Vatican II – The Myth of the Need For Renewal
Was Vatican II instrument for Renewal or a recipe for Destruction?
By Kenneth
C. Jones
Many of us are
familiar with Saint Bonaventure's account of Saint Francis in the church of San
Damiano. Saint Francis was praying before the crucifix in the decrepit old
church when a voice said to him, "Francis, rebuild my house for, as you see, it
is falling into ruins:" He looked around and saw that San Damiano was in ruins
and set about repairing it, selling his worldly possessions so he could buy
stones to rebuild the church. It was only gradually that Saint Francis realized
his mission was not to restore a building with bricks and mortar but to renovate
the Mystical Body of Christ.
About 800 years
later, it is beyond question that our Holy Mother Church is again falling
into ruins. And if Saint Francis - who was, after all, a saint - was unable
to recognize it initially in his day, it should be no surprise that many of
today's Catholics fail to see how perilous is the present state of the Church.
We might hear that there is a vocations shortage, or notice that there aren't
any nuns in the schools anymore, or observe that a lot of our Catholic friends
are getting annulments and divorces, but we really don't see the complete
picture of the Church in crisis. And if we don't see that, we won't be able to
assist in the renovation.
That was my
motivation in writing
Index of Leading
Catholic Indicators:
to collect the
evidence of the crisis in the Church in a clear, accessible format so that
people will be able to understand and respond to the emergency before it is too
late.
One interesting
way to present the statistics is to examine some of the myths and realities of
Vatican II. I see five major myths surrounding the Council:
1.The myth that
the Church was in need of renewal at the time the Council was called.
2.The myth
that Vatican lI brought about a renewal.
3.The myth
that the situation has improved in the last few years during the pontificate of
John Paul II.
4.The myth that
the Council taught any new infallible dogma and was not simply pastoral.
5.The myth that
the Council did not cause the crisis in the Church - the
post hoc ergo
propter hoc
objection.
The myth of the need for renewal
What was the
state of the Church in 1960? 1 wasn't there to experience it. I was born in
1964, as the Council was closing. The fact that I grew up after the Council was
beneficial to me in writing the book, because personal anecdotes sometimes have
a way of coloring our thinking and getting in the way of the facts. I can't tell
you how many times I've heard comments like, "The Church was authoritarian and
our pastor was a dictator," or "It was just pay, pray and obey" or "The nuns
were mean and used to hit our knuckles with a ruler."
1 have no
personal stories about what it was like before the Council. But I do have facts.
And the facts show that the Church was in the midst of an unprecedented period
of growth in the several decades before the Council.
That conclusion
is inescapable when we look at the figures in just a few representative areas.
And forgive me for throwing a lot of numbers at you, but as a lawyer I feel a
statistic-laden brief is necessary to establish my case beyond a reasonable
doubt.
Priests:
In 1920 there were 21,019 total priests in the United States. In
1930 there were 26,925 and in 1940 there were 33,912. Every five years
thereafter, the numbers continued to rise: from 38,451 in 1945 to 42,970 in 1950
to 46,970 in 1955 and to 53,796 in 1960. This is not the mark of a declining
Church, but of a vigorous Church - in 1960 it had a record number of men who
were its frontline soldiers, whose ranks had grown 15 percent in the five years
between 1955 and 1960.
Seminarians:
As one would
expect, as the number of priests increased, so did the number of seminarians -
and it continued to increase substantially up to the Council. In 1920 there were
8,944 seminarians, in 1930 there were 16,300, and in 1940 there were 17,087.
Those numbers also continued to increase every five years thereafter, from
21,523 in 1945 to 25,622 in 1950 to 32,394 in 1955 and to 39,896 in 1960.
Seminaries:
The bishops and heads of religious orders found it extremely
difficult to keep up with demand and had to build scores of new seminaries. In
1945 there were 53 diocesan seminaries. By 1950 there were 72, five years later
there were 78, and in 1960 there were 96. This was a huge increase in property
plant and equipment to accommodate the young men who were storming the
seminaries to be trained as priests.
Religious
seminaries experienced similar growth. There were 258 in 1945, 3l6 in 1950, 385
in 1955, and 429 in 1960. Remember that building a seminary is a tremendous
investment - it is really a leap of faith by the chief executive officer, in
this case the bishop or head of a religious order, that the organization is
growing and will continue to grow in the future. The tremendous boom in seminary
construction was a true testament that the Church was growing and, more
importantly, perceived itself to be growing, in the period before the Council.
Priestless
parishes: And as one would
also expect, as the number of priests increased, the number of parishes without
a resident priest was declining. In 1945 there were 839 parishes without a
resident pastor, in 1950 there were 791, in 1955 there were 673, and in 1960
there were 546.
Brothers:
The number of religious brothers was also on the increase in the
decades before the Council. In 1945 there were 6,594 - a figure that had
increased to 7,377 by 1950, to 8,752 by 1955, and to 10,473 by 1960.
Sisters:
The next book that is crying out to be written is a study of the
destruction of the convents and women's religious orders since the Second
Vatican Council. What a profound tragedy. And the wreckage has been so
devastating, so thorough, that one can only wonder whether it had a diabolical
aspect to it. But contrary to what some would have you believe, it wasn't like
that before the Council. In 1945 there were 138,079 sisters. Five years later
there were 147,3 10, a figure that increased to 158,069 in 1955 and 168,527 in
1960.
Parochial
schools:
Dioceses and
parishes predict the future by building more schools in order to educate young
Catholics. In 1920 there were 5,852 parochial schools. That figure had grown to
7,225 by 1930 and to 7,597 by 1940. In 1945 there were 7,493, in 1950 there were
7,914, in 1955 there were 8,843, and in 1960 there were 9,897.
Parochial
school students:
Parents who send
their children to parochial schools show that they value a Catholic education
and trust the parish to educate their children in the Faith. In 1920 there were
1.7 million parochial school students. In 1930 there were 2.2 million. In 1940
the figure was 2.1 million, in 1945 it was 2 million, in 1950 it was 2.4
million, in 1955 it was 3.2 million, and in 1960 it had reached 4.2 million.
Infant
baptisms:
There were
710,000 in 1945, 943,000 in 1950, 1.1 million in 1955, and 1.3 million in 1960.
Adult baptisms: The number of adult baptisms is a true sign of the
strength of any religious organization. And in the years before the Council the
number of adult baptisms was skyrocketing: 38,232 in 1930, 73,677 in 1940,
84,908 in 1945, 119,173 in 1950, 137,310 in 1955, and 146,212 in 1960. These
hard facts show a growing, vibrant, militant Church at the time the Second
Vatican Council opened. Attempts to portray it otherwise are mere revisionist
history on the part of those who want to justify or explain away the revolution
in the Church since the Council.
I must also add
that many people were infected by a sort of false optimism in calling the
Council, by the idea that the world was starting anew in 1962. People who
cautioned that having an ecumenical council might not be beneficial for the
Church were chided for being obstructionist. Indeed, I respectfully observe that
Pope John XXIII himself warned against such pessimism in his opening speech to
the Council: "We feel we must disagree with those prophets of gloom, who are
always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand." Well,
as I say in the introduction to my book, forty years later the end of the world
has not arrived. But we are now facing the disaster.
The myth of a post-Vatican II renewal
Even some in the
Vatican have recognized it. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said: "Certainly the results [of
Vatican II] seem cruelly opposed to the expectations of everyone, beginning with
those of Pope John XXIII and then of Pope Paul VI: expected was a new Catholic
unity and instead we have been exposed to dissension which, to use the words of
Pope Paul VI, seems to have gone from self-criticism to self-destruction.
Expected was a new enthusiasm, and many wound up discouraged and bored.
"Expected was a
great step forward; instead we find ourselves faced with a progressive process
of decadence which has developed for the most part under the sign of a calling
back to the Council, and has therefore contributed to discrediting it for many.
The net result therefore seems negative. I am repeating here what I said ten
years after the conclusion of the work: it is incontrovertible that this period
has definitely been unfavorable for the Catholic Church."
Since Cardinal
Ratzinger made these remarks in 1984, the crisis in the Church has accelerated.
In every area that is statistically verifiable - for example, the number of
priests, seminarians, priestless parishes, nuns, Mass attendance, converts and
annulments - the "process of decadence" is apparent.
Priests:
After skyrocketing from about 27,000 in 1930 to 58,000 in 1965,
the number of priests in the United States dropped to 45,000 in 2002. And
remember that in all of these statistics, the per capita decline has been even
worse, because the number of Catholics has continued to increase since 1965. In
1965 there were 12,185 priests for every 10,000 Catholics; in 2002 there were
7.10 - a decline of 46 percent. By 2020, there will be about 31,000 priests -
and only 15,000 will be under the age of 70. Right now there are more priests
aged 80 to 84 than there are aged 30 to 34.
Ordinations:
In 1965 there were 1,575 ordinations to the priesthood; in 2002
there were 450, a decline of 350 percent. Taking into account ordinations,
deaths and departures, in 1965 there was a net gain of 725 priests. (n 1998,
there was a net loss of 810.
Priestless
parishes:
About three
percent of parishes, 549, were without a resident priest in 1965. In 2002 there
were 2,928 priestless parishes, about 15 percent of U.S. parishes. By 2020, a
quarter of all parishes, 4,656, will have no priest.
Seminarians:
Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from
49,000 to 4,700 - a 90 percent decrease. Without any students, seminaries
across the country have been sold or shuttered. There were 596 seminaries in
1965, and only 200 in 2000.
Sisters:
Some 180,000 sisters were the backbone of the Catholic education
and health systems in 1965. In 2002, there were 75,000 sisters, with an average
age of 68. By 2020, the number of sisters will drop to 40,000 - and
of these, only
21,000 will be age 70 or under. In 1965, 104,000 sisters were teaching, while in
2002 there were only 8,200 teachers. From 1965 to 2002, per capita, the number
of sisters fell from 39.43 per 10,000 to 11.56 - a decline of 71 percent.
Brothers:
The number of professed brothers decreased from about 12,000 in
1965 to 5,700 in 2002, with a further drop to 3,100 predicted for 2020.
High
Schools: Between 1965 and 2002 the
number of diocesan high schools fell from 1,566 to 786. At the same time the
number of students dropped from almost 700,000 to 386,000.
Parochial
Grade Schools:
There were
10,503 parochial grade schools in 1965 and 6,623 in 2002. The number of students
went from 4.5 million to 1.9 million.
Sacramental
life:
In 1965 there
were 1.3 million infant baptisms; in 2002 there were 1 million. (In 1965 there
were 287 infant baptisms for every 10,000 Catholics,while in 2002 there were 154
- a decline of 46 percent.) In 1965 there were 126,000 adult baptisms; in 2002
there were 80,000. In 1965 there were 352,000 Catholic marriages; in 2002 there
were 256,000. In 1968 there were 338 annulments; in 2002 there were 50,000.
Mass
attendance:
A 1958 Gallup
poll reported that 74 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 1958. A 1994
University of Notre Dame study found that the attendance rate was 26.6 percent.
A more recent study by Fordham University professor James Lothian concluded that
65 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 1965, but only 25 percent in 2000
did. The decline in Mass attendance highlights another significant fact - fewer
and fewer people who call themselves Catholic actually follow Church rules or
accept Church doctrine. For example, a 1999 poll by the National Catholic
Reporter shows that 77 percent believe a person can be a good Catholic
without going to Mass every Sunday, 65 percent believe good Catholics can
divorce and remarry, and 53 percent believe Catholics can have abortions and
remain in good standing. Only 10 percent of lay religion teachers accept Church
teaching on artificial birth control, according to a 2000 University of Notre
Dame poll. And a New York Times poll revealed that 70 percent of
Catholics aged 18-44 believe the Eucharist is merely a "symbolic
reminder" of Jesus.
Religious orders:
I'm not being
Chicken Little here, but the religious orders will soon be virtually
non-existent in the United States. For example, in 1965 there were 5,277 Jesuit
priests and 3,559 seminarians; in 2000 there were 3,172 priests and 389
seminarians. There were 2,534 OFM Franciscan priests and 2,251 seminarians in
1965; in 2000 there were 1,492 priests and 60 seminarians. There were 2,434
Christian Brothers in 1965 and 912 seminarians; in 2000 there were 959 Brothers
and seven seminarians. There were 1,148 Redemptoristpriests in 1965 and 1,128
seminarians; in 2000 there were 349 priests and 24 seminarians. Every major
religious order in the United States mirrors these statistics. If this is
renewal, l don't want to be around when the decline sets in. As Father Louis
Bouyer said five years after the Council:
"Unless we are blind, we must even state bluntly that what
we see looks less like the hoped for regeneration of Catholicism than its
accelerated decomposition."
Professor James Hitchcock echoed
Father Bouyer's thoughts in 1972: There are many curiosities in the history of
the Church in the postconciliar years, and not the least is the fact that so
few progressives have noticed the extent to which the reactionaries' predictions
prior to the Council have been proven correct and that their own expectations
have been contradicted. They continue to treat the conservatives as ignorant,
prejudiced, and out of touch with reality. Yet the progressives' hope for
"renewal" now seems largely chimerical, a grandiose expectation, an attractive
theory, but one which failed of achievement. In the heady days of the Council it
was common to hear predictions that the conciliar reforms would lead to a
massive resurgence of the flagging Catholic spirit. Laymen would be stirred from
their apathy and alienation and would join enthusiastically in apostolic
projects. Liturgy and theology, having been brought to life and made relevant,
would be constant sources of inspiration to the faithful. The religious orders,
reformed to bring them into line with modernity, would find themselves
overwhelmed with candidates who were generous and enthusiastic. The Church would
find the number of converts increasing dramatically as it cast off its moribund
visage and indeed would come to be respected and influential in worldly circles
as it had not been for centuries. In virtually every case the precise opposite
of these predictions has come to pass.... In terms of the all-pervading
spiritual revival which was expected to take place, renewal has obviously been a
failure.... Little in the Church seems entirely healthy or promising; everything
seems vaguely sick and vaguely hollow.
The myth that the situation has improved recently
Another myth popular among certain
Catholics is that things have gotten better in the last decade or so,
coinciding primarily with the pontificate of John Paul II. Actually the
statistics do not bear out this claim - in fact, the rate of decline has
accelerated in some cases. Consider the number of priests. In 1975, three years
before John Paul was elected, there were 58,909 priests. In 1980, two years
after his election, there were 58,621, a one percent decrease from five years
previously. But the pace of the decline has picked up since then - 57,317 in
1985, 53,111 in 1990, 49,947 in 1995, 45,713 in 2000, 44,874 predicted for
2005, 37,624 in 2010, and 30,992 in 2020.
Seminarians:
17,802 in 1975,
13,226 in 1980, 11,028 in 1985, 6,233 in 1990, 5,083 in 1995, 4,719 in 2002.
Sisters:
135,225 in 1975,
126,517 in 1980, 115,386 in 1985, 103,269 in 1990, 92,107 in 1995, 75,500 in
2002.
As Michael Davies has noted, the Pope
himself has repeatedly remarked that we are experiencing a new springtime since
the Second Vatican Council. In his sermon for Pentecost 2001, the Pope
celebrated the 38th anniversary of John XXIII's death:
"The Second Vatican Council,
announced, convoked, and opened by Pope John XXIII, was conscious of this
vocation of the Church. One can well say that the Holy Spirit was the
protagonist of the Council from the moment the Pope convoked it, declaring that
he had welcomed as coming from above an interior voice that imposed itself upon
his spirit. This `gentle breeze' became a `violent wind' and the conciliar event
took the form of a new Pentecost. 'It is, indeed, in the doctrine and spirit of
Pentecost,' affirmed Pope John, `that the great event which is an ecumenical
council draws its substance and its life."'
On March 5, 2000, The Catholic
Times of London reported that the Pope had said that the little seed planted
by Pope John XXIII had become "a tree which has spread its majestic and mighty
branches over the vineyard of the Lord." He added, "It has given us many fruits
in these 35 years of life, and it will give us many more in the years to come."
Now it is not being disloyal to point
out, respectfully, that the facts do not support that conclusion. This is not a
matter of judging the
Holy Father, or contradicting Church teaching. Either there are many fruits of
the Council, or there are not. The facts speak for themselves.
The myth that the Council taught any new dogmas infallibly
I have to submit
that one of the greatest obstacles to facing the reality of the disaster after
Vatican II - and to working toward reversing the decline - is that many think
erroneously that you can't criticize the Council or its aftermath because it
imposed infallible dogma. Again, as Michael Davies says, a council can do so,
but this council, as acknowledged by popes and bishops, did not.
Another obstacle
is a misunderstanding of the nature of infallibility. Some people do not
understand that the protection provided by the Holy Spirit is a negative
protection - that a Council together with the pope will not teach error in
matters of faith and morals that it proposes for acceptance by the universal
Church. This is not a guarantee that the calling of a Council is divinely
inspired or that every word of every line contained in the documents is inspired
or even beneficial.
As Cardinal
Ratzinger said in 1988: "The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a
part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a
new start from zero. The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma
at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral
council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of
super-dogma which takes away the importance of all the rest."
The myth of the
"post hoc ergo propter hoc"
fallacy
The final myth I
want to discuss is the idea that the crisis we now face was not caused by the
Council or the changes imposed in its name. Those who advance this view would
doubtless object to Mel Gibson's recent statement in Time magazine, when
he was asked about the effects of Vatican II on the Church: "Look at the main
fruits: dwindling numbers and pedophilia:"
I have several
responses to the post hoc objection, an objection that comes mainly from
conservative Catholics. First, the correlation in time between the holding of
the Council and the subsequent decline is just so startling that it is simply
not reasonable to deny the link. 1 shall not go through the numbers again, but
in every area the numbers flipped almost immediately with the Council - numbers
that were on a steep increase immediately before suddenly began a precipitous
slide.
Second, the most
serious declines came in exactly those areas that were most affected by the
changes - for example, reform of seminaries and convents led to an immediate
decline in vocations; the de-emphasis of the distinction between priest and
laity was followed by a dearth of priests; the change of the Mass resulted in
plummeting Mass attendance; and the emphasis on ecumenism brought about a
decline in conversions and missionary activity. The list is endless.
Third, I think
the burden is on those who make the post hoc argument to offer a better
explanation. If the changes made after Vatican II did not cause the crisis, what
did? They offer no other reason.
In response to
the post hoc objection, l submit another Latin slogan: res ipsa
loquitur - the thing speaks for itself.
What Is to Be Done?
I myself become
frustrated when speakers tell me how bad things are but then don't tell me how
to make them better. If you feel the same way, I hope I don't add to your
frustration, because I don't have a step-by-step program for renewal. But I do
have a few thoughts to share on how we might start.
The first is to
pray. I used to think that that advice was to some degree a prescription for
doing nothing. But the older I get and the more I understand my faith, the more
I conclude that prayer really is the only effective response to the crisis.
Remember Christ's words to Martha and Mary. A deep prayer life with regular,
scheduled prayer and the reception of the sacraments is our only way out of the
crisis. As Cardinal Ratzinger said, we don't need more reformers, we need more
saints.
That being said,
the one piece of advice I can give is do something. And don't be afraid
to be confrontational. The more I observe and experience the behavior of our
shepherds, the more I've come to believe that they will make no concession
unless they are forced to. They will act in the area of true reform as they
acted in connection with the priest sex abuse crisis - they will ignore it until
they are exposed. 1 have to agree with Pat Buchanan, who advocates what he calls
the politics of conflict. He put it well in his autobiography, Right, from
the Beginning. In one chapter he discussed a possible run for the Republican
nomination in 1988 against Jack Kemp:
Jack and
I have different styles. [He is] a positive, outgoing, upbeat, ebullient,
optimistic man of the Congress, [whose] rhetoric is sprinkled with phrases like
"my distinguished colleague," and "my good friend."convictions
are conservative, his mindset is congressional. To me, the times require that we
not only boldly enunciate our agenda for America, but expose and attack, with
all the political weapons in our armory.
Buchanan also related a story about
Vince Lombardi, who said: "Football is not a contact sport, it is a collision
sport; dancing is a contact sport." "Better than most," wrote Buchanan, "Jack
Kemp knows that about football; but that is how I feel about politics." That
doesn't mean we have to be rude, obnoxious or boorish. It means we have to know
our principles and be willing and able to defend them, and to bring the battle
to our enemies. Too often we are on the defensive. We have 2,000 years of
tradition behind us; we have nothing to apologize for.We also should take
seriously the affirmation in the documents of Vatican II that the laity have a
real role in the Church. One of my guides here is Cardinal Newman. Newman wrote
a history of the Arian heresy in which he emphasized the role of the laity in
leading the Church through that crisis. He said:
It is not a little remarkable that
though, historically speaking, the fourth century is the age of doctors,
illustrated as it is by the Saints Athanasius, Hilary, the two Gregories, Basil,
Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine...nevertheless in that very day the
Divine tradition committed to the infallible Church was proclaimed and
maintained far more by the faithful than by the Episcopate.
Here of course I must explain: in
saying this then, undoubtedly I am not denying that the great body of the
Bishops were in their internal belief orthodox; nor that there were numbers of
clergy who stood by the laity and acted as their centers and guides; nor that
the laity actually received their faith, in the first instance, from the Bishops
and clergy; nor that some portions of the laity were ignorant, and other
portions were at length corrupted by the Arian teachers, who got possession of
the sees, and ordained an heretical clergy: but I mean still, that in that time
of immense confusion the divine dogma of our Lord's divinity was proclaimed,
enforced, maintained, and (humanly speaking) preserved, far more by the
Ecclesia docta than
by the
Ecclesia docens;
that the body of the Episcopate was unfaithful to its commission,
while the body of the laity was faithful to its baptism; that at one time the
pope, at other times a patriarchal, metropolitan, or other great see, at other
times general councils, said what they should not have said, or did what
obscured and compromised revealed truth; while, on the other hand, it was the
Christian people, who, under Providence, were the ecclesiastical strength of
Athanasius, Hilary, Eusebius of Vercellae, and other great solitary confessors,
who would have failed without them.
My final piece of advice is: let's
turn back the clock. And don't tell me it can't be done, because it can. In
fact, people do it all the time. Remember in 1985 when Coca Cola was the
dominant producer of soda in the world? Company experts got the great idea of
introducing New
Coke and doing away with old Coke. How
did people react? Sales of Coca Cola plummeted; the numbers proved that it was a
failure. And what did the company do? It turned back the clock. It pulled New
Coke from the market, and brought back Coke Classic, the real thing.
Chesterton had an apt comment in his
book
What's Wrong With The World:
"The need here is a need of complete
freedom for restoration as well as revolution.... There is one metaphor of which
the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, `You can't put the clock
back.' The simple and obvious answer is `You can.'... There is another proverb,
`As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it'; which again is simply a lie.
If I have made my bed uncomfortable, please God I will
make it again. We could restore the
Heptarchy or the stage coaches if we chose. It might take some time to do, and
it might be very inadvisable to do it; but certainly it is not impossible as
bringing back last Friday is impossible. This is, as I say, the first freedom
that I claim: the freedom to restore:'
I say it's time we discard New
Catholicism, as we discarded New Coke. It's time to bring back Catholicism
Classic, the real thing.
Fr. Hesse, "Exposing the Worst Statements of Vatican II"