14
Sep
A Liberal Revolution: The Implementation of Vatican II in the Archdiocese of Baltimore
By Hanael Bianchi
Os Justi Press (Lincoln NE 2026)
241 Pages
It is amazing that, after sixty years of endless communication, exhortation and advocacy, there is today still very little understanding of what actually happened before, during and after Vatican II (the ”Council”). Have we not been told recently that we still do not understand the Council, that we still do not know how to celebrate the new liturgy correctly? In part, that knowledge gap is attributable to lack of competent historical criticism. In the case of the clerical establishment, the “conservative Catholics,” the progressives, and even, to a great extent, the traditionalists, what passes for history is advocacy: declarations of principle or ideology, in support of which real or alleged facts are marshaled. Prime recent examples of this “Catholic” methodology are the 2022 articles of John Cavadini, Mary Healy, and Thomas Weinandy on the traditional liturgy, in which, for example, the 20th century liturgical movement is equated to the emergence of the mendicant orders in the 13th century.
Now Hanael Bianchi seeks to set the record straight at least for one formerly significant archdiocese in the United States. In this outstanding study, he chronicles the period 1965 to 1975, in which Vatican II took concrete form in the lives of American Roman Catholics. Earlier studies of the impact of the Council on the parish level do exist. For the parishes of Paris, Prof. Luc Perrin published in 1997 Paris à l’heure de Vatican II. We could add some of the New York City parish histories that are referenced in my own series on the Churches of New York. But Bianchi in A Liberal Revolution aims to cover not just the parishes, but the totality of the “Conciliar experience” in the Baltimore archdiocese: from the statements of the archbishop to the agitation among religious orders and clergy to the experience of the laity in the pews. To do this, he utilizes primary sources – contemporary publications and letters, but also more recent disclosures. For example, he has drawn on the findings of the Maryland Attorney General’s Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore (2023). This is doubly important because, as Bianchi notes, some important primary sources remain off limits.
One of the statements in this book I would mildly dispute is that, in the Bianchi’s experience, the surviving “boomers” themselves have no clear recollection of what happened to those days. There are some of us still around who do remember. I am happy to state that the conclusions of this book agree very well with my own recollections!
Now Bianchi has reached a series of exceedingly significant findings.
First, the essence of the Conciliar changes was the adaptation of the Church to liberalism: the emphasis on individual choice and autonomy in all aspects of faith. Liturgically, this took the form of the emphasis on spontaneity and creativity. Collective actions, such as periods of mandated, binding fasting were scrapped in favor of individual choices of penance. The result was what Bianchi calls “the fragmentation of Catholic life” – the loss of a sense of group cohesion and solidarity.
Second, Vatican II was a true revolution. It introduced across the board changes in all aspects of Catholic life: not just the Mass, but all the other sacraments, the dress of the priests and religious, the training of priests, the rules for fasting, the arrangement of altars, the catalogue of saints and holydays – the list is endless. Catholics were now told that the previous regime was not only not immutable, but was at least in part erroneous, even harmful. And that message was conveyed not just verbally but visually: in everything from the reconstruction of the sanctuaries of the churches to the habits of nuns.
Third, this revolution was clerical. it was propelled by the revolutionary fervor of the clergy – especially the younger priests. At all times the power behind the implementation of the Council were the Catholic clergy: their enthusiasm for change and hatred for the prior regime are well described in this book, Bianchi points out that this dynamic actually increased the gap between the clergy and the “benighted” laity. The Conciliar implementation, instead of empowering the laity, in fact disenfranchised them. For they had not been previously initiated into the new worldview – and a great percentage of them lagged behind the revolution. IF young priests were one of the main drivers of the revolution, the older priests – chief among them the archbishop of Baltimore – did little or nothing to restrain them. On the contrary, during this period the force of authority was deployed against those who resisted – or were slow to adopt – the changes.
Fourth, one major consequence of the Conciliar changes was the creation a clerical bureaucracy. All kinds of programs, studies, planning initiatives, conferences and organizations proliferated. Analogous developments took place at the national (the National Conference of Catholic Bishops(NCCB), a predecessor of the USCCB) and Vatican(the Synod of Bishops) levels. The revolution was institutionalized. The preliminary high point of the post-Conciliar bureaucratic blossoming was the 1976 Call to Action conference in Detroit, which, after a “listening process,” recommended that the divorced and remarried be allowed to receive Holy Communion, that women be ordained priests and bishops, married priests, mitigation of restrictions on contraception and abortion etc. Need I point out the similarities – indeed, the near identity – with the process and substance of the current “Synod on Synodality,” both in Germany and at the Vatican? And that one of these demands – communion for the divorced and remarried – has already been realized.
A unique contribution of A Liberal Revolution is its description of the initial “dissent” from the Novus Ordo. This took the form of (a)surveys of the laity which recorded significant dissatisfaction with new regime; and (b) the actions of a minority of priests who sought exceptions to continue the prior form of Mass. But in no way did these stirrings mature – yet – into an organized movement of resistance. Bianchi does, however, record the fascinating fact that in the period 1969 to 1972 several Traditional Masses were temporarily continued or introduced as a consequence of this resistance. Now this temporary concession disappeared rapidly – but I had never heard of a similar response elsewhere in the United States in this period.
Now I do have questions regarding some of the judgments of the author. For example, now and then he seems to imply that the revolution had settled down by 1975. Based on my own recollection, I believe that there is a basis for this conclusion, at least liturgically. By the late 1970s the unending dullness of the Novus Ordo regime and its associated music had replaced the chaos that ruled prior to 1970. And by 1975 some of the most avant-garde leaders among the clergy had departed the Church in one way or another. But the revolutionary spirit remained intact – it was only “bureaucratized” and concentrated in certain sectors of the Church: the religious orders, Catholic academia and media and, more generally, the administrative staffs, both clerical and lay.
Now those seeking to restore tradition have unfortunately tried to ignore the existence of the revolutionary impetus, handed down by the Church bureaucracy. It accounts for the almost fanatical hatred of the Traditional Mass encountered at all levels of the Church. The inability to acknowledge – let alone squarely confront – this component of post-Conciliar Church culture led later to the rebirth of progressive Catholicism as the dominant tendency within the Church. For we have seen under Pope Francis and now, Pope Leo, the return to the positions of the early post-Conciliar years as chronicled in A Liberal Revolution.
For the archdiocese of Baltimore itself, the present-day legacy of the 1965-75 implementation of the Council has been continuous decline in the practice of the faith, massive parish closings, demoralizing sex abuse scandals and bankruptcy. Bianchi is surely right in concluding that the attempt to conform the Church to the surrounding liberal culture was disastrous. That culture would have raised great problems for the Church in any case, but:
It is difficult to imagine a less effective strategy than the way Vatican II was implemented. The pages that follow chronicle a tragedy; but also offer definitive evidence, as well as a lesson, that genuine Church renewal does not come from accommodating the modern liberal world. (p.18)
A Liberal Revolution should be mandatory reading for anyone trying to get a sense of what happened 60 years ago – and of what is being done in the Church today.
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Divine New York: Inside the Historic Churches and Synagogues of Manhattan
Photographs by Michael J. Horowitz; Text by Elizabeth Anne Hartman
Abbeville Press Publishers (New York and London 2022)
304 pages
In 2022 Abbeville Press published Divine New York, a small-scale coffee table book about the churches and synagogues of Manhattan. Similar books have been published in the past, but I think this is the first with recent, professional photographs. One aspect of Divine New York was of special interest to me: this book includes descriptions and photographs of the interiors of 28 Roman Catholic churches. I believe this is the first time such a photographic survey of multiple churches has appeared in print. I will confine my comments to the Roman Catholic churches, all of which I have investigated over the years; I am familiar with many of the other churches (and one synagogue) as well but only as a casual visitor.
The book is most remarkable in that it makes the point visually that the interiors of these houses of worship in Manhattan are worthy of study and of preservation. Now certainly for the Roman Catholic churches this is a major step forward. Because the current thinking of the archdiocese of New York – and of the post-conciliar Church as a whole – sees these houses of worship as having simply the character of a shed or barn in which relious service are provided. When the congregation disappears or a financial need otherwise arises a church building can be abandoned or disposed of. This is very similar to the traditional Protestant (and Jewish) attitudes; it certainly is not the historic Catholic understanding.
A second noteworthy feature of this book is that several of the Roman Catholic churches it describes have since been closed or demolished. I believe Divine New York is the first book to attempt to deal with the massive destruction and abandonment of Manhattan Catholic churches in the last 25 years. Thus, it is a historic record of what has been lost in the very recent past. Now both the foreword and the main text do express regret at these losses. I would have thought, however, that a book seeking to make the case for the value of the Manhattan houses of worship, would have taken a stronger stand on the subject.
The photography is the main attraction of Divine New York. Most pictures are of outstanding quality. For example, I was happy to see excellent photographs of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, As the author of the text states and the work of the photographer demonstrates, this church, although small, was one of the finest Catholic houses of worship on the island of Manhattan. The photographer, Michael L. Horowitz, tells us about the impressive equipment he used to achieve these results; I would like to discuss with him how he was able to obtain the consent of the (Catholic) parishes to take the time needed to carefully set up these shots. And these pictures are often taken from the choir loft, balconies and, in at least one case, from the sanctuary itself.
I do have a couple of mildly critical observations regarding the photography. First, each entry includes a smaller thumbnail picture of the exterior of the church for orientation purposes. These images seem to be taken in large part from third party sources and are often of indifferent quality. Second, certain of the images (like those of the Basilica of Old St. Patrick’s cathedral, p. 57; St. Paul the Apostle, pp. 165-66; “Our Lady of the Scapular,” p.187 ) have a dazzling, brilliant, even garish appearance that you would not see under normal lighting conditions (either artificial or natural). I wonder if this is attributable to the need to use additional studio-style illumination or otherwise compensate for low-light conditions. I do undertand, given the complexities of lighting, how difficult it can be to obtain satisfactory images of interiors.
Elizabeth Anne Hartman’s text is intended to support the photographs. She provides a general review of the history of each church, including some interesting facts about events and individuals associated with it. Sometimes (but not always) she writes about the images that you see in this in this book.
I have questions about the weighting of some of these facts and certain of the author’s aesthetic judgments as well. To take one example, it is certainly interesting that the priest who served as the model for Marlon Brando’s character in On the Waterfront was a member of the Jesuit community at St. Francis Xavier church. To make this the interpretative key for the description of that parish is not very accurate. Then, the author, discussing the interior of St. Francis Xavier, remarks favorably on a “highlight”: a baptismal pool and fountain integrated into the reredos in the middle of the apse. But someone versed in art should have noticed that this unique arrangement is utterly non-traditional and contradicts the entire sense and direction of the rest of the church – centered as it is on the altar. (p. 83)
I was also surprised at the attitude the author adopts in regard to the church closings described in this book. She certainly bemoans these losses, but seems rather gullible regarding the necessity for these actions. She uncritically restates the facts and reasoning asserted by the archdiocese for parish closings and consolidations – which she calls euphemistically a “reorganization” – and does not mention at all the contrary views of parishioners and neighborhood residents.
These are questions of judgment. There are regrettably also more than a few factual errors throughout this book. Some admittedly involve arcane topics. For example, the author writes that after Pope Pius X’s edicts in 1903 “it wasn’t until 1968 when a woman sang in (St. Patrick’s) cathedral again.” (p. 147) But in fact, what happened around 1968 was that women rejoined St. Patrick’s choir. Prior to that, women had sung in St. Patrick’s in other capacities, for example, when a noted Brooklyn choir performed in an oratorio there in 1932. Then, the author describes the baptistry of St. Paul the Apostle, illustrated in the book, as a work of John Lafarge. (p. 167). The actual designer was the firm of Heins & Lafarge (Christopher Grant LaFarge, a partner in the firm, was the eldest son of John Lafarge). Moreover, the baptistry shown in this book is not the original. After Vatican II, that baptistry was broken apart and the components later reassembled into the “post-conciliar” concoction seen in the photograph.
Other errors are less understandable. For example, the church of the Holy Innocents, to the best of my knowledge, has never been known as the “actor’s church,” that sobriquet (the “actors’ chapel”)has always been reserved in New York for St. Malachy’s on West 49th Street. (p. 102) There is no “tombstone” of Elizabeth Ann Seton in old St Patrick’s cathedral basilica (she is buried in Maryland) (p. 60). The large mosaic in the apse of St. Francis of Assisi was installed in 1925, and not “commissioned after World War II.” (p. 98 ) I don’t recall that any works of Brumidi were moved from the closed church of St. Stephen of Hungary to Our Saviour‘s church (p. 254); the works of Brumidi on display there now are the stations of the cross taken from St. Stephen’s church (East 28th Street). Worst of all, the description of St Stephen’s, once one of the grandest and most historic Catholic churches on the island of Manhattan, is completely mixed up. The book has photos of St Stephen’s church, yet the title and text of this entry describe the church of Our Lady of the Scapular and its history. Now the Carmelite parish of Our Lady of the Scapular was merged into St. Stephen’s parish between 1988 and 1991. The old church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was sold in 1995 and subsequently demolished; St. Stephen’s was the surviving building. The combined parish was called, at least officially, Our Lady of the Scapular – St. Stephen’s. The Carmelites administered the parish until they left (or were removed) in 2007. St. Stephen’s parish then reverted to direct archdiocesan management and was in turn closed in 2015. Neither church was closed in 2007, as is stated in this book.
In conclusion, Divine New York includes fine photographs of some of the most beautiful interiors of Catholic churches on the island of Manhattan.(sticking to my “sectarian” focus!) Several of these descriptions are now of historical interest because the churches in question have since been destroyed. I do advise a degree of caution on using this book as a source for the history and art of the churches it covers. But it is acceptable if the reader treats the text as a very general introduction to enable him to understand the situation in history and in the city of each church covered.
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Regina Pacis Academy’s opening Mass of the academic year will be in honor of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on September 8 at 9:00 am. at St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk, CT. Everyone is welcome to attend.
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At St. Josaphat Oratory in Bayside, Queens:
| Praised be Jesus Christ! On Friday, Sept. 11th: we pray for the victims of 9/11; we offer reparation for this horrendous mass murder, which wounded so deeply the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the maternal Heart of Mary. Schedule: 7am & 7pm: Holy Mass with sermon 6pm: Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration & holy Rosary – Remember the numbers… 2,977 were killed that day; 9,677 more have since died from illness caused by the toxic dust at Ground Zero. – RIP |
St. Patrick’s Oratory in Waterbury, CT will offer a Requiem Mass for the souls who died on 9/11/2001.
St. Margaret of Cortona in Riverdale, the Bronx:
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