I'm over Vatican II

I'm no fan of JPII but he did say, before becoming ill w/ Parkinsons and the subsequent decline of his mental status (only to be taken advantaged of by some in the curia especially one who I will not name but you know who he is)that Vatican II was a compass that points us in the right direction.

Kate, a fresh set of insights which I appreciate very much. Thanks to all contributors. As a cradle Roman Catholic for 68 years, I celebrate the EVENT of Vatican II as the beginning of an awakening to bring the Roman Church out of medieval thinking. However, because the hierarchy and much of the rest of the clergy were, and continue to be unschooled in ways of thinking and organization which enable a graceful implementation of the outcomes of the council, there has been little maturation of thought and spirituality which the council called for, and almost none in Rome. Additionally, once the council ended-- it ended. Period. There should have been regularly planned and scheduled evaluation and "refresher" general assemblies at least every two or three years as well as national and regional gatherings more frequently. I have hope for the younger generations, but it is unlikely they will be led from the vatican where, it seems, they prefer to accept the error that the mindset and practices of medieval Europe is the community which Jesus, Peter, Paul and the others had in mind. I do not celebrate the era of Constantine. Jesus would have cried.

Kate, you and your ilk are important spokespeople for our times. Don't let ego rule your message.

Aldus

For Anice/Washington: We trust that "fear" of the Lord has become "awe" ... a term that has to do with wonderment ... and, perhaps, a much better translation of what the scripture author meant. After all, God is God, and we are not God.
For Caitlin/Minneapolis: Problems that remain in the church, as you mention, likely would be far worse had it not been for Vatican II.
For Philip/Baltimore: Collaboration is the key. We all are the Church.
For Julia from South Bend: Keep fighting ... keep us on our toes ... keep the faith.
For Erin/Washington: Your generation must keep our tradition from being, in John XXIII'w words, a musty museum piece. Vatican II was, indeed, only a starting point.
For Lauren/Chicago: Let your mentors who were inspired lead you to the same inspiration. Remember, you ... we ... are the Church.
For Gina-Louis/Montclair: Yes, let's not go back. Recall that the Papacy had an executioner who carried out executions until 1865 ... and that it was Pope Leo XII who finally abolished the papal choir of eunuchs in about 1823.
Thankfully, tradition is, over the years, is dynamic and changes.

Yours prayerfully,
a deacon who is well into his 60s and who became Catholic before Vatican II ended its first year of meetings

Vatican II certainly doesn't seem to me to have had much to do with hats--- that's a change that probably would have come either way. If it hadn't,
I'd be expected to wear a fedora to work, but remove it as soon as I got
in the door. On the other hand, wearing either a baseball cap OR a fedora
into church isn't done today, either. In the day, women rather enjoyed the
opportunity to sport a new hat on Church occasions and it was regarded as
a unique privilege.

I was an altar boy in-training when the new order of the Mass appeared.
We had just mastered the bobbing and weaving associated with the Confetior
when it was eliminated. I sure enjoyed the new accessibility of the liturgy.

But on a less superficial level, we would not even be having these discussions
of women priests and married priests and the conscience vs. doctrine on pelvic issues if Vatican II hadn't opened the door to the idea that the People
of God have significant ownership of their own Church. The very struggles that are going on with the bishops' stewardship now would have been a case of "we're in charge, game over" had Vatican II not happened.

It wasn't their hats that Vatican II changed --- it was the way Catholics started using what's inside their hats. And they haven't stopped.

I think it would have been interesting to hear from a slightly more diverse audience. I know a lot of young people -- and at age 28 I count myself among them -- who have much different views from most of those expressed here.

I for one would love to see the priest "turn his back to the people" at mass again -- but I would never in a million years describe it that way. I'd describe it, instead, as "facing the same direction as the people" -- a posture that emphasizes unity in prayer.

When you really think about it, this posture actually de-emphasizes the distinction between priest and laity because it makes it much more clear that both the priest and the people are engaged, together, in the same action.

It's the way Western Catholics worshipped for over a thousand years before the 1960s, and it's still the way that Eastern Christians, many Anglicans, and plenty of Jews worship today. Can it really be all that bad?

And what's really weird, is that Vatican II never actually called for a change in the priest's posture. The instructions in even the latest edition of the Roman Missal (published 2002) are written with the assumption that the priest and the people will be facing the same direction for a good deal of the mass.

I mention this in particular because I see it as a prime example of the wrong sort of approach to Vatican II: It was a drastic and sudden change that the Council didn't even mandate, and I think it's had enormously unfortunate consequences in the daily lives of most Catholics, for decades now.

Kate, I am 56 and I consider myself a Vatican II catholic in the sense that a window was opened and we got to START being part of the church rather than observers of the church. No, it has not gone far enough. Of course it's dated when the changes were stopped almost from the beginning. What we really need now is a Vatican III but only if laity are part of it - a fully functioning part with women making up a good part too. The old has to die off (but not meaning the old Vatican IIers or hippies as some on these blogs would like), times change and todays world is changing so rapidly with computers and modern medicine and science. The sex abuse crisis shows we cannot have a hierarchy like we do now. Yes things need to renew and change over and over and that is why I consider myself a Vatican II catholic. THAT is what I expected to come out of it and until we have a new version I will fight for at least keeping it.

It is a fact that Vatican II is a pastoral council and is not infallible. It has no authority to introduce new doctrine. When it does, it creates confusion and departs from traditional Catholic teaching. Vatican II presents Catholic teaching weakly (no definitions or condemnations), confusedly (no technical, scholastic terminology), and one-sidedly (so as to attract non-Catholics). Many of Vatican II documents contradict the previous ones. Eg. "The Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom..." (Dignitatis Humanae, §2) contradicts "Liberty of conscience and of worship is the proper right of every man..." - CONDEMNED (Pius IX, Quanta Cura).

Vatican II means that people selectively chose what they wanted to believe and practice from all their documents. it also gave plenty of people the ability to whine in public. Conservatives want the "good ole days" which never existed and liberals, who thought the church was going to become Episcopalian, are devasted it did not happen. Of course the majority of them don't have it in them to just leave because they still suffer from that "pre Vatican II" distrust of protestants. They let the cat out of the bag at Vatican II and it's a large, fast cat and they are not getting it back in the bag any time soon. If the roman church, or any of the mainstream protestant churches were traded publicly, I would not buy stock.

I am 55 yrs old and a cradle Catholic, and believe Vatican II was a breath of fresh air for the Church and to me should have been a starting point for collegiality and the people of God (laity) having a much larger say in how the Church progressed(God does speak to all of us, not just clergy)but I have to say I agree with Julia, it was just a starting point and I think fear of change and loss of control and power has had the hierarchy in Rome back pedaling as fast as they can. I don't believe the Church is what Jesus envisaged, a place of justice, peace, inclusiveness and bringing about the Kingdom.
Sad to say the spark was there at Vatican-II but its almost out now and the Church is less for it.
But in saying all this I still remain as you can't work for change from outside and its MY church, My home and where I belong and for better or worse I stay. At a parish level I can see in my community the church of Jesus and have been privileged to have met priests in whom Christ was so clearly visible and authentic.
So I would say to all who agree or disagree about Vatican II JUST KEEP PRAYING, LIVING AS JESUS DID AND WORKING AT THE PARISH LEVEL AS THE HOLY SPIRIT CAN'T BE STOPPED AND WILL BLOW THROUGH OUR CHURCH CONTINUALLY BRINGING HER TO WHERE SHE IS MEANT TO BE. (Sorry left caps on)

At the time, Vatican II was wonderful and ground-breaking. When I got to be an altar girl, that was a huge change for those times, and it was thrilling. But you all are so right - it wasn't meant to stop there. It seems like we're moving backwards pretty quickly these days, and that's sad and scary. I love the church community I belong to, but I keep wondering how much longer I can really stick with being Catholic. You know, when the Pope is touting homophobia and sexism as our big selling points, it's embarrassing - it's so discrepant from who I am. And it's such a travesty of what the church could be.

Councils are very dense and take time to unpack. I have respect for those who had to wrestle with the aftermath of the council, because it was unpacked haphazardly and became chaotic. Now that we have some distance, and the sloppy unpackers are out of their prime, I am eager to be in the generation that begins to unpack the Council carefully and constructively.

For me, Vatican II was a great move by the Church to separate the essential from the accidental. It also meant a reflection on the nature of the Church, exploring the little-discussed teaching on the common priesthood of the baptized and encouragement for the laity to become more involved in Church ministries. I also love Vatican II's making the teaching on the episcopal vocation far more robust (eg, it is now an ordination, not a consecration. Priests don't have the fullness of orders waiting to be released, bishops are ontologically different). I like the whole concept of continuity with the past, which we are finally getting a handle on. I even like the reform of the liturgy the council called for, though I admit there is an apparent tension between liturgy as a celebration of the mystery of ineffable God, and mystery of us as the Church (go to far with the former, you have the mentality of a magic spell to turn bread into God; go to far with the latter, and you have a narcissistic and sterile closed circle that excludes God in favor of celebrating man). I am very eager in my future ministry to help add a grain or two to a more fully developed understanding of the council, shaped by an overriding concern for continuity with (though not slavery to) our 2 millenia of tradition.

To me, Vatican II means learning Latin to be an altar boy (no, I wasn't....) in September of Grade 4, finally getting that infernal "Suscipiat" down -and no longer having to smuggle the prayer card in the sleeve of my cassock- and THEN having to memorize everything in English the following spring. But the best part was no longer having to wrestle with the latch on that damn altar rail (LAST Gospel side)!!

It was very interesting to read the views of younger Catholics; I'm grateful for those insights. Born during the Council years, I'm not young, but neither do I remember it happening nor what the Church was like before. My entire faith formation is grounded in the reforms of the Council, so it means a great deal to me, which I've become conscious of in recent years as a result of such retrenchment among the hierarchy and others in the Church. I hadn't thought of it specifically before, but I agree that Vatican II represents a starting point of a vision that was never fully realized, so that makes the present reversals all the more disturbing.

What Vatican II "means" to you or me is not important. What Vatican II means is how the Church interprets it, not you or me.

This diatribe of opinions from Facebook not only expose the silliness of Facebook but also exposes the poor catechesis these "young adults" who call themselves Catholic have undergone. This is very sad, and we have only ourselves to blame.

For me, Vatican II was an amazing Council, as had been the previous Counsels in the Roman Church including Trent and Vatican I. The resulting documents are a beautiful testament to Jesus Christ and His Mystical Body. The Council led to the great popes we treasure today, Benedict, John Paul II, and Good Pope John XXIII.

For those of you who say they would not walk into a pre Vatican II Church, then you are not Catholic. If you Faith is so shallow that is it based on the trappings and form of the Mass, then go elsewhere. We need committed people who are firm in their Faith and the love of Christ Jesus – not self absorbed pontificators who know better then the Mystical Body.

Kudos to our current Holy Father, a true lover of the Council, who saw how some self-interpreted the Council rather than accepted the Divinely-inspired work the Council actually did, and is now taking steps to return to the Council’s intent.

I love being Catholic!

I have total confidence in the capability of each generation to keep faith with authentic religious tradition and to continue the process of evolving faith. While I was couched totally in the theology of Vatican I in my upbringing, (an 11-year student to the Catholic priesthood, 1946-1957) and was encouraged by Vatican II's break with the past, I fully recognize that the Church must keep evolving in context with the needs and understandings of the changing world. No one should be stuck in mindsets either of Vatican I or Vatican II. No matter the age and limitations of our bodies, our minds need to be ever open, ever young.

Thanks for this encouraging article.

It's sad for me to read these young people talk with such disdain about our Catholic past. Even if one disagrees with certain practices from previous years, one should still be able to appreciate the way in which that expression of the faith sustained the lives of our Grandparents and Great Grandparents, many who faced much greater hardships on a day-to-day basis than we ever will. It's always amazing to me how those who are supposed to be the most liberal among us seem the least able to sympathize with positions or practices with which they happen to disagree (for example, having Mass said in Latin or head coverings).

In terms of Vatican II, some of the respondents are correct: it's a Council that tends to get exaggerated by both left and right. V2 was merely a pastoral council; it did not offer any new dogmatic articulations and most of its reforms were offered such as suggestions. For example, Sacrosanctum Concilium calls for a reform of the liturgy, but it does not explicitly specify how this is to be carried out. And, in any case, most of the suggestions it does offer--e.g., granting pride of place to Gregorian chant, having the lay faithful learn the ordinary parts in Latin, etc.--were subsequently ignored. So, in short: yes, the significance of the council is overstated by the generation that precedes us.

I was heartened to hear that the whole bunch of them weren't ready to turn the clock back to before Vatican II. Somewhere I got the idea that our young church members were ignorant of the doors that were opened and the sturggles won were non-existent. God bless them.

I was born after Vatican II and after the liturgical reforms of the late 1960's took effect. I'm not sure whether that qualifies me as a "young voice", but here goes. When I was in high school I was interested in the priesthood, and I read the Vatican II documents or at least the constitutions. I still think of the beginning of Gaudium et Spes as being one of the more beautiful pieces of religious writing I have read. It was clear to me even then, however, that much of what older Catholics called "Vatican II" changes, were not in Vatican II at all. I find the teaching on the priesthood of the laity in Vatican II very inspiring, but I find the resulting diminishment of respect for the ordained priesthood baffling. It also was brought to my attention early on that all the documents were debated over and discussed so heatedly that we need to be really focused on what Vatican II said and what the context was in which Vatican II said it. In other words, it is wrong to think of a "trajectory" of Vatican II teaching. For instance it would be wrong to think that the teaching on the priesthood of the laity is a step on the inevtiable road to the disestablishment of the ordained priesthood or that the teaching on the bishops' full magesterium is a step on the inevitable road to dismissing Papal infallibility. The documents are not assumed to mean more than they do, and the documents must be understood in their entirety within the context of previous infallible teaching.

Never trust anyone younger than 40.

It's the only reason I still belong to the Catholic Church.

So, when nuns in America are investigated, oh, no, wait, 'surveyed' by the Vatican, and a Vatican official refers to Vatican II as a 'global disaster,' well, nothing like 'turning back the clock' on modest reforms.

Somewhere, Jesus is banging His Head against a wall.....

What I read here is a lack of historical perspective by Ms. Graham which is compounded by a certain arrogance. However, the people she quotes are absolutely correct however that the reforms promised by VII have not completely materialized because in the end those reforms were compromised or swept away by the Vatican, particularly after the death of John XXIII. What I am gratified to read are statements that the reforms that were implemented, either in rubrics or in custom resonate for these younger Catholics. Cardinal Rode is in for a big surprise!

Having lived through the days of VaticanII, I can speak that it was the first time IN CENTURIES literally, that people could think of faith matters for themselves and examine HOW THE LORD called them to live THEIR OWN FAITH, not just do what the priests and Bishops told them to, no matter how ridiculous or stupid it was, or EVIL...

THERE WAS NO WILLINGNESS TO LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE, they had to be broken to fit the mold of religion, like the Prokrustean bed of ancient Greek legends...
The clergy were gods here on earth, and blind obedience to THEM was all that was needed for salvation for laity.

NOW WE HAVE A HEADLONG RUSH TO UNIFORMITY THOROUGHOUT THE CATHOLIC WORLD AGAIN, eg Asian Catholics can't bow to the altars as a sign of their cultural respect, but must kiss it instead, which is a sign of sexual solicitation!! Because the Roman Curia knows whats best for everyone!!!

God gave me a brain to figure out how to KNOW HIM, LOVE HIM & SERVE HIM, not withered old men, decked out in yards of lace and red velvet!

I was a kid during Vatican II...so I am not a "young adult"; the reason I write is at the end of this...my recollection is a sudden switcharoo...the priest was facing us all the time and speaking English, and we were singing hymns, whereas we had not done so before. I was in choir, and there were new hymnals and music conferences, and lots of bustle. I wouldn't have been in choir without Vatican II's trickling down to my small parish, and thus would never have known I could sing Mozart's Alleluia.

Vatican II happened very gradually, though. We started saying "Amen" when receiving Communion; our daily missals, clung to for so long, were replaced by temporary missalettes that changed month to month. This affected us psychologically; the missal was to go forever and stood on Tradition; the missellette was temporary, here today, gone tomorrow.The priest faced us, the English and the English responses began, and my father and other men showed up on the altar in business suits as lectors and commentators - what the difference was escapes me now. With my brothers being altar boys, it hit me quite suddenly that my mother and I were not allowed on the altar. I questioned why and found no good answer. That pretty much sealed the deal for me to leave the church eventually.

My parents were most affected by the rules that suddenly changed - fasting, abstinence, hats in church, and the complete loss of the Latin mass they grew up with (I missed it, too; my first year in choir we sang a Latin chant, and it was glorious, and it was gone after that. Just gone. The English music we were singing was so awkward and convoluted in comparison. The church lost its reputation for music after Vatican II; so much was redesigned condescendingly for "congregational singing." So much was bad. And to lure us kids to church, and trying to make it "relevant", we had guitar masses where the hymns were ALWAYS "He's got the whole world in his hands," and "Amen..." etc to the point of nausea. ) But my parents felt betrayed by the church; what mattered if rules stringently emphasized by church and school were tossed out the door?

One fun thing - we started criticizing the sermons. We'd go to Saturday night mass (a positive change for us) and then go home to eat hamburgers around the TV set (Mary Tyler Moore/All in the Family heyday) and criticize the sermon, really break it down - the whole family! We started questioning EVERYTHING. That was great. I remember my mother saying, slowly, "I am a child of God," as if she'd never thought of it before.
The critical thinking was a positive response to Vatican II - but it was one I'm sure the church did not appreciate.

I attended a Catholic college, and I remember just assuming that women would be ordained priests in my lifetime and that the American church would split off from a more conservative Rome. Now years later, and a Master of Divinity degree under my belt, I am convinced that Vatican II is being a little too positively viewed by my generation, but they don't seem to have much else to look at (they think). The Roman church has betrayed the gospels, it betrays the message of Christ in the gospel. What my generation lacks is courage; the courage to call the Roman church honestly as what it is, the courage to say, "You are not the church. We are." But they won't. I don't think my generation has the guts. I have left, but that's not to say I'm happy about it. I hope for a gutsy new generation.

It seems the women here are more concerned with themselves their "gender", perhaps they should know that their "feminism" will not them to heaven. What does Vatican II mean to me, sex scandals, deformed liturgy, weak clerics, and the complete auto destruction of the Catholic Church and Satan is smiling...Thank God for Pope Benedict, we are rising from the rubble

V2 was sweeping and revolutionary at this time, but its a starting point, not an endpoint for those of us in our 30s (and younger). Looking at those sweeping reforms today, they seem dated, though, because so much in the world has changed in 40 years, but somehow V2 has become fossilized.

Church and culture should be in constant dialogue, and yet for the most part, its just a monolouge, and the hierarchy is increasingly out of touch and irrelevant.

"I'm over Vatican II" is not the right name for these so-interesting entries, especially since most of what we hear on here from young people is all quite caustic of all that has changed and been accomplished. What it sounds like is that Vatican II did what it should have done...given young people the framework to move on. As an older feminist woman, I love to see young people who EXPECT all the benefits of the work done before they even twinkled into life--the very occasional "Thanks" I've ever heard have always just felt like icing on the cake. The future is yours, and you should go for it. But you're not 'over Vatican II'; you're "over" the fight surrounding it pro and con. And I get that too, because I'm over it also.

I really enjoyed reading this. I frequently skip the writings of younger people because I anticipate more abuse being heaped on my weary old head..but this was very interesting and good stuff. My best for your future Church!

I think you all may be perfectly correct in what you say about Vatican II. But please don't judge 1962 by 2010 standards. What you see as a lot of shortcomings respecting sexuality (and I speak as a gay man to whom the Vatican II generation of clergy gave great hope)and the role of women in the church was considered radical for that time. In fact almost all of Vatican II was radical for its time.

And don't believe that those of us who came of age during Vatican II (I was in high school at that time) want merely to go BACK to that time, we rather lament that currently the church seems to be going back to Trent and we'd like at a bare minimum to drag the church AHEAD to Vatican II from what seems increasingly like the Middle Ages. Our best case scenario is that we build on Vatican II and go forward.

This may sound patronizing but I promise you it isn't: you can't have any idea how "golden" that time was without having lived through it. That's just the way life is.

Interesting how none of the people interviewed had a differing opinion. The author must have just asked only her friends on her facebook page! LOL!

I can name a HUNDRED Catholic facebook groups filled with young people wanting a "return of the sacred" and a TRUE representation of what Sacrosanctum Concillium actually taught...not what a generation of aging hippies THINK it meant.

I believe one of the biggest shortcomings of the Second Vatican Council is that it brought a truly western perspective to a global church. I'm an American and share many of the ideals, both realized and unrealized, that the Second Vatican Council enunciated. However, it is important to remember that the fastest growing parts of the Church today are not in western Europe nor the United States, but rather in the southern hemisphere (South America and Africa) and Asia. It seems that there remains a global frustration with western ideals and the imperialist ideas that persist.

The vast majority of the previous posts all seem to center around what Vatican II did or didn't offer that particular blogger. They are full of opinion, expectation, dissappointment and demands. So few of you have remembered that Vatican II was supposed to be one more step in the guidance of God's people towards God's will. It was never about placating feminists, democrats, pro-abortionists or those demanding contraception so that their feminism could be protected (by making women available for sex on demand and removing the consequences of God's gift of sex?), get real. It wasn't even about letting the poor downtrodden ladies become priests. (Is 'The Mother of God' not a high enough accolade for your sex? Did Jesus sneak a woman in among the twelve? He gave women equal respect if not the same jobs. Remeber he followed complete obedience to his Mother's will from the age 12 to 30.)
Not one person has wondered in any of these postings how they can achieve God's will. Like so much of American theology it is all Me ME Me!

Dear Eric in Washington, DC. You say in your article that you now stand on the shoulders of those of the 1960’s Vatican II era. But remember they in turn stood on the shoulders of the 1940’s Catholics, who stood on the shoulders of the 1850’s Catholics, etc. etc. going back two thousand years. What happened in 1960 was part of a continuum, not the launch of the new entity. Be proud to be part of a two thousand year history. That ‘old fashioned and outdated history’ brought us Mary, and Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, and Catherine of Sienna, John Vianney, and Therese of Lisieux.

You job now as you put it is NOT to ‘write a page about how we revolutionized the church for the next generation’, your job is to live a holy and humble life that conform as perfectly to God’s own will, to lead by example of love of Church and Christ, and to embrace the teachings of Christ, even if they are a little uncomfortable. And if we stray from what is holy and right, then we recognize our faults, and turn back toward our mother the Church, and ask forgiveness for our sins, and work to build up the Kingdom.

Dear Julia in South Bend. I assume that you are Catholic. If so, you belong to a Church with a 2,000 year old history. If anything before 1990 is “outdated” to you, I can’t imagine that you would ever be comfortable in the Roman Church. Are the teachings of Francis of Assisi outdated? How about Francis de Sales or Catherine of Sienna? What about John the apostle or John Vianney? How about Therese of Lisieux? It seems from your tone and your insights that you believe you know better; that if you had been in charge of the Counsel you would have come up with better documents then those officially published? I guess the Holy Spirit was asleep on the job; maybe the 1960’s was His vacation time. And of course he is alive and well in your own soul, giving you insights and knowledge that he failed to give to the Counsel Fathers. It is amazing how blessed you are!

I’m sorry that you were not excited about these documents. Maybe, with some prayerful reflect you COULD get excited about those documents, as well as the Catechism and Holy Scripture, and the encyclicals of the last five popes. Imagine how exciting it would be to fully embrace the Church and her teaching, rather than take pot shots at things you don’t like or don’t understand. Work from the inside, not from the outside.

According to Teresa of Jesus, the first woman doctor of the Church, there are three elements are required to progress in the spiritual life – love of neighbor, detachment, and humility. Peace.

I'm a young person but, if anything, I think Vatican II went too far. I don't see the Church as something that needs to fit me. Rather I need to fit the Church. She is God's institution on earth - if we reject her, we reject Him.

I don't understand why some young people "can't" be part of a Church where the Mass is in Latin and the priest has his back to the congregation - that was what most of our parents and grandparents experienced! Latin is ancient and beautiful, like our faith. When the priest has his back to the people, he is not insulting them - he is facing God. Moreover, the priest and the people are united because they face God in the same direction.