A clarion call to restore our beautiful Catholicism

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I haven’t read the Rose book, although I’ve read excerpts. But I have met a lot of seminarians, from college seminary through 4th Theology, and I’m very impressed. They all seem quite orthodox and firm in faith. Our bishop still has his list of approved seminaries, and he’s added several to the list.
 
I haven’t read the Rose book, although I’ve read excerpts. But I have met a lot of seminarians, from college seminary through 4th Theology, and I’m very impressed. They all seem quite orthodox and firm in faith. Our bishop still has his list of approved seminaries, and he’s added several to the list.
Good to hear! I pray all dioceses will become like yours.
 
Really? My now 89 year old mother loved the Church and the sisters in her Catholic education in NYC. She isn’t so great for typing but she’ll send you a nice handwritten note if you like.
You have an unpleasant habit of getting personal. The misconception that the Church was tickety boo and just perfect before the 1960’s is one of the biggest deceits of a certain faction that don’t want the Church to grow in the Holy Spirit towards the last days, but to be a novelty stuck in a time warp detached from the people it is meant to serve.

There were lots of problem areas in the Church that were harmful to peoples faith and that included the culture within the religious orders of sisters. Someone earlier noted the influence of Jansenism on the Catholic Church which I know was the reason that the Mercy Sisters were unfortunately labeled the ‘merciless’ sisters.

There were already real problems in the priesthood also. The Saint Mary McKillop was excommunicated by her Bishop in the 1800’s for reporting a pedophile Priest. That problem in the clergy was significant enough for Cardinal Ottaviano to reissue an order in 1962 to excommunicate any person who reported Priestly abuse outside of the Church hierarchy.

I’d go as far to say that if Vatican II had been successfully repressed, the Church would be a shell in tatters today.
 
The Church did realise that the culture of severity in religious orders had to change because it just wasn’t healthy. You have to feel sorry for the sisters of old especially those that weren’t used to such severity.

My mother tells of the time in the 40’s and 50’s when she still lived at home, that my grandparents used to host the local nuns for Christmas, Easter and any other celebration. They were cattle farmers and both Grandma and Grandad had sisters and other relations in the convent so they would oblige. The rule for nuns then was that they weren’t allowed into peoples houses. They could be on the lawn or the verandah but not inside the house. My grandfather who was both a bit wicked and a bit ingenious, replaced the house walls around the verandahs with wooden folding panels and when they had a celebration he would fold the walls right back which technically extended the verandah right into the main area of the house so that even the kitchen was on the verandah. The Bishop didn’t have a problem with it so all was well for that time anyway.
 
I never said the Church was perfect before the 1960s. I never claimed there were no problems.

You brought forward an example; I brought forward an example.

So all your post is about something which I never said or implied.
 
The false accusation that things were perfect before Vatican II. I was there. It was imperfect but far better than the degradation I lived through starting in the 1970s.

There was no “time warp” but right after Vatican II, groups of anarchists and dissidents began appearing in our neighborhoods to preach their false gospel. And to wreck society in general, plus to wreck the Church from the inside.

Vatican II is the necessary scapegoat for those same people today.
 
The false accusation that things were perfect before Vatican II. I was there. It was imperfect but far better than the degradation I lived through starting in the 1970s.

There was no “time warp” but right after Vatican II, groups of anarchists and dissidents began appearing in our neighborhoods to preach their false gospel. And to wreck society in general, plus to wreck the Church from the inside.

Vatican II is the necessary scapegoat for those same people today.
My argument is that all was not perfect in the Church before the 1960’s and that after WWII it was fairly evident that the world was changing rapidly. Vatican II was the response to that fact and the realisation that it could no longer provide for these changing people without a major reformulation of what has now come to be called ‘the traditional’ ways.

The ‘time warp’ is in reference to the idea that the Council of Trent is the centrepoint of Catholicism and the source of ‘tradition’ rather than the Gospel. The documents from that Council are cited by some, more often than the documents of Vatican II which the Magisterium regards in continuity with the whole Church.

My observation of the real problem after VII was the crowd that didn’t want anything to change, didn’t fully take part in the process allowing too much (name removed by moderator)ut from the radical ‘reformers’. If VII had been embraced by all Catholics as it should have been we would have had a much better outcome sooner. That’s my simple opinion.

That is what still aggravates me today as I’m trying to guide my own children in being good Catholics. Why do we have to have this faction who want to holis bolis go back to the preVII Church rather than work together with our new guidelines?
 
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The world doesn’t change, opnly people can change things. Let’s review the degradation I’m talking about.

1960 The FDA approves the birth control pill. Most women living in rural areas don’t want it or don’t have access to it. It is available by prescription.

1967 Time magazine runs a cover story about The Pill in order to move product. The Pill is presented as Freedom from Fear. A false freedom. That bundle of joy, that gift from God should be feared. In other words, babies should be feared.


1968 Pope Paul VI has Humanae Vitae published. His advisors told him the Church should relax its stance on birth control. He disagrees. The response was profound. Some Catholic theologians disagreed with the Pope and took out a full page ad in the New York Times to express their disagreement. This, of course, added to the confusion of the laity. But it aided those involved in the so-called Sexual (without love) Revolution.

1969 The ultimate form of birth control - abortion - gets off the ground. “Originally called the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, NARAL was established at the “First National Conference on Abortion Laws: Modification or Repeal?”, held February 14–16, 1969 in Chicago.”

The original NARAL program had six parts:
Code:
Assist in the formation in all states of direct political action groups dedicated to the purpose of NARAL;
  1. Serve as a clearing house for activities related to NARAL’s purpose;
    2) Create new materials for mass distribution which tell the repeal story dramatically and succinctly;
    3) Train field workers to organize and stimulate legislative action;
    4) Suggest direct action projects;
    5) Raise funds for the above activities.
As I wrote, only people change things. As the above examples show, it was not for the better.
 
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The world doesn’t change, opnly people can change things. Let’s review the degradation I’m talking about.

1960 The FDA approves the birth control pill. Most women living in rural areas don’t want it or don’t have access to it. It is available by prescription.

1967 Time magazine runs a cover story about The Pill in order to move product. The Pill is presented as Freedom from Fear. A false freedom. That bundle of joy, that gift from God should be feared. In other words, babies should be feared.

Contraception: Freedom from Fear - TIME

1968 Pope Paul VI has Humanae Vitae published. His advisors told him the Church should relax its stance on birth control. He disagrees. The response was profound. Some Catholic theologians disagreed with the Pope and took out a full page ad in the New York Times to express their disagreement. This, of course, added to the confusion of the laity. But it aided those involved in the so-called Sexual (without love) Revolution.

1969 The ultimate form of birth control - abortion - gets off the ground. “Originally called the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, NARAL was established at the “First National Conference on Abortion Laws: Modification or Repeal?”, held February 14–16, 1969 in Chicago.”

The original NARAL program had six parts:
Code:
Assist in the formation in all states of direct political action groups dedicated to the purpose of NARAL;
  1. Serve as a clearing house for activities related to NARAL’s purpose;
    2) Create new materials for mass distribution which tell the repeal story dramatically and succinctly;
    3) Train field workers to organize and stimulate legislative action;
    4) Suggest direct action projects;
    5) Raise funds for the above activities.
As I wrote, only people change things. As the above examples show, it was not for the better.
I absolutely agree that these events constitute moral degradation. Here’s what I think allowed it to take hold in the Catholic mind though. Those ‘traditionalists’ who did not want to participate in the changes of VII, by their resistance weakened the authority of the papacy as an authoritative body. So the problem is that if those perceived as the holiest of Catholics did not have faith in the papacy, what credibility do they have to insist on the authority of any papal document?

It’s a toxic double edged sword to claim your own authority to criticise and condemn a work of the papacy but then expect to hold others to it.
 
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This is incorrect. Traditionalists were never the enemy of the Church. I am a Traditionalist. When a small, covered table was placed below the high altar, did I complain? I was uninterested in what outsiders thought, I obeyed Holy Mother Church. I did not love God less. When the priest faced the people and spoke in the vernacular - no problem. However, the radicals inside the Church promoted “creativity” which led to deformations of the liturgy. To understand this better, I offer the following from Pope Benedict:

"In the first place, there is the fear that the document detracts from the authority of the Second Vatican Council, one of whose essential decisions – the liturgical reform – is being called into question.

"This fear is unfounded. In this regard, it must first be said that the Missal published by Paul VI and then republished in two subsequent editions by John Paul II, obviously is and continues to be the normal Form – the Forma ordinaria – of the Eucharistic Liturgy. The last version of the Missale Romanum prior to the Council, which was published with the authority of Pope John XXIII in 1962 and used during the Council, will now be able to be used as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgical celebration. It is not appropriate to speak of these two versions of the Roman Missal as if they were “two Rites”. Rather, it is a matter of a twofold use of one and the same rite.

"As for the use of the 1962 Missal as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgy of the Mass, I would like to draw attention to the fact that this Missal was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted. At the time of the introduction of the new Missal, it did not seem necessary to issue specific norms for the possible use of the earlier Missal. Probably it was thought that it would be a matter of a few individual cases which would be resolved, case by case, on the local level. Afterwards, however, it soon became apparent that a good number of people remained strongly attached to this usage of the Roman Rite, which had been familiar to them from childhood. This was especially the case in countries where the liturgical movement had provided many people with a notable liturgical formation and a deep, personal familiarity with the earlier Form of the liturgical celebration. We all know that, in the movement led by Archbishop Lefebvre, fidelity to the old Missal became an external mark of identity; the reasons for the break which arose over this, however, were at a deeper level. Many people who clearly accepted the binding character of the Second Vatican Council, and were faithful to the Pope and the Bishops, nonetheless also desired to recover the form of the sacred liturgy that was dear to them.
 
This occurred above all because in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter actually was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear. I am speaking from experience, since I too lived through that period with all its hopes and its confusion. And I have seen how arbitrary deformations of the liturgy caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the Church."
 
Why do we have to have this faction who want to holis bolis go back to the preVII Church rather than work together with our new guidelines?
As long as they’re not schisming off from the Church, how are they bothering you and your children? I managed to go 50+ years on this earth as a cradle Catholic before I knew what a trad was, other than somebody who in the 50s preferred old school jazz music.
 
Best formed priests I’ve seen in California are the Norbertines in OC, and the FSSP.
 
This matches my experience also. To this day the Norbertines have been the best confessors I’ve ever had the pleasure to come across.
 
Yes! They tell it like it is. They are awesome. And in Sunday’s Mass the FSSP priest talked about “sin” for a bit. Something most boomers (I am one!) don’t want to hear.
 
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