The magazine that forty years ago posed the question, “Is God Dead?” now finds itself asking, “Is Liberal Catholicism Dead“?
He may not have been thinking about it at the time, but Pope Benedict, in the course of his recent U.S. visit may have dealt a knockout blow to the liberal American Catholicism that has challenged Rome since the early 1960s. He did so by speaking frankly and forcefully of his “deep shame” during his meeting with victims of the Church’s sex-abuse scandal. By demonstrating that he “gets” this most visceral of issues, the pontiff may have successfully mollified a good many alienated believers — and in the process, neutralized the last great rallying point for what was once a feisty and optimistic style of progressivism.
The liberal rebellion in American Catholicism has dogged Benedict and his predecessors since the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65. “Vatican II,” which overhauled much of Catholic teaching and ritual, had a revolutionary impact on the Church as a whole. It enabled people to hear the Mass in their own languages; embraced the principle of religious freedom; rejected anti-Semitism; and permitted Catholic scholars to grapple with modernity.
But Vatican II meant even more to a generation of devout but restless young people in the U.S. Rather than a course correction, Terrence Tilley, now head of the Fordham University’s theology department, wrote recently, his generation perceived “an interruption of history, a divine typhoon that left only the keel and structure of the church unchanged.” They discerned in the Council a call to greater church democracy, and an assertion of individual conscience that could stand up to the authority of even the Pope. So, they battled the Vatican’s birth-control ban, its rejection of female priests and insistence on celibacy, and its authoritarianism…
Says Fr. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Woodstock Theological Center whom Benedict famously removed from his previous job as editor of America, “Reform movements need an enemy to organize against. As most bishops have gotten their acts together on sex abuse, they have looked less like the enemy and more like part of the solution. Enthusiasm for reform declined. With the Pope’s forthright response, it will decline even more.”
We are living through a significant period in Church history. Key to understanding the direction of the Church has been the interpretation of Vatican II. The liberal interpretation of the Bologna School is a hermeneutic of rupture. It argues that Vatican II constitutes a new beginning— a rupture with previous tradition. The pope favors a more conservative interpretation— the hermeneutic of continuity. According to the hermeneutic of continuity, the Council marks a continuity with centuries of previous tradition.
The elevation of then-Cardinal Ratzinger to the papacy marked a decisive triumph for the hermeneutic of continuity. Indeed, it was this was the topic of the pope’s 2005 pre-Christmas Address to the Roman Curia.
Twenty years ago, traditional Catholicism found itself a small movement within the Church, often disrespected by American members of the hierarchy. The social policy work of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was focused on nuclear non-proliferation and economic justice, rather than pro-life efforts.
This has changed profoundly as the appointment of orthodox bishops accelerated in the last decade of John Paul II’s pontificate.
Now, traditional devotions and morality are seeing a resurgence. In the waning years of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II proclaimed a Year of the Rosary and Year of the Eucharist. The result: more people are praying the rosary and attending Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament than have been seen in a generation. Similarly, Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio on the Latin Mass has interested young people in this trditional form of worship.
I think that most important thing to observe is that a Time magazine obituary for liberal Catholicism could not have been anticipated forty, or even twenty years ago. Now it seems inevitable, because the millenial generation — my generation — is leading the trek back towards Catholic orthodoxy.
May 5, 2008
Time Publishes Obituary For Liberal Catholicism
Posted by James Bailey Brislin under Catholic, Commentary & Politics, News | Tags: America, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Catholic, Catholic liberalism, Catholic Orthodoxy, Eucharist, Georgetown University, Heremeneutic of Continuity, Hermeneutic of Rupture, Latin Mass, Millenial Generation, Motu Proprio, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II, Rosary, S.J., Sexual Abuse Scandal, Thomas Reese, Time, Traditionalism, USCCB, Vatican II, Woodstock Tehological Center |Leave a Comment
The magazine that forty years ago posed the question, “Is God Dead?” now finds itself asking, “Is Liberal Catholicism Dead“?
We are living through a significant period in Church history. Key to understanding the direction of the Church has been the interpretation of Vatican II. The liberal interpretation of the Bologna School is a hermeneutic of rupture. It argues that Vatican II constitutes a new beginning— a rupture with previous tradition. The pope favors a more conservative interpretation— the hermeneutic of continuity. According to the hermeneutic of continuity, the Council marks a continuity with centuries of previous tradition.
The elevation of then-Cardinal Ratzinger to the papacy marked a decisive triumph for the hermeneutic of continuity. Indeed, it was this was the topic of the pope’s 2005 pre-Christmas Address to the Roman Curia.
Twenty years ago, traditional Catholicism found itself a small movement within the Church, often disrespected by American members of the hierarchy. The social policy work of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was focused on nuclear non-proliferation and economic justice, rather than pro-life efforts.
This has changed profoundly as the appointment of orthodox bishops accelerated in the last decade of John Paul II’s pontificate.
Now, traditional devotions and morality are seeing a resurgence. In the waning years of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II proclaimed a Year of the Rosary and Year of the Eucharist. The result: more people are praying the rosary and attending Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament than have been seen in a generation. Similarly, Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio on the Latin Mass has interested young people in this trditional form of worship.
I think that most important thing to observe is that a Time magazine obituary for liberal Catholicism could not have been anticipated forty, or even twenty years ago. Now it seems inevitable, because the millenial generation — my generation — is leading the trek back towards Catholic orthodoxy.