Abbey-Roads2

The revolution.

1968… “The whole world is watching” - that famous chant from the Chicago Democratic convention came to my mind while the Pope was visiting the U.S. - when everyone seemed to be carrying on about the music during the mega-Mass in Washington.  The controversy provided a bit of distraction from this year’s political campaigns, the war, the failing economy, and other unimportant trivia.

“Rage and murder”. 

In 1968 both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assasinated.  Race riots broke out in cities across the country, while anti-war protests increased, and Women’s liberation groups were organizing and coming to power.  I also think 1968 was a defining moment for the sexual revolution we now take for granted.  I’ll be posting on 1968 at this blog and my other blogs once in awhile - it is amazing how much happened in that year, how we have changed, and yet how much we have remained the same.

Did you know 1968 is the year Virginia Slims was introduced - a cigarette that celebrated the modern woman with the phrase, “You’ve come a long way, baby!”?  It was also the year the pantsuit came out for women.  In fact, Nan Kempner, a NY socialite was not permitted to enter a posh restaurant in NYC because she was wearing an evening pantsuit.  Undaunted, she removed the trousers and entered the restaurant wearing the elongated coat as a dress.  The rules quickly changed after that.  (It sounds trivial today, but for women these things were as symbolic as burning bras - I know!  LOL!)

“1968 - The great cultural crisis of the west.”

As we know, Pope Benedict XVI also recognizes 1968 as a pivitol year of social upheavel.  During a question and answer session with Italian priests last year, the Holy Father said:

…We must note that there were two great historic upheavals in the concrete context of the postconciliar period.

The first is the convulsion of 1968, the beginning – or explosion, I dare say – of the great cultural crisis of the West. The postwar generation had ended, a generation that, after seeing all the destruction and horror of war, of combat, and witnessing the drama of the great ideologies that had actually led people toward the precipice of war, had discovered the Christian roots of Europe and had begun to rebuild Europe with these great inspirations. But with the end of this generation there were also seen all of the failures, the gaps in this reconstruction, the great misery in the world, and so began the explosion of the crisis of Western culture, what I would call a cultural revolution that wants to change everything radically. It says: In two thousand years of Christianity, we have not created a better world; we must begin again from nothing, in an absolutely new way. - All Against All

[Photo:  Chicago policeman carrying injured child protestor.  1968]