A New Pentecost!
Singing that new Church into being…
Well, I have quite a few new subscribers thanks to this Twitter (X) post which I just tossed up in a space of 2 minutes, but has gotten, via the mysteries of the algorithm, tens of thousands of views.
I think it points, once again, to the necessity of having a real, honest, non-acrimonious conversation about this period, taking into account the experiences of those who welcomed change, those who were hurt by it, those who didn’t care and those who were impacted by them, even if they didn’t have an investment in the process or even really care much.
And if you live and interact outside of your particular Catholic Preference Bubble, you see this, and you actually meet all of these people. Those who will say that if it hadn’t been for the changes of the Council, they would have left the Church, and those who experienced the changes of the Council in grief, convinced that the Church had left them.
Those who grew up before the Council who will say, “Why would you want to go to Mass if you didn’t understand the words? Or with the priest facing away from you? Who wants that? We were so happy when that changed!”
Or those who will say, “It was familiar and beautiful and a foundation of my spirituality - and then I had to listen to the priest go on and on and tell jokes in this stripped-down setting with the statues tossed in the dumpster.”
As for me, well, in my ordinary life, I attend a parish that has a formal liturgy, by the book (Novus Ordo) and gorgeous sacred music. I am involved in a couple of Catholic-heavy volunteer activities which are staffed mostly by folks about 10 years older than I am, who do not attend this parish, perhaps used to, but moved on or went a different route because they prefer less formality and less Latin. (Do remember that we are talking Alabama, and a “less conservative” parish here is going to be positively Right Wing Trad in say, a California context.)
And these people express mild surprise that I attend the parish I do. Again - they are older and see it as an expression of sensibilities that the Church moved away from in their youth, and they’re glad of it, and are a little puzzled that anyone would go for it.
There are a few more topics I have left to cover. The inspiration for the title - retreats. Visual art and church decor. A few others.
But for now, I’m just going to welcome new readers, encourage you to search through the archives, and share your experiences if you like - perhaps with a more general focus of your memories, if you have them, of that period - or the period in the 80’s and 90’s when, thanks to JPII and Ratzinger - and perhaps just the normal pendulum of history - things began to shift.
But I’m more interested in your memories of the transition.
As I’ve said before, I have none of the period as a transition. I wasn’t taken to Mass until I was five, which would have been 1965, and it was at a university parish which was well on the way to informality. I have no memory of a pre-Conciliar liturgy. My memories of Catholic life from that point on were of anodyne suburban Catholicism, in English, no devotions, lackluster music, flailing catechesis.
It was nothing like what an acquaintance - again, almost exactly ten years older - shared with me, and which, in part, inspired this Substack:
“One day the nuns were in full habit teaching us Aquinas, and the next they were in regular clothes playing us the Vatican Rag.”
So, no memories of changes in the making or people being angry or happy about them from me, fortunately or not. But if you do…I’d love to hear them!
Like you I grew up in the wake of Vatican II's changes, and never experienced the pre-conciliar mass, nor have I experienced a time in which there wasn't a certain degree of turbulence in the relation of the Church to its own liturgy.
As I've commented on several of your other posts, I viewed the nascent V2 mass as a puerile thing - it appealed to me as an adolescent, but as a returning Catholic the richer liturgy and traditions of the Church were much more attractive. Pope Benedict XVI's insights about the synchronic and diachronic nature of the mass (Spirit of the Liturgy, I believe) called me to recognize not only the temporal communion of the faithful present in the mass but the same communion across time, which, of course, implies a continuity with the forms of worship of both past and future. This led me to praying the rosary in latin, a brief engagement with some questionable radtrads prior to Benedicts motu proprio, and (later) lots of angry opinions about Pope Francis.
When I took my turn toward traditionalism, and became uptight about the validity of the novus ordo and all the handholding and clapping and aping the priest's gestures, my mother became rightly critical of my ignorant perspective on this, and tried to relate her experience. It didn't help her that my father (a Notre Dame grad) had fonder memories. Which now, as I write this, makes me wonder if there isn't something more masculine about the Tridentine mass and something more feminine about the Novus Ordo. Wasn't there some whole "age of aquarius" thing back in the day?
In any case, the triumphalism of the Spirit of Vatican 2 types will probably always cause a visceral reaction for me - wondering how they could have thrown away their patrimony and embraced such banality. As I am wont to say - tradition may be the dead faith of the living and the living faith of the dead, but progressivism is the death of the living faith and the faith of the living dead. But, bon mot aside, it can be hoped that the post-conciliar church has managed to avoid schism and that the interplay between the trads and the proggies represents a healthy interaction that is natural in people who deeply care about the Church and liturgy. The alternative of apathy seems to be much more in the spirit of the age, and much more deadly.
A fascinating project and I’m very glad I stumbled upon it. I am way too young to have stories to contribute, but as a young man who’s grew up on the lackluster side and has had his reckoning with the far reaches of the other side, I’m interested to read on as you publish more.
I have no idea if it’ll ever be helpful or not, but I have an ongoing photographic project exploring these changes and tension and the desires of many with strong feelings about V2. A version of it was published in NatGeo, and I’m continuing to work on it today.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/traditional-catholicism-photography?loggedin=true&rnd=1698335270025