This is not the first time that I've come across evidence of the need for remediation in some quarters with respect to the nature and works of the baby boomer. The Anchoress has a blog that I read occasionally and enjoy. But like a few others I've come across here and there, she has an exaggerated view of what my generation can actually be held responsible for, which leads to an exaggerated animosity. Not that we don't deserve a lot of it, but please, let's limit the blame to what we actually did.

One of the things for which we can't take anything like all the blame is the post-Vatican-II decline of the Catholic Church. A refresher: the first of us were born in 1945 or 1946, depending on whose definition you like. That means the oldest of us were teenagers during Vatican II and barely twenty when the silly season began. The worst excesses occured in the late '60s and into the '70s, when we were most certainly not in charge. I suppose the first baby boomer priest was ordained around 1975 or so. I think it's entirely possible, maybe probable, that the first clown mass was not the work of a baby boomer.

Now, about the crucifix that lit the Anchoress's fuse: following links back from her post takes me to the web site of the German parish where it hangs. Scroll down to the Hangekreuz. My scraps of German lead me to believe that the crucifix is the work of Ewald Mataré (1907-1965).

The conclusion seems unavoidable to me that there was deep rot in the Church before Vatican II. Baby boomers exacerbated and institutionalized the problem, but we didn't create it.