I saw this commercial this morning and thought to myself, "Self what is it about my generation where so many of us indeed are stuck in the 70's in terms of clothes, art, music, technology, hair and most sadly of all liturgy, that even commercials are making caricatures of us?"
Another way to say, "stuck in the 70's" is "arrested development." Perhaps it is the haze of the lingering weed, or the LSD that made the trip permanent or just plain nostalgia when one was, man, truly hip, but now, we are fodder for caricature, aren't we, I mean, man, really! This is sad, man, really sad! :-(
The truly sad thing, though, is that those who never experienced the 70's have an affinity for it and its liturgy, a small but vocal group. However,those who are like Carma in the commercial below,my age group, man, really are stuck in the 70's. Usually they are the famous liturgists of that period who successfully deconstructed the liturgy and got the multitudes, including bishops, to drink their spiked COOL Aid. And some are still hung over on that spiked COOL Aid and don't really know that it is 2013 and the spirit of Vatican II is but a hazy chapter in a dusty history book for most. Listen to the young operator with web.com who smiles at the man stuck in the 70's and her response to him.
At any rate enjoy and just substitute the stuck in the 70's clergy and laity you know in terms of liturgy and Church and smile, man, smile:
19 comments:
But why is it that--whereas most folks have long since moved on--those stuck in the 70s are so disproportionately represented in the Church, both in the pews and especially among the priests who drank the Koolaid in the seminaries in the 70s. Most of those who went to college then heard all sorts of patent nonsense there, but recognized it as such (perhaps after duly regurgitating it on the final exam). Whereas clergy and religious seemed to swallow it all whole, and never grew up. Why them, especially?
I tried to approach this a couple of different ways. Each time my point broke down. Not because my understanding was flawed, but because the premise is so whack-a-do that it is unsustainable.
Bottom line friends, those who are stuck in the '70s have control. Until such time as this mentality is either a) retired or 2) dead, we're gonna continue to have those who support one document of Pope St. Pius X while completely ignoring another. This is the definition of the '70s mentality.
Henry: My guess would be that that generation was the last gasp of the age of mainstream churchgoing that stretches back at least to the Second Great Awakening; an era when, seemingly, just about everybody in America professed some flavor of Christianity to at least a nominal degree and vast numbers of Americans attended some church at least semi-regularly.
Unfortunately, this last gasp, due to either historical accident or by satanic design, while remaining churchgoers, was affected by the same aesthetic depravity that the rest of America experienced in the '60s and '70s (think of all the magnificent old secular buildings that were torn down, for instance). Worse still, this generation was (also by historical accident or by satanic design) inextricably corrupted by theological modernism.
I like to think (if "like" is the right word) that it's this very modernism and aesthetic depravity that brought about an end to the churchgoing age; that the following generation, which hadn't grown up in the era of Freedom Riders, Viet Nam, and Bob Dylan, had no empathy for or attachment to the liturgy and theology that such things spawned and, having no such attachment, had the natural reaction of being repulsed by it. I suppose that at least you can say that those who quit gong to church at least recognized that the "church" as promulgated by the Groovy Generation, lacked much value.
Henry Edwards, its because the post-Vatican II Church was succesfully rebooted as a "works alone" social justice religion that jettisoned nearly all mysticism, spirituallity, and even faith. So all it now attracts to its clergy are social justice advocates, most of whom, have a 1970s mentality.
This is strange criticism from a man who wears a Nehru jacket all day. ;-)
K-Kay, perhaps we should put that in the past tense--many or most of those attracted to the priesthood in the 60s and 70s were certainly not from the top of the barrel (setting the side the question of whether really good men were deliberately excluded from the priesthood in those days).
However, I know quite a few young priests and current seminarians, and they are rock-solid almost without exception. Even makes you wonder what did attract them, given the Church as we've known it in recent decades.
Wow, you guys are being, like, so judgmental man!
Some people are stuck in the 1970's and some in the 1570's...
Stuck is stuck
I have a certain nostalgia for "the decade that taste forgot"; after all, I was in my twenties and that's a good age to be. Yes, the fashions were dreadful, and that includes the polyester ponchos which passed for chasubles. In the UK there was rampant inflation, militant trade unionists were holding the country to ransom and deliberately wrecking the ecomomy (at least one of the union bosses was actually taking his orders from the KGB). In 1975 I bought a nearly new car which fell to bits within two years. Oh, and there was Northern Ireland...
On the other hand political correctness had not arrived, nor had the compensation culture with its vexatious litigants and ambulance-chasing lawyers. The middle classes still had confidence in the police (they no longer do). Schools still used corporal punishment and exams hadn't yet been dumbed down. And if anyone had suggested that homosexuals should be allowed to get married, he would have been universally regarded as stark staring bonkers.
So not all bad.
Henry, while it is true there are some pockets of a Catholic Renaissance going on (the FSSP, Fr McD, examples of the young priests and seminarians you cite), sadly it is all very small. In my own Archdiocese, the "spirit of Vatican II" group is still in very strong control. They indoctrinate our seminarians with the Gather hymnals, Our Father hand holding, abolishment of the Confiteor (except during Lent), and mandatory use of EP2. The Archdiocese makes sure any new Church building being built has simple generic architecture, while the interior is a generic auditorium with tiny wood altar tables. So, while there are some pockets of hope, I doubt there will be any real change or restoration of Catholic identity for 50 more years. The only thing that might change things is if the Pope were to instantly supress the Novus Ordo, and I doubt that will happen. As they say, the Church thinks in centuries, and I'm afraid the 1970s will last a century in the Church.
Joe, Bill, and Anon at 6:21: Troll much?
It isn't the 1570's that's the anomaly here; it's the 1970s. To be stuck in the 1570s is not to be stuck. it's to be in communion with countless generations of Catholics. To be stuck in the 1970s is to be a heretic who is endangering one's soul and the souls of others.
And Joe, why does it trouble you that we're judgmental? Where in the world did you get the idea that Christians aren't supposed to be judgmental, or that being judgmental is a Bad Thing? I cannot and will not judge the state of someone's soul. Aside from that, all bets are off. Or are you saying that we shouldn't judge the teachings and deeds of Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, geroge W. Bush, Nancy Pelosi, the Westboro Baptist Church, etc., etc., etc. . . .
Of course, calling someone judgmental is a great way to sound all self-righteous now, isn't it?
I live in the Archdiocese of Detroit, and I know what K-Kay is talking about. First. Michigan is a political dyed in the wool "blue state". Second, during and post Vatican II, our Archbishop was John Cardinal Dearden, who was one of the primary architects of the "spirit of Vatican II". These two facts have made the Archdiocese of Detroit so entrenched in a left wing, human-social rights based, folk Mass, cafeteria style of Catholicism, I doubt it will ever recover. Furthermore, the vast majority of Cathoics in Michigan seem to be fine with it, and more likely to object to traditional Catholicism.
1570's: the problem with the Crusades is that I was not there to run them.
rcg
1570s - you may not have been there, but we had the next best thing in Don John of Austria.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!
(GK Chesterton, 'Lepanto').
Seriously. Don John knew his stuff, militarily. Unfortunately I think he antedated the doctrine that it is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
FRAJM-Dude!
Those guys totally rock!
One guy has a Rickenbacker classic 6, the bassist looks like he's holding a vintage Fender P-Bass, and the other guitarist's brand is a Gibson, most likely a GS or 335, or the ultimate Les Paul.
Give credit where credit is due, they may be stuck playing Scholtes "Bossa Nova Sanctus", "They'll know we are Christians" and "Sounds of Silence" but their instruments are , like um, Stradavarius, far out.
I guess I shoulda come to Chant Intensive...need a tune up.
What I remember most about Cardinal Dearden is that he was the highest ranking Catholic cleric to openly and vocally support both women's ordination and making priestly celebacy optional.
Dearden was also strongly opposed to Humanae Vitae. The Wanderer newsmagazine once labled him the most dangerous heretic in the Church in America.
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