September 2021

Andrew Willard Jones, The Two Cities, Vatican II

Why Catholics Stopped Going to Mass after Vatican II: Setting the Record Straight

In 1960 the Church was paradoxically both aware that Western civilization was, by and large, no longer Christian and optimistic about the “natural law” tendencies within liberal democracy. Many within the Church knew that the world had to be evangelized; they understood the emptiness that haunted a great deal of popular piety. Many Christians could feel intuitively that something was deeply wrong in the Church, that many of the faithful were “going through the motions,” that somewhere along the line, the passion, drama, and excitement of a life truly in and through Christ had been lost. And yet, this pessimism was offset by an optimistic appraisal of the moral qualities of the liberal West.

Why Catholics Stopped Going to Mass after Vatican II: Setting the Record Straight Read More »