Confusing formality with formalism: formality conforms the individual to the larger reality of the Church worshipping in Heaven

The Sixties Are Still Here

By Bevil Bramwell, OMI 

Lent is a good time to see where our pet behaviors come from. 

In the Western Church, many people’s thoughts and behaviors are substantially shaped, even now, by what happened years ago in the Sixties. They follow ways of thinking that originated then, waste their time reacting to them, or they ignore them hoping they will go away.

As at other disruptive times in history, basic ideas and ways of behaving were driven so deeply into people’s psyches that those of us who were not affected by the 1960s keep tripping over the debris, even today. It’s not just that many present-day Catholics grew up then, but some pass on what they learned then as if it is the new gospel. For me, life sometimes seems a constant search to comprehend clergy and laity who are pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-homosexual marriage, you-name-it and who still regard themselves as “Catholic.” I found a lot of light in the late Tony Judt’s sketch Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. He wrote about Europe but much in U.S. society is derivative from what happens in Europe.

First, there was the exaggeration of the import of youthfulness. According to Judt: “At the very least, it seemed to many young people as though they had been born into a society reluctantly transforming itself. . .before their very eyes and at their behest.” There lies the rub. The Sixties young believed that they originated the meaning and the symbols of life. In their minds, at least collectively, they were separated from previous generations. So in brief – no tradition and no Church, even as Vatican II recognized it.

In addition: “The youthful impulse of the Sixties was not about understanding the world.” Yikes! Understanding would get in the way of our self-involvement! For Judt, the purpose instead was “to change it.” (a la Marx).

Two things followed: 

• the first was the change-for-change-sake approach to Church teaching and practice. 
• The other was a strange link to political agendas. 

In Europe, until the Eighties, the Church dominated some political parties. Then, with secularism, the parties themselves became dominant, and members twisted Church teaching to fit partisan positions. Sound familiar?

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