This week’s readings brought back many memories of growing
up before and after Vatican II.
Just as I was beginning high school, in 1966 , there was much excitement
in the air. Not only was I excited about
high school but I was intrigued with the controversy and speculation about the
changes that would happen in the church because of Vatican II. Everyone had an opinion; some predicted gloom
and doom and others embraced it wholeheartedly.
As a self-involved teenager the only thing that really made an
impression on me was that women slowly stopped wearing the veil and started
wearing pants to church. This was
monumental! I can remember many
arguments my mom and dad had on this subject. Our priest even refused to hear
confessions of females who wore pants. I
can’t find any documents where Vatican II addressed this issue, but it certainly
came about during that time and some people pointed their fingers at Vatican II.
In chapter one, Thomas Rausch describes how the schema was debated
and changed as the Council’s sessions progressed. In those debates, the Holy Spirits movement
is quite evident. The language from
church “militant” to “the church should be understood as the people of God, not
a pyramid of pope, bishops, priests, and people” (Rauch 18) was truly a moment
of grace. When I was growing up in the
50’s church militant was our mindset. My
mom used to faint when she was pregnant with my little brother. She went to confession and asked the priest if
she could NOT go to Sunday mass because she fainted in church – a lot. He told her she had to go to Mass and of
course my dad who believed the priest had the last word in all things, insisted
she comply.
After Vatican II, the shift in the attitude of the church
seemed, to me, more welcoming and compassionate. Rausch points to Chapter IV of Lumen Gentium where it “teaches that lay men and women share in their own way in Christ’s
priestly, prophetic, and kingly functions” (LG 4), which led to what he calls a
“ministry explosion” (Rausch 29). This
assertion certainly bore fruit in my lifetime.
Before Vatican II, the only ministries I can recall my parents being
involved in were the K of C and the Altar Society. The church has come a long
way in using the gifts of the laity for teaching, ministry, and mission.
The Council’s implication that there could be salvation outside of the Roman Catholic Church was also a
welcome change and a giant leap in the mindset of the church and its
members. The language that the unique church
of Christ “subsists in the Catholic Church” (LG 8) was a significant development. My oldest brother left the
church in 1960, because our priest tried to talk him out of marrying his
Baptist girlfriend. It caused great
upheaval in our family.
From my perspective, the changes that have come about from Lumen Gentium, "on the people of God” (LG 2) have enhanced my faith
journey, and solidified my baptismal commitment to Christ and my membership in the
Roman Catholic Church.
Oops, forgot my picture credit: colloidfarl.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteWatching the "What Happened at Vatican II" lecture by John O'Malley, S.J. on YouTube, I was struck by the severity with which Catholics were generally prohibited from attending even weddings and funerals of Protestant friends. My Catholic grandmother and Presbyterian grandfather were wed in a civil ceremony in 1955 or 56. They may have sought a blessing from the Church later, but the lack of support for their marriage created an added obstacle to the success of their marriage, which eventually ended in divorce in part because it lack sufficient outside support. My grandmother never sought an annulment, although she would have had reasonable grounds, because she feared for years what she had (erroneously) been taught would cause her children to become "illegitimate." This lack of annulment had an estranging effect on my Catholic step-grandmother, whose marriage to my grandfather effectively barred her from communion. Sadly, it has been a great consolation to me that my grandfather's death preceded theirs and may at least free my step-grandmother to receive communion again. This scenario seems less likely today because the attitude of church leaders toward marriage and divorce is more deeply pastoral (though not without the need for adjustment). The Catholic attitude toward Protestants has been softened by ecumenism and is evidenced most powerfully by the large-scale movement of Catholics from parishes to worship in other Christian communities (Although there are likely as many "push" factors as "pull" factors when it come to Catholic-to-Protestant conversions.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt there is some real pastoral concern about the consequences of "mixed" marriages between Catholics and those of other faiths/denominations from the perspective of shared values and commitments. However, it seems to me that the general opening of the Catholic Church to Protestants and other religions can strengthen is to the benefit of all. With respect to ecclesiolgy, Christians have a richer understanding of the mystery of the Church when we draw from our related traditions on the meanings and models for what it means to be Ecclesia / People of God.
You touch on this relationship in your reference to Lumen Gentium and the lived experience of your own family of origin. O'Malley spoke about the possibility of generational backsliding in the question period of the lecture in terms of a path away from the spirit of the Council. I am more impressed by the gradual reckoning of the Church with the Council over-time. Like the Israelites needed to pass a generation (or two) in the Desert in order to lose or unlearn the slave-mentality of Egypt, I believe Catholics may need a time of reckoning with the new in order for a younger generation to more fully realize its promise.
As a Baptist, even as a former Catholic, I feel as if I have very little right to comment on the happenings at the 2nd Vatican Council. I was young when this Council was held, and a young adult when I became a Baptist. Much of what was decided, or even discussed for that matter, had not yet filtered down to the local church, at least from my limited viewpoint. My comments will be reflective on looking ‘back into’ the happenings of the church after 35 years of separation.
ReplyDeleteThe word ‘change’ came up frequently in John O’Malley ‘s lecture on “What Happened at Vatican II”. The areas of change that I have had more experience with were in ecumenism and the Catholic Church view of non-Christians.
• Ecumenism – As I went through grade school and high school, I did not know a Protestant! They were the people in the park who hid their beers, while our Catholic family and friends drank their beers openly! In later years, I continued to find Protestants who ‘thought’ they knew about Catholicism but were clueless. I still find this attitude, but more and more I find Christians just trying to get to know each other in the spirit of love and peace that was modeled by Christ. This is very refreshing!
• View of Non-Christians – Rausch quotes from the Lumen Gentium (LG 16 – Rausch, 31), noting that the 2nd Vatican Council “clearly recognizes the possibility of salvation for those who have neither been baptized nor evangelized.” This idea, that there are those God might choose to save simply as a result of their sincerity of heart and belief in God, is much debated around the world and among many Christian denominations. I really wonder to what extent this view has been incorporated into the Catholic Church as a whole, and how?
Jay, the Catholic Church’s view on divorce is actually what became the first wedge between me and the Churc h. In 1979, my mother, who had been abandoned by my biological father, married the man who would become in all ways my ‘Dad.’ She had to obtain a papal annulment of her first marriage, which forced her to contact her ex-husband and I am sure was very painful to her. After two years when she was unable to take Communion, the annulment was allowed and she happily rejoined the Church. My dad was baptized and confirmed and joined the Catholic Church at the same time. And I became illegitimate. Somehow, that was better? Five years later, my religion teachers were still calling her, indirectly of course, an adulterer. To me, this word did not describe my mother or her situation. I rejected this description of my mother, and at the same time began to lose faith in the teachings of the Church. I did not become a Baptist because of this one issue - the process took many years of discovery and conversations with God. It was a personal decision led by the Holy Spirit.
Katherine,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your perspective on this part of the Church. Your family's experience sounds regrettable, but perhaps also part of a process that contributed to the path you have taken to and with your current faith tradition and community. I believe, though I am not a moral theologian, that the annulment process does not delegitimize children from that marriage according to church teaching, but it has certainly been explained that way by ill-informed pastors, teachers, and others. Of the five children of my grandmother and grandfather, one remains a practicing Catholic. Two have little connection to any church, one is non-denominational / Baptist, another is an Anglican priest.
My Grandfather, who passed away at the age of 92 several years ago, once told me “black people must be the real Catholics.” When asked why he felt that way, he stated, “because we would walk miles to get to Church on Sunday, and when we arrived, we had to sit in the back of Church in the Negro only section; but we still went to Church.” His rationale was such that “regardless of the discrimination within the Church, we still remained Catholic.” It is difficult to read the Lumen Gentium, and the history of its development during the 1960’s without consideration for its implications, or lack there of, on race relations in America during those years. I recognize that the Vatican, which represents Catholicism around the globe, may have had more to consider than what was taking place in America at the time. Yet, for those who lived through the 1960s or have relatives who lived through the 1960s, it is hard to juxtapose the sentiments of the Lumen Gentium against the social climate of New Orleans, leading up to Vatican II. For example, the Lumen Gentium states “It follows that though there are many nations there is but one people of God, which takes its citizens from every race, making them citizens of a kingdom which is of a heavenly rather than of an earthly nature” (Lumen Gentium, Ch. II, 13). However, the race relations in New Orleans and several other areas within the United States would prove that the Church’s’ implementation of this paradigm was slow if not at all reluctant. Although I was not yet born during the 1960s, my parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents lived through the tumultuous civil rights era of the 1960s in the New Orleans. I’m not sure I could have been Catholic during these years, given the racial discrimination within the New Orleans Archdiocese and among the many members of the predominately white churches of New Orleans. There are several accounts of racially charged violent acts against black people who dared to desegregate the predominantly white Catholic Church of New Orleans. One instance that come to mind are the two black youths that were severely beaten by white parishioners at St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church in 1959 (Stoltz). There are many other examples of segregation in Catholic Schools and in seminaries across America. Yet, the Lumen Gentium Chapter II speaks of a whole church, which should include both black and white people. Although Archbishop Rummel with the help of Archbishop John Cody, desegregated the Catholic schools in 1962, one question must be asked (Nolan). Did the Lumen Gentium come after the integration movement had already started, or was it a precursor? In this case it seems that the Lumen Gentium came after the integration of Catholic Schools in New Orleans, and therefore may have had little, if any, impact in this regard.
ReplyDeleteDeacon Eric Stoltz
http://conciliaria.com/2012/03/new-orleans-archbishop-announces-end-of-segregation-in-parochial-schools/
Brian Nolan
http://www.nola.com/religion/index.ssf/2010/11/new_orleans_catholic_schools_integrated_2_years_after_their_public_counterparts.html