YIKES, THE JESUIT AMERICA MAGAZINE SLAMS THE POST VATICAN II LITURGICAL INNOVATIONS AND THE RCIA—KIND OF…

 

You can read the full Jesuit Magazine article HERE.

At first, I thought this was new thinking from America Magazine, but then I realized it was a recycled article of their from the famous and infamous Father Andrew Greeley.

While completely obnoxious, you really can’t stereotype the late, great, famous and infamous Father Greeley theologically. He’s kind of like me, throwing out bombs for others to react and clean up.

All the liturgical innovations since Vatican II, as well as the RCIA, as well as Vatican II, itself, were and are imposed on the Church and lowly laity and the clergy who lead them in the most pre-Vatican II authoritarian way possible. And often it is done so with double speak and hypocrisy. 

Think about how Pope Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum was dumped and in the most dictatorial and mean-spirited way possible by the Vatican. It really speaks volumes and I wonder how Fr. Greeley would have reacted to this iron fist towards clergy and laity in the Church? 

Here’s the money byte from a very long article I link above:

Like most liturgical innovations of the years since the Second Vati­can Council (the most notable exception being the Mass of the Resur­rection), this rite is not particularly distinguished either by its artistic beauty or by its linguistic felicity or by its responsiveness to human needs. It is spun out of historicist and academic concerns and displays no sensitivity to either the nature of contemporary religious experience or the cultural environments where it is to be exercised. (How can you call people the “elect” or require “scrutinies” or babble about “mystag­ogy” in the final decade of the 20th century?)

At a very general level it makes two important points that have been forgotten in the past and of which contemporary Catholics needed to be reminded—that becoming a Christian is a process and not an event, and that it is a process which of necessity should involve some sort of community. I would have called these two “points” guidelines, save that in contemporary clerical culture “guidelines” means “rigid laws” (just as “dialogue” means accepting a bishop’s order). For all I know those who actually drafted this rite intended nothing more than making these two points. Yet, the process, contrary to what is thought by those in the R.C.I.A. movement who interpret the document, is not necessarily that which is administered by the parish “staff.” and the community is not necessarily the parish “R.C.I.A. Team.”