Friday, June 16, 2006

A Question

The time has come to ask the question: Other than the lectionary has ANYTHING good come out of Vatican II? I realize that the actual Vatican II documents NEVER told priests to start ballet dancing before the altar and not one Vat II document told the nuns to put on lipstick and to remove their habits but in the name of Vat II that's what happened. The average Catholic never read the official documents and has never read the GIRM and those who did got shouted down when they complained about the ocean of liturgical abuse.

In the name of the "Spirit of Vat II" we have Catholic schools that refuse to hang a crucifix on the wall. We have kids who can't say a Hail Mary and who have never seen a statue of the Infant of Prague. We have DREs who don't know what a novena is. We have gay groups meeting in the church basement and Catholics in name only running the liturgical committee, we have Eucharistic ministers defying (and winning in one case in my diocese) the priest when he tries to stop them from pouring the Precious Blood down the sink after Mass. We have churches that look Lutheran and where you have to hunt like a Blue Tic hound on the trail of a chain gang escapee to find the Blessed Sacrament. We also have cases where people are going to the tribunals and shamelessly demanding second or even third annulments.

I'm not being nostalgic. VatII happened before I was even born but I can see that something aint right. Can a reform of the reform work? I don't know but first we need to admit that the experiment didn't turn out the way it was advertised.