Polarization and the Production and Reception of Liturgical Change in the U.S. Catholic Church after Vatican II

How and why did the Mass, the central Catholic ritual of unity, become a site of polarization among U.S. Catholics after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)? In the wake of liturgical reform called for by the Council, different worship styles have come to be associated with liberal and conservative Catholic identities, and “liturgy wars” continue to rage. To understand how the production and reception of liturgical reform has become implicated in polarization, I analyze official statements, newsletters, meeting minutes, correspondences, newspapers, and secondary sources spanning the 1960s to the 1990s from three U.S. dioceses: the Archdiocese of St. Louis, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and the Diocese of Lincoln. I find that the core conflict consists of competition between two models of the sacred: a vertical, hierarchical model that locates the sacred primarily in the transcendent God, especially present on earth in the object of the Eucharist; and a horizontal, egalitarian model that locates the sacred primarily in the People of God gathered as an assembly. Amid the implementation of liturgical reforms, this conflict, together with the ambiguity that always accompanies major policy changes, has afforded conflict that is difficult, if not impossible, to resolve by compromise. Moreover, all Catholics have been drawn into these debates, either explicitly or implicitly, by becoming “producers” of the liturgy in several ways: by taking on formal liturgical roles and serving in leadership positions; by lobbying the Church’s hierarchy for and against various practices; and by being confronted with choices in which liturgical practices they adopt or eschew. Choices made in the pew, regardless of one’s knowledge of or interest in the liturgy, are visible to others and lead to the formation of different camps and identities, as well as innumerable opportunities for contention. The dispute over the sacred combined with the sheer number of actors has perpetuated cycles of conflict that continue to the present day. I also show that debates about liturgy in the United States draw from a deeper conflict in Western society and American political culture between modernism and anti-modernism, and yet also by historical contingencies have become associated with American political partisanship, such that the liturgy wars are implicated in political polarization in the United States. The findings demonstrate the critical role of cultural processes in creating and sustaining polarization, both in the U.S. Catholic Church and among Americans more broadly.