How Clericalism Can Kill the Faith

How was the Faith destroyed in the Southern Netherlands, Quebec, and Ireland so rapidly after the Council? Mr Coulombe examines the question.

From Catholicism.org

By Charles Coulombe, STM, KCSS

One of the great post Vatican II mysteries was how three heavily Catholic areas — the Southern Netherlands, Quebec, and Ireland — could lose the Faith so quickly and completely in the wake of Vatican II. These three regions did not simply boast Catholic majorities and Catholic cultures and histories — they actually had political parties, and in Ireland’s case, a constitution — that sought or recognized a predominant place for the Church in their public life. Centuries of military and/or political struggle against non-Catholic neighbours had produced this result. Yet, within a few decades all three collapsed in to the foetid dens of secularism they are today. Why was this?

Erich von Kuehnelt-Leddihn was of the opinion that a great deal of the problem was the fact in all three countries, the native Catholic lay aristocracies had been defeated and to a great extent replaced by non-Catholics. The Netherlands of course broke with Spain in the Eighty Years War, ending in 1648. While the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church was the State Church from then on, what are now North Brabant and Limburg provinces remained primarily Catholic, with larger or smaller Catholic minorities scattered elsewhere through the country. Those members of the Dutch nobility who kept the Faith were — as in England — instrumental in maintaining it in their respective local areas. The Dutch Republic — the United Provinces — were overthrown by the French Revolution, and reborn as the “Batavian Republic”; under Napoleon, this became the “Kingdom of Holland” whose King was his brother, Louis. Unhappy at Louis’ independence, Napoleon annexed the country to France outright. Equality was eatblished between the two faiths. But at the Congress of Vienna, the former Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium and Luxembourg) were merged with the Netherlands as the Kingdom of the United Netherlands. Despite the legal equality of the two faiths, the south felt discriminated against. The result was the revolution of 1830, which ended with an independent Belgian Kingdom.

In the 19th century, however, there was no question of either the piety of the country’s Catholics, or their loyalty to the Dutch Crown. But the nobility among them were faced with the same problems that plagued their non-Catholic fellow noblemen — loss of revenue from agricultural interests and a corresponding loss of political clout. At the same time the Dutch party system began to develop: the Liberals, at first friendly to Catholics as allies against the established church, but then opposed to Catholic principles; the Anti-Revolutionaries, conservative Protestants at first opposed to Catholics as enemies of their faith, but then friendlier — seeing in them allies and fellow believers. The Catholics, in the meantime, tended to be less well-educated than the Protestants. In the years 1860-1870, Dutch Catholics were the largest contingent among the Papal Zouaves.

The clergy were by far the most educated among the Dutch Catholics. Very Ultramontane, when in 1904 the General Association of Roman Catholic Electoral Associations was founded, it was the principles of the leading Dutch Catholic politician, Fr. Hermann Schaepman, that were followed. Its first leader was another priest, Fr. Willem Nolens. This latter priest would lead the political group through its transformation into the Roman Catholic State Party in 1926, and would continue as party chairman until his death in 1931.

Clerical influence over Catholic public life continued with the new Catholic People’s Party after the Second World War. But the whole edifice collapsed after Vatican II. The Dutch bishops entrusted implementation of the Conciliar decrees in the Netherlands to a body of priests and theologians — the Pastoral Institute of the Dutch Church Province. This group in turn created in 1966 the Pastoral Council, which would sit for four years, issue the infamous Dutch Catechism, and witness the drop-off of Mass attendance by 50%. Thanks directly to its work, the Netherlands is now one of the most secular countries in Europe. The devotions, processions, and pilgrimages that had been such a big part of Dutch Catholic life almost entirely vanished overnight.

Something similar would happen in Quebec. The Seigneurs, who had been the noble encouragers of settlement of the colony of New France, had also been patrons of the Church. Each had his own pew in his parish church, of which he was the major support. But in 1854 it was decided to abolish the Seigneuries, with a gradual government buy-out of them and resale to the tenants. While they continued to have a local influence, it gradually lessened over the following decades.

As their influence waned, that of the priests grew — not least, because, with the exceptions of doctors, lawyers, and such other trained professionals, whose training was perforce secular, they were the most educated people in the Province of Quebec. The Bishops became very much the protectors of the French Canadian people in their conflicts with the Crown. In the early 20th century, the noted historian, Msgr. Lionel Groulx, became the leading ideologist of the French Canadians. This did lead him into conflict with Maurice Duplessis, who, while just as Catholic, was more pragmatic and so more effective in dealing with the Canadian government.

Duplessis died in 1959, and Msgr. Groulx and a great many other commentators were pleased at his departure from the scene. But in the wake of Vatican II, the formerly Ultramontane clergy of Quebec reversed themselves and embraced the secularism of Quebec’s “Revolution Tranquille.” Groulx’s coment on the event was very revealing: “What are we to think of our ‘mute’ episcopate — I am not the only one to say so — rather poor in great personalities, moreover in sad loss of influence, which decides to speak, very well indeed, on the occasion of the centenary of the Confederation, but which has been unable to agree, to all appearances, to effectively defend the confessional nature of schools, to curb the moral debacle, and which, without protest, has allowed its seminaries or colleges, the only centers of recruitment of the clergy, to be taken? (…) We are descending little by little, but irrevocably towards intellectual mediocrity. In this field of the spirit, we will no longer walk on equal terms with the laity. Will we redeem ourselves by moral superiority? Will there be more saints among us? I would like to hope so.”

Ireland too had lost her native nobility for the most part as a result of the wars from 1642 to 1691. Although the nobility of Catholic Europe came to include a great many Irish families in their ranks, few survived into the 18th century in Ireland itself. As in the Netherlands and Quebec, the priesthood came to direct everyday life — and the relationship with the non-Catholic rulership — in a way that mimicked the role of the aristocracy. Certainly, after independence in 1922 and up until Vatican II, no Irish government could survive without the tacit support of the Irish Church.

As with most places, Vatican II ushered in a period of severe self-doubt. As a result, the Marxism of the intellectual classes in Ireland received little or no opposition from the clergy during that era. As in the Netherlands and Quebec, that ultimately meant little opposition to infanticide, with disastrous results — Ireland is one of the few countries whose actual population voted it in, rather than having it imposed upon them by parliamentary or judicial masters.

For all three countries, this pattern ensured a lack of real counterrevolutionary lay leaders. The priests tended to accept whatever changes the new politicians insisted upon. After all, they themselves were trying the same in the Church. In all three countries the clergy welcomed the liturgical changes which so agitated the faithful, and drove so many away from Mass.

Although the results were disastrous, it must be remembered that they were not planned. For historical reasons, the clergy were forced to assume a secular leadership role for which they were ill suited. Many — not just in the three countries but through the Catholic world — were forced essentially to create a Catholic atmosphere with few if any tools, other than their own educations. So long as the clerical ethos remained untouched, they could maintain an appearance of normality. But when, in the aftermath of Vatican II, the confidence of the clerical class was so damaged, this modus vivendi snapped.

In reaction to the perhaps over fixated Catholic politics of the interwar period, the Church offered a sort of Manichaean solution after the Council. Gone was the request for the Catholic Confessional State. Instead, Catholics were to try to do their best to “build a just society with other people of good will of all faiths or none.” The ineffectiveness of this approach is painfully obvious, six decades later.

What does this tell us? Ironically, despite the collapse of clerical-led political action after the Council, the decree on the Apostolate of the laity does explain helpfully what we should be doing: “A vast field for the apostolate has opened up on the national and international levels where the laity especially assist with their Christian wisdom. In loyalty to their country and in faithful fulfillment of their civic obligations, Catholics should feel themselves obliged to promote the true common good. Thus they should make the weight of their opinion felt in order that the civil authority may act with justice and that legislation may conform to moral precepts and the common good. Catholics skilled in public affairs and adequately enlightened in faith and Christian doctrine should not refuse to administer public affairs since by doing this in a worthy manner they can both further the common good and at the same time prepare the way for the Gospel.” Indeed, what is described here is in fact the traditional role of the Catholic Aristocracy. It is a role all of today are called upon to play, regardless of what sort of blood courses through our veins.

The glorious corpse of French-Canadian Catholicism: The interior of the Notre-Dame Basilica, located in the historic district of Old Montreal, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The interior of the basilica, built in Gothic Revival style, is impressive with vivid colors, stars and filled with hundreds of intricate wooden carvings and several religious statues. It was built between 1823 and 1829 after a design of James O’Donnell and it has become one of the landmarks of the city. Photo credit: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.