I started writing Critical Mass as a “book length article” to vent my frustrations with the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). Instead, it turned into a full-length book with at least two book length chapters. Critical Mass deals with the first generation after the Council -- roughly corresponding to the pontificates of Paul VI and John Paul II.

Chapter 1 surveys Vatican II and how the documents and decrees were so intentionally ambiguous that they satisfied both Liberals and Conservatives at the Council but were loaded with “time bombs” set to detonate after the Council in support of a liberal agenda.

Chapter 2 explains how Traditional Catholicism, especially the Latin Mass, was summarily and methodically destroyed. The most damning evidence of this is the record of an interview with Pope Paul VI in which he admits that the Novus Ordo Mass was designed to parallel as closely as possible the Protestant Lord’s Supper. This was “ecumania” at its worst. Chapter 2 looks at how some of these “reforms” were implemented and enforced. One of the tools used in implementation and enforcement was psychology primarily Carl Rogers’Client Centered therapy. This brand of psychology with its focus on self, experience, and change fit the post-Vatican II Church’s new brand of religion and theology. This includes a firsthand account by one of Rogers’ leading therapists who explains how this psychology was used to undermine religious orders most notably the Immaculate Heart sisters in California. Priests and seminarians who displayed overt Traditional leanings were often sent for psychiatric evaluation. (Shades of the Brezhnev-Andropov era Soviet Union.) This chapter analyzes the excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre and how the Church under Pope John Paul II dealt with Conservative dissent and Liberal dissent. The Conservatives, as demonstrated by the Lefebvre case, suffered harsher and more lasting penalties.

Chapter 3 researches the evolution of the clergy and laity following the Council with some interesting surveys showing how attitudes among the laity evolved in a very short period of time during that first generation after the Council. This chapter considers women’s ordination and why it is not part of God’s design for the Church even though there is no Scriptural evidence that specifically prohibits it. Chapter 3 presents some cogent and practical arguments against a married clergy showing how a married priesthood would simply replace one set of problems with another.

Chapter 4 studies the differences between Liberal, Traditional, and Conservative Catholics. Traditional and Conservative Catholics are often different. Here I offer some criticisms of Traditionalist and Conservative Catholics who sometimes were part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

Chapter 5 reveals how the Church has become an administrative bureaucracy in the post-Vatican II era. We will see how the Church retains some institutions that should have been changed such as the pre-Vatican II parish-school relationship and why it is no longer the most effective way to manage the Catholic school system.

Chapter 6 covers the dumbing down of religious education and takes a close look at the Rite of Christian Initiation, Remembering the Church, and the late and UNlamented Renew program.

Chapter 7 reviews the major social justice issues in the post-Vatican II Church: War and Peace, capital punishment, the economy, abortion, Gay Rights, the Catholic Church and its co-dependent relationship with the Democratic Party, Inculturation (another name for Ecumania), the Grand Apology tour in which Pope John Paul II apologized to dead people on behalf of other dead people plus other forms of ecumaniacal outreach that achieved absolutely NOTHING. It did not result in any reciprocal apologies from Protestants and Muslims. Instead, it generated more criticism and anti-Catholicism. This chapter analyzes the relationship between Pope Pius XII and the Jews and pinpoints how he went from being loved by the international Jewish community in the post-war years to being condemned as a virtual Nazi collaborator by contemporary Jews and more than a few in the Catholic Church. Finally, the chapter considers the work of the Catholic League that works to oppose and expose specific acts of anti-Catholicism in the secular society and the St. Joseph Foundation that deals with injustices committed against Traditional and Conservative Catholics by hostile Liberals in the hierarchy and Church bureaucracy.

Chapter 8 studies the women’s movement in the Church and shows examples of pagan goddess worship in the more extreme fringes of “Woman Church.”

Chapter 9 presents an interesting prognosis for the future based on respected Catholic seers and approved apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus. (Author’s Note: This book absolutely repudiates phenomena like Medjugorje and Bayside.)

At the end of the book is a list of other books that expand on the topics covered in Critical Mass.

The good news is that the Church appears to be stabilizing. Pope Benedict XVI has scaled back on many of John Paul’s well intentioned but failed policies. He has given universal permission to priests to celebrate the Latin Mass according to the 1962 Missale Romanum. In Critical Mass I suggested a separate Tridentine Rite or Ordinariate. While that idea may still deserve some consideration, the two formats of the Mass are now co-equal and they should be left to rise or fall on their own merits without ecclesiastical tinkering from the Left or the Right. I feel that we may be entering a period of stability that will see no sudden lurches to the Right or Left and that is a good thing. We lost too many people (dare I say souls) in that tumultuous first generation following the Council.

In conclusion I respect ALL Catholics of good will, Liberal, Traditionalist, and Conservative since they all have something to contribute. With the exception of abortion, liberal causes are grounded in good but they get swept up and co-opted into agendas that are not always well meaning. We cannot go off on extreme tangents and if I appear harder on Liberals than Conservatives it’s because I feel they were far more inclined to go off the reservation in those turbulent and crazy years.