Just continuing cogitating on the nature of Catholicism...
I remember preparing some children for first Holy Communion when I was first ordained, the eldest was twelve the youngest barely seven, they were wily and bright but hardly educated, they could read only a little, they were an Irish traveller family, most of the preparation was done by their Grandmother who was illiterate who used to drill them in the catechism sitting by a paraffin stove in her caravan, dispensing sweets to those who got answer right. Obviously they didn't understand much of what they repeated but they knew the words and formulas, and they knew the prayers. They knew the old prayers, like the Confiteor with the saints, prayers to Our Lady, lots of them and their favourite the prayer to St Michael. I admit even after 1st Confession and Communion they weren't that good at attending Mass, presumably in part because of the traveller lifestyle. When they did attend, even with my expert catechesis, they didn't seem to understand the Mass, they either fidgeted throughout especially during the readings. Their grandmother tried to encourage them to say 'the beads', as her grandmother had taught her, ' it was easier for the children with Latin Mass', she used to say. For everyone from their community the liturgy but especially the liturgy of the Word simply passed over them like a silken veil, they were bored stiff. As far as morality was concerned, it was adapted to their needs, Grandma assured me 'we don't steal from one another, Father, and it would be shameful if one of the girls married and wasn't a virgin'.
St Vincent of Lerins in the 5th cent said,
my traveller family could certainly sign up to that they believed, they were fortunate Grandma passed on what she received. She had the confidence to pass it on, in the same way as her ancestors had past it on to her. Fr Richard Aladics has done a series on the rise and fall of Corpus Christi Catechetical Institute which rose in 1965 and finally fell in 1975, his posts on it end here. CCCI was a great and destructive experiment in catechesis which still has its perverse effects today in the English speaking world. One of its chief consequences was to make catechesis something belonging to specialists rather than grandma sitting by the fire with her brood, and what can be said of catechesis can be said of worship and morality too.
It would be difficult for us today to suggest the words of St Vincent actually defined Catholicism today. The faith of the ordinary Catholic, NOT in the pew on a Sunday, the product of our Catholic school system, somewhere between 90-97% of those who we might regard as Catholic, is certainly not the faith presented in the Catechism of the Church. It is our habit to inflate figures, apparently the estimated figures for attendance at WYD, 3 million, would suggest 7 people per square meter on the beach with the Pope, which is unbelievable. In what sense should we regard as Catholic those 1.4 billion estimated as being the number of Catholics in the world? Perhaps statistics should not be taken too seriously especially when used by men of the Church.
St Vincent's word seem to suggest that 'the faith' is something from below, passed on by grandmothers around the fire, rather than something which comes above, from the Catechism, from Rome, from specialists. There is certainly an important role in oversight of the faith from above, correcting error in calling to obedience but somehow there is a need to find ways in which the faith can be given back to the people.
There was a story sometime ago of an Orthodox priest in Russia who 'married' a homosexual couple, the local men gathered and razed the church to the ground. If such a thing happened in Europe the response would be indifference. The majority of Catholics would either go along the priest, with a 'father knows best' attitude or would probably feel the Church is behind the times and needs to catch up. Whatever the motivation, the Catholic attitude is that what we believe is changeable. The reaction to Pope Francis' election was that everything could change along with the Pope, it is the one thing that unites Traditional and Conservative Catholics with Liberals and Progressives. This is a worrying state. The Papal oath abandoned by Paul VI not to change anything, along with the outward signs that Benedict tried to restore, gave some stability to the Papacy, the unchanging Liturgy, the sense that Liturgy was a given gave stability to the Church.
At the heart of St Vincent's words is the notion of continuation, a timelessness and universality, 'always, everywhere and by all'. The understanding of Catholic merely as 'universal' is a foreshortening, it is the timelessness of it that is important. In many ways the dismantling of the ancient liturgy following VII undermined the sense of 'always'. If the worship after 1968 could be changed, so could the content of 'the faith' and if the changes were enforced from above, from Rome then surely this is also the source of 'the faith', Again, if the liturgy could vary so widely from Mass at the High Altar of Brompton Oratory, with traditional vestments and music and in Latin to Father X sitting on a bean bag wearing just a stole making it up as he went along, why could 'the faith' not also be variable. Despite its intention VII taught, subliminally at least, especially through the liturgy, that Catholicism was what Ratzinger would define as 'Relativistic', most importantly of all by Father quite literally turning his back on that which was held holy by past generations, if not smashing it with a sledgehammer.
'The faith' post VII, was not the faith of the previous generations, it was in a state of flux. The movement of the Blessed Sacrament in some diocese from the centre of the apse to a side chapel or a tabernacle in the corner of the sanctuary and rubrics restricting the genuflections of the priest, said what we believed yesterday about the Real Presence is not what we believe today, similarly the change in funeral rites from sombre black, the Dies Irae, intercession for the dead to Mass in thanksgiving for the life of the dead person brought in a serious undermining of one of Catholicism most important certainties about death and judgement, again it said what we believed yesterday, we do not believe today.
The wholesale rubbishing of the pre-Concilliar 'the faith' by those charged with implementing the post-Concilliar teaching did little to boost the confidence of those who had received the faith at grandmothers' knees. This certainly served to place the 'the faith' in the hands the specialist, especially as their main point was to underline and explain all that was new in contradistinction to what had been passed on. Even amongst the clergy and religious those things that had often attracted them to the priesthood or religious life were often considered evil and simply swept away.
The curriculum in seminaries and houses of formation were often aimed at rooting out that which was passed on, hence scripture was more about teaching the untrustworthiness of scripture, moral theology became how to get around traditional Catholic morality, liturgy became a justification for ditching past practices, theology rather than deepening faith tended to undermine it, theology tended to emphasise rupture and to be based not on the liturgy but non-Christian philosophical notions, Rahner supplanted Aquinas. An apparently new theology with apparently new set of doctrines alienated many clergy. The great boom in vocations in the fifties ended with a whimper in the sixties, and I suspect left many clergy traumatised, trying to explain something which they didn't understand or necessarily belief in, to people who didn't understand or want what was now offered.
Just as numbers of seminarians dropped, so there was the great exeunt from the clergy over Humanae Vitae, whether this was directly to do with birth-control or simply a reason to leave for clergy who had lost faith in the Church will be up to historians to judge. The significant change was that the clergy were left offering a faith which was received from somewhere else, the Council Fathers, which was not what they received from their parents, to give to a people who had similarly received a different tradition.
The situation has changed drastically since the heady days immediately following the Council but survey after survey reports Catholic disagree with the hierarchy, and some of the hierarchy seem to disagree with Rome on everything from celibacy to sexual morality, the Real Presence to scriptural inspiration. It is not they people believe but do not have the moral strength or insight to understand what they believe, as the pages of the Tablet reveal week by week there is a vast gulf between 'the institutional Church' and the 'the Church of the people'.
In Orthodoxy St Victor's description of 'catholic' might well stand but in the West does 'Catholic' really mean, 'that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all'? If so it should be the faith passed on by an Irish traveller grandmother sitting by the fire with her grandchildren.
"catholic is that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all"
my traveller family could certainly sign up to that they believed, they were fortunate Grandma passed on what she received. She had the confidence to pass it on, in the same way as her ancestors had past it on to her. Fr Richard Aladics has done a series on the rise and fall of Corpus Christi Catechetical Institute which rose in 1965 and finally fell in 1975, his posts on it end here. CCCI was a great and destructive experiment in catechesis which still has its perverse effects today in the English speaking world. One of its chief consequences was to make catechesis something belonging to specialists rather than grandma sitting by the fire with her brood, and what can be said of catechesis can be said of worship and morality too.It would be difficult for us today to suggest the words of St Vincent actually defined Catholicism today. The faith of the ordinary Catholic, NOT in the pew on a Sunday, the product of our Catholic school system, somewhere between 90-97% of those who we might regard as Catholic, is certainly not the faith presented in the Catechism of the Church. It is our habit to inflate figures, apparently the estimated figures for attendance at WYD, 3 million, would suggest 7 people per square meter on the beach with the Pope, which is unbelievable. In what sense should we regard as Catholic those 1.4 billion estimated as being the number of Catholics in the world? Perhaps statistics should not be taken too seriously especially when used by men of the Church.
St Vincent's word seem to suggest that 'the faith' is something from below, passed on by grandmothers around the fire, rather than something which comes above, from the Catechism, from Rome, from specialists. There is certainly an important role in oversight of the faith from above, correcting error in calling to obedience but somehow there is a need to find ways in which the faith can be given back to the people.
There was a story sometime ago of an Orthodox priest in Russia who 'married' a homosexual couple, the local men gathered and razed the church to the ground. If such a thing happened in Europe the response would be indifference. The majority of Catholics would either go along the priest, with a 'father knows best' attitude or would probably feel the Church is behind the times and needs to catch up. Whatever the motivation, the Catholic attitude is that what we believe is changeable. The reaction to Pope Francis' election was that everything could change along with the Pope, it is the one thing that unites Traditional and Conservative Catholics with Liberals and Progressives. This is a worrying state. The Papal oath abandoned by Paul VI not to change anything, along with the outward signs that Benedict tried to restore, gave some stability to the Papacy, the unchanging Liturgy, the sense that Liturgy was a given gave stability to the Church.
At the heart of St Vincent's words is the notion of continuation, a timelessness and universality, 'always, everywhere and by all'. The understanding of Catholic merely as 'universal' is a foreshortening, it is the timelessness of it that is important. In many ways the dismantling of the ancient liturgy following VII undermined the sense of 'always'. If the worship after 1968 could be changed, so could the content of 'the faith' and if the changes were enforced from above, from Rome then surely this is also the source of 'the faith', Again, if the liturgy could vary so widely from Mass at the High Altar of Brompton Oratory, with traditional vestments and music and in Latin to Father X sitting on a bean bag wearing just a stole making it up as he went along, why could 'the faith' not also be variable. Despite its intention VII taught, subliminally at least, especially through the liturgy, that Catholicism was what Ratzinger would define as 'Relativistic', most importantly of all by Father quite literally turning his back on that which was held holy by past generations, if not smashing it with a sledgehammer.'The faith' post VII, was not the faith of the previous generations, it was in a state of flux. The movement of the Blessed Sacrament in some diocese from the centre of the apse to a side chapel or a tabernacle in the corner of the sanctuary and rubrics restricting the genuflections of the priest, said what we believed yesterday about the Real Presence is not what we believe today, similarly the change in funeral rites from sombre black, the Dies Irae, intercession for the dead to Mass in thanksgiving for the life of the dead person brought in a serious undermining of one of Catholicism most important certainties about death and judgement, again it said what we believed yesterday, we do not believe today.
The wholesale rubbishing of the pre-Concilliar 'the faith' by those charged with implementing the post-Concilliar teaching did little to boost the confidence of those who had received the faith at grandmothers' knees. This certainly served to place the 'the faith' in the hands the specialist, especially as their main point was to underline and explain all that was new in contradistinction to what had been passed on. Even amongst the clergy and religious those things that had often attracted them to the priesthood or religious life were often considered evil and simply swept away.
The curriculum in seminaries and houses of formation were often aimed at rooting out that which was passed on, hence scripture was more about teaching the untrustworthiness of scripture, moral theology became how to get around traditional Catholic morality, liturgy became a justification for ditching past practices, theology rather than deepening faith tended to undermine it, theology tended to emphasise rupture and to be based not on the liturgy but non-Christian philosophical notions, Rahner supplanted Aquinas. An apparently new theology with apparently new set of doctrines alienated many clergy. The great boom in vocations in the fifties ended with a whimper in the sixties, and I suspect left many clergy traumatised, trying to explain something which they didn't understand or necessarily belief in, to people who didn't understand or want what was now offered.Just as numbers of seminarians dropped, so there was the great exeunt from the clergy over Humanae Vitae, whether this was directly to do with birth-control or simply a reason to leave for clergy who had lost faith in the Church will be up to historians to judge. The significant change was that the clergy were left offering a faith which was received from somewhere else, the Council Fathers, which was not what they received from their parents, to give to a people who had similarly received a different tradition.
The situation has changed drastically since the heady days immediately following the Council but survey after survey reports Catholic disagree with the hierarchy, and some of the hierarchy seem to disagree with Rome on everything from celibacy to sexual morality, the Real Presence to scriptural inspiration. It is not they people believe but do not have the moral strength or insight to understand what they believe, as the pages of the Tablet reveal week by week there is a vast gulf between 'the institutional Church' and the 'the Church of the people'.In Orthodoxy St Victor's description of 'catholic' might well stand but in the West does 'Catholic' really mean, 'that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all'? If so it should be the faith passed on by an Irish traveller grandmother sitting by the fire with her grandchildren.
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