First Things has a very good commentary on various signs that point to the type of pope Pope Leo will be. As I have said, from the beginning, Pope Leo will be his own pope! He will take what is good from every papacy, to include Pope Francis’ papacy, and make it his own and what is lacking in some of the good things of various papacies, to include Pope Francis’ papacy, he will refine, not cancel.
What that means for Sumorum Pontificum and Traditionis Custodes remains to be seen. I don’t think Pope Leo will enact any reforms on either of these by being pressured or through knee-jerk reactions.
The First Things commentary got me thinking about my baby boomer Catholicism which has to be some what similar to Pope Leo’s baby boomer Catholicism in the USA. Pope Leo is less than two years younger than I am and thus we must have had similar experiences of the pre-Vatican II Church which we still remember and what happened immediately following Vatican II beginning around 1965/66 through the present time.
Since I am not quite two years older than Robert Prevost of Chicago, I might remember things slightly better than he. But I suspect we are similar in terms of an “idiot savant” memory of the 1960’s pre and post Vatican II period.
In the pre-Vatican II Mass, I was completely fascinated by what I was seeing but also confused by some of it. I wanted to know what the heck the priest was doing at the altar and even asked my father why he doesn’t face us. My father found that amusing as he wanted to see what the priest was doing too and suggested putting a mirror above the altar angled toward the congregation so we could see!
My experience of the immediate post-Vatican II period in the 1960’s was in a small but very diverse and internationally cosmopolitan parish in Augusta, GA. Robert Prevost’s was in Chicago with a huge Catholic population and a somewhat progressive approach to implement Vatican II and the revised Mass.
I loved the initial changes that gradually unfolded between 1965 to 1970. It was drip by drip until the 1970 Missal was implemented on the First Sunday of Advent 1969. I liked the Mass facing the congregation and it was better than the mirror idea of my father’s. I liked the vernacular although Latin was still in force for the Roman Canon that we could hear in Latin as it was spoken in a low voice but using a microphone.
By 1966 I was 13 thus a teenager. By 1970, I was 17. It was in the late 60’s to the early 70’s that I became concerned and uncomfortable with the changes in the Mass. The revised Mass was celebrated casually and reverence was dissipating. That was horrible in my eyes. What contributed to this malaise was standing to receive Holy Communion, lay people in sloppy lay clothing distributing Holy Communion and people receiving in the hand and casually so. The tabernacle was demoted and the altar was stripped too, to two rinky dink candles on the altar compared to the six tall ones.
The majesty of the Mass prior to the changes was stripped down and reverence, wonder and awe removed and intentionally so. Casualness was promoted as the new and improved “reverence”! I kid you not!
The new music was horrible especially with the placement of folk groups next to the altar and all the distractions that they along with their varied instruments created in the sanctuary during the Mass. The new music was secular sounding and simply horrible and often irreverent, but called the new reverence which was in fact no reverence!
Vatican II was preached more than Jesus Christ. Controversies in the Church were discussed more than Jesus Christ. And who did what in the Church and during Mass was discussed more than Jesus Christ.
Catholicism lost her identity and so did Catholics. Everyone was confused and didn’t know what would change next. There were those promoting changing dogmas to bring about Christian unity and changing the name of the Catholic Church to the Christian Church to achieve that unity.
Sex, sexuality and what women should be allowed to do, even to become bishops, priests and deacons were hot, hot, hot topics but in order to change the Church, not experience pleasure.
Everything was in flux. The Church which had been a rock of faith and certainty became of marshmallow of sticky confusion and ambiguity and uncertainty.
I loved the papacy of Pope John Paul II because he restored a sense of Catholic identity and discipline to the Church and what could not be changed and things that should be recovered.
I loved more Pope Benedict’s papacy especially the proper interpretation of Vatican II in continuity with what preceded not in breach of it. I like reform in continuity as the means to go forward.
I did not like the papacy of Pope Francis. I really felt he brought the Church backwards in many ways to recover the Church of the 1970’s prior to the election of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
Read the First Things commentary about Pope Leo, baby boomer. I wonder if he was saddened by some of the losses in Catholic identity and practice that the foolish way to implement Vatican II created? What impact will that have as his papacy unfolds and he continues to show us his “cards”?
7 comments:
I was an altar boy when the changes began and was happy with losing the Last Gospel and the shortening of the PATFOTA. I thought moving away from Latin was wrong in light of Veterum Sapientia and because it meant our great liturgical library of Sacred Music would be lost. Our youngest priest in the rectory (in his late 20s) was opposed to most of the reforms. It was the older priests in their 50s and 60s who were more supportive of them. It seems like history is repeating itself. I suspect Pope Leo will gut Traditiones Custodes because it is evil.
@TJM, why do you the older priests were so supportive of the radical changes? Why did they support changes to Liturgy that don’t appear to be in Vatican II? Why were they so emotional about it? Your opinion, too FrAJM.
The original changes like the ones I mentioned weren’t that radical but perhaps they were bored and believed some of the nonsense coming from the so-called liturgical experts!
Yeah, I forgot about the Liturgists teaching everyone what was IAW Vatican II. But that only makes me more puzzled. Were the Clergy, including the Bishops that ignorant of what was going on? I think they wanted this change and needed cover for what they wanted to do.
FrAJM, You need to put an image of a Baby Bomber in the top of this thread. It would be awesome.
RCG, most of the radical priests and nuns of the late 60’s and 70’s were formed in the very strict, disciplinary and authoritarian pre-Vatican II Church with its penances and seeming lack of joy. They experienced their priesthood and religious life in that environment. Vatican II became for them the fall of authoritarian Catholicism for a freeing and flexible Catholicism and they underwent a metamorphosis. I recall some older priests describe what radical priests were like in the pre-Vatican II period. They were rigid, strict and no nonsense but flip flopped after the council. I think it was a delayed adolescence they went through and finally rebelled against authority and a strict church.
The first Sunday that Catholics in my parish were encouraged to participate in the parts of the Mass that the altar boys said, was glorious for me and very exciting. So too with the faux altar placed in front of the original for Mass to be said facing the nave. As a teenager, I liked it when my pastor said the Mass was being simplified or shortened. The fiddling with the PATFOTA and finally its elimination for what we have now was great because it was short!
But my enthusiasm did not last long as confusion seem to reign in the Church, the pope was lamenting this, that and the other, which he caused and the liturgy became silly, casual and meaningless except for my strong belief that at least the consecration was valid and Jesus was present. I just didn’t like how the presence of Christ was treated or received.
Father McDonald,
Your reply to RCG jogged my memory about a priest I knew who was ordained prior to the Council. He was more Roman than Rome. He wore the perfectly pressed cassock, the shiniest black polished shoes, and the biretta with an elegant pompom. He could chant the Mass with true understanding of Gregorian Chant! Post Council he became Father Slob in blue jeans and flannel shirt. He became the greatest ad libbing priest I encountered at saying Mass: instead of in the name of the Father, and the Son and of the Holy Spirit he rendered it in the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Yes he definitely went bonkers
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