Recreate the Catholic Ghetto? Is It Even Possible?

Catholic writer Russell Shaw says American Catholics ought to recreate the Catholic ghetto :

One of the worst mistakes American Catholicism ever made was the scrapping in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s of the subculture that had served it well up to that time. That was the era of the great flight from what Catholic intellectuals snobbishly called the “Catholic ghetto.” Yes, the subculture as it then existed did need updating and renewal. But instead of that, what we got was a foolish, self-imposed dismantling — the secularization of Catholic colleges and universities, the deliberate withering of Catholic organizations — driven largely by the craving of academic and religious elitists to be trendy and in step with the times.

Catholic blogger Arturo Vasquez disagrees , saying that’s impossible:

And really, that is all “traditionalism” is: it’s optional. Catholic ceremonial prior to the Liturgical Movement of the early 20th century had as much pastoral weight as a rain dance or an indigenous secret initiation in a cave. It was done to placate the gods, to keep the sun shining every morning, etc. Whether or not we understood it was neither here nor there. Even in modern traditionalism (except for the SSPX, but even they have a distorted view of things) the sacred has “left the building”. What is really sacred is democracy, human rights, property, my rights as a (religious) consumer, and so on. That is the real religion, and we all follow it.

Who is right?

(Via: Rod Dreher)