What Happened?

As you may remember, I teach Church History in a local seminary. Church History almost always turns out to be the study of the movers and shakers—bishops, popes, emperors, kings. I’ve tried to emphasize as much as I can how, as the movers and shakers do their thing, the parish clergy and laity are living their faith. We don’t have a lot of information about this until we get to the English Reformation.

While Henry is busy dismantling the relationship between England and Rome, the average person is devoutly Catholic. One of the ways the Church ended up being so powerful and wealthy was the gifts of land, property and money that had been provided to them though out the Middle Ages by the gentry and middle class. Peasants had nothing to leave, but the record indicates they were faithful in attending to feast days and Sunday worship. Some would even run from church to church to attend mass multiple times on Sunday. Sure they tended to be pretty superstitious too, but nonetheless, their faith was incredibly important to them.

All this was on my mind during my exercise walk this morning. As I thought about this, I thought about my youth and how in the 40s and 50s when I was a kid, churches in my neighborhood were packed. I lived in a Catholic neighborhood, and on Saturday and Sunday, there was mass after mass and all seemed to have a fair share of people present.

What happened, I wondered? I wondered because all the figures today show church attendance at an all time low, especially as a percentage of population in this country. Then an “answer” popped into my head—one I want to explore more, but will share now. Vatican II happened.
For the Catholic Church in this country, the unintended consequence of Vatican II was droves of priests and religious leaving their vows. Not only that, but the number of men who sought the priesthood has fallen and continued to be so low as to border on a crisis. Convents dried up and teaching nuns disappeared. When that happened, the Catholic schools began a decline, especially in poor areas, because they could hardly afford to pay lay teachers.

What else happened? For Catholics and for Episcopalians especially, the mystery of the Eucharist was replaced by a language people understood, at least for Catholics, and by a rite they could watch face to face. Was that a bad thing? I think a little bit. This is why I need to consider this more. About the same time, clergy stopped being Father Jones and became Father Bob, or more likely, just Bob. I’m a little afraid along with the loss of the formality there was some loss of respect. Consequently, the priest up front was just another guy—or in some cases, another woman! And less likely to be able to lead or set an example.

Well, this is not a well developed argument, but it is just something I’ve been thinking about.

Peace,

Jerry+