So it's not just me:

So it's not just me:

From Amy's blog: "What this reader says about the general cultural upheaval of the 60's and 70's I've always also thought applied to Church upheaval, too. We've talked about it before, but it bears rehashing. If all Catholics - lay, religious and ordained - were so impeccably educated in the preVII period, if all was peaceful and happy and contentment....how could things go so crazy, really in a matter of less than a decade? Perhaps all was not as we've been led to believe it was."

This is something that comes up a lot both at the Maryland Moss house and when Pansy and I get to chatting: if the 50's were all that great, why were the sixties such a disaster? I've heard many Catholics wax nostalgic for the Church in America in the 40's and 50's, when Mass was in Latin, Sister Mary Ferocious had a great big ruler, Father O'Malley running the softball team, Bells of Saint Mary's, blah blah blah. Yet so many of the pro-abortion "Catholic" politicians, disobedient priests, negligent bishops, and unglued nuns were formed in this milieu. If Catholic faith and life were that strong, why did the sixties just blow Catholic life away? Why were there so many people ready and willing to substitute their own bizarre agendas for the genuine article of the Second Vatican Council ("The Council says we're supposed to have clowns at Mass to reach out to the people! We have to reach out to the people! Except those people who want dignified Masses with Latin, chant, and organ music....") And why were there so many more people who seemed to believe whatever they were told?

I was born in 1970, so I have only known the Pauline Missal (I do like going to Mass in Latin), so I sincerely don't know what Catholic life was like "in the good old days." But when I meet these pious old ladies who don't know how to say the Hail Mary properly (in English!) or don't have a very firm grasp on doctrine, it makes me wonder....