"The king's good servant, but God's first"

Here you will find a summary of the homily that Pope Francis gave the employees of the Vatican Bank on the danger of the Church-as-babysitter:

http://www.johnthavis.com/pope-francis-on-the-risk-of-a-babysitter-church#.UXAmcWS9Kc1

Francis is talking about the danger of going through the motions, getting through Confirmation and then being complacent. "I have my identity card all right. And now, go to sleep quietly, you are a Christian." At the end of the piece, there is a quote from an interview that Pope Francis gave when he was still Archbishop of Buenos Aires:

“We priests tend to clericalize the laity.We do not realize it, but it is as if we infect them with our own disease.And the laity — not all, but many — ask us on their knees to clericalize them, because it is more comfortable to be an altar server than the protagonist of a lay path. We cannot fall into that trap —it is a sinful complicity.”

I think there is a definite tendency, a definite temptation, to think that "participation" for the laity consists entirely of things that they can do within the Parish Church. Retreats, Eucharistic Ministry, Discussion groups, etc. As if being Christian can be safely quarantined between the four walls of the Church building.

But this is wrong. It's not what the gospels say, and it's not what Vatican II describes as the role of the laity. We are called to be the light of the world, and we shouldn't be putting that light under the bushel basket of a building. The models for the laity should be people like Dorothy Day, who took took no vows, but lived her life in voluntary poverty, dedicated it to the poor, and proclaimed Jesus wherever she went. Similarly, St. Thomas More was the "King's good servant, but God's first" and he payed the ultimate price for his witness. This is much harder than simply being a lector or Eucharistic minister, byt it is what we are called to as Christians.

The "Spirit of Vatican II" and my lack of understanding

I have a confession to make. While I try to get in the heads of people that disagree with me, and while I try to be charitable and try to see things from their point of view as much as my limited mind can, there are some mentalities that I simply cannot understand and have trouble being charitable toward. One of these is the mindset often called the "Spirit of Vatican II".

There were those who thought that the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) changed everything. Suddenly, so the story goes, the whole content of the Faith, doctrines, dogmas, what have you, was up for re-evaluation, as well as possible rejection. I don't agree, and I have a hard time empathizing with those who think this way, and I think this stems from multiple reasons. The first of these is that proposed reforms tend to be exactly what the newest coolio idea is in the world at large, especially in academia. Whether it's a watered down Marxist-Neitszchism that re-evaluates everything in term of power struggles or a sort of New Age woo woo that seeks to get us acquainted with the spark of the divine in ourselves, the proposed doctrinal re-evaluations tend to be the same stuff that is widely available elsewhere, while diminishing the things , such as the Sacrament and Confession, that are only available within the Church.

That brings me to the second reason. I often, fairly or unfairly, blame this type of person for hiding the treasures of the Church that I only found in young adulthood. Some of my favorite things about the Faith, such as Adoration, and the Liturgy of the Hours, as well as the beautiful Latin language, were "treasures" that tended not to be available in my childhood, and that I had to discover myself. I haven't really gotten over my resentment toward those who "hid" these treasures after the council. This is surely the least rational reason but definitely one that has deep emotional significance to me.

The third reason, then, is that there is hardly anyone my own age with this mentality anymore. While there were plenty of opportunities to dialogue with enthusiastic Mormons or atheists or even very traditional Catholics my own age, almost everyone I know under the title of "Spirit of Vatican II" belongs to an older generation. The situation makes for a lack of understanding, as any dialogue has to jump everything that divides our generations. Often, the viewpoint is fueled by an experience of living through the Council, something that my generation definitely would not share.

In fact, for my own generation, and assuredly for future generations, it's hard to see Vatican II as anything other than just another council. If a "Spirit" did illuminate the council, then surely it was the same Spirit that illuminated the council of Nicea, Constantinople, Trent, and Vatican I. The truths of the most recent council couldn't contradict with the older councils, then, as long as all the councils were illuminated by the Holy Spirit. The whole reason the church is valuable is because it was founded in 33 AD on a cross outside Jerusalem, and it was founded as the body of Christ. If the Church today was founded instead by some old guys in Rome fifty years ago, then to Hell with it. I will continue to pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ who think like this, but I'm not sure I'll ever understand.