#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

#285: Our Liturgical Experiences

EXCERPT: A battle looms over pending changes in the English text for our Mass prayers. Part of me agrees with a recent reader comment on my blog saying that this is a misplaced debate.

Indeed, arguing whether we say "and also with you" or "and with your spirit” reminds me of Gulliver’s Travels, where Gulliver encounters Lilliput’s battles between “Big-endians” and “Small-endians” over how to crack an egg (a satiric episode spoofing contemporary English liturgical battles!).

Still, the reality is that people have strong feelings about even the minute details of their worship experience. People feel strongly about liturgy because it provides the framework for their worship. Since the Eucharist is the summit of Christian faith and practice, it's no surprise that people cling fiercely to their way of worshiping. Perhaps we need to reflect on our own experiences and what they mean to us—and, just as important, why they mean so much.

Reflecting on my own experience, I amazed to realize how many different ways I have encountered the Eucharist in my life.

I've been part of congregations from as few as five for house Masses, to more than 400,000 for John Paul II's first US Mass on Boston Common. I've attended charismatic groups celebrating Mass in homes, in parishes, and in sports arenas. I've been in catacombs and cathedrals, monasteries and seminaries, modest homes and huge outdoor settings.

I've celebrated Mass in many languages: Latin, Greek, English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Cape Verdean Creole, German, and even Armenian.

I've been part of Mass presided by the Pope, by cardinals, by bishops, by monks and abbots and religious and ordinary parish priests. I've been in Masses with no music, folk-music, organ alone, organ with soloists, organs with choir, choir and orchestra, boy choirs, women's choirs, mixed choirs, rock bands, or even simple solo trumpet.

I've seen Masses lasting fifteen minutes and others lasting three hours, Masses with no one receiving Communion to Masses where Communion alone took nearly an hour. I was married at Mass, and my kids were all baptized at a Mass, and I was commentator at my high school best friend’s ordination Mass.

By global standards, all this represents only a fraction of the bewildering range of Catholic Liturgy over the past 50 years. Almost all my experience is based on only two versions of the Roman Rite: the "Tridentine Rite" dating largely from the 16th century, and the "Novus Ordo," the "new" version of the Roman Rite instituted in 1970. But even though the Roman Rite is used by the overwhelming majority of Catholics, the Catholic Church has authorized 23 different rites for celebrating Mass. My own experience has left out 21 of them! (See a complete list of Catholic rites here: http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/rites.htm .)

For me, all my varied experiences of the Eucharist have enriched my Catholic identity. I’ve had my own personal preferences, and I still do. I also have strong feelings about what strikes me as “good” and “bad” liturgy—and I have witnessed more than my share of both.

But for me the bottom line has been: all these variations on Catholic worship have been just variations on one common theme: The Eucharist itself. In a word, for me every Mass has been THE Mass.

#283: George Weigel: Noisy Catholicism?

EXCERPT: George Weigel has done it again--just in time for Lent! He has turned a perfectly sensible appeal for silent reflection and prayer during Lent into a rant aimed at a variety of Catholics whose behavior he deplores.

Liturgists and organists whose prayers, songs, or organ solos produce “all noise, all the time”; children, described as “squawking" twice),” “crying,” “fussing,” “fractious (twice),” and “caterwauling”; worshipers, whom he scolds for “chattering” before mass, “chattering” after the recessional “chattering” during the exchange of peace, “chattering with friends” while entering church, “chattering with neighbors” while leaving church—all these people become targets of George’s ire.

He argues that American culture now surrounds us with noise, citing airports filled with “TSA announcements, airline announcements, airport announcements, muzak, and the ubiquitous CNN-airport channel”—plus “squawking” children, loud conversations, and passengers yelling at cell phones. He concludes:

There is virtually no public space, outside art museums and courtrooms, where our aural senses are not under assault….Churches should be different.

Weigel gets no quarrel from me about the American “noise culture.” I agree with Weigel that environments free from “noise” are increasingly rare. I also half-agree that “churches should be different.” As sacred spaces reserved for sacred activities, it makes sense for churches to offer opportunities to escape the “noise culture” of the outside world.

Does this mean that Mass-time has been invaded by “the contemporary American noise culture”? Hardly!

In fact, the “noises” Weigel describes at church are either ancient (babies crying, people singing and praying) or else date from the liturgical reforms of Vatican II (congregants praying parts of the Mass aloud, speaking at the sign of peace, conversing before and after Mass, singing, even applauding). Everything Weigel complains about was quite commonplace in the churches I knew in the late 1960s and 1970s – well before TSA, CNN, and cell phones.

Then why complain about a lack of silence in church at Mass times? I suspect the clue is in Weigel’s comment that silence is “a way to ensure that you actually get a chance to pray yourself”—as if one only prays when left alone in peace and quiet. In this view, Weigel speaks for many Catholics who simply want to be left alone at Mass.

In fact, I am convinced Weigel uses “silence” as a code word for “private time and space.” And certainly, our spiritual life as Catholics can always benefit from more of that—especially as an antidote to our “noise culture.”

The trouble is, if one wants peace and quiet be alone with the Lord, Mass is neither the time nor the place to seek such privacy. As Vatican II made unmistakably clear:

Liturgical services are not private functions, but are celebrations of the Church, which is the “sacrament of unity,” namely, a holy people united and organized under their bishops…Therefore liturgical services pertain to the whole body of the Church…Communal celebration is to be preferred…to the celebration that is individual and quasi-private.
Vatican II, CONSTITUTION ON THE SACRED LITURGY, #26.

The key here is “communal celebration.” We gather together at Mass, not as random individuals seeking to pray by ourselves, but as a faithful community assembled to offer a communal celebration of the Eucharist which signifies and expresses our communion with Christ, his Father, his Spirit, and each other.

Those who prefer private prayer time with God would do better to come back some other time. Catholic tradition is rich with personal devotions and prayers, and an empty church is not hard to find these days. To insist on privacy during Mass implies one does not want a communal celebration at all.