Sadly, I don't think so. Not with the present Pope and the men being named Cardinal over the last decade. Renewal "from the top" does not seem likely. Renewal "from the bottom" is impossible in this structure.

Can someone please tell me exactly what part of Vatican II has been "squelched" by the last three popes?

I mean, of course, what Vatican II actually taught, as opposed to what one might wish it had taught.

As far as I can tell, from my reading of the constitutions and decrees of the Council, the post-concilar popes have implemented its directives, proclaimed what it proclaimed, and fully incorporated its norms in the ligurgy, in canon law and in the new catechism.

I can only suppose that Fr. Fox hasn't read Gaudium et Spes in a while. I imagine he'd now be horrified by what he found there.

Little can be gained by dialogue with the current crop of papist leaders.

Kurt Hill
Brooklyn, NY

The Constitutions and Decrees from the 2nd Vatican Council are indeed inspired and inspiring. I reread them when I need to be brought back from the brink of despair about what my church is -- or isn't -- doing. I also repeat like a mantra this from the Creed: We believe in the Holy Spirit...

I mean, of course, what Vatican II actually taught, as opposed to what one might wish it had taught.

The "Vatican II Church", rick, refers not merely to a set of documents (open to interpretation as all documents are), but the mode of being church that emerged during the Vatican II conference and persisted (in various ways) during the 60s, 70s and 80s [I consider Ut Unum Sint to be the last gasp in 1995].

You may consider that period "the Age of Heresy!!!", rick, if you want to . . . but surely you can't argue that it was FORMATIVE to a couple of generations of Roman Catholics, who (by) now feel that "their Church" has been ripped away?

JC Fisher

JCF, Gaudium et Spes taught specifically that marriage is an indissolvable union of one man and one woman, willed by God, ordained by its nature for the begettng of children, that abortion is an unspeakable crime, and that the faithful must avoid methods of contraception found blameworthy by the magisterium.

Now I can't complain if anyone finds those things stupid or hateful or hypocritical or bigoted. That's a matter of opinion and judgment. But how a cleric who affirms those things can in any way be considered subverting Vatican II is beyond me.

Personally I'm glad that Father Fox has found a place more congenial to his own views. I remember when his first book on Creation Spirituality came out, and sharing with friends who were great fans that I found his playing a creation tradition off against a fall/redemption tradition destructive, an unnecessary kind of either/or. He's not a bad man, but he's plainly continued moving, especially in his new reformation theses, far beyond anything dreamt of in Catholicism.

I also don't doubt that many people were greatly disappointed that the Church didn't go the way that the "old mainline" denominations have now in fact gone. But if their leaving was in fact over those specific issues touching sexuality, I don't know how, objectively, one can conclude otherwise than that they left because of the implementation of Vatican II, not its obstruction. Vatican II was, so far as I can tell, the first Ecumenical Council to deal in detail with issues like sexual ethics, the family, and their role and place in secular society. I think at the time of the Council such views were more or less shared by the "old mainline." There's obviously been a lot of water under the bridge since then.

We are perhaps unfortunate in living during a great schism on a large issue in the faith. But the argument seems to be about over. The positions are fixed. At best, I suppose, we can anticipate a time when the internal divisions are muted by internal acceptance or departure, and those between communions softened by a return to mutual tolerance. But until that time these kinds of polemics probably are inevitable.

I am so tired of hearing the Roman Catholic Church referred to as "The Catholic Church" as if Catholicism does not exist outside of the Latin Church. I am a former Roman Catholic who is now in the Episcopal Church. I do not consider myself "ex-catholic", rather I see myself as a person in the same house who has simply moved to a different room. I am no longer in the Roman Church. I, thankfully, practice my Catholicism in the Episcopal Church.

[Thanks for the comment. Do note in future comments that we require your first and last name to appear. - eds.]

My eyes automatically head for the ceiling whenever I see that Fox has let loose another anti-papal denunciad, and as usual he largely misses the point. Mystics like Hildegard, Eckhart, and Chardin are largely irrelevant to the great mass of Catholics, not because they are or are not heretical, but because they don't have time for that stuff. And if Vatican II was betrayed, it wasn't by JP II, but by the bishops under Paul VI. Finally, surely it is a revelation of Fox's old lefty heart that he talk about liberation theology and completely ignores the church's heavy involvement in the Solidarity movement in Poland.

And if Vatican II was betrayed, it wasn't by JP II, but by the bishops under Paul VI.

Oh, those wicked, wicked bishops! How dare they interpret Vatican II---as if they were there or sumthin!

{sarcasm/Off}

JC Fisher

rick, I wasn't specifically sexual ethics...but now that you mention it, hopes were raised (not just by crazy laypeople, but at high levels) in the VaticanII Church, re contraception, that were ripped away by Humanae Vitae. [The first sign that Vatican patriarchy, like a B-Movie Monster, was coming back to wreak further destruction]

Rather, I was speaking more about the worship life of the church. Just as an ecumenical visitor, these are things I experienced COMMONLY in the VaticanII Church in the 70s, 80s and early 90s: folk/Campesino/jazz masses, explicitly OPEN communion, ecumenical co-consecration at the mass, women preaching, communicants serving the elements to each other (passed around a circle). [Admittedly, mainly in the Crazy California of my youth...but later on the East coast and in the Midwest].

If these experience left a strong impression on *me* (we're talking about---oh, a few dozens of experiencing worship w/ RCs, in their churches?), how much more so faithful Roman Catholics? What do you say to these Roman Catholics, rick? "Oh, for those decades---perhaps up till 2011---you were just Doing It Wrong?" Do you really think that will take their PAIN away?

JCF, I have no doubt that many Catholics were extremely upset that the reform of Vatican II didn't go as far as they had hoped (just as many were extremely upset that it went as far as it did).

I think familiarity has made people forget just how different many things are now. Myself, I customarily attend a Spanish mariachi/ranchero mass in a post-VatII in-the-round sanctuary. I began in a parish featuring 18th century polyphonic masses, then went to one with a one-guitar folk mass, and have experienced just about everything in between. Even the recent, much ballyhooed liberalized permission for the old mass, and the development of an Anglican rite for a handful of small parishes, continue the trend toward greater liturgical diversity.

There is a limit to those developments, of course, and perhaps Fr. Fox's Cosmic Masses display the consequence of ignoring those limits. Every reform, if it is not to devour itself, must have core principles whose bounds it must not exceed.

As to eucharistic sharing, the Degree on Ecumencism, Unitatis Redintegratio, was fairly clear that common worship was a goal, conditioned on actual unity of faith, and not to be used as a way to falsely imply that such unity already existed. After the Council there was much boundary-pushing in that respect, and no, I have no right to say to anyone that their worship wasn't valid, only that it violated the principles of Catholic ecumenicism set out in Vatican II. One still hopes for ecumenical rapproachment, but, honestly, in the early 1960's, the Catholic and Episcopal Churches were much closer, theologically, than they are now. One can blame it our our being so hidebound, or on your being so progressive, but we seem to be definitely diverging.

In any case, have a good weekend, and a happy Trinity Sunday.

I was born in the early 1960s, rick, so that's not the period I'm speaking of.

I'm primarily talking about a period of the late 70s to the mid 90s (I recall being invited by RC priests---who KNEW I wasn't RC---several times in the mid-90s. And not in a situation of pastoral emergency either)

I wish you a blessed Trinity Sunday, rick, too. "I bind unto myself today..."

JC Fisher

To clarify, I meant "invited to receive RC communion", above. As a non-RC.

JC Fisher