found in the Decrees this or that rash assertion, theynanswered, as a rule, that they could not cite it verbatim, butnthat it “expressed the spirit of Vatican II.” (The same tricknhas often been played with the “spirit of the Bible.”)nThe two terms that helped in spreading the GreatnConfusion globally and locally were “The Opening to thenWorld” and “Aggiornamento.” In Italian the latter has twonentirely different meanings: to bring up to date or to defer,nto adjourn. Of course, modes of action always have to benbrought up to date in keeping with developments. Thus antransatlantic airliner with propellers is not up-to-date. Anjetliner is. And, obviously, one has to talk to people in thenlanguage with the vocabulary of the day. Yet God’s Revelationnexpresses eternal verities, and their content cannot benchanged. Sometimes they have to be rephrased to be betternunderstood (without corrupting the meaning). As for “ThenOpening to the World,” the New Testament speaks aboutnthe kosmos or the aion, the latter having again a doublenmeaning: world and time. And the Scriptures are filled withnwarnings against the aion since the Ghurch, after all, is in,nbut not of the world. “Do not fall into the same scheme asnthe aion [i.e., the world and the spirit of the times],” we cannread in Romans 12:2. “The World will hate you,” Christnwarned his disciples (John 17: 14-16).nNow, it is quite possible and not unimaginable that thenChurch might become so evil, so degenerate, that the worldnand the spirit of the times might teach her a lesson. Thisncould have applied in the 10th century, but surely not innthe 20th, the most idiotic and savage of all. “We also readnMarx and have profited from it,” a Papal delegate sent bynPaul VI declared solemnly in Cuba, of all places. But onenwonders what it was that His Excellency learned from Marx:nAnti-Jewish racism? Bad economics? Class hatred? Misogyny?nUtter contempt for the working class? “Opening to thenWorld”—not a bad idea, but should the teachings, theninsights, the experiences, the customs of the World (wenknow, after all, who its Prince is!) go into the Church—andnnot the other way around? The answer given by annimportant, though not large, sector of the Catholic Churchnin America to this question is the wrong one. And that thisncould happen in our age could, in a way, have beennforeseen a third of a century ago.nFirst, there was, as in the Netherlands, the danger thatnthe letter might kill the spirit. Unlike the Church innEurope, the Ghurch in America defined its laws of conductnrigorously and insisted that they be severely kept. All toonoften these bylaws were stressed rather than the naturalnvirtues. I vividly remember a sermon in which a priestnseriously debated whether dislodging and swallowing a tinynpiece of meat while brushing one’s teeth on Friday morningnconstituted a violation of the Friday abstinence. And couldnone then have the temerity to receive Holy Communion?nIn my younger years I used to work until 1:00 or 2:00 in thenmorning, and before retiring, in order to sleep well, I drankna glass of water. The following day, if it was a Sunday, Inwent to Holy Communion. I told this to an Americannmonsignor who nearly fainted: midnight was the limit andnonly a few minutes could perhaps be added for the exactnastronomical time. If, however, I lived in Indiana on thenborders of Illinois, I could rush over to Illinois (on GST),neat quickly a two-inch Porterhouse steak before 1:00 A.M.n(EST), and receive Holy Communion with a good consciencenin Indiana. This Talmudic decision reminded me ofnpious Jews who, on a Sabbath, could only travel “OnnWater” and therefore sat on a bottle of water during a trainnjourney. This I saw in the good old days in Poland. Thenexhortation of Jesus that the Sabbath is made for man andnnot man for the Sabbath had no significance for them.nCertain American Catholics fit in a similar category.nThe pre-Conciliar American Church did not strike me asnparticularly spiritual. When I once asked the priestlynlibrarian of a Catholic college for The Dark Night of St.nJohn of the Cross, he seemed a bit lost. “Of the Gross?”n”Yes, the friend and confessor of Saint Teresa of Avila, thengreat mystic.” “Certainly not! Mysticism? We don’t go innfor that! Here we educate healthy American boys!” (Therefore,nlet us not be surprised that the “Exhibit A” had not yetnproduced a canonized native-born American Saint.)nAmerican Catholics were overly keen to prove tonall and sundry that they were “not different fromnthe rest”: hence also their enthusiasm in droppingna language as outlandish as Latin in their ritual,ntheir joy in shedding countless characteristics whichnin one way or another distinguished them from thenrest of their fellow citizens.nAnd yet, under this crust of literalism, often mixed withnreal magic superstition, there burned an unholy, desperatenlonging to be accepted by the big, wide, progressive,nwaspish, intellectual, “liberal,” enlightened world. Therenwas, no doubt, a sociological aspect to this nostalgia, but itncertainly does not explain the entire story of the crisis. Then”sociological” element has European roots and also has tondo with the immigration, the late arrival of Catholics in thenUnited States—if we except Maryland and the Southwest.nThe settiement of the Pilgrim Fathers was dramatic and hadna heroic flavor. When the Irish came during the potatonfamine, they arrived, as eyewitnesses told us, in rags,ncovered with sores, tortured by vermin, swinging thenshillelagh. The only fully literate among them were thenpriests. Their rise was difficult and steeply uphill, and theirnChurch was highly clerical.nClericalism characterizes all decapitated societies innwhich the clergy has to assume the role of both the First andnthe Second Estate—not only in Ireland, but also innSlovenia and Slovakia. (Needless to say, clericalism nevernexisted in Spain, Italy, Belgium, Poland, or Bavaria.) Thisnalso explains why the Catholic Church of America unavoidablynhad an Irish, not an Italian or Polish, leadership.n(With great efforts the Germans managed to take secondnplace in the hierarchy.) This also accounts for the fact thatnthe Catholic Ghurch in America had an aristophobicncharacter, politically to the left of center: there was thenresentment of the Irish farmer, the Irish worker against thenAnglo-Irish “Protestant” upper crust who had exploited andnrepressed him. No wonder that the Catholics (the Irish and,nlater. South and East European immigrants forming thenworking class) voted “Democratic” and why purendemocracy—an alien, un-American, French importation,nfeared and loathed by the Founding Fathers—was methodi-nnnJULY 1986 /17n