Conversation without Conversion

[didishroom]

You've hit the nail on the head. After the chaos succeeding Vatican II broke out, most Catholics were schocked and sacandalized. Fr. Feeney and his Order were not. They had been battling it for years and suffered ostracization, censureship, firing from their jobs and physical persecution. Vatican II was not the cause, but the result.

Fr. Feeney was criticising false ecumenism when it was just "inter-faith." He described it as an event where a rabbi, who denies Christ, and a minister who doubts His Divinity meet with a priest who pretends to forget about it for an afternoon. Many of Fr.'s students were reporting complete and outspoken denial of EENS by professors in the Jesuit Universities while Jesuit priest students sat and said nothing. Again there was no discussion of BOD, just EENS. Because of this Fr. who was still very much a celebrity, refused to allow fellow Jesuits help out at St. Benedict Center which started the first bit of friction between Fr. and his Order. The Bishop had many Jewish and Protestant benefactors and silenced Fr. when they began complaining about him teaching EENS. Many of Fr.'s strudents were converts and the children of wealthy American families, like the Kennedys and the Morgans(yes as in J.P. Morgan-his nephew Temple converted and was a student of Fr. Feeney and died just this year as a monk). Bobby Kennedy even confronted Fr. Feeney on this matter and was so disrespectful, Fr. threw him out.

If you have time, read After the Boston Heresy Case by Gary Potter. It is not a discussion on doctrine or theology at all. It is a history of Fr. Feeney and his Order and is a fascinating read. I couldn't put it down. It also traced the beginnigs of heresy in this country from its very conception and how this was relevant in 1940s America. Seriously, give the book a try. It is one of the most amazing accounts of the problems of American Catholicism.

[veritatem_dilexisti]

Having read issues of Fr Feeney's periodical The Point, I have to concur with Didi: he was lucid, and saw '50s Catholicism for what it was.

[veritatem_dilexisti]

Fr. Feeney was criticising false ecumenism when it was just "inter-faith." He described it as an event where a rabbi, who denies Christ, and a minister who doubts His Divinity meet with a priest who pretends to forget about it for an afternoon.

Case in … Point, July of 1952:

The past few weeks were great ones for the Interfaithers. From everywhere came reports of Catholic willingness to compromise the Faith for the sake of some common interest with heretics and Jews.

In the mid-west, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference decided that Interfaith was being neglected down on the farm. The decision resulted in a union of the NCRLC with the non-Catholic Rural Life Association. From now on, the two groups will have one name (The National Committee on Religion and Rural Life) and one head — this year a Protestant, next year a Catholic.

This inter-creedal agriculturalism should produce some interesting religious hybrids. In such an arrangement, the opportunities for a new Luther Burbank are exceeded only by those for a new Martin (Luther).

*  *  *  *  * 

In The Catholic World last month the Paulists gave Interfaith a boost by printing an article which described an unbaptized Jewish girl’s “true mystic union with the God she so genuinely loved.” With all sympathy and respect, The Catholic World explained how Simone Weil, a Jewish mystic, could fulfill God’s Holy Will by spurning baptism and stoutly refusing to join the Church. The article does not explain just how Simone Weil got into Heaven without baptism, but the clear impression is that she did.

When speaking infallibly, the Catholic Church tells Catholic mothers that their children who die without baptism can never go to Heaven.

When speaking interfaithfully, The Catholic World tells Jewish mothers that their unbaptized children can.

*  *  *  *  * 

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bishop Francis J. Haas was chosen to receive the B’nai B’rith Interfaith award. While thanking the Jewish assembly for liking him regardless of his creed, Bishop Haas got off some choice Interfaithery.

Speaking on the great dangers facing our United States culture, the Bishop, like a true orator, touched upon those concerns which were nearest the Hebrew hearts of his listeners — “the high cost of living, prices, wages, rents ... the entire economy.” Then, as any gentile must, when addressing a Jewish audience, Bishop Haas launched into an attack against “discrimination.”

His Excellency had the usual condemnations for those who “look down upon others.” Notably missing from Bishop Haas’ talk was any reference to the Divine Person Who, two thousand years ago, looked down upon B’nai B’rith’s ancestors, a howling Jerusalem mob who accepted the consequences of murdering God when they shouted, “His blood be upon us and upon our children.”

*  *  *  *  * 

In Boston, Interfaith went collegiate when the Jesuit priest who heads Boston College paid a visit to Temple Israel Meeting House and stayed long enough to give the baccalaureate address for a Protestant girls’ school.

*  *  *  *  *

In contrast, at the Eucharistic Congress in Barcelona, Generalissimo Franco reaffirmed the policy that has made him an ogre to American Protestants and an embarrassment to American Catholics: “We are not a bellicose people, but if the hour of need should come, Spain, without any doubt, would once again be in the vanguard of those in the service of God. With the humility fitting in a good Christian, I proclaim the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Faith of the Spanish nation and its love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and for Pope Pius XII. By loving God, Spaniards love peace, and they unite their prayers for peace to those of the Holy Father and of Catholics everywhere at this time. The history of our nation is inseparably linked with the history of the Catholic Church. Its glories are our glories, its enemies are our enemies.”

[Vincentius]

It is interesting to note that, in 1948, the lukewarm Catholic was conceived of as attending daily Mass and saying Prime and Compline every day, and was expected to "justify" the Church's history rather than to lambast it.

I don't mean to sound cynical, but do you have any documentation for this, especially regarding the daily praying of the Divine Office?

If anything, it's been my understanding that traditional Catholics are equally or even more ignorant of the Office than your average Latin Rite Christian. I say this just comparing attendance at Lauds between NO and traditional parishes in my area, and personal conversations. Of course there are problems thinking that traditional Catholics today are of the same mentality, education, etc of Christians from 50 or 60 years ago, but that's another thread...

Not so.  The Catholic men that I remember when I was still a small boy and from stories my father (RIP) told me, religion was for the women.  I quite remember Mass when the men walked outside the Church to smoke or talk the moment the priest went up the pulpit for the sermon and came back in when the sermon was over.  There were some men who were quite devout but I don't remember my father praying the Divine Office and he was the most religious of anyone I ever knew.  He did instill in us the Catholic faith and for that I am thankful I am sill a Catholic.

Then I remember when the "Cursillo" hit our town and all of sudden the men became charismatic.  But that is a far cry from being a fervent devoted Catholic.

[didishroom]

Yes, I know a very elderly man and his daughter said how he would get up in the middle of the night to say his prayers. He was always very devout but men in his day thought religion was girly so he got used to saying his prayers privately, for fear of ridicule though he grew up in a Catholic household.

[Benno]

Why is this thread (or the quoted piece) controversial at all? Of course there were things like that written at that time. The criticism was true then and its true now. So what?