Needed a placeholder. There’s a growing tension between Catholics regarding the Church pre and post Second Vatican Council. Not sure I have an opinion yet that isn’t influenced by causality and empiricism (some heavy reading and discernment is ongoing).

The desire of the Church via the Second Vatican Council is that “all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations” (art. 14) but when I read The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy the laity in the 1400s were incredibly involved in the life of the Church. There’s something else at work here and I think it’s more about belonging to the world (John 17:11-19).

“This was indeed a modest requirement (1530). It demanded from the laity no more than decency in church and the recitation of the rosary while the priest got on with the sacrifice at the altar. His liturgy and theirs converged only at the climatic moment when Earth and Heaven met in the fragile disc of bread he held above his head, and everyone found some heightened form of words to greet and to petition the sacramental Christ for salvation, health, and blessing.”

Related
What Was the Actual Purpose of Vatican II? (Bishop Barron)
The Hans Kung Controversy (1980) (CSM)

(1) Good prose from 100 Churches 100 Years published / commissioned by the Twentieth Century Society:

“Elsewhere, the traditional figurative style continued but was recast in bright, sometimes cinematically brilliant Technicolor colours…”

(2) Stephen Fry: The History Of The First Printing Press (YouTube)