ROMAN CATHOLICISM FOLLOWING THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

Roman Catholicism following the second Vatican Council The Roman Catholic Church has been experiencing a renewal that reached its official peak in the second Vatican Council. Renewal has brought benefits, but it has also brought internal disturbances greater than any the church has known since the Protestant Reformation. There has been a clear polarization between liberal and conservative wings of the type that tends to leave no room for moderates. Although such disunity poses a real threat of schism, there have been no group departures except in a few instances. The number of individual departures, however, has been large enough to cause concern. The exact number is unknown, because discontented Catholics in modern times leave quietly. The Roman Catholic Church has officially abandoned its one true church position. It has entered into ecumenical conversations with the Protestant churches that could lead to Christian union; the Catholic Church has expressed a readiness to make doctrinal and disciplinary concessions, but how far these may go is not yet clear. The church has even made gestures of friendliness to Islam and Judaism and does not speak of the great Oriental religions as simple paganism. The openness of the Catholic Church toward social movements has been mentioned; this has taken a surprising form in some unexpected places such as Spain and Latin America. The edge of Catholic opposition to Marxism was for a time taken off, and the Roman see engaged in unobtrusive diplomatic conversations with some Communist governments. A period of increased involvement in international affairs was seen under the leadership of Pope John Paul II in the 1980s. Problems, however, are more in evidence than progress. The long, latent conflict between hierarchy and lower clergy has become open. Priests are resistant to the traditional total obedience in style of life and ministry. This conflict has come to a focus on the issue of clerical celibacy; although there are no sure statistics, it is a reasonable assumption that at least half of the Catholic clergy wish celibacy to become an option. The discontent with life and ministry has led to a large number of losses in the priesthood and in religious communities, some of which face the possibility of extinction. Much of this discontent revolves around ministry as much as around a way of life; many religious workers feel that the conventional ministries are not reaching enough people and are not touching their most urgent needs. The desire to work in the world, while hardly alien to the New Testament ministry, is not adaptable to traditional clerical and religious rules. What might appear to be a minor point in some places has become major; priests and religious (women religious in particular, who have had more of a problem) no longer wish to wear the identifying garb; they believe that it immediately becomes an obstacle to personal relations. Actually, there is a widespread but not explicit, perhaps not even recognized, rejection of the traditional use of authority and obedience in Roman Catholic clergy and religious communities. Roman Catholic liturgy has been profoundly changed. The results have not been altogether satisfactory, but some observers say that the effects of the new liturgy cannot be assessed until a new generation has grown up that knows no other liturgy. On this point minor local schisms have occurred, led by reactionary Catholics wishing to return to the traditional liturgy in Latin. Others find the new liturgy stodgy; but the degree to which liturgy ought to be exciting has never been established. The place of the laity, like that of the clergy, in church decisions remains uncertain. Bishops, clergy, and laity generally are timid in undertaking a modification in church government for which nothing in their previous church experience has prepared them. They seem hesitant to draw on their experience in government and business, where shared responsibility is the rule rather than the exception. Many Catholics find it difficult to examine the role of their hierarchical officers without also questioning their credibility. Yet the direction of the movements where the problems lie is toward greater responsibility of each member of the Catholic Churchhierarchy, clergy, and laity, each in its own way. The Rev. John L. McKenzie