Friday, 6/7/13
Today, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Church
gives us readings that portray the Lord bringing back his own. In the first
reading he brings back the captives
from Babylon. In the Gospel he brings back the lost shep. Maybe, the Sacred
Heart is looking for help in bringing back lost Christians.
In Europe Sunday Mass attendance is off by more than a
third, and it is the same with our Catholic school graduates. People blame
Vatican Two, but they do it for opposite reasons: some saying Vatican Two went
too far, others saying it didn’t go far enough.
Many of my priest friends say Vatican II went too far. They
were very snug in our old way of doing things. Privately they are saying that
only the teachings of the Council of Trent were orthodox. They see the
teachings of the Vatican Council as something else. A lady I know was two years
taking instructions from one of those priests. She told me, “I haven’t been
baptized yet, but I know more about the Council of Trent than anyone else in
Jacksonville.”
The first complaint of those who say that Vatican II didn’t
go far enough is that the Church’s structure is too close to Feudalism. They
point out that under Feudalism a king was God’s immediate representative, with
the barons as his fiefs, and landlords as their fiefs. With the Church, the Pope
is God’s immediate representative, with the bishops as his fiefs, and the
pastors their fiefs
It was in 500 A.D. when Feudalism was the only workable
structure, that the Church reluctantly
adapted herself to Feudalism as the only way to survive. Now, in an age when
democracy is nearly the only workable structure, she might need to adapt
ourselves to it to survive.
The second complaint of those who say that Vatican Ii didn’t
go far enough is that she kept too many religious trappings, while not pushing
a spirituality that comes with identifying with God in his creation.
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