Judging the Revolutions of the 1960s By the Standards of Those Days, by Phil Lawler

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture, June 02, 2023

Maybe I misread the headline, or maybe its wording was changed after I first saw it. Whatever the reason, I looked at this CNA report and saw (or thought I saw): “Cuban priest: 64 years is enough to prove the revolution didn’t work.” The priest in question was talking specifically about the Cuban revolution, and of course he was right. But Castro was not the only revolutionary of his era, and the same logic applies to them all.

If we can now say definitively that the Castro regime did not bring a socialist utopia to Cuba—and we can—what should we say about the whirlwind that hit the Catholic Church at roughly the same time? And the sexual revolution, proclaimed just a few years after that? The Batista government that Castro overthrew was corrupt and authoritarian; but are the Cuban people better off today? The life of the Church may have been dulled by routine in the 1950s, but have we seen the “new spring” that was so confidently promised after Vatican II? Americans had their sexual hangups in the era of Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best, but do Modern Family and The Bachelor(ette) represent progress? …

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