THE YOUNG FOGEYS

Term taken from Father Andrew Greeley, "Young Fogeys" are those priests who have been ordained in the last twenty-five years or so. They're "conservative young priests" who are "counter-revolutionaries", "intent on restoring the pre-Vatican II Church".

Those italic words are attributed to Father Andrew Greeley and thus, the self-proclaimed "Young Fogey" Father Jay Toborowsky in his new blog, Young Fogeys. Here's an excerpt from Father Jay's introductory post:
"Why do we need to re-implement Vatican II?", you ask? "Its all been done before", you opine? Well, yes and no. Young Fogeys who grew up in the 60s and 70s have lived through every "gimmick" Mass imaginable. As children they attended the "clown Mass" and the "folk Mass". They sang the songs from "Godspell" at Mass, along with more versions of "Kumbaya" and "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" then they care to remember. Even today when they hear such overused Catholic music as "Here I am, Lord" (published in 1981) they realize it sounds remarkably like the 1969 theme from TV's The Brady Bunch, while 1982's "Gather Us In" resembles 1976's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". They remember the self-styled "cool" Priests who wore blue jeans instead of the usual black pants, the ones who let their hair and beards grow in an effort to look like Jesus, and even the few who got to wear sandals at Mass when parents made kids wear shoes and socks. The YF’s experiences with religious education were mostly benign. It may have taken an hour out of playtime, but it usually involved arts and crafts and music, and at least they didn’t have to sit with a book and memorize questions and answers like their parents and aunts and uncles (another thing we grew up hearing about as family gathered for holidays). The generation before us may not have understood as children what they memorized, but when they grew up the facts were there in their head to tap into like a safe deposit box; our generation left CCD with lots of pictures for the refrigerator door and ornaments for the Christmas tree, but not a whole lot in our heads. Just because it was done before doesn’t mean it was done well.

Man, I'm likin' this guy already. Welcome, Fr. Jay Toborowsky, the Young Fogey, to the Christus Vincit Definitive Blogroll!

Hat tip to Argent.