The ‘Spirit’ of Vatican II Conservatism?

As to the first assumption, the return of conservative Catholicism is not so much a “win” over its theological, ecclesial, and ecclesiastical opposite as it is part of a larger phenomenon in the West. The French sociologist Yann Raison du Cleuziou notes that the return of more traditional forms of doctrinal orientation and liturgical expression is the consequence of an internal evolution of Catholicism in response to a relationship between the Church and the world that developed differently from what Vatican II might have led people to expect. In the 1960s and ’70s, general societal secularization seemed to open the door to a Church that internally would reflect secular values, through egalitarianism, individual rights, and lay activism.