Anyone Else Find Vatican II's Efforts for Ecumenism Ironic?

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JReducation, your description of mysticism and Pope John Paul II is quite beautiful. Thank you for posting it.

I believe it is wrong to seek to be a mystic. But I do think it is appropriate to work towards a prayer life that is not easily distracted by externals.

When people complain about “talkers” in church, or certain music, or gum smackers or cell phones or whatever, I always think, “Why should any of this matter? Should not our quiet come from within? Isn’t there a ‘quiet place’ in our souls that we can retreat to without having to actually go anywhere? Can we not speak with God and listen to His Voice even in the midst of clamor and confusion?”

There is a great Protestant song that I have always loved called “A Quiet Place.” airmiles.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/ This little song seems to speak of an actual physical place, but to me (I first heard it when I was a teenager back in the 1960s), it has always been a place in my own soul.

I am not there yet. I am still easily distracted, especially by my own imagination (I write novels, so many times, I am turning plots over in my mind). But I want so much to get to a place in my life journey where a rock band could be popping bubble gum and playing Lord of the Dance while at the same time a choir is chanting Gregorian Latin and at the same time a crowd of deaf elderly people are discussing their latest bowel habits or surgeries and at the same time a dozen cellphones are all ringing–all during Mass–and I am not even aware of anything or anyone except the Lord Jesus. That’s the quiet place I want to be in someday.
 
wraithx said:
Indeed - but if the Pope is wrong on an issue and DD is not - I believe the Church tells us to believe DD - because Popes can be wrong just as non-Popes can be right. I am sure you have heard it all before, but let us not forget the Arian Crisis (far less a crisis than the present one might I add!)

Oh - and to answer your rebuttal (before you make it) we are told to look to Tradition if Rome appears to not be doing so: I Corinthians 11:2.
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If a day comes when a Pope is wrong on an issue and DD is 100% correct, then I’m sure the Church will support DD and I’ll follow by still supporting the Church. We are to trust the Church to guide us. We cannot fall by following the Church. The Church has never taught me to follow DD. God has never taught me to follow DD. The things supported by DD do not impinge on my radar-screen of morality - since I have been to commanded to love God, worship Him in His Church, guard my Faith and serve others.

DD would rather choose to lead me (and multitudes?) to cast stones and by all means, to beat up other people with opprobrium (like calling them “heretics” and “infidels”). No thanks - I’d rather follow the Church and observe her teachings. God says that will keep me faithful to His will. (Thank You, Lord.)
 
holdencaulfield said:
To say that Protestants are not heretics would contradict the Infallible doctrine defined at the Council of Trent. Thus it is inaccurate and heretical to say otherwise.
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The Council of Trent took place in a different context than today. Being within the first generation of the Reformation meant that no one was raised with generations of entrenched Protestantism, as today. If you are referring to the anathemas, they were not infallible doctrine but disciplinary pronouncements which have now been abrogated. Nothing results in one being anathema since 1983.
 
pnewton said:
The Council of Trent took place in a different context than today. Being within the first generation of the Reformation meant that no one was raised with generations of entrenched Protestantism, as today. If you are referring to the anathemas, they were not infallible doctrine but disciplinary pronouncements which have now been abrogated. Nothing results in one being anathema since 1983.
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No, the anathema’s used in this sense is not the same as in the sense you are using them (a solemn excommunication with great ceremony in canon law.) They mean that to deny one of those truths is to commit heresy, and therefore be severed from the Church. This is still in force–heresy is always heresy (and is still automatic excommunication).
 
Genesis315 said:
No, the anathema’s used in this sense is not the same as in the sense you are using them (a solemn excommunication with great ceremony in canon law.) They mean that to deny one of those truths is to commit heresy, and therefore be severed from the Church. This is still in force–heresy is always heresy (and is still automatic excommunication).
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Correct.
 
Genesis315 said:
No, the anathema’s used in this sense is not the same as in the sense you are using them (a solemn excommunication with great ceremony in canon law.) They mean that to deny one of those truths is to commit heresy, and therefore be severed from the Church. This is still in force–heresy is always heresy (and is still automatic excommunication).
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Really? I was refering to the Church’s use of the word. I thought that one of the great advantages of Latin is that it does not change, being a dead language. Now you tell me that anathema has changed it’s meaning? I will have to remember this one.

I think JREducation has it right.
 
dyspepsic said:
Yes, you are wrong. He is not a heretic. A heretic can only be a Catholic, baptised at birth, or came into the Church by Conversion.

Is it so difficult to give up the term for non-Catholics?
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Perhaps because all those who are legitimately baptized start out as Catholics?
 
Here’s another thought: Why should Protestants not wish to be called heretics, as some state? If the Lutherans defined heresy as being in obstinate disagreement with a tenet of Lutheranism, I should not, as a Catholic, be too upset about being called a heretic by them. Some Orthodox think Catholics and Protestants are both heretics.
 
PKinsale said:
Here’s another thought: Why should Protestants not wish to be called heretics, as some state? If the Lutherans defined heresy as being in obstinate disagreement with a tenet of Lutheranism, I should not, as a Catholic, be too upset about being called a heretic by them. Some Orthodox think Catholics and Protestants are both heretics.
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I love being called a heretic, I don’t think however that any Orthodox Christian can call a Catholic a heretic. They can state that we are in schism, however this is untrue because in reality it was them who decided to schism.
 
Cat said:
JReducation, your description of mysticism and Pope John Paul II is quite beautiful. Thank you for posting it.
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You’re very welcome 🙂
I believe it is wrong to seek to be a mystic.
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Never think that. Mystical Theology says that one should aspire to union with the Divinity. However, one must begin at the first stage which is to live a virtuous life: sacraments, prayer, penance, charity, responsibility to duty, and do so forth. . . all the virtues.

One should also make it a habit to spend time in silence with God. This is not the same as meditation. This means to create quiet time in our day, even if we’re going about our duties.

Then there is meditation and silent prayer. This is not the rosary or the Divine Office.

There are also the devotions, such rosary, stations, chaplets, and so forth.

Liturgy is central: Eucharist and Liturgy of the Hours.

In fact, the great mystics have written manuals on how to achieve union with the Divine. They do caution us to remember that we cannot force the hand of God. The Holy Spirit will draw us along at a pace that he feels is appropriate. Most of us will never get to the heights of a John Paul II, Teresa of Avila, Francis of Assisi, Francis de Sales or John the Evangelist. But the Holy Spirit will use his most gentle hand to guide us as far as it is possible for us to go. We just have to do our part and let the Spirit do his.

Whether we reach the heights of mysticism or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that we are contemplative people.

You may want to read

Introductioin to the Devout Life by Francis de Sales

Teresa of Avila: An Extraordinary Life by Shirley du Boulay

Fire Within by Fr. Dubey

The Soul of Elizabeth Seton by Joseph Dirvin

You may also want to visit this thread on this topic. Because we’re really off topic now.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=3528348#post3528348

My apologies to everyone else for go so far off topic.

JR 🙂
 
stmaria said:
I have protestant friends. I would never call them heretics. They are innocently ignorant and not guilty of heresy. However I do call someone like Reverend John Hagee a heretic. He has studied the Catholic Church. He is not invincibily ignorant He refuses to believe. Here is what he calls the Church founded by Christ.

‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system"
youtube.com/watch?v=uViQ0hVV57Q

dyspepsic, am I wrong to call him a heretic?
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All this talk of innocence, etc.

The law is the law, and when you commit a crime, you have a sentence automatically imposed on you - excommunication. Let’s not get too emotional about it. Hagee is not a heretic, and I don’t like him either, but he falls outside the Code of Canon Law, and cannot be a heretic.
 
I was reading some of the posts here, and I think I see some similarities.

In traditional Judaism, only a Jew who was once Orthodox, and THEN gave up some of the traditional beliefs while continuing to call themselves an observant Jew, can be called a heretic. This is why the Lubavitcher Rebbe says there are hardly any true Jewish heretics today (because the vast majority of Jews in modern times who are non-observant were never raised observant in the first place.)

The first Protestants were originally baptized CATHOLICS, and so they can be rightly termed heretics by Catholic doctrine.

But what about people born into Protestantism nowadays, who were NEVER Catholics first?
 
holdencaulfield said:
I love being called a heretic, I don’t think however that any Orthodox Christian can call a Catholic a heretic. They can state that we are in schism, however this is untrue because in reality it was them who decided to schism.
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Okay, those alive in 1054 are all dead. Maybe you could argue that they were in schism.

This is not the case today. All the Orthodox schismatics are dead.

The current Orthodox are not schismatics since they are outside the Church, and not subject to the Law.

Is anybody getting this?

PS You love being outside the Mystical Body of Christ (as a heretic)? We are getting weirder here.
 
HashemEchad said:
I was reading some of the posts here, and I think I see some similarities.

In traditional Judaism, only a Jew who was once Orthodox, and THEN gave up some of the traditional beliefs while continuing to call themselves an observant Jew, can be called a heretic. This is why the Lubavitcher Rebbe says there are hardly any true Jewish heretics today (because the vast majority of Jews in modern times who are non-observant were never raised observant in the first place.)

The first Protestants were originally baptized CATHOLICS, and so they can be rightly termed heretics by Catholic doctrine.

But what about people born into Protestantism nowadays, who were NEVER Catholics first?
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I don’t know what the Law was in 1517. Martin Luther was formally excommunicated by the Apostolic Bull “Exsurge Domine”. I don’t know about the rest. The point is moot since they are all dead.

Repeat, today, if they are born OUTSIDE the Church, they are not subject to the Law, so they are not heretics.

Is anybody still not getting it?
 
dyspepsic said:
Okay, those alive in 1054 are all dead. Maybe you could argue that they were in schism.

This is not the case today. All the Orthodox schismatics are dead.

The current Orthodox are not schismatics since they are outside the Church, and not subject to the Law.

Is anybody getting this?

PS You love being outside the Mystical Body of Christ (as a heretic)? We are getting weirder here.
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I meant by Protestant standards. So in your opinion the Orthodox Church is not in schism.
 
Just, because one is born outside of the Church does not mean that they are not heretics or schismatics. A heretic is someone who follows heretical beliefs, so thus a Protestant fits into this category. An Orthodox Christian is one who follows schismatic beliefs and is thus a schismatic. Although they are not subject to the law their beliefs still label them as they are. Unless one is faithful to the Magisterium of the the Church they are liable to be called a heretic.
 
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