Blue-Collar Catholics
(The first essay: The Remnant, 1990)
Blue-collar Catholics were left in the lurch by the Second Vatican Council reformation. The Council was an affair of and for the Catholic intelligentsia, that is the episcopate and the theologate, who sought to develop a Christian-humanism in response to the academic challenges of a hostile secular intelligentsia. In doing so this Catholic elite flagrantly disregarded the sensibilities of the ordinary Catholic faithful, and foolishly, if not insidiously, afforded the secular rapacious access to the sacred.
The Second Vatican Council was properly termed pastoral since it did not define dogma – its specific concern being pastoral theory. Nevertheless, the highly intellectual and theoretical nature of its pastoral documents made it difficult, and verifiably dangerous, to translate the Documents into actual pastoral practice.
Yet it is not merely a case of the Documents being theologically technical that renders them difficult to convey. For the Council of Trent, being dogmatic in nature, was much more technical than Vatican II, yet it was still easily applicable to the laity by way of the catechism.
The impracticality of the Vatican II Documents stems from their being theoretical in construct, but pastoral in subject matter. This combination resulted in Documents deficient in solid theological premises. This deficiency necessarily results in a dearth of conclusive pastoral prescription. So while the Documents transmit broad theological theory, they suffer from lack of theological definition and pastoral mandate.
The remedy for this deficiency is to construe the Documents in the context of holy Tradition, as the Council Fathers intended. Still the premising of the Documents with past doctrinal conclusions is a formidable task and, as the Holy Father repeatedly indicates, has not really been tried. Indeed, often the Council as implemented has either been given an inordinate supremacy over past magisterial pronouncements, or been totally isolated from then.
So even though the Council was not dogmatic, it still had the unintended effect of destabilizing the pre-existing dogma or the Church. This destabilization, along with the difficulty, and hence delay, of readily implementing the pastoral theory of the documents, left a dangerous void in the post-conciliar Church; a void soon filled by secular-humanism.
Secular-humanism’s infiltration should not have been an interrupted one. Indeed the Council’s agenda of aggiornamento (updating) was meant to be a response to the increasing estrangement of the Church and the world. This estrangement was clearly recognized by the Council Fathers to be caused by secular-humanism, but instead of attacking secular-humanism, the Council chose to deal with it on secular-humanism’s own terms; hence it answered with a supposedly compatible Christian humanism.
The term secular-humanism is aptly joined by a hyphen, for in reality the component concepts are difficult to separate; a difficulty that can be witnessed by the failed attempt to humanize the Church without secularizing her. Under the humanistic aegis of the Council, the secular gained plunderous access to the “inner chambers” of the Church. This secular infiltration has been partially checked only by the solid core of indefectible and immutable Dogma.
The Church intelligentsia, via the Council, responded well on an academic and theoretical plane to secular-humanism; but in doing so sacrificed aspects and attitudes of the Faith that, though not essential to doctrinal definition, are indispensible for the sense of orthodoxy to survive in the realm of the blue-collar Catholic.
The Council Fathers failed by omission. What should have been a call for an intensification of a militant spirit and re-affirmation of Catholic identity via reform, was instead a de facto surrender of all that wasn’t technically necessary for the Faith; necessary, that is, on the intellectual plane, on the blackboard of theology. Unfortunately, that which was not technically necessary for the theologian/reformer was still very necessary for the blue-collar Catholic.
In fact, as the world grew increasingly hostile, it became increasingly urgent for the Faithful to have strong counter-cultural guidelines of orthodoxy. Instead, they received a “purified (theologians call it demythologized, secularists call it de-mystified) version of the Faith.
Such a “purification” is most obvious and devastating in the area of liturgical reform, since here resides the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; which is not only the heart of the Church, but also her most visible and influential means of transmitting the Faith (hence also the most effective means of “destroying’ the Faith). For the vast majority of Catholics the Liturgy remains their only official contact with the Church; being both their primary source of grace and religious instruction.
As the reforms were implemented a liturgical spectacle was witnessed: man was raised from his knees and the prie-dieu, to his, that is, her toes, and the liturgical pirouette; while God was cast-down from high altar and relegated to our Lady’s niche or some obscurer corner. An inevitable crisis of faith resulted as Catholic truths, in domino effect, were confused or lost; truths that range from the sublimity of the Real Presence to the duty of familial roles.
Blue-collar Catholics need cultural-structures. They are unable to breathe the rarified air of the professional theologian; who has had the luxury of acclimating himself in a leisurely and protected life of study. When the blue-collar Catholic saw his cultural structures come tumbling down in apparent concession to secularism, he too, for the most part, dropped his guard in confusion, and slowly surrendered.
The traditional truths of the Faith that were once contained in now shattered cultural-structures (an iconoclasm supposedly justified under aggiornamento), became increasingly vague as a hostile secularity began to permeate. Indeed, inexplicably there were no cultural-structures foreordained to replace the shattered ones; so secularism and its culture filled the void, with the resulting trivialization and de-sacralization of the Church.
The new cultural-structures of the post-conciliar liturgical reform have miserably failed to transmit the traditional truths of the Faith; truths that were so pristinely preserved and clearly conveyed in the pre-Vatican II Church. One is forced to ask in a retrospective look at the reform, “Why fix it, if it isn’t broken?” Or more aptly, “Why break it, if you can’t fix it?”
The Documents characteristically placed emphases on embracing the world and on the dignity of man. Though these are valid elaborations on aspects of the Faith, they are, nonetheless, devoid of what blue-collar Catholics at the time of the Council really needed, and still need: a strong sense of Catholic orthodoxy; clear lines of demarcation between the Church and the world; and a renewed sense of identity, mission, and militancy. In short an increased immunity to the secular, and reaffirmation of the sacred.
As a result of the Church’s secular saturation via humanism, a new breed of Catholic has emerged: one eager to entertain and comfort himself with his religion, but unwilling to respond to the prod of the sacred; and therefore unwilling to carry his cross and fulfill his Christian duties (witness the dearth of vacations in relation to the number of claimed Catholics). The church, at least the popular Church, has opted for what is comfortable to man, and rejected that which conforms man to God.
At the call of the Council there was little quantifiable evidence of a weakened Catholicism on the grass roots level; quite the opposite, the numbers indicate that, for the most part, it was thriving. The “crisis” of faith appears to have been endemic to the Catholic intelligentsia; who were beingchallenged by the intelligentsia of secular-humanism (e.g. Marx, Nietzsche, Freud). And herein lies the most disturbing aspect of the reformation: in “humanizing and purifying” the Faith in accord with their needs and elitist vision, the reformers brazenly disregarded the sensibilities and needs of the Catholic Faithful; even while they claimed to be the most egalitarian of reformers.
This elitism was of a new kind for the Church. It is akin to clericalism, but different in that its insolence derives not from an abuse of priestly power, but from an assumed intellectual superiority. The reformers felt justified then, indeed mandated, to impose their supposedly superior vision of the Faith upon the intellectually inferior – would they say superstitious? – blue-collar Catholic. This imposition of an elitist vision of the Faith upon a completely orthodox, universal, and traditionally entrenched manifestation of the Faith, is unprecedented in Church history. This audacious disregard for Catholic culture and sensibilities is the most disturbing aspect of the post-conciliar reformation.
There are orthodox and honest men, who neither desire the devastation of the Church, nor dismiss it (as modernists and optimists, respectively, are apt to do); who, nonetheless, wish to defend and applaud the conciliar reforms as just the right medicine for the Church. These men often claim that the rapid post-conciliar breakup of the Church was proof of the urgent need for reform; that if the Faith was authentic and strong in the pre-conciliar Church it would not have succumbed so easily to secularism.
But such an explanation doesn’t alter the post-conciliar devastation, nor lessen the accountability of those in command during it. For the episcopate of the Church, in harmony with the Lord’s plea to “lead us not into temptation”, has the grave duty and trust to preserve their flocks faith, not to test it.
It can be safely said that the Council Fathers erred by omission; that they failed to take pre-emptive measures to protect their charges from the ravages of post-conciliar havoc and confusion. Without daring to impute personal culpability, it is still imperative that the Fathers, as a command element, accept responsibility here and now for the errors that were brazenly perpetuated in their name.
The Remnant
October, 1990
(The first essay: The Remnant, 1990)
Blue-collar Catholics were left in the lurch by the Second Vatican Council reformation. The Council was an affair of and for the Catholic intelligentsia, that is the episcopate and the theologate, who sought to develop a Christian-humanism in response to the academic challenges of a hostile secular intelligentsia. In doing so this Catholic elite flagrantly disregarded the sensibilities of the ordinary Catholic faithful, and foolishly, if not insidiously, afforded the secular rapacious access to the sacred.
The Second Vatican Council was properly termed pastoral since it did not define dogma – its specific concern being pastoral theory. Nevertheless, the highly intellectual and theoretical nature of its pastoral documents made it difficult, and verifiably dangerous, to translate the Documents into actual pastoral practice.
Yet it is not merely a case of the Documents being theologically technical that renders them difficult to convey. For the Council of Trent, being dogmatic in nature, was much more technical than Vatican II, yet it was still easily applicable to the laity by way of the catechism.
The impracticality of the Vatican II Documents stems from their being theoretical in construct, but pastoral in subject matter. This combination resulted in Documents deficient in solid theological premises. This deficiency necessarily results in a dearth of conclusive pastoral prescription. So while the Documents transmit broad theological theory, they suffer from lack of theological definition and pastoral mandate.
The remedy for this deficiency is to construe the Documents in the context of holy Tradition, as the Council Fathers intended. Still the premising of the Documents with past doctrinal conclusions is a formidable task and, as the Holy Father repeatedly indicates, has not really been tried. Indeed, often the Council as implemented has either been given an inordinate supremacy over past magisterial pronouncements, or been totally isolated from then.
So even though the Council was not dogmatic, it still had the unintended effect of destabilizing the pre-existing dogma or the Church. This destabilization, along with the difficulty, and hence delay, of readily implementing the pastoral theory of the documents, left a dangerous void in the post-conciliar Church; a void soon filled by secular-humanism.
Secular-humanism’s infiltration should not have been an interrupted one. Indeed the Council’s agenda of aggiornamento (updating) was meant to be a response to the increasing estrangement of the Church and the world. This estrangement was clearly recognized by the Council Fathers to be caused by secular-humanism, but instead of attacking secular-humanism, the Council chose to deal with it on secular-humanism’s own terms; hence it answered with a supposedly compatible Christian humanism.
The term secular-humanism is aptly joined by a hyphen, for in reality the component concepts are difficult to separate; a difficulty that can be witnessed by the failed attempt to humanize the Church without secularizing her. Under the humanistic aegis of the Council, the secular gained plunderous access to the “inner chambers” of the Church. This secular infiltration has been partially checked only by the solid core of indefectible and immutable Dogma.
The Church intelligentsia, via the Council, responded well on an academic and theoretical plane to secular-humanism; but in doing so sacrificed aspects and attitudes of the Faith that, though not essential to doctrinal definition, are indispensible for the sense of orthodoxy to survive in the realm of the blue-collar Catholic.
The Council Fathers failed by omission. What should have been a call for an intensification of a militant spirit and re-affirmation of Catholic identity via reform, was instead a de facto surrender of all that wasn’t technically necessary for the Faith; necessary, that is, on the intellectual plane, on the blackboard of theology. Unfortunately, that which was not technically necessary for the theologian/reformer was still very necessary for the blue-collar Catholic.
In fact, as the world grew increasingly hostile, it became increasingly urgent for the Faithful to have strong counter-cultural guidelines of orthodoxy. Instead, they received a “purified (theologians call it demythologized, secularists call it de-mystified) version of the Faith.
Such a “purification” is most obvious and devastating in the area of liturgical reform, since here resides the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; which is not only the heart of the Church, but also her most visible and influential means of transmitting the Faith (hence also the most effective means of “destroying’ the Faith). For the vast majority of Catholics the Liturgy remains their only official contact with the Church; being both their primary source of grace and religious instruction.
As the reforms were implemented a liturgical spectacle was witnessed: man was raised from his knees and the prie-dieu, to his, that is, her toes, and the liturgical pirouette; while God was cast-down from high altar and relegated to our Lady’s niche or some obscurer corner. An inevitable crisis of faith resulted as Catholic truths, in domino effect, were confused or lost; truths that range from the sublimity of the Real Presence to the duty of familial roles.
Blue-collar Catholics need cultural-structures. They are unable to breathe the rarified air of the professional theologian; who has had the luxury of acclimating himself in a leisurely and protected life of study. When the blue-collar Catholic saw his cultural structures come tumbling down in apparent concession to secularism, he too, for the most part, dropped his guard in confusion, and slowly surrendered.
The traditional truths of the Faith that were once contained in now shattered cultural-structures (an iconoclasm supposedly justified under aggiornamento), became increasingly vague as a hostile secularity began to permeate. Indeed, inexplicably there were no cultural-structures foreordained to replace the shattered ones; so secularism and its culture filled the void, with the resulting trivialization and de-sacralization of the Church.
The new cultural-structures of the post-conciliar liturgical reform have miserably failed to transmit the traditional truths of the Faith; truths that were so pristinely preserved and clearly conveyed in the pre-Vatican II Church. One is forced to ask in a retrospective look at the reform, “Why fix it, if it isn’t broken?” Or more aptly, “Why break it, if you can’t fix it?”
The Documents characteristically placed emphases on embracing the world and on the dignity of man. Though these are valid elaborations on aspects of the Faith, they are, nonetheless, devoid of what blue-collar Catholics at the time of the Council really needed, and still need: a strong sense of Catholic orthodoxy; clear lines of demarcation between the Church and the world; and a renewed sense of identity, mission, and militancy. In short an increased immunity to the secular, and reaffirmation of the sacred.
As a result of the Church’s secular saturation via humanism, a new breed of Catholic has emerged: one eager to entertain and comfort himself with his religion, but unwilling to respond to the prod of the sacred; and therefore unwilling to carry his cross and fulfill his Christian duties (witness the dearth of vacations in relation to the number of claimed Catholics). The church, at least the popular Church, has opted for what is comfortable to man, and rejected that which conforms man to God.
At the call of the Council there was little quantifiable evidence of a weakened Catholicism on the grass roots level; quite the opposite, the numbers indicate that, for the most part, it was thriving. The “crisis” of faith appears to have been endemic to the Catholic intelligentsia; who were beingchallenged by the intelligentsia of secular-humanism (e.g. Marx, Nietzsche, Freud). And herein lies the most disturbing aspect of the reformation: in “humanizing and purifying” the Faith in accord with their needs and elitist vision, the reformers brazenly disregarded the sensibilities and needs of the Catholic Faithful; even while they claimed to be the most egalitarian of reformers.
This elitism was of a new kind for the Church. It is akin to clericalism, but different in that its insolence derives not from an abuse of priestly power, but from an assumed intellectual superiority. The reformers felt justified then, indeed mandated, to impose their supposedly superior vision of the Faith upon the intellectually inferior – would they say superstitious? – blue-collar Catholic. This imposition of an elitist vision of the Faith upon a completely orthodox, universal, and traditionally entrenched manifestation of the Faith, is unprecedented in Church history. This audacious disregard for Catholic culture and sensibilities is the most disturbing aspect of the post-conciliar reformation.
There are orthodox and honest men, who neither desire the devastation of the Church, nor dismiss it (as modernists and optimists, respectively, are apt to do); who, nonetheless, wish to defend and applaud the conciliar reforms as just the right medicine for the Church. These men often claim that the rapid post-conciliar breakup of the Church was proof of the urgent need for reform; that if the Faith was authentic and strong in the pre-conciliar Church it would not have succumbed so easily to secularism.
But such an explanation doesn’t alter the post-conciliar devastation, nor lessen the accountability of those in command during it. For the episcopate of the Church, in harmony with the Lord’s plea to “lead us not into temptation”, has the grave duty and trust to preserve their flocks faith, not to test it.
It can be safely said that the Council Fathers erred by omission; that they failed to take pre-emptive measures to protect their charges from the ravages of post-conciliar havoc and confusion. Without daring to impute personal culpability, it is still imperative that the Fathers, as a command element, accept responsibility here and now for the errors that were brazenly perpetuated in their name.
The Remnant
October, 1990