:
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phil19034:
For the love of me, I still can’t understand why Catholics felt the need to change the way we pronounced Amen?

The Anglicans have been doing their service in English for hundreds of years and they still say “Ah-men.”

What was the reasoning???
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Aay-men (or Aye-men, if you prefer) was fairly commonly used by Irish Catholics (and some English Catholics) long before Vatican II.

It wasn’t used at Mass, of course. But when praying the rosary, Hail Mary, Our Father, making the Sign of the Cross, and any number of other common English language prayers outside of Mass, it would not have been unusual for people to end with Aay-men.

At least in the United States, it was probably more common in southern, midwest, and western states.
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ahhh… so it was perhaps the Irish influence? That makes sense.
 
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There are those who like to understand that period with a hermeneutics of rupture, like the WSJ. And there are those who use a hermeneutic of reform, which sees the changes not as part of an overarching rupture, but as reforms within the continuity of the Church. The oppositional language you prefer is the language of rupture.
 
Dovekin said:
Americanism was a “heresy” of the 1890s. It is doubtful that anyone ever was an Americanist heretc; the closest we might come to it is the Servant of God Isaac Hecker, the founder of the Paulists.
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Yeah, I know. I didn’t mean that they were Americanist Heretics but I was wondering if it was a “hangover” from the Americanism heresy.

While Americanism was big in the 1890s, it did have a comeback (not in theology but in pastoral practice) during the 1950s. Back in the 1950s, there were a number of Catholics who thought we were on the verge of turning America into a Catholic nation (esp in the North East and other cities like Chicago, etc) and could do so if we were no longer considered an “immigrant Church.” That’s why there were a handful of vocal clergy and religious who called for the end of Catholic Bowling leagues, the ethic devotions, the Rosary, “academic freedom” for Catholic college, ending Catholic neighborhood, etc back in the 1950s. They wanted Catholics to “integrate” with the Protestants to prove we were American.

They legitimately thought that Hollywood & TV could make convert protestants to the Catholic Church if they made the Church more American.

When JFK was elected, those pastoral Americanists felt it was working.

So, I wasn’t referring to the theological Americanist Heresy of the 1890s, but rather the the pastoral or social Americanism of the 1950s.

God Bless
 
I agree 100% with the article you cited. The WSJ article you cited earlier was an example of the V2 “of the media.” It used a fallacious hermeneutic of Rupture to portray “dissidents” as cut off from the Church. It is, as Bendict XVI has written, better to use a hermeneutic of reform and renewal, which sees the changes within the continuity of the Church.

This is what I meant with my comments about a united Church rather than one of warring factions. It is Church where people of different opinions talk to one another, instead of labelling one another as dissidents.
 
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Who is labeling anyone? The fact is the Church did not decline by itself. Outsiders who wanted nothing less than a Church in decline came into Catholic neighborhoods to agitate for corruption, which they called freedom. Inside the Church were some prominent and less prominent agitators who wanted the Church to change. It didn’t work. All of their work is being dismantled.
 
I did not think he was lying nor did I say it nor intend it. I thought it was sad that he would term it lying. IT is quite possible that I might have attended the dialogue mass but I have no memory of doing so.
 
I know baby boomers did not initiate the changes of Vatican II, like another poster has said it seems like it was the previous generation trying to attract baby boomers by making the music more “hip”.

Right now, much of the folky hippy sounding music sounds to me like stuff from the 70s. Most music directors are baby boomer age, so it seems like that’s why we still have that music hanging around. I am just a bigger fan of the more traditional music.
 
I have a copy of Catholic Digest from October 1958. This dialogue mass must have been pretty popular since the back cover is an ad for the St. Joseph Daily Missal. “His Holiness Pope Pius XII Tells You Why A Daily Missal Is So Important. ‘So that the faithful, united with the Priest, may pray together in the very words and sentiments of the Church.’”
 
edwest211 said:
Who is labeling anyone? The fact is the Church did not decline by itself. Outsiders who wanted nothing less than a Church in decline came into Catholic neighborhoods to agitate for corruption, which they called freedom. Inside the Church were some prominent and less prominent agitators who wanted the Church to change. It didn’t work. All of their work is being dismantled.
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Who were some of these agitators?

If you are referring to Saul Alinsky (outside the Church), I have never heard of any specific antipathy to Catholicism. When you say “nothing less than a Church in decline”, do you mean that they didn’t necessarily want a Church in decline, or that they did want a Church in decline?
 
edwest211 said:
I have a copy of Catholic Digest from October 1958. This dialogue mass must have been pretty popular since the back cover is an ad for the St. Joseph Daily Missal. “His Holiness Pope Pius XII Tells You Why A Daily Missal Is So Important. ‘So that the faithful, united with the Priest, may pray together in the very words and sentiments of the Church.’”
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I wasn’t born back then. But from what I’ve been told, the Pope Pius XII didn’t necessarily mean pray together verbally.

When I attend Latin mass at a FSSP parish, the majority of people have a personal missal and are reading (silently) the entire Mass.

It’s my understanding that this is what His Holiness meant.

But, I could be wrong.

God Bless
 
hope said:
I did not think he was lying nor did I say it nor intend it. I thought it was sad that he would term it lying. IT is quite possible that I might have attended the dialogue mass but I have no memory of doing so.
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I didn’t meant to imply I thought you were lying, and I’m sorry if my awkward words came across as such.

My point was in fact that you could both be right. Some Masses were dialogue Masses, and many were not and your experience likely was because of the type of Mass you attended.
 
I was a young teen when things started to change so I remember quite a bit. I agree with Edwest who said: “We went to Church every week as a class. The St. Joseph’s missal was available. The Latin and English were right next to each other. Everyone understood everything. We knelt at the Communion rail.” The priest did not all of a sudden face the people when the Mass first changed to the vernacular. This happened at a later point in time. And, there was still some Latin in the Mass when it first changed. Mostly, the parts still in Latin were prayers the priest said like right at the beginning before the Kyrie, offertory prayers, prayers before communion and final prayers at the end. For me, the change was unnerving in a way. It somehow seemed flat, like something was lost, like the mystery was gone.
 
Before Vatican II, I held a missal with the Latin and English. What a few are calling a dialogue mass actually happened. The priest spoke and everyone responded, in Latin.

Et cum spiritu tuo “And with your spirit .”

That exchange happened throughout the mass. We stood, sat and kneeled as was appropriate. We heard the organ and sang whatever song was in the missal.
 
I remember, long ago, taking a trip into Arkansas with my grandfather. At a point, he said if it wasn’t too much trouble, he would like to stop and visit a man in Arkansas whom he knew. So we stopped there as it was on the way.

The man had a very strong Chicago accent. At a point, my grandfather asked him if he would care to “…show me the saint”. The man was agreeable and we went into his basement. To my astonishment, there was a large glass enclosure with a clothed skeleton with a fabricated face and hair. The outfit was something like a Roman soldier’s uniform. There was just one little spot where you could see the bone of his leg. There was a golden plaque that said “St. Hyacinth”. The man from Chicago explained that a pastor in Chicago whose parish was being “renovated” in a modern style gave it to him for safekeeping until a proper permanent recipient could be found. it has been in the basement for some time, so I guess it wasn’t easy to find a permanent recipient.

I think of that, of course, every time I hear the word (name) Hyacinth. Whether he’s still in ARkansas now, I don’t know.
 
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