How The '60s Transformed The Catholic Church Forever: An Interview With Rev. Mark Massa
(RNS) For generations, thousands of Catholics -- from archbishops to people in the pews -- saw the Catholic Church as eternal, timeless, and unmoved by the tides of history.
[In what sense? It was less than 100 years between Vatican I and Vatican II, and there were numerous momentous decisions made in between. The Church is everlasting and its doctrines are the Truth... The Word of God... and do not bend to the times... but the procedures and worship have undergone frequent changes.]
But the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s unleashed a sea of changes -- none more significant than the recognition that Catholicism has, and continues to be, shaped by historical events, argues the Rev. Mark Massa in a new book.
[WHAT gets shaped by historical events? "The Church" is a little vague here.]
Massa's intellectual history, "The American Catholic Revolution: How the '60s Changed the Church Forever," describes how celebrating the Mass in English, butting heads with the pope on birth control, and priests protesting the Vietnam War opened new possibilities -- and controversies -- in the church.
[Note that these three things are not equivalent.]
Massa, dean of Boston College's School of Theology and Ministry, spoke about his book; some answers have been edited for length and clarity.
[I wonder if perhaps some of the problems below were introduced by the editor...]
Q: Why should American Catholics care what happened in the 1960s?
A: Starting with Vatican II, Catholics became aware that the church, its worship, and its beliefs change -- that the church develops over history. The current battles between the left and the right are really between those who want to press a historical awareness of change and those who want to view the church as timeless.
[No. This is an overly simplistic dichotomy. First, we have to consider what's changing. The Word is the Eternal Truth and does not change. The Church's human components have been in constant change, but some wish for the Church, its liturgy, its structure, to float with the currents of the times, while others think that change should be more careful in order to protect the transmission of the Word.]
Q: Why did the "Catholic Revolution," as you call it, begin in 1964?
A: The new Mass (which was introduced in America that year) made real, or concrete, the changes that Vatican II made in ways that theology, or other declarations from the council could not.
["New mass" ? Something bothers me about that term. And, also, people should look to the V-II documents and consider whether the changes were ever driven by the intentions of its declarations. Read Sacrosanctum Concilium and consider how much it resembles the lousy build-your-own-Masses that so many Catholics have inflicted on them.]
Q: Why is change -- not sex -- the church's dirty little secret?
[I'd have a comment here, but it might sound uncharitable...]
A: A great majority of Catholics (once) thought of the church as outside of time altogether -- that what they did on Sunday is what Jesus did at the Last Supper, and early Christians did in the catacombs. Vatican II attacked this notion of the church as providing a timeless set of answers to life's questions about meaning.
[The liturgy is partially outside of time... or what I've read referred to as a "collapse" of time. It's also important to recognize that some artistic trappings aside, what Catholics did at mass was quite similar to what early Christians did in the Catacombs (it remains, of course, essentially the same). Oh... and about this idea of V-II "attacking" the notion that the Church has timeless answers to life's questions... huh? I don't need to go to divinity school at Harvard to be able to read what the V-II documents say and realize that's absurd. Plus, of course the Church has timeless answers! It still bears the Good News of Jesus Christ! The things that really matter haven't changed at all!]
Q: And that became a personal crisis for Catholics in the 1960s?
A: Catholics, like all believers, want security. The world seems, and can be, a very scary place; and they want their religion to provide them with some form of certainty, security, and peace of mind. But faith is a stance in history; it doesn't preserve us from messiness, or from change, including to religious institutions.
Q: How much was the "Catholic Revolution" affected by the cultural tumult of the'60s?
A: There was always an international dimension that made the Catholic '60s different from the general culture, because of this long devotion to Rome and the primacy of the pope. My sense is that most of the important stuff wasn't a reaction to events and ideas outside the church but to things happening inside the church itself.
[Really? I've tended to think the 60s had quite an impact, and more than they should have. Perhaps he's right, though. I'd be interested to hear his thoughts on that.]
Q: Pope Benedict XVI has been among those arguing that Vatican II was not a disruption in the church's usual course of business, right?
A: I think, basically, Benedict is a classicist and he thinks that human essence and things like that stay the same.
[Had the "human essence" changed? I don't believe it has.]
Q: So, is he trying to put the "change" genie back in the bottle, or does he deny there is any genie to bottle up?
A: I think he knows the genie exists. He's very smart, a world-class theologian -- he knows the stakes. I think he see that the changes made by Vatican II led to fewer priests and fewer (members of religious orders) and so something went really wrong.
[Is that all that went wrong? Plummeting Mass attendance, plummeting belief in and understanding of Christ's presence in the Eucharist, widespread dismissal by supposed-Catholics of Church teaching on abortion, birth control, and other moral issues... I think it's safe to say that something went seriously wrong. Also remember that "the stakes" aren't the Church's membership stats... the delivery of the Christian message is at stake, bringing with it the Salvation of souls!]
Q: As a Jesuit, are you worried about publicly disagreeing with the pope?
A: No. I'm a historian. I'm only laying out the past. The argument stands or falls according to whether it makes the most sense of the most data from the past. I'm not making moral judgments.
[Well, it's certainly clear where he stands on things, though.]
Q: How does Benedict's recent reform of the Mass in English and support for the Latin Mass fit into your theory?
A: It's partly personal preference. He's Austrian, and likes looking back to the past. He likes the smells and bells. I do, too. I suspect there's more to it than that, but I don't know.
[OK... 1) Yes, it's partly personal preference, but it's also partly whether what's being said is accurate! 2) He's not Austrian! He's a German from Bavaria! 3) You "suspect there's more to it" but you're not sure about that? The Holy Father has written about it extensively... With all due respect, how do you rack up this guy's academic cred. while remaining so clueless about liturgy? I'm going to hope that it was the editor's trimming... that really DOES happen to people.]
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