On October 12th, the New York Times published Ross Douthat’s NYT column stating that Vatican II was necessary, was a failure (in that it did not achieve its stated goals), and cannot be undone. David Gibson, Director of Fordham’s Center on Religion & Culture, responded to Douthat on Twitter. With his permission, we reproduce his string of tweets.
Douthat’s argument is that the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) “failed” and its reforms and renewal led instead a swift and widespread decline. That is actually belied by both the numbers and distribution…2/21
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) October 13, 2022
This explosive Catholic growth in the global South can be attributed in large part to the reforms of V2 and the promotion of inculturation and vernacular liturgies and Popes who saw themselves as successors to the evangelizing St Paul as much as to the kingly St Peter. 4/21
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) October 13, 2022
…the American Catholic population and observance has been surprisingly resilient. While it’s hard to prove a negative it is likely that the reforms that followed Vatican II enlivened the church in the US considerably and continue to bear fruit. 6/21
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) October 13, 2022
Pope John Paul II and Ratzinger/Benedict XVI created a special rite for Latin Lovers as a privileged safe space. B16 also created an Anglican Rite out of whole cloth to appease and attract conservatives. No other Pope or Council would have done this. 8/21
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) October 13, 2022
Another error in Douthat’s claims is that declines in US Catholic practice and adherence are due to Vatican 2’s reforms. This “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy is a constant of conservative arguments. Causation and correlation are always more complicated that… 10/21
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) October 13, 2022
Another error in Douthat’s claims is that declines in US Catholic practice and adherence are due to Vatican 2’s reforms. This “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy is a constant of conservative arguments. Causation and correlation are always more complicated that… 10/21
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) October 13, 2022
…and the first German pope oversaw a further hollowing out of German Catholicism when his traditionalist approach was supposed to save it. A sense of history is central to being Catholic, and something Douthat does not seem to possess…14/21
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) October 13, 2022
In terms of this latest effort of RD’s, one thing he would learn is that by his lights every Council could be reckoned a failure: the Council of Trent beloved by Trads was followed by the devastating Wars of Religion, and the Enlightenment and the French Revolution …16/21
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) October 13, 2022
More to the point, every church council has been followed by disputes and even schisms; it takes decades or centuries to internalize a council’s ideas and these tensions are endemic to church history. Crisis is central to tradition and the church’s ongoing conversion…18/21
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) October 13, 2022
Last point: Conservatives like Douthat always seem to betray an anxiousness to achieve a final version of Catholicism, one that mirrors their own priors and which they can then use to measure everyone else. But that’s not how it works and that’s not because of V2 …20/21
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) October 13, 2022
At some point a Catholic has to believe that a Council (or synod) is at some level a work of the Spirit and not simply a partisan campaign pitting one agenda against another. That is literally un-Catholic and leads only to cynicism, and bad takes. FIN
— David Gibson (@GibsonWrites) October 13, 2022
Bravo, David Gibson!
David Gibson makes a lot of good points. But a few things should be pointed out. While he rightly criticizes Douthat in the 10th tweet about his “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy, but only does so after engaging in the same fallacy himself a few tweets earlier (4th and 6th tweets).
In regard to synods, history is full of synods that have been condemned, so to say those gatherings are always a work of the Spirit is a stretch to put it charitably. Perhaps blasphemy if you attribute the Holy Spirit to the Cadaver Synod.
As for the Holy Spirit protecting an ecumenical council, probably the only guarantee is that outright error is avoided in the proclamations, not that the ecumenical council is guaranteed to bear an abundance of fruit.
This is not to criticize V2, the Church after 2150 can begin to discern its successes and failings.
And one of the contenders for most failed council would be the Council of Ferrara-Florence.
Though its precursor sessions in Basel were a seminal event in the history of Western scholarship in terms of the international-level gathering of scholars and what might be called “Creatives” these days, including Greeks. Didn’t do much good for the Church(es) as such, but . . .
Who is David Gibson?
“David Gibson, Director of Fordham’s Center on Religion & Culture, . . . “
Thanks–I guess that I should have read the intro, my bad…but when I had initially googled him he didn’t come up in a list of David Gibsons. The only “religious” DG was a Protestant minister in Aberdeen, and him responding to the column didn’t make sense.
Guillaume Cuchet has something to contribute to the discussion for France, at any rate. Here is an English-language review of his work:
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/09/13/anatomist-of-the-catholic-collapse-in-france-and-beyond/
As for Africa, it would be pertinent to track the number of conversions to Catholicism in Africa (as opposed to baptisms of those born into a Catholic family), 1900-2020. This may relativize the difference the Council made.
The discussion ought not to leave out Latin America, either.
Cuchet’s facile attempt to nail down an actual date (1965) for a dramatic drop and thus lay the blame on Vatican II is easily refuted. Bullivant and others have demonstrated that the decline had already begun in the 1940s and 50s. Rote memorization of the catechism, etc, had left Catholics ill-equipped to deal with questions arising in the surrounding culture in the period after WWII — an important factor. Social mobility and the rise in car ownership is another.
However, if one wanted to lay the blame for a decline anywhere, the principal culprit would undoubtedly be television, which has broadened people’s experience, showed them other ways of thinking, and brought about significant changes to the culture in which we live. Television is still changing our culture today, and evolution of the internet has accelerated that change.
To which I would add a general change of sexual mores in the West which has made that church an awkward place to be unless you are in a standard family of non-divorced Mum married to non-divorced Dad with two point something children. “All are welcome?” Don’t think so.
Has anyone examined the impact of Humanae Vitae on church attendance?
The Catholic Church still has no clue how to engage with single people who are not self-identified as on the track to marriage or clerical/consecrated life.
Much more than sexual mores, the more general issue is a church whose membership has largely been ruddered by women being the most active members in the trenches, as it were, but excluded per se from the officer class (in the USA, we don’t have the historical experience of sovereign territorial abbesses), and that women have increasingly decided to either opt out entirely or to provide non-violent non-cooperation with their continued marginalization in that regard. Because they can.