Weakland’s affinity for monasticism’s collaborative style, which resisted autocratic rule, conditioned him to embrace the Second Vatican Council’s redefinition of the church in non-hierarchical terms as the “people of God.” The new vision proposed “shared authority” between hierarchy and laity.

For decades, as he writes in detail, he carried that banner against the gathering forces of opposition that sought to retain the old top-down chain of command that demanded unquestioned loyalty to Rome.

Whereas the centralizing forces, led most forcefully by Pope John Paul II, insisted on what Weakland calls the “military” structure of total conformity, his view of the church, drawn from Vatican II, is mixed rule, as in the sharing of responsibilities between the federal government and the states in America.

via In defense of his own theology | Philadelphia Inquirer | 07/05/2009.

Somehow liberals, Catholic and secular, tend to read things into documents that are not there. Secular liberals read rights like abortion into the US Constitution. Catholic liberals read things like a remake of the Church into a democracy into the documents of Vatican II. They seem to do it the same way by seizing on a single line, phrase or concept and extrapolating them to the place they wanted to arrive at in the first place.

It’s just like bad apologists who cherry-pick verses from the Bible and base their own warped theology on that single verse which happens to allow a misinterpretation when taken out of context.

Weakland does it here by taking the phrase “people of God” and seeing that as a total break with the past. He takes it to mean that the Church is now supposed to be a democracy and that the laity does more and the clergy does less. To a degree, that is true. The laity has been called upon to do more in the Church and the clergy needs to help them do that. But it does NOT mean that the “reins of power” have been transferred to the laity.

It seems that the main reason Weakland and others like him do this, is so they can change something that they have personal issues with. It’s no different than Henry the VIII really. Don’t like something? Change it. Doesn’t matter if it should or could be changed. I want it and I want it now. Sure we could have married priests. But should we? As for women doing more in the Church… Good Lord! What else can they do besides be ordained? They are already the vast majority of the Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist and Lectors and parish council members at my parish and most I have visited. What we really need is for MEN to do more in the Church.

If the Church were to do what people like Weakland want, we would quickly fracture into a hundred churches and then 500 and then 1000 and it would never end. What has maintained the unity of the Catholic Church (schism with the Orthodox Churches notwithstanding) has been the authority of Rome. While we may be able to let the local dioceses determine things more than they used to because communications are now instantaneous between Rome and the rest of the world, thereby providing a check against a wayward bishop, that doesn’t mean that we have been given self-rule as if we are Canada or Australia trying to cut the apron-strings to Britannia.

Day to day governance of “the people of God” has ALWAYS been at the local level practically speaking. Historically, the pastor of a parish was the man in charge until he got called on the carpet before his Bishop. Same with the Bishop and his diocese. What got them in trouble then as today is the teaching of practices and doctrine that are contrary to the Deposit of Faith left to us by Jesus Christ. Often the proposed changes in disciplines lead to a weakening in the understanding of the doctrines of the Church. For instance, when the tabernacles are removed from the santuary or a priest refers to the purification of the vessels as “doing the dishes” (absolutely true story, I was there), what does that do to the people of God’s understanding of the Real Presence?

Letting local parishes have greater control over their parish tends to lead to the situation in St. Louis with St. Stanislaus. Or a local parish where it was once quoted to me “everyone there is a deacon”. When the Church says to do things a certain way, there is a reason. Unfortunately, the majority of folks weren’t taught those reasons after Vatican II, so that the “Spirit of Vatican II” could blow the Church in a different direction than intended by the actual texts.

As Pope Benedict said, the Council must be read in context with the prior Councils and Papal documents. It is not a break from the past, but a continuance of it.

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Pope Benedict XVI

… noted that today’s Gospel is Luke’s account of the Annunciation, “the mystery to which we return every day in reciting the Angelus.”

“This prayer allows us to relive the decisive moment when God knocked at Mary’s heart and, having received her ‘yes,’ began to take flesh in her and from her,” The Pontiff said.

See, this is why I love Pope Benedict so much. He can, in so few words, point us to why we believe what we believe as Catholics. Look at the beauty of that one small quote. This is also the first Glorious Mystery of the Rosary of course, and he has just shown us how everything points back to Jesus.

Every time I read anything Benedict has written, I feel like I need to pause, re-read and savor the moment. Not because I don’t understand it, but more because his writing is so packed with insight.

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Jimmy Akin posts that B16 by his nature is not really a heavy-handed leader. In that same post he links to the Catholic Exchange article that George Weigel wrote about what to expect from the new Pope. Personally if we get just those few things Weigel mentions and only those, I suspect that the Church will see a renewal the likes of which we haven’t seen in several lifetimes.

Weigel speculates, as have many, that the reform of the liturgy needs to be reformed and that it will be a priority for the new pontiff. Great! Just about everyone has some story about Mass that makes you cringe.

Personally I have not seen a clown Mass, nor a woman preach in place of a homily (which by definition can only be given by a deacon, priest or bishop). I do know that the latter happens in more than one parish in my archdiocese. I have personally heard a priest speculate that perhaps Christ didn’t know that He was going to institute the Eucharist at the Last Supper when speaking in the Bread of Life discourse in John 6. I have seen people invited to stand around the altar during the consecration. I have seen children invited to sit around the priest as he gives his homily at their 1st Communion. I have seen what appeared to be leavened, homemade bread at the same service. I have seen brats snatch the Body of Christ from the hand of the priest as if he were ticked off for even having to be there at all. I have seen priests sit down before all the communicants were taken care of, leaving them to the “eucharistic ministers”, which of course they aren’t. There’s the bad music that praises the people and forgets to even ask God who? There’s the glass “chalices” and wooden bowls for ciboriums. There’s the lack of a visible tabernacle, crucifix and kneelers. There’s the lack of genuflection by the people and the incessant hand holding during the Our Father and so much more.

And those aren’t necessarily the worst things I have seen reported. So what will start to cure these?

According to Weigel we will likely see a gradual change (as all Church change should be) back to certain practices and emphases. We are likely to see/hear more Gregorian chants for instance and the priest facing the East with his back to the people at appropriate times. New translations to replace the awful ones we have now might be given a kick in the pants to see them get to us faster. Maybe we will even see Holy Days of Obligation celebrated on the actual Holy Days! What a concept! Along with this, we hope to see an actual catechesis of what and why these things are changing.

That will be the harder part I think. Getting the bishops and priests to actually act on these things and then explain them. That seems to be where the Vatican II reform fell on its face. These changes may not seem like a big deal, but I think they would be a huge step in the proper direction. All of them would seem to restore an attitude of reverence and respect in some ways. Along with the meausres/reminders/prohibitions from Ecclesia de Eucharista, we would be well on our way I think.

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