Fr. Z's Blog

For the last couple months I was too happy to have had the desire for self-harming.  However, now that I am not in Rome anymore I ventured over to the Fishwrap and revisited the darkness of self-inflicted irritation.

Sr. Joan Chittister, incredibly still writing (in more than one sense), has finally unlocked the secret to what’s been going on since Vatican II.

Fishwrap shares with us her razor sharp observations and the polished steel traps of her reasoning.  Who better than she, with her vast experience of the LCWR, the Council of Elders, Oprah, and her triumphs in Tahir Square and Zuccotti Park?

The title might shock you a little.

Nothing really changed after Vatican II. But synodality may make a difference.

Nothing changed after Vatican II?

Let’s explore the cave of the sybil to unpuzzle the puzzle of her oracle. We have to skip around a little, as usual, to catch the essence.

My emphases and comments:

The word synodality has been around a year or so now and people are still asking what it really means — for them, of course. The last time the church said it was going to make changes was in 1965. Fifty-eight years ago. In the meantime, all the changes to be seen were basically meaningless ones. Not because change was forbidden. On the contrary.

[…]

Whatever changes the people had wanted from the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council were, it seemed, formless, silent, lost in the bustle of a busy church frozen in a medieval mind. Instead, after 400 years without a council of reform, the kinds of changes the people had expected from this council lay yet in Rome, drying in wet ink there and largely ignored here. [What sort of changes did “El Pueblo” want, such that they had been clamoring for a Council to put everything to right?  No.  Wait.  There was no clamor from “the people”.  It was forced on them from above.]

[…]

Oh, a few churches redesigned their confession boxes and a few more took down the altar rails, [Apparently those were good things, since people stopped going to confession and stopped showing reverence to the Eucharist.] but really, other than that and the move to the vernacular in all liturgical events — nothing much did happen. [She doesn’t get it.  Change how people pray and you change what they believe.  Clueless.  ] Most of the changes were window dressing. [Those things were insignificant?  What would have been significant?]

[…]

The two popes, John XXIII and Paul VI, who had led the way to these times died. The popes who had called the Second Vatican Council to bring the church into the modern world lived on in the hearts of the new church in the pews. [New church need Newspeak.]

But both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI resisted the full force of Vatican II. Though they never denounced the council, they never really promoted it either.  [JP2 and B16 didn’t “denounce” Vatican II! But, can you sense that Sr. Joan’s piece is about to trans?]

This synodality is different. [It sure is.] This time, Pope Francis is having the faithful themselves become part of the agenda-making process before the synod even convenes. The laity has been invited into the intellectual theology of the church rather than simply poised to bring pious concern to the event.  [Because who better than the laity, with their deeply formed sensus fidelium over the last 50+ years, to enter into the “intellectual theology” of the church.]

This time, the laity themselves have been deemed to determine what topics must be considered — married priests, genderism, marriage theology, equality, women priests, whatever. They will be allowed to speak to what 99% of the church rather than the 1% of the church, its clerics, allow to be heard. [That pesky %1!  Cause that’s what shepherds do with their flocks: “Okay, you guys decide what you are going to do today. I’ll just go wherever you want.]

In fact, churches all around the world have been gathering and detailing the items the people themselves want to see considered for timeliness, for growth, for equality. [At this point we get a glimpse into what shapes these effusive musings:] The German church, [She got that miniscule right!] in fact, has gone so far as to film the gathering of the topics from German congregations that will be sent to Rome as the skeleton for these discussions.

Two weeks ago, I sat in front of my television for several hours and listened to the topics each of the dioceses wanted addressed at the synod in Rome. [And there it is.] One at a time, representatives from the entire region read out the topics and the numbers of their groups who most wanted particular topics to be considered by the modern church at this new conciliar process called “synodality.”

I got a chill. [… ! …] I was listening to a drumbeat of human issues that were separating people from the church, from support, from holiness in this day and age. [Someone get this woman a purple-ink pen. No, wait… ] The drone I was hearing was clearly the drone of the Holy Spirit: “Group A: Married priests … women priests … deaconesses …” — topics from every nook and cranny in the area over and over again.  

Francis had managed to involve Catholics around the globe in this common search for communal and spiritual growth.

[…]

The rest is… well… a waste of more time.

I shared Sister’s prophetic message with a couple of friends.  Of course two are crippled because they are firmly part of that 1%. The representative of the pews in our group isn’t exactly clamoring for a total overhaul.   But here is something of what came up.

After sending them the link to the article (with some editing)

Cleric 1: We fear change.

Layman: Wait. “Nothing really changed”?!? I thought Pentecost only happened sometime after 1965!! That we got everything wrong from 33AD to the 1960s!!! That as Roche says the theology of the Mass changed and so on!!! Now they tell me?!?

Cleric 1: The rationes seminales hidden in Vatican II now sprout and bear abundant fruit everywhere, for those who have woke eyes and see.

Layman: That must be it. Ignorant non-woke laymen like me get easily confused. I don’t hear “the spirit” much less understand his “surprises”. And I can’t even read Syriac manuscripts (in the rain) at the Gregorian U library!

Cleric 2: They’ve lain dormant all this time. But, with lots of “fertilizer” they’ve woked!

Layman: Reminds me of the cyclical “leaps forward” of the communists or the great “transitions” of the EU. Every time socialism fails it’s always because a) sabotage b) it wasn’t “true” socialism, or it wasn’t “socialist enough” and we need more of it, faster.  So now the Synoding Synod on Synodal Synodality will “reveal” the “true spirit” of Vatican II and bring about the “change” we’ve been waiting for 20 centuries.  More altar girls, more guitars, more envirowhackoism, more turning away from Calvary, more degrading of the priestly vocation, more weakening of the marital bond, more confusion on all level, more sodomy. Got it.

And as usual, ideological misrepresentations of reality deliver the opposite of what they promise. 60 years later, normal Catholics who actually read Vatican II with a discerning but loyal eye, can see it at work in solid NO or even more in traditional communities. Participation in liturgy? Lay empowerment? Youth involvement? Large families? Dynamic engagement with the world? Charitable activities? Continuity? Stewardship of the heritage of the Church? Study of doctrine? Pride of place for Gregorian chant and polyphony? You name it.  But it is precisely those solid NO or traditional communities, those heroic priests and families, the last remaining reliable theologians and bishops that the rainbow camarilla would like to eradicate from the Church.

Cleric 1: You are not happy… very suspicious. But everything is good all the time and getting better still, so do not be afraid of change.

See?  Even the 1% can come around.  Thanks Sr. Joan!