The Young, the Fertile, and the Ambitious

This past weekend I read a bit of the March 2007 issue of Catholic World Report, including an excellent interview with Dr. Philip Jenkins by Jeremy Lott. That interview has now been posted on the CWR site by editor George Neumayr. I think it is a must read piece; Jenkins has consistently proven to be one of the most thoughtful and prescient of cultural and religious commentators. His newest book, God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis, will be released this May by Oxford University Press. Click the graphic for the full interview:

Comments

[Ed Peters]

He is good.

[Eric G.]

What's strange to me is that Jenkins is a convert to Anglicanism from Catholicism.

Also note what he says of Vatican II:

"Baylor sociologist Rodney Stark has argued that post-Vatican II relaxation of distinctive cultural markers—such as the prohibition against eating meat on Friday—led many Catholics to identify less strongly with their religion. In your opinion, was that a major cause of lowered religious observance?"

"Jenkins: I think it contributed in a big way. In fact it's interesting to think of an alternate world where Vatican II never happened. A lot of the spiritual upsurge in the 1960s and 1970s would probably have done what it had done in the past—would find its way into the Catholic Church—as opposed to going off in some of the New Agey directions.

"It contributed [to decline] but I don't think it was enough on its own. I think there were demographic trends already in progress which were contributing. Vatican II just came at the worst possible time because it aligned the Church with a kind of modernity that was already looking dated. Stark is right to say it's important, certainly. But I think the single biggest factor of decline in the 1970s and 1980s was the decline of children."

Thank you, Vatican II!

[Carl Olson]

The key phrase, Eric, would be "post-Vatican II." Keep in mind how much as taken place in the name (and "spirit") of Vatican II, but was not mentioned or endorsed by the Council. Which is what Ratzinger/B16 has been saying for many decades now...

[Eric G.]

I find it hard to believe that the "spirit" of Vatican II had nothing to do with the Councuil itself, and/or the intentions of the ones behind it.

[Eric G.]

Concretely, what is one good fruit of this Council?

[Eric G.]

And I want to note: I do believe that Vatican II was an authentic, and valid , and authoritative Ecumenical Council. I still believe it's given the Church almost nothing but trash and that we'd be better off today without it.

[Carl Olson]

I can think of a few good reasons.

[Eric G.]

Carl:

It just seems to me that all tha could have been accomplished without a Council, and all the "abuses" of it we've accrued since.

[John Herreid]

Eric--looking at the growing liturgical abuses before the council, it seems to me that we would still be stuck with experimentation without the council or the "Novus Ordo" mass.

Plus the fact that the Catholic position on contraception was being openly debated as it it were open to change before as well as after Vatican II.

It's quite informative to read Catholic magazines and periodicals of the 1940's and 50's to see the problems building up that really spilled over in the 60's.

What happened was the great historical upheaval of the 1960's and 70's that affected the entire Western world. It's actually, to me, quite impressive that the Catholic Church made it through those times without more insanity happening. Reading the documents of Vatican II makes it very clear that the council fathers saw this coming and were seeking to address it rather than ignore it.

I, for one, am grateful for Vatican II. I'm not about to blame it for problems that have nothing to do with it (and, in fact, it was trying to remedy)--it's like blaming Trent for Luther.

[Robert Miller]

I think Carl Olson's "ten good reasons" are good reasons. I have come to this opinion through four decades of skepticism concerning the Council.

If we are all agreed that the Council was divinely inspired, or at least protected from error, we still must account for the horrors that have followed in its wake.

It will not do, in my opinion, to imagine what the world and Catholicism would have looked like in the absence of Vatican II. On the theological level, that would be to concede that the world sets the Church's agenda and tantamount to questioning the Council's legitimacy, since the acts of the Church are the acts of the Body of Christ in the Holy Spirit. On the practical level, it would be to ignore the unquestionable effect of the Council in shaping a post-Conciliar world in which Christians and "post-Christians" make up 25% or more of the population.

The Second Vatican Council has shaped the post-Conciliar world. The countercultural uproar of the 1960s and 1970s must be seen in tandem with the Council itself. The collapse of Communism in the 1980s and the coincident "resurrection" of Islam, similarly, cannot be "imagined" without the Council. Today's militant anti-Catholic secularism, sweeping Europe and the Americas, cannot be understood apart from Vatican II. Cardinal Inquisitor Ratzinger/Pope Benedict the Magnificent does not exist without Vatican II.

All of these acts and events of the last 40-50 years are products of the action of free will. But the Council was the action of the Holy Spirit as well. Sometimes I think that the Holy Spirit's purpose in summoning the Council may have been to prepare the way for the Pontificate of Benedict XVI -- for a Vicar in whom, and a moment in which, the Mind and Countenance of God would be made manifest with a renewed, compelling clarity in the Image of Jesus Christ.

Behold the Man. Behold the Man beaten, distorted, cursed, misunderstood, hated for his humility and truth. Behold the Church, the Body of Christ: beaten, distorted, cursed, misunderstood, hated for its humility and truth. Did Vatican II bring the Church this Passion? Yes, of course it did, just as Jesus did when He said: "...yet not My will, but Thine, be done."