There are many, many reasons for the decline of the Catholic Church in Britain and here. That's very clear. But one cannot discount the upheaval that occurred after Vatican II, especially as it concerns the Mass, as one of the big reasons. Generations of Catholics were affected by the first generation to experience Mass alienation.
Today we live in a very angry polarized Church that is also associated with the fact that Catholics, clergy and laity alike, have abandoned the traditional faith and morals of the Church.
Not to be excluded in this moral abandonment are those in the more traditional quarters of our polarized Church who resort to insults and name calling to make their point or to marginalize their perceived opponents.
Who would have thought those proclaiming traditional morality and orthodoxy would shoot themselves in the foot by disobeying God's two greatest Commandments and thus calling into question what otherwise might have been sincere motives?
That Rome has so powerfully lost its grip is the subject of the theologian and sociologist Stephen Bullivant’s Mass Exodus, which examines what he calls disaffiliation among American and British RCs since the Second Vatican Council (Features, 6 September). Bullivant distinguishes between those who have lapsed — who still identify as Roman Catholic and might attend family weddings and funerals — and those who sociologists of religion call “nones”.
Bullivant points out that decline had begun before Vatican II — that brave new dawn of the 1960s which rocked the RC Church with its greater part for the laity to play, more emphasis on scripture, and mass in the vernacular. But, while there was decline, for him, the age before Vatican II seems a golden one, of close-knit communities, popular devotional practices, and congregations flocking every Sunday to the Tridentine Latin Mass.
I am old enough to (just about) remember being shocked when the priest faced us across the altar for the first time. I can also recall how large numbers of people did not fully participate at mass, and spent their time fiddling with their rosary beads. It’s hard to believe that they stopped going at all because they could now recite the Creed in English
.
Certain things were lost, however. As Bullivant argues, Vatican II encouraged a more middle-class Church, in which the laity helped to run parishes through numerous committees, while the less educated felt excluded. In Britain at least, however, recent arrivals from overseas have changed the Church again. I’ve watched as kissing statues, the rosary, and Stations of the Cross have become popular once more.
Bullivant’s eventual conclusion is that Vatican II was indeed the cause of decline. Change came too fast; people were unsettled; obligations were abandoned.
Yet as he admits, change was everywhere in the ’60s, and other denominations suffered decline, too — indeed, more so than the Roman Catholic Church. I’m inclined to think you’d need a parallel universe, with no Vatican II, to really discover its impact (or otherwise) on mass-going; and neither Bullivant nor, I think, anyone else has explained why the very things that cause some people to leave — church teaching on birth control, say, or liturgical change — cause others merely to shrug their shoulders and carry on attending mass.
What has undoubtedly had an impact on mass-going in recent years is something else of equal historical importance: the abuse crisis, and not just assaults on children, but cover-ups by bishops. Vatican II encouraged a rethink about ecclesiastical authority, and the abuse crisis then destroyed many Catholics’ belief in it. And the pre-Vatican II Church certainly played its part in the current crisis: a sizeable number of cases recently investigated go back to that era.
Bullivant’s analysis is dense, but, nevertheless, filled with fascinating detail. Yet it lacks something: that sense of hope that fills the Christian heart, and the faith that needs to be transformed by love if it is to move mountains.
Catherine Pepinster is a former editor of The Tablet and the author of The Keys and The Kingdom: Britain and the papacy from John Paul to Francis.
Mass Exodus: Catholic disaffiliation in Britain and America since Vatican II Stephen Bullivant
OUP £25
(978-0-19-883794-7)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50
Today we live in a very angry polarized Church that is also associated with the fact that Catholics, clergy and laity alike, have abandoned the traditional faith and morals of the Church.
Not to be excluded in this moral abandonment are those in the more traditional quarters of our polarized Church who resort to insults and name calling to make their point or to marginalize their perceived opponents.
Who would have thought those proclaiming traditional morality and orthodoxy would shoot themselves in the foot by disobeying God's two greatest Commandments and thus calling into question what otherwise might have been sincere motives?
Mass Exodus: Catholic disaffiliation in Britain and America since Vatican II, by Stephen Bullivant
Catherine Pepinster 11 October 2019
Hope, not nostalgia, is Catherine Pepinster’s prescription for RCs
“ONCE a Catholic, always a Catholic,” is a familiar saying. But the hold of the Roman Catholic Church over its members has weakened dramatically over the years, and now just 13 per cent of British Catholics now attend mass weekly. Just as startlingly, 37 per cent of baptised Catholics answered “None” when asked whether they had a religion.That Rome has so powerfully lost its grip is the subject of the theologian and sociologist Stephen Bullivant’s Mass Exodus, which examines what he calls disaffiliation among American and British RCs since the Second Vatican Council (Features, 6 September). Bullivant distinguishes between those who have lapsed — who still identify as Roman Catholic and might attend family weddings and funerals — and those who sociologists of religion call “nones”.
Bullivant points out that decline had begun before Vatican II — that brave new dawn of the 1960s which rocked the RC Church with its greater part for the laity to play, more emphasis on scripture, and mass in the vernacular. But, while there was decline, for him, the age before Vatican II seems a golden one, of close-knit communities, popular devotional practices, and congregations flocking every Sunday to the Tridentine Latin Mass.
I am old enough to (just about) remember being shocked when the priest faced us across the altar for the first time. I can also recall how large numbers of people did not fully participate at mass, and spent their time fiddling with their rosary beads. It’s hard to believe that they stopped going at all because they could now recite the Creed in English
.
Certain things were lost, however. As Bullivant argues, Vatican II encouraged a more middle-class Church, in which the laity helped to run parishes through numerous committees, while the less educated felt excluded. In Britain at least, however, recent arrivals from overseas have changed the Church again. I’ve watched as kissing statues, the rosary, and Stations of the Cross have become popular once more.
Yet as he admits, change was everywhere in the ’60s, and other denominations suffered decline, too — indeed, more so than the Roman Catholic Church. I’m inclined to think you’d need a parallel universe, with no Vatican II, to really discover its impact (or otherwise) on mass-going; and neither Bullivant nor, I think, anyone else has explained why the very things that cause some people to leave — church teaching on birth control, say, or liturgical change — cause others merely to shrug their shoulders and carry on attending mass.
What has undoubtedly had an impact on mass-going in recent years is something else of equal historical importance: the abuse crisis, and not just assaults on children, but cover-ups by bishops. Vatican II encouraged a rethink about ecclesiastical authority, and the abuse crisis then destroyed many Catholics’ belief in it. And the pre-Vatican II Church certainly played its part in the current crisis: a sizeable number of cases recently investigated go back to that era.
Bullivant’s analysis is dense, but, nevertheless, filled with fascinating detail. Yet it lacks something: that sense of hope that fills the Christian heart, and the faith that needs to be transformed by love if it is to move mountains.
Catherine Pepinster is a former editor of The Tablet and the author of The Keys and The Kingdom: Britain and the papacy from John Paul to Francis.
Mass Exodus: Catholic disaffiliation in Britain and America since Vatican II Stephen Bullivant
OUP £25
(978-0-19-883794-7)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50
5 comments:
But left-wing loons, gotta left-wing loon, and WON'T examine the mass failure of their programs!
Great pic, by the way. I see that most of the congregation for the EF Mass looks mighty young. Pray Tell will be crying or claim its photo-shopped
But that's the problem, TJM, in using language that denigrates those you don't like or disagree with, your argument becomes sophomoric and not to be taken seriously. Rather than focus on personalities or name calling, focus on the topic and make a good case for it without name calling or marginalizing people. In other words, follow the two Greatest Commandments.
Vatican II gets its well deserved share of the blame for the Catholic Church decline. Yet, decline would have come anyway because of a historic up-tic in secularization especially in developed countries. V 2 theology favored relativistic theological trends, casting aside Tradition, unmooring Peter's bark and the faithful decamped from the ship in various little vessels in various theological/liturgical directions. All left without a plan or a compass (Tradition/TLM). No wonder they are lost at see. Some will make it but most will be lost. Hope we learnt the lesson. Oh yeh, we need a new Captain for the Bark 'cause the present one can't read a map or an extant, or a GPS or what ever modern navigation instruments we have today.
Just sayin'.
"But that's the problem, TJM, in using language that denigrates those you don't like or disagree with, your argument becomes sophomoric and not to be taken seriously."
No, TJM's arguments do not "become" sophomoric due to the language he uses. They ARE sophomoric to begin with, which is precisely why he couches them in derisive, antagonistic language.
He mimics the President who, when he has nothing of value to say - which is most of the time - says it loudly, often, with a frothy smattering of superlatives, hoping that no one will notice that, despite his apoplectic delivery and meaningless scowl, "there's nothing to see there."
in using language that denigrates those you don't like or disagree with, your argument becomes sophomoric and not to be taken seriously.
Tell that to the Pope! lol
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