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Vatican II: A Sociological Analysis of Religious Change (No. 2)

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This is a good book about a fascinating question. It's very informative. However, I don't think Wilde delivers the promised explanation of when, why & how religious institutions adapt to societies around them.

I think these are the main ideas in the book: (1) The ecumenical movement posed challenges to the legitimacy of various Catholic doctrines & practices. (2) So bishops in northern Europe & North America responded like firm managers who try to limit competition in stable markets. They were more interested in getting along with Protestants than competing with them. (3) Partly because the bishops who favored change embraced the doctrine of collegiality, they were able to organize voting blocks far better than conservative bishops who were used to an hierarchical bureaucracy. In the context of the council, where votes mattered, collegiality was very effective. (4) So, for example, South American bishops who didn't care about ecumenism voted with bishops who were motivated by ecumenism. (5) Questions that were not seen as relevant to ecumenism, such as birth control, were dropped.

Her explanation of some changes seems correct, as far as it goes. For example, Why religious freedom? Because the Church conceded the point made by ecumenists that it couldn't consistently criticize communist repression & simultaneously refuse to acknowledge religious freedom for Protestants in Catholic countries. Why no relaxation of rules about birth control? Because there was no pressure from ecumenical movement about that.

But why was ecumenism, a Protestant movement with anti-Catholic roots, suddenly important to Catholics? How could those Protestants, who had been criticizing the Catholic Church for centuries, suddenly represent a compelling legitimacy crisis, an effective impetus to large-scale change? Wilde mentions that in the USA it had something to do with the demographic shift away from old ethnic neighborhoods toward suburbia. Although she doesn't discuss it, I think that in northern Europe it had something to do with a sense that a Christianity that couldn't prevent the disasters of the 20th century needed to fall back & regroup.

This has some appeal. Consider: The 1940s & 1950s were, by some measures, a golden age for the Church, at least in the USA. So why the sudden need for "renewal" in 1959? At a certain level it doesn't make any sense. Well, based on a 1963 paper by Peter Berger, Wilde claims that the bishops were acting like all firm managers who want to limit competition in a stable market. I'm not really sure what competition she's talking about, and she doesn't provide any details. If she mean the bishops wanted to appear respectable to their Protestant neighbors in suburbia, then it rings true.

In any event, could that really explain what happened?

[Caveat: I'm not a sociologist, so maybe I don't properly appreciate her explanations. Maybe I don't know how to think like a sociologist. If so, we're even because it's not clear that she knows how to think like an ordinary Catholic layman.]

If the desire of firm managers to limit competition in a stable market caused changes in the Catholic Church, wouldn't we expect to see the same forces cause more or less comparable changes in Protestant Christianity? After all, hasn't the Catholic Church always posed "legitimacy challenges" to Protestants? E.g., to cite one Cardinal Ratzinger some years later, "it is an infallible teaching of the church that Anglican bishops and priests are fake bishops and priests, dispensing fake sacraments." Doesn't her theory suggest, or predict, that Catholic "legitimacy challenges" would result in big changes in Protestant Christianity? And if what the theory predicts doesn't happen, is the theory refuted or invalidated?

Well, have there been changes in Protestant Christianity comparable to, say, the changes in the Catholic Mass? For centuries the center of Catholic religious practice was a sacrificial altar shrouded in mystery. That was replaced, with unbelievable abruptness, by a committee creation designed, in large part, to appease Protestant critics. What about the Declaration of Religious Liberty? What kind of statement from Protestants could compare? If there have been comparable changes among Protestants then, obviously, my syllogism collapses. But I'm not aware of any.

If Catholics and Protestants both posed legitimacy challenges to one another but only Catholics changed, then it sure seems like Catholics were simply conceding points in a theological & philosophical debate. But that's a different explanation from hers. In fact, it's much like the old description of what happened at Vatican II: Bishops were swept along by liberal theologians. So, to my mind, the basic question remains: Why did these criticisms, which had been around for decades, more or less suddenly prevail?

I got the impression while reading this book that the question of why Protestants didn't change as much as Catholics would never occur to Wilde. I think the changes made by Catholics, especially changes to the Mass, seem like just so much common sense to Wilde. Like, obviously inadequate, archaic rituals were replaced by self-evidently superior practices. Catholics changed from the inconvenient (Latin) & preposterous (Priest facing crucifix) to the accessible (vernacular) & rational (Priest facing congregation).

It's not that simple. And, it seems like a missed opportunity to explain interesting social phenomena. I would love to read some kind of sociological explanation of, say, the huge gap between the liturgical reforms approved by the council bishops in Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Ordinary Form of the Mass as it's celebrated in the USA today. How about this: Summorum Pontificum: A Sociological Analysis of the Recovery of Catholic Identity After Vatican II.

I purchased this book hoping to read a new analysis of Vatican II; my hope was modestly realized.
The book describes an interesting alliance of four groups of theologically and geographically diverse bishops on three issues which came before the Council along with a rather technical sociological analysis of the bishops' voting patterns. The author's thesis posits why "liberal" bishops triumphed in many matters over the "conservative" bishops.
The book did not help me get to know the personalities of the influential bishops at the Council or much of the backroom politics - though in fairness, the title doesn't promise it will.
There were occasional subtle inaccuracies of "church facts" e.g. calling St. Peter's Basilica "St. Peter's Cathedral," and the author's unqualified assertion that Vatican II elminated the Latin/Tridentine mass (interesting in light of Benedict XVI's recent motu proprio).
Overall an enlightening, but rather technical read.

I believe A.S. Drury's review is spot-on. I don't think I'd change a word in it. I would, however, like to add a couple of things.

First, I believe that this is an important book and ought to be read by anyone concerned about the deplorable condition of the Church today. Wilde's statistical analysis ought to silence those who claim that Vatican II was hijacked by a small, well-organized group of liberals. In fact, as Wilde demonstrates, there was a sizable faction at the council whose members held what she calls "progressive" views. My point is that the council was not simply derailed by a small army of heretics. Rather, there were large numbers of bishops whose views skewed heretical and who were able to organize and communicate more effectively with each other than the conservatives. As Wilde notes several times, the conservatives actually had more bishops on their side, yet they refused to organize autonomous episcopal conferences as the liberals had done, since they considered such activity as supporting the notion of collegiality (which posits that the bishops are essentially coequals to the Pope when they act in concert with him).

So what? well, I think this is important because there is a tendency in traditionalist circles to, for example, eschew modern tools like the internet, since the internet is an occasion of sin. So is my refrigerator. According to Wilde's research, Vatican II was lost to the barbarians because the conservatives held to a strict hierarchical structure in absolute support of the pope against the liberals who were pushing the issue of collegiality and holding frequent meetings wherein they would craft strategy, work out differences of opinion, and marshal votes from different factions, all because they communicated. Had conservatives simply organized, they could have won most if not all of the battles at the council. But a well-intended desire to be seen as loyal to Pope Paul (who was not loyal to them) meant that they were outfoxed time after time by their better organized antagonists. Traditionalists today risk suffering the same fate as the conservatives at the council if they refuse to use the modern tools at their disposal.

The second thing I wish to point out is really a question that requires further research: How, in the decades after St. Pius X's campaign against modernism, were so many liberals made bishops? That so many fundamental and radical changes were voted on by the Church's supposed guardians of the Faith is simply amazing. How did such men get into these roles? Certainly, we know that Communists were infiltrating seminaries, but where was the vigilance at the seminary level?

Wilde does a fair job of remaining objective, though it is clear where her sympathies lie. Her treatment of the contraception question seems a bit forced, especially since it was not part of the council, and she considers it a "failure" that the council did not liberalize the Church's position regarding contraception. Moreover, she takes the long-discredited arguments of the population doomsayers at their word, when we have known for at least two decades that the world's population is shrinking, and dangerously so. In this regard, Wilde is in step with many older Catholics whose perspectives are guided by a 1960s-style attitude.

While Wilde writes very well (she even has a sense of humor as expressed in end note 37 of Chapter Two), this is not a perfect book. She never seems quite at home with the conservatives' positions or even with the main personalities. Archbishop Lefebvre is misidentified in the index as Cardinal Lefebvre; Archbishop Lefebvre's personal theologian, Fr. Victor-Alain Berto is identified in the text as "Lord Berto" and identified in the index merely as "Berto (theologian)". Her bibliography skews towards liberal books, and she somehow missed the biography of Archbishop Lefebvre by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais that predates her book by three years and which would have helped her understand the conservatives' positions at the council. Vatican II did not change the liturgy; that was a job left to a committee headed by a scoundrel named Bugnini. Franco did not dictate to Rome which man he wanted as bishop. He submitted a few names and Rome selected from that list. A sentence on page 110 that begins "Two titles" seems incomplete; at any rate it is garbled.

Still, despite its imperfections, this is a must-read book. Catholics who oppose the changes introduced by Vatican II will be appalled at the disgraceful behavior by men who were bullied by Protestants to the point that they yielded on matters fundamental to the Faith. As Wilde notes, this was an attempt to appear legitimate to Protestants and secularists. Wilde also documents the effusive praise heaped on Vatican II by Protestants. Once the Church swallowed the lies of her enemies, especially the State, she turned the keys over to people want to see her destroyed. That is exactly what is going on right now under the Obama regime, and we can thank Vatican II for another one of its never-ending fruits.