#366 Have We Come a Long Way Baby?

Looking back on the renewal of Catholicism after 40 years on the job.

Last time I wrote about the major public anniversary coming in October: the 50th anniversary of the start of Vatican Council II (see CrossCurrents #365).  But now I want to share my thoughts about a more personal anniversary.

Forty years ago this summer I packed my belongings into my “brand-new” used Volkswagen (actually so old it lacked a gas gauge!) and drove from Boston to Washington, DC bearing my newly-minted master’s degree. I was starting my contract as the first full-time director of religious education at Saint Mary of the Mills Parish in Laurel, Maryland--a parish with a 1200-student CCD program, a grammar school, and an affiliated high school just across the street.

I was all of 23 ½ years old.

I arrived less than 10 years after the opening of Vatican II, and only 6½ years after its finish.  As you might imagine, parish life was in rapid flux.

  Parish life was already polarized between two extremes: those opposed to “The Changes” and those frustrated by change’s “slow” pace.  In between were two other groups: those happy with the renewal they experienced, and those who were either confused or apathetic and just went along.

The liturgical renewal of Vatican II was still under way (no Communion in the hand yet, and most people still received Communion kneeling at a rail).

The idea of a lay person on the parish payroll performing ministry was still a brand new idea. At that time the parish staff consisted of 3 priests and me! Parish councils were in their infancy.  Parish staffs were just beginning to build teamwork.

Fr. Tom Sheehan

Even so, the general tone of parish life was upbeat.  Roe v. Wade had not yet split Catholics or American politics.  The pastor, Tom Sheehan, was committed to making renewal work. We still had enough priests, high attendance, and steady revenues.  Catholic life seemed alive and well and poised for a vibrant future, even if renewal continued to pose big challenges to church leadership at all levels.

That was 40 years ago.  Since then, I’ve devoted virtually my entire working life to addressing those challenges of renewal, almost always on the parish level.  I’ve worked in the trenches of more than 150 parishes in more than a dozen dioceses.  Naturally enough, reaching my 40th anniversary causes me to pause and take stock.

I belong, of course, to a generation that believed “the whole world is watching,” a generation committed to “making a difference,” a generation determined to “Question Authority” but convinced that “We Shall Overcome.”

I saw my career contributing to the reshaping of Catholicism promoted by Vatican II, and I hoped that the reshaping of Catholic life would also renew American life (that first year brought not only Roe v. Wade but the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam and Watergate scandal) in a way conventional politics could not.

So as I look back, as a child of both the 1960s and Vatican II, I cannot avoid asking myself: “How far have we come?”

If this were only 10 years later (1982), I would say we have come quite a way.  In 1982, Catholicism in general is at a public high point due to the travels of John-Paul II. Liturgical renewal has produced spreading pockets of good liturgy, participation in singing and liturgical ministries is up, changes in funerals and weddings and baptisms and confirmation have improved them all, and we’ve begun to evangelize through the RCIA.  Parish councils and staffs are now well established, and clergy-lay collaboration is becoming the norm for parish leadership (even if most folks are still learning how to do it). 

If this were 1992 (that is, 20 years into my career) I’d say the post-Conciliar reforms are well established.  Whether or not they are practiced well, they’re now the routine ways people have come to expect. There is no going back. True, the pressures from secular culture are still chipping away at the attitudes, values, and lifestyles of Catholics.  By now church participation is no longer one of life’s routine obligations.  It has become an optional leisure activity, and must now compete for our time with the exploding leisure options around us (cable TV is widespread although email and the Internet are not yet).

By 2002 (30 years in) things have begun to turn sour.  The sex-abuse scandal is breaking wide open, Bernard Law has resigned in disgrace, the priest shortage is hitting even the largest dioceses, Mass attendance is declining, parish leadership on all levels is aging as younger Catholics drift (or even run) away.

The last 10 years have been no easier.  In my parish work I now often encounter widespread discouragement, anxiety, and some anger.  For millions of rank and file Catholics, especially Boomer-age parents of grown, church- alienated children, the current situation can be depressing.  But for someone like me, whose career is involved, it poses the specter of a professional life-journey wasted on the wrong path. 

After investing 40 years of my life on the renewal of our Church, I naturally want to say that our progress proves I have made a sound investment.  But practically speaking, this begs the question: What have we got to show for the last 40 years of renewal in the Catholic Church? 

Friends know me as chronically critical but eternally optimistic, and despite all signs to the contrary I persist in believing that we as Church are better off than we were before my career began (or, at least, better off than before the Council began). 

Granting that the last 40 years have brought dramatic growing pains and horrific failures, and granting that too many of these remain unresolved, still I would argue that the Catholic Church today is not only dramatically different, but also dramatically better, than it was 40 or 50 or 60 years ago. 



IRONY: The old-time pictures depict a woman put off  a train
"somewhere between Baltimore and LAUREL" for smoking!

Midway between the end of Vatican II and the beginning of my career, Phillip Morris introduced their new Virginia Slims cigarettes with the slogan “You’ve come a long way, baby.” Looking back, it seems either comic or prophetic to have used a cigarette to celebrate women’s liberation.  But the slogan itself perfectly expressed the sense of accomplishment that follows a successful historic milestone.

Is it still possible, in 2012, to look at the Catholic Church and say “You’ve come a long way baby”?  Next time I will explain why my answer is “yes.”

Next: 10 reasons why Catholicism is better off 40 years later.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2011