St. Mary Parish, Manchester at 210 West Main Street, Manchester, MI 48158 US - The Loss of the Transcendent, pt. 2

WITHIN THE CHURCH
Last week I began reflecting on the loss of the transcendent in our times. I traced its genesis to what is called the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment began in the 18^th century and is characterized by a shifting of man’s focus to the self and the rational; thus his focus became very insular. Today I would like to reflect on how the Church has been affected in our day as a result of the Enlightenment. I would like to focus on what happened to the Church after the Second Vatican Council.
The Church for centuries saw herself in a defensive posture and had built a strong fortress of protection around her to shield her from the attacks of various modernist philosophies that sought her destruction. The Catholic faith was strong. The average Catholic knew their catechism and what the Church believed. Sunday Mass attendance was strong, as well as belief in the Real Presence of the Christ in the Eucharist. Weekly confession lines were long with plenty of priests available for long hours to absolve the faithful of their sins. The devotional life of the local parish was strong, and the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints were venerated.
The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) thought that it was time for the Church to engage the world and open herself up to it. The Fathers of the Council desired that the Church open herself up to dialogue with various world religions and modern philosophies thus becoming the much-needed agent in the conversion of the world. It is important to note that those modernist philosophies were alive and strong and still seeking the destruction of the Church.
While the sacred hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church was debating how to move forward and away from her defense posture to the modern world, the western world was in an upheaval. The world was in the midst of a mass rejection of traditional moral values and authority. While the Council Fathers desired to open the Church to the modern world, what ended up happening in the vast majority of places was that the world had infiltrated the Church. The rejection of all that was traditional and sacred was rampant and spread quickly like the plague in western society. The Church was weakened and vulnerable allowed this societal sickness to enter and attack the heart of the Church.
Many bishops, priests, as well as men and women religious led this radical charge. They hijacked and distorted the documents of the Second Vatican Council to fit their various modernist agendas. The legitimate desire of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council to reform the Church met with the societal desire to create a new order, a utopia, by freeing itself from the shackles of the past; this included the Church!
The average Catholic was confused by what appeared to be a madness that had attacked the Church overnight and which saw a modern day iconoclasm with the wholesale destruction of statues, images of Our Lady and the saints, stations of the cross, crucifixes, monstrances, tabernacles, etc. This havoc did not end with the destruction of all that was beautiful and sacred in Catholic church buildings; it also had begun to infiltrate Catholic universities and schools, and parish catechism classes. It was not uncommon to hear confusing and even heretical remarks coming from the pulpit. Priests and religious left their vocations in droves.
Many of the laity were angered by what they had heard and seen. This was followed by a mass exodus of many faithful Catholics from the Church. Many who stayed accepted the distorted teachings of the Second Vatican Council as being legitimate. In a relatively brief period of time the average Catholic went from their lives being built upon a firm moral and spiritual foundation, and secure in their Catholic identity, to lives filled with uncertainty, confusion and insecurity. The rapid loss of the sense of the transcendent was replaced by the immanent, the worldly, with the sole focus being placed on the here and now and in building a better world.

— To be continued —