October 11, 1962 is a day I well remember. It was the day Pope John XXIII opened the vaunted Second Vatican Council in Rome, but that is not why I remember it. October 11 was my parents’ silver wedding anniversary and our family held a joyous, and for me unforgettable, celebration of that momentous event. I was a ten year old product of a staunchly Catholic family just beginning the fifth grade in parochial school. My world was family, neighborhood, and St. Vincent de Paul parish where I had been baptized and received the sacraments. Though I was only dimly aware of it, in far off Italy the Pope and 3,000 bishops were assembled and talking excitedly about a new “springtime in the Church.”

At the time such a promise seemed plausible enough. After all Masses were packed every Sunday, Catholic schools were bursting at the seams, seminaries couldn’t handle all the new vocations – all attested to by relentless parish building campaigns. Religious communities were flourishing and missionaries around the world were making tremendous strides in bringing the Gospel into remote regions which had never been evangelized. In the United States the first ever Catholic president was bravely standing down the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis. Among Catholics there was every reason for optimism. The Church had never been stronger or more sure of her divine mission, or so it appeared.

Ten years later a far different picture had emerged, that of a Church in crisis. Priests and religious were leaving their vocations in droves. Catechesis had fallen off a cliff along with Mass attendance. Seminaries were closing for lack of vocations even as the Pope himself was under siege by many of his own clergy for daring to restate the Church’s timeless teachings regarding openness to human life in Humanae Vitae. Catholics were struggling to adapt to a new, diluted Liturgy promulgated by that same Pontiff, Paul VI, and which seemed to be enervating Catholicism across the board. The Holy Mass somehow no longer felt as holy as it had been before 1962. The Council’s oft stated goal of a more active lay participation had instead manifested as restless boredom in the pews and indifference towards fulfilling one’s Sunday obligations.