Thank you Mr. Carroll for reminding me how once, a long time ago, I could have viewed the RCC as a positive social force for both our nation and the world. Hopefully you are right, and the regressive authorities of the past decades, who have done much to turn a once vibrant church into a meaningless relic of the past, will pass away, and a new generation, dedicated to the celebrating their faith's founding principles, rather than just preserving its power and perquisites, will arise.

Thanks for writing that.

What a wonderful, thoughtful piece. Thank you. 

James' words reek in this biographical essay of regret. Like a letter to Dad, he explains why he failed life's great tests. His bitter acrimony of a thousand words condemns the Catholic Church and its hierarchy. It is intellectually arid, has stunted minds and inbred inferiority. Worse yet, it failed to promote liberal democracy, pluralism, social tolerance and sexual freedom. And here is the "kicker"! The Church was a belligerant opponent and condemned communism. What did the church do to James to inspire such total rejection? It sounds very personal when he stands up in the middle of Mass and screams, "the church is becoming a fundementalist cult". The Globe gave him and his diatribe a full page with a photo of St. Peter's Basilica. Is it imprudent to suggest that James's politics is a little too blended with his religion?

The church correctly noted that 'communism robs the human of his soul'. The church was right to fight against communism then, and would be right to continue! Wow.

Two points: (1) Catholicism, as any other religion, is dogmatic. Once you establish any dogma, it's very difficult to revisit it without creating confusion among the flock. (2) In terms of type of government, Catholicism, unlike other religions, is pronouncedly hierarchical, ie: the head of the church is the Pope. It was John XXIII who launched this Catholic Reformation and it was the following Popes that put a stop to the core changes launched by Vatican II. Bottom line? The combination of both realities -hierachy of ideas and hierachical nature of the church- make changes like the ones proposed by Vatican II very hard to reach and especially maintain. When books of history are written in a couple of centuries, Vatican II will be presented as the first significant internal movement that ended in the democratization of the Magisterium and church governance.  

We both became members of a religious community in the same era; I also became disillusioned with the gutting of Vatican II and left the community. I'm afraid I do not share your confidence that the transformation of the church will come anytime soon. I will be looking back at fifty years ago with more than abit of melancholy. Thanks for a thoughtful essay.

raro antecedentem scelestum deseruit pede pœna claudo

And what part of objective realism do you want today? The freedom of feminism that has made it possible to permit infanticide in the ninth month, pass out the morning after pill in our public schools to 13 year old's, pay for birth control for 31 year old's? Do you want to resurrect the collective horrors of Communism and Facisim that brought death, misery and the soul deadening existence that was daily life under these governments? Yes the Churches in Europe are empty soon to be replaced by the raging fanatics of the followers of Mohammed who will inherit the Western Civilization of the Greeks. Europe bankrupted by the last great ism, Socialism and doomed demographically, as they follow an ism no has yet figured out how to pay for.  So by all means cast stones at the Church because it refuses to march to the tune of society's collective suicide.

The reactions to James Carroll's thoughtful essay are interesting because they fall largely into the two camps that emerged after Vatican II. The recidivist die hards who seem nostalgic for the dogma such as "No Salvation outside the Church" and those who lost patience with dogma that was flawed in so many ways. Thank you James Carroll for remembering another great moment celebrating fifty years of age. I think that you are again on the right side of history.

Vatican II was the last (so far) of a long line of Church Councils. No one is greater than the other, and each flows from the others. What bothers me (and, apparently, His Holiness) is that there are many in the Catholic Church (and elsewhere) that think that everything that happened prior to V-II is totally irrelevant and that the 2nd Council is the definitive statement on all that is Catholic. Hardly - many call that interpretation the hermeneutics of rupture. A better way is the hermeneutics of continuity, where everything flows from the founding of Holy Mother Church almost 2,000 years ago to now. With that in mind, if we look and read at the documents of the Second Council, we would find that, in many cases, what was written was not was what was implemented. The archives of the Council Documents are here: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/index.htm. In particular read SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM which is about the Mass. In it we'll find: (1) Where in the document does it say the priest faces the people? They don't. (2) The document say that Gregorian Chant is supposed to have the place of honor in Church Music. Really? You'd be hard pressed to hear Chant in a Mass these days, unless you find a Traditional Latin Mass. The current crop of Church Music that has it's roots in the 1970's is banal at best. (3) Latin. It was not discarded. But you'd never know it these days. On a slightly different note, here is the current General Instruction on the Roman Missal: http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/roman-missal/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal/ Read what is SUPPOSED to happen in the Mass, versus what is currently happening in your parish. You'll be surprised. I was.

a final 

A final note on my earlier comment.  I failed to make clear that I was referencing the text in my comment.   Some replies indicated they had not read Carroll's piece.  It is my intrepretation that his political views drove his exit from the holy priesthood.  I do not share them.    I regret my failure of style.  I thank joecct for providing information I had not read before.   Mr. Carroll's pedantic and predictable writings never fail to create a stir in my juices as he excoriates what he could not revolutionize with his mistaken zeal.   I am repeatedly amazed at the Globe's acceptance of this man as an intellect worth publishing.  

"Other factors contribute to this sorry condition..." How much does that gorilla in the room weigh, James.