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

[DustinsDad]

Bishop Fulton Sheen- His Last Words Part V

Awesome…and still classic Sheen. Here’s how he’s wrapping it up…with this beautiful poem by Edward Shillito, delivered as only Bishop Sheen can…and he then immediately closes with the most fitting prayer for Good Friday… *(the following is the exact transcript from the closing)**"Jesus of the Scars *
If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow;
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars we claim Thy grace.

If when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know today what wounds are; have no fear;
Show us Thy Scars; we know the countersign.

The other gods were strong, but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.

As we say kneeling the Act of Contrition…
Oh my God I am heartily sorry for having offended thee and I detest all of my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell, but most of all because they offend thee my God who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and amend my life, Amen.

God love you"
(applause as the ArchBishop leaves the pulpit).

Thank you so much for pointing me to this talk. While it was awesome and touching, the most “ecumenical” thing (at least in tems of modern ecumenism anyway) I heard in there was this last poem that was written by a non-Catholic. And I have no problem with it at all since of course nothing therein contradicts the faith. It’s beautiful.

But, I didn’t hear the quotes attributed to the Archbishop, or anything even vaguely resembling them.

Nevertheless, thanks again!

Peace in Christ,

DustinsDad

 

[DustinsDad]

---

the current error in thinking that those outside HMC can be united with her.

---

This is not an opinion of mine. This was stated in an encyclical of John Paul II.

1. In the present situation of the lack of unity among Christians and of the confident quest for full communion…

How can we be united if theire is lack of unity?

the Catholic faithful are conscious of being deeply challenged by the Lord of the Church. The Second Vatican Council strengthened their commitment with a clear ecclesiological vision, open to all the ecclesial values present among other Christians. The Catholic faithful face the ecumenical question in a spirit of faith.

Nothing in here about being united or a state of unity.

The Council states that the Church of Christ “subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him”

Okay - unity there. Good so far.

and at the same time acknowledges that “many elements of sanctification and of truth can be found outside her visible structure. These elements, however, as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, possess an inner dynamism towards Catholic unity”

And as such, these Catholic elements of truth and sanctification are a means to move (“inner dynamism” indicates movement/action) individuals within these sects “toward Catholic unity”, that is, to move them to being united to the One True Church of Christ - the Catholic Church.

You don’t move toward unity if you are already united.

"It follows that these separated Churches and Communities, though we believe that they suffer from defects, have by no means been deprived of significance and value in the mystery of salvation.

Separated http://www.able2know.org/forums/images/smiles/noteq.gif United

For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church".

Yes - a means in the way just described above, by moving individuals within these sects to enter the unity - by moving them into union with the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

DD

 

[DustinsDad]

So anyway - before it get’s lost…does anyone have a source or citation for the mysterious “ecumenism” quote of ArchBishop Fulton Sheen?



DustinsDad

 

[DustinsDad]

…I am not sure if this is the one that was on EWTN or not, most likely this was not the only time he said this or something similar.

PS Google is your friend

Okay - I’ve been googling. I found the page with the above ad for this dvd here: home.earthlink.net/~marianland/marianland/id30.html

And I’ve watched the whole talk from start to finish (see earlier posted links to this talk on youtube), and the quote:"It is not a unity of religion we seek but a union of religious people. We may not be able to meet in the same pew, but we can meet together on our knees as Christians"Someone can double check for me, but I’m sorry - it is not in there. And in fact, if you look closely at the ad you mentioned, it doesn’t say this is Sheen’s quote, but one would certainly get that impression from the way it’s inserted in there.

In fact, it also looks alot like the paraphrased quote JR used earlier - alot like it.

Something is off here. Very off. Can’t quite put my finger on it…

But get this. The ad you mention is for the dvd #500848d - His Last Words and that quote is thrown in the ad unattributed, but doesn’t appear in the talk. But look next to it, you’ll see an ad for dvd #500887D - Sheen Gems: The Best of Fulton J. Sheen. And in this ad, there is also an unattributed quote stuck right smack in the middle of it - the quote this time is only:“We may not be able to meet in the same pew but we can all meet together on our knees in prayer.”
Which is a part of the other unattributed quote.

Something is rotten in Denmark.

DD

 

[DustinsDad]

Okay, in the post 321 a couple above, I used the URL to insert a “does not equal” image I found online and placed it between “separated” and “united” - oops - some sort of hotlink protection zapped it and placed the big image up there.

If a moderator can replace it with the words “does not equal” and then delete this post - that would be great. I ran out of editing time before I saw it.

My apologies.

DD.

 

[I_Believe]

JR, I appreciate you taking time to assemble these long replys, but you seem to be saying it’s all good as long as we can rationalize it.

Deeper or better understanding is one thing, but an about face is quite another. We don’t need ecumenism to know Baptists share many Catholic beliefs. Or to tell us that they reject many Catholic beliefs. Hasn’t conversion been the goal since around 33 A.D. ?

Do you truly believe everything is just fine, and that there is no crisis at all ?

 

[pnewton]

Are we forgetting the most important reason for being Catholics?..I wonder if the Holy Father would see any good in all this debate and disrespect on this thread and so many threads where we allegedly defend truth. Would Christ?

JR

:clapping:

We strain the gnat and swallow the camel. Pope Benedict’s message to America this week is not about doctrinal issues or sectarian divisions, but rather, “Christ Our Hope”

 

[JReducation]

JR, I appreciate you taking time to assemble these long replys, but you seem to be saying it’s all good as long as we can rationalize it.

Deeper or better understanding is one thing, but an about face is quite another. We don’t need ecumenism to know Baptists share many Catholic beliefs. Or to tell us that they reject many Catholic beliefs. Hasn’t conversion been the goal since around 33 A.D. ?

Do you truly believe everything is just fine, and that there is no crisis at all ?

It is not my attempt to say that everything is fine. I have said the the union between other faiths and the Catholic Church is an imperfect union. I pointed everyone to read John Paul’s encyclical on the matter.

There is no about face. What we have through John Paul is a broader understanding of ecclessiology. When the past said that there is no salvation outside the Church, John Paul II says “let’s re-examine what we mean by Church.”

He teaches that the Church is found where her truths are found, even if they are only some of her truths. Therefore, these communities, whether we like it or not or whether they like it or not, are still connected to the Catholic Chuch.

Therefore, God uses them as a means of salvation for those who belong to them. Because God saves through truth, he saves them as he saves us throug the truths that are found there. Those truths are vehicles of Grace.

Nonetheless, John Paul also calls Catholics to work toward bringing all people to the fullness of truth, that is to knowing all of truth. This is conversion.

That being said, not only do non Catholics have to come to the fullness of truth, but so do many Catholics. Despite the fact that we are Catholics, many lack knowledge of all the truths that the Church possesses. For example, mystical truths expounded by the saints and Doctors. There are many Catholics who have no idea of these truths.

What our Holy Father John Paul II was saying was not different from the past. There is no salvation outisde the Church. However, thanks to God’s mercy and providence Catholic truths can be found in other faiths, thus connecting, even though imperfectly with the Church.

The difference between what John Paul and Benedict XVI are doing and what some people here do is that they do not take a militant attitude toward other faiths. For example, the Pope Benedict is making it a point to spend time with the Jewish people and to wish them well for the feast of Passover. He honoured a Jewish Rabbi who teaches Catholic biblical theology to our seminarians at several Pontifical seminaries and who is an expert in the truths of St. John of the Cross.

If you stop and think, if the Jewish people were completely outside of the reach of the Church would it make sense to make a Jewish theologian a member of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, which has been reserved for Catholic theologians since its founding? Would it make sense to recognize this man’s contributions to the Catholic Church? It was interesting, because the wording was his “contribution to the Catholic Church,” not theology.

This is only possible because like John Paul, Benedict also believes that we are somehow connected.

The work is not finished. We have to praise God for the knowledge that there is salvation possible for our non Catholic brothers and sisters; but we Catholics have to work toward unity of all people.

The work for unity must begin with diologue, by a careful study of those things that we hold in common. You always begin with what two parties hold in common and you slowly fan out to their differerences. Otherwise, you lose the trust in each other.

In the past, many other faiths believed that Catholics were the spawn of the Devil and we believed that they were damned to hell. A change in attitude on both sides is slowly bringing everyone to the table. I should use the word slowly in very large letters. Because there are very stubborn cells on both sides.

JR

 

[JReducation]

:clapping:

We strain the gnat and swallow the camel. Pope Benedict’s message to America this week is not about doctrinal issues or sectarian divisions, but rather, “Christ Our Hope”

I can’t predict it, but from what I’ve been reading in the Catholic press his message is about the state of the world and that’s why he’s making it a point to visit the White House and the United Nations.

If he were about to make a statement about religious differences he would not be going to visit a Jewish temple on the eve of Passover or meeting with the Jewish leadership afterward to explain the meaning of the prayer at the Good Friday liturgy. Many of the Jewish leaders are asking if this means a return to the antagonism between Catholicism and Judaism. The Holy Father is set on setting the record straight that it is not and that he does not want Catholics to think of it that way either.

Remember what he did after his lecture at the university in Germany regarding Islam? He invited the Islamic leadership to explain what he believed vs what the author he was quoting believed.

Benedict is very interested in maintaining the on-going relationship with Jews and other peoples.

JR

 

[I_Believe]

Ok, thanks for explaining it more clearly. I really can’t argue with anything there.

But assuming that you are correct, why would the recent rejection of the coversion of a large number of people be allowed ? Just going by memory, it was Cardinal Arinze who would not allow a group of Anglicans to convert. (I’m sure someone can correct me if I’m wrong about this)

 

[Conservative]

I think you need to read the Second Vatican Council’s decree on ecumenism, which does not say the intention is to be more like non-Catholic churches and communities, rather for them to become more like us.
vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19641121_unitatis-redintegratio_en.html

…

Ooch ! Ouch ! I won’t/can’t speak for the Vatican II Council’s intent - But I can only see the result. The Mass - removing some references to Our Lady; Communion standing or in the hand (perhaps more akin to non-Catholic church practices); the Lord’s Prayer now ending “for the Kingdom, the Power…etc.” (a phrase often identified with the Protesant version). It seems that IF the intent was for them to become more like us, it didn’t happen.

 

[JReducation]

Ok, thanks for explaining it more clearly. I really can’t argue with anything there.

But assuming that you are correct, why would the recent rejection of the coversion of a large number of people be allowed ? Just going by memory, it was Cardinal Arinze who would not allow a group of Anglicans to convert. (I’m sure someone can correct me if I’m wrong about this)

The Cardinal’s reasoning was that we do not accept conversion en masse. Each person has to approach the Church individually.

I’m only second-guessing him, so don’t take this to the bank.

I would imagine that he is being very cautious, because how do you guarrantee that everyone who belongs to this group really believes and practices what the Church teaches? I can see how that is a very difficult question to answer.

Also, there is the matter of every one who enters the Church must profess the faith of their own free will and not feel compelled to do so because their community is doing it.

This happened in the past with the Anglican Franciscans. A group of friars had broken off from the order and had formed their own Franciscan Society. They asked Pius XII to receive them into the Church. After consultation with the Superior General of the Order, it was decided that the friars had to profess their faith individually and that they had to be examined individually. They could not come in as one group.

I don’t know how many eventually were accepted. But many of them did convert to Catholicism, including their superior. However, they were not allowed to join the Friars Minor. They were established as a separate Franciscan society known as the Society of the Atonement. Most people know them as the Greymoore Franciscans.

Pius XII’s rationale was to allow them to keep their Anglican identity, including the Anglican version of the Franciscan habit, so that they would serve as a bridge between Catholicism and Protestantism. To this day, their ministry is to live according to the rule of St. Francis among Protestants and preach by example. Those non Catholics who are attracted by their charism are invited to explore the Catholic Church. They have brought many non Catholics into the Church. However, they are not allowed to proselityze to non Catholics. They are to serve and live among them and others who are not even Christians. They have a very good ministry, especially among the indigenous people of Brazil and non Catholics in New York.

Maybe this is what the good Cardinal is thinking. Of course, the Cardinal can be overruled by the Holy Father. But it doesn’t look like that’s going to be the case.

JR

 

[dyspepsic]

Fair enough - but hardly dishonest on my part. I always think of him as ArchBishop from the ol’ videos of “Life is Worth Living” I’ve seen. And I have seen enough of those to recognize it is the same person writing those words as spoke in those broadcasts.

Henceforth, I shall refer to the eralier quoted text as the “then Father Sheen”. Cool?

Quite frankly - I seriously doubt the “quotes” and paraphrases that they attribute to the good ArchBishop…always without citations or specific sources. It’s a disservice to the good ArchBishop’s name.

That’s why I am very very interested to see/hear/read such if they actually exist. Though I’m not holding my breath on this, I am looking.

My little stab at humor - as you should have noticed by the following wink.

Perhaps you should ask yourself and dyspepsic that question. I’m rather amused and flattereed by your guys’ attempts at the same toward me. I don’t take such things personally, and I’ve actually grown quite fond of dyspepsic .

I have become reluctant to jostle with you however, you seem to take such jostling the wrong way, and I don’t want to upset you, at least not in the wrong way - (if you come to see the errors of some of your theology that could be upsetting in a good way).

Anyhoo - nice talking to you again. Take care and God bless,

DustinsDad

Dad, most of your humor is a stabbing. Your history of comments on this website is loaded with hatred and sarcasm.

As I remember “Life is worth Living”, Fulton J. Sheen was a Monsignor, at the time.

I am sure that Archbishop Sheen had no interest in joining Fr. Feeney in his heresy, or Lefebrve in his schism.

I certainly am not expecting to see him as a fundalmentalist or a arch-conservative traditionalist, like some of the residents who prowl these threads looking for ‘modernists’, and ‘liberals’.

 

[DustinsDad]

Dad, most of your humor is a stabbing.

Thank you.

Your history of comments on this website is loaded with hatred and sarcasm.

Hatred? Never - not even a little bit.

Sarcasm? Well…guilty as charged…sometimes. Mia Culpa.

As I remember “Life is worth Living”, Fulton J. Sheen was a Monsignor, at the time.

I am sure that Archbishop Sheen had no interest in joining Fr. Feeney in his heresy, or Lefebrve in his schism.

I certainly am not expecting to see him as a fundalmentalist or a arch-conservative traditionalist,

Let the record show that a citation or a source for the alleged and ellusive “pro-modern-ecumenism” statement from ArchBishop Sheen has not been produced.

Let the record further show that Father Sheen and ArchBishop Sheen are indeed the same human being.

Let the record further show that no one has produced any sourced and/or cited comment or writings from either Father Fulton Sheen, Archbishop Fulton Sheen or even a Monsignor Fulton Sheen that would contradict his 1932 words - cited and sourced earlier by yours truly.

like some of the residents who prowl these threads looking for ‘modernists’, and ‘liberals’.

Sometimes, one doesn’t have to “look” all that hard. And of course, VII calls us to defend HMC:
“They are more perfectly bound to the Church by the sacrament of Confirmation, and the Holy Spirit endows them with special strength so that they are more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith, both by word and by deed, as true witnesses of Christ”
(Lumen Gentium, cf 11)
And now back to you dyspepsic ol’ buddy

DD

 

[DustinsDad]

…I am sure that Archbishop Sheen had no interest in joining Fr. Feeney in his heresy, or Lefebrve in his schism. I certainly am not expecting to see him as a fundalmentalist or a arch-conservative traditionalist…

Do you mean to say that Bishop Sheen’s (then Father Sheen) statements in the beforementioned cited and quoted article are heretical, schismatic, fundamentalist, and/or arch conservative tradtionalist?

Shame on you!

:tsktsk:

DD

 

[latinmasslover]

Dad, most of your humor is a stabbing. Your history of comments on this website is loaded with hatred and sarcasm.

You certainly have a lot of nerve throwing *that *accusation out at anyone here.

 

[JReducation]

Is anyone else noticing that the blue boxes containing citations from other people’s posts are appearing with the wrong names or is it my computer?

Post 184 attributes something to me that was said by Dyspepsic on post 179.

My respond contains something that was said by Latinmass lover and attributes it to Dyspepsic.

Very confusing.

JR

 

[HollyDolly]

While it is good to open up a dialogue with other Christian Churches, it is naive to think that after 500 years or more the the Orthodox and protestants were going to come running into our churches. If they haven’t made any move to do so in the past,then why now?

I think they will eventually come back,but let that be because of the workings of the Holy Spirit. I think the Church needs to work on keeping the people it has,especially in America and Europe,
and Latin America,where the fundies have made inroads.
That to me is more important.Tinkering with the mass or Catholic devotions to make them appeal more to protestants was wrong in the first place.

 

[JReducation]

While it is good to open up a dialogue with other Christian Churches, it is naive to think that after 500 years or more the the Orthodox and protestants were going to come running into our churches. If they haven’t made any move to do so in the past,then why now?

I think they will eventually come back,but let that be because of the workings of the Holy Spirit. I think the Church needs to work on keeping the people it has,especially in America and Europe,
and Latin America,where the fundies have made inroads.
That to me is more important.Tinkering with the mass or Catholic devotions to make them appeal more to protestants was wrong in the first place./QUOTE]

The subscript is mine.

Regardless of whether it was “tinkering” or not, the bottom line is that there are now two forms of the Latin rite mass.

The Novus Ordo is now the Ordinary Form of the Latin rite. There is nothing more to debate or argue.

It is our duty to obey and accept this fact.

We have an Extraordinary Form and an Ordinary Form. The Vatican has now put out the official 1962 Roman Missal in the Vernacular and Latin. You can get a copy through EWTN.

The deal is done. The Church has now approved the “tinkering”. There is no longer any wrongness to it. It is offical and the ordinary form.

JR

 

[dyspepsic]

DD

Yes, your posts have more hatred and sarcasm than anybody else’s. MULTO. MUCHO.

MIA CULPA? MIA CULPA?

When was the last time you attended the TLM? It’s 'mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa"!

MIA CULPLA, indeed.

It is true. We haven’t any statements from Sheen regarding Ecumenism. But, we don’t have any statements from him against. So what?

The 1932 and the 1965 Sheen were the same human being. That has nothing to do what he believed in 1932, and 1965. They could be entirely different, especially with Vat 2 intervening.