Book excerpt: Critical Mass is an in depth look at what happened in the Catholic Church during the first generation after the Second Vatican Council, a period corresponding to the pontificates of Paul VI through John Paul II. The book starts with a close look at some key conciliar documents. Other chapters study how Tradition was systematically dismantled; the roles of the clergy and laity in the post-Vatican II Church; the mindsets of liberal, traditional, and conservative Catholics; how the Church became a turgid bureaucracy all the way down to the parish level; the dumbing down of religious education; the Church's post-Vatican II approach to social justice issues; the influence of Radical Feminism on the Church. The book concludes with an interesting - even radical - prognosis for the future.