Stephen Bullivant on Vatican II
Bullivant attemtps a nuanced view of Vatican II. But he is hampered in his analysis by his adherence to Latin ecclesiology and beliefs concerning primacy. Is mass culture a cause of the "transmission crisis"? Yes. But mass culture is insufficient to explain the fundamental weakness of the institutional churches (Latin and otherwise). Bullivant needs to dig deeper, as he apparently has not seen the studies showing that it is the father who has the most influence in the religious upbringing of his children. Either that, or he is unwilling to affirm the importance of patriarchy and believes he must appear to be egalitarian:
Religious practice in the home and as a family (including bothparents). This is the single biggest predictor of whether a child ends up as religious practicing adult, and there’s a whole social-scientific literature (which I discuss in Mass Exodus) around why. Basically, anything that you do becauseof what you believe, that you wouldn’t do if you didn’t believe, helps to inculcate the importance of those beliefs. Things that take time and effort – even really little things like grace before meals, praying when an ambulance passes – have a large cumulative power and effect.
And while he is aware of the importance of "community," he is probably unaware of what is required to go beyond "socializing" and create an actual community, namely, patriarchy:
Community. Fact is, we’re social beings, and we find it easiest to believe and practice when we hang out with ‘significant other’ who do so too. This is something we used to do very well, but – outside of very special locales, we’re not going back to the kinds of neighborhood parishes, where all or most of one’s neighbors are fellow Catholics. Such places aren’t absolutely impossible – Ave Maria, Florida, would be a thriving example – but they’re not really a scalable strategy. So the trick is to find various ‘hacks.’ No doubt there are things we could learn from both Mormons and megachurches on this score: Both tend to do it better than we do. But really, anything we can do to enable committed Catholics hanging out with other committed Catholics – and such families with other such families – is a plus. Think of it as a mini ‘Benedict Option’ (cf. Rod Dreher’s great book). Until Latins (and others) recognize this fundamental fact of family and political life, they will make no headway in reforming and strengthening their churches.
