By strange coincidence, the end of the Vatican Council in 1965 was followed immediately by a catastrophic, rapid collapse of Catholicism in the USA: exodus of priests and religious by the thousands, decline in mass attendance, and so forth. It is understandable that traditionalists are tempted to blame the Council itself. I disagree.
Thought experiment: imagine that we didn't have that Council! The Church would have marched forward, as she was, into the 1970s and the cyclone-tornado-tsunami of the Cultural Revolution and other social transformations. Would the Church have fared better without the Council? I think NOT!
I envision immense pressures and tensions as a reactionary Church, rigid and brittle, bereft of flexibility and resiliency, evokes increasing rage from a Catholic population now assimilated and acculturated into mainstream society. Three consequences seem likely. First, a Council is eventually held amidst rage and polarization, entirely different from the amazing serenity and consensus that prevailed in the actual meeting. Secondly, we can imagine a real schism, between traditionalist and progressive factions, in contrast to the moderately conservative/innovative center so strong in 1962-5 and later revived by John Paul and Benedict. Thirdly, we can imagine a flood of people into the Episcopal and mainstream congregations.
In retrospect, it is providential that the Council deliberated calmly when the Church was at her very best in the West: prosperous, peaceful (except for the Cold War), confident, thriving. This allowed a posture of serenity, a docility to the Holy Spirit that would have been improbable in the chaos that was about to explode. Overwhelming majorities of bishops agreed to all the Council documents which summarized the Ressourcement ("return to the sources") theology that had been percolating in that century.
The collapse of Catholicism is a vastly complex, overdetermined event that can be partially understood as the confluence of three mega-social developments: the passage of ethnic-working-class Catholics into the middle, professional classes; the Cultural Revolution; and the myriad of social-technological-organizational changes.
But first, two truisms bear repetition. First, we need again to sharply contrast the actual meaning of the Council documents with the alleged "Spirit of Vatican II" which is in fact indifferent to the actual reality and is an embrace of the Cultural Revolution in all its anti-Catholic pathologies including rejection of tradition/authority, deconstruction of masculinity/femininity, and liberation of sexuality from marriage. Second, we do well to acknowledge that the flourishing Church of 1960-65 was rich in buildings, money and numbers but weak in its spiritual/intellectual foundations, otherwise it could hardly have collapsed so spectacularly.
1. Catholics Become Bourgeois. In the years after World War II, Catholics were assimilated into the middle, professional/managerial classes. They left their urban ethnic ghettos for the suburbs; were accepted in every prestigious institution previously reserved for WASPs; made lots of money; achieved well in higher education. They were entirely accepted into late-Protestant, increasingly-secularizing society. The tightknit Catholic ethnic culture in the poor urban neighborhood around family and parish disappeared. The suburbs of the 50s offered economic security, comfort, status, and an ecumenical and welcoming civil religion of lukewarm Christianity. Bourgeois life is not inherently anti-Catholic, any more than agricultural, urban or nomadic life is anti or pro Catholic. But it did make the populace vulnerable to the second development.
2. Cultural Revolution. Like everyone else in the suburbs, Catholics became comfortable, secure, materialistic, consumeristic, careerist, status conscious, removed from death and evil, and residually religious in a superficial and sentimental fashion. They were sitting ducks for the Cultural Revolution. Lulled into complacency, comfort, security, they lost their Catholic taste for the supernatural, spiritual combat with sin and evil, a heroic sexual ethic, closeness to the poor, tradition and authority, sacramental efficacy, the consecrated life, and the sacredness of marriage, maternity and paternity. And so they embraced contraception, sterile-sentimental sexuality, one or two child families, androgyny, the absoluteness of production/consumption, individualism, and careerism. It was the invasion of the body snatchers: people identified as Catholic but they had become, in their souls, secular, materialistic bourgeoise.
3. Structural Changes in Society. Concurrent with and conspiring with this change of soul was a revolution in the body of society. Technology, science, bureaucracy, expansive corporations and states all worked together to replace smaller organisms of agency, community, intimacy, religion, and the family. Intermediate organizations (business, charities, recreations) increasingly were swallowed up by mega-organizations of enhanced sophistication and efficiency. The human values of immediacy, agency, cooperation and interaction were replaced by machine-like productivity. Local cultures, traditional faiths, and family structure were all depleted and replaced by the impersonality of the meritocratic world. The end result: individualization. The isolation of the person and increased dependency upon large, impersonal corporations and governmental agencies.
In this view, the Council was God's gentle, guiding hand, preparing the Church for the storm ahead. Vatican II returned to the foundation, the person of Jesus Christ, as proclaimed by the doctors and saints. Engaging the modern world, post-Enlightenment, it rejected the reactionary defensiveness of traditionalism as well as the naive credulity of progressivism. Rather, it articulated a sophisticated, nuanced discernment, accepting all that is good and renouncing the bad. The double pontificate of John Paul and Benedict continued this legacy of a reverent conservatism that is open and creative. May we ourselves receive, cherish, enhance, defend and share this rich heritage.
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