The sex scandals rocking the Church across the developed world are a tragic sign that the Catholic Church was badly in need of reform.
The spiritual chaos, uncertainty and disastrous experimentation that was unleashed by Vatican II happened partly because the Church in Europe had waited far too long to acknowledge and try to counter the deep incursion of the tenets of the modern world into the consciousness of many of their clergy and Religious.
Very much connected with this, but on a lighter note, was the picture in The Record last week of the priest celebrating the “Clown Mass”.
It caused riotous laughter and “what the?” in my household last week. It led on to quite a discussion about the recent history of the Church. Beginning with the question “What was Vatican eleven, mum?” from my 12 year old.
It made me realise a few things.
Firstly, that what has been so consistently painful and remains so to many practising Catholics of my age and older, is in fact nothing but old and unknown history to our children.
And secondly, that our Liturgy has come a long way from the travesty of Clown Masses.
My children, fortunately, were born late enough to be spared the worst of the excesses that followed Vatican II.
In my adult years I have been blessed to see many liturgical excesses halted, or at least curbed.
A persistent, quiet reform has been taking place in the churches we attend over many years. There has been a return to a more dignified rubric and to more focused and orthodox preaching of Catholic teachings.
The Rosary and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament have come back into parishes. Our Lady is honoured again. A new Missal is shortly to be released.
It is certainly not the Catholic Church of the 1950s. But neither should it be. You can’t go back, no matter how much you might like to (I don’t, by the way).
A lot of the emphasis on doing for doing’s sake has been shaken out.
We have been reminded that the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath, so to speak. Out of the chaos many sane and sober reforms have occurred that constructively help Catholics remain faithful. It is an ongoing process, sure, but it is happening.
One of the greatest benefits of this last 40 years is that we have had to develop a deeper understanding of our faith in order to cling on to it. We have had to ensure we know what is important and what is peripheral, in line with Church teachings.
So much upheaval has made each of us look critically at why we are Catholics. What do we believe? Why do we still go to Mass? Is it for beauty of the ceremonial or the singing? Is it for a happy clappy good community time? Because it is what we have always done?
What is it that keeps us going day after day, returning to that church? It has drawn us to ponder on the central mysteries of our faith.
It is a test of how much we value and love Him who has stayed in the Tabernacle in our Catholic churches no matter what was going on around Him in the name of modernisation.
He stays there, challenging us to stay there with him and keep believing He is with His Church, and that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.
Good thoughts to take into Holy Week.