MORE ON PHYLISS OF THE NCR AND A QUESTION OF HISTORICAL ACCURACY

Phyllis in her somewhat good until the end article on the cult of the personality, both religious and political, writes this:

While married priests and women deacons might address the twin problems of language and culture just about anywhere in the world, the church needs something else. The added benefit to restoring married priests and women deacons, of course, would be to demonstrate belief that women do not defile the sacred and that women can indeed image Christ. But even that may not be enough.
 
The problem presents its own solution. Catholicism survives where it adapts to and is adopted by the local culture. Local languages and customs are the key. Respect for women must be unlocked.
We can only hope for today. Tomorrow may be too late.

I alluded to this in my earlier post but not explicitly. Prior to Vatican II, the culture of the Church was the Latin Rite culture and where the Latin Rite originated and developed, Rome and western Europe.

Through missionaries, this Latin Rite spread throughout the world, save those where the Eastern Rite and Eastern Orthodoxy existed.

Catholics embraced the universalism of the Latin Rite, its language, culture and ethos. However, on the popular level, vernacular devotions developed, called popular devotions which took into account many, many aspects of the culture most good, maybe in some cases bad, like overdoing physical punishment in some devotions.

Thus the Mass and the sacraments had a universal culture and language but everything else in the parish, especially popular devotions, were inculturated.

After Vatican II, inculturated popular devotions were pooh-poohed  and those in control, bishops, clergy and religious said those needed to be banned now that the Sacraments were in the vernacular and could have aspects of the local culture.

On top of that, ecumenism watered down the belief of most Catholics up to that point, that the Catholic Church was the true Church having the true Deposit of Faith. Ecumenism encouraged the laity to embrace Protestants, their ethos and culture and way of doing things, especially fellowship and following a strong preacher in a strong community. Eventually, these Protestant proselytized these uncritical Catholics and Catholics embraced the proselytizing in the name of ecumenism and seeing all religions as equal.

I can remember the way in which the charismatic movement spread like wild fire at the behest of Cardinal Suenens and many, many Latin and South American prelates. It was particularly evident in Augusta but all part of North and South America. Many left the Catholic Faith and Church for Pentecostal sects or formed their own closed-in communities. That would have been unthinkable prior to Vatican II and a very strong Catholic identity and cultural ethos.

In Augusta, the charismatic community there embraced much of the fundamentalism of Protestant Pentecostalism and its lack of Catholic ecclesiology and ordained priesthood. They also embraced the cult of the personality of their founders and set up an "ideology" of headship and submission, completely contrary to Catholicism where no lay person owes religious obedience to another lay person outside of canonically recognized religious orders which have strict parameters to this obedience. This headship and submission combined with Pentecostalism exaggerated emphasis on Satan and deliverance/exorcisms was fraught with profound problems and serious spiritual abuse.

But ecumenism run amuck and the thought that all denominations are equal opens the door to what has happened in the Catholic Church as described by Phyllis.

What Phyllis does not analyze is that Catholicism was strong and powerful and embraced by many cultures under the pre-Vatican II format. That fell apart with her suggestions that I quote above.