Are Catholics Bound to Assent to Vatican II?

[pnewton]

For me, just because the Church decides to supersede Christ and God giving us the beatitudes and the ten commandments, with everything else it decided to create, doesn’t bode well with the conscience God gave me.

Good, because that never happened.

Jesus nor God ever declared that humanity is required to abide by human religious authorities.

Jesus said of the Pharisees in Matthew 23:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:
"The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.
So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.

 

[commenter]

The constant agitation for “clarification” is a cash cow for trad websites. (Commenter)

That’s true… but also because it is actually needed. (Orbis)
[/quote]
Commenter:
Consider how much time, money, and attention has been poured into the “Vatican 2 needs endless clarification/Untold secrets, lies, cover-ups of V2” hole.
Add in the tens of millions of dollars promoting “Lurid Cover-up by Vatican insiders of Our Lady’s Third Secret”.
(Send money to this same website)

Then recall ministries supporting actual catechesis and Evangelism are cutting back for lack of money.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Then recall ministries supporting actual catechesis and Evangelism are cutting back for lack of money.

Easy solution is to just clarify it then. Other solution is to wait until people stop caring but how has that gone past 60 years?

I would be in favour of new syllabus of errors which condemns wrong things done in Spirit of Vatican II (though in reality they don’t have much to do with Vatican II). It would probably also be enough for SSPX and likes of them to return to the fold which would probably help souls- and salvation of souls is the supreme law of the Church.

 

[Rubee]

Vatican II never said Mass should be all vernacular.
Vatican II never said women should not wear head coverings.
Vatican II never said CITH or to abolish altar rails or to take down statues.
Vatican II never said priests must celebrate facing the people.
Vatican II never said there is no more Friday penance.
Vatican II never said that we are an ‘Easter people’ (once saved, always saved).
Vatican II never said that the TLM was abrogated.
Vatican II never said that the Church in the past 1900 plus years prior was full of error and that all its old teachings should be modernized.
There was no “Spirit of Vatican II”.

Sure, and I’ve in the past had a lot of sympathies for people opposed to Vatican II. But I think it’s important, at the end of the day, to pick your battles. Almost everything you list here would not be known to the church led by the apostles. Do we think the apostles celebrated the mass very differently from our Lord on Holy Thursday? And did he show his back to them when he did? Did he speak Latin? Did he use altar rails or statues?

I’m not one to scoff at tradition. In fact, I wholeheartedly agree with a lot of the criticisms of the things done in the name of the council after. However, I make sure to keep to mind, in a strict way, what is not essential to faith. Most of these things are not essential. One can have a complete Catholic faith without using a specific human language or a specific order of mass. The essentials were all there 2,000 years ago, before we had a TLM etc.

I for one, appreciate not having Africans saying Mass in Latin instead of their own languages. I appreciate not having to use cultural European things like pianos and bells, instead of, say, drums and shakers. Sure, the European stuff is still used, but so is the local stuff. None of this happened pre-V2 because there was never a distinction between Christianity and European culture, so a lot of the latter was often imposed in the name of the first. In Orthodox countries, too, you had the phenomenon of latinization. We must never mistake the faith for the human cultures it lives in and borrows vestments from.

 

[commenter]

• V2 has been clarified many times, especially by the two previous recent popes, in Encyclicals and other ways. It will be clarified more. Nobody will be totally satisfied by the clarifications.
• V2, or the “spirit of V2” was cited constantly in the 1970s. It is cited infrequently now. Priests I disagree with are citing other sources. They wouldn’t be affected at all by “clarifications” because they challenge Catholic authority, the “hermeneutics of suspicion”.
• The websites that constantly chant “clarification” are part of the attack on authority, also nurture the “hermeneutics of suspicion”.
• Somewhere there’s an office. If the call comes in on line 1, secretary answers “National Catholic Reporter, how may I direct your anger?” If it is line 2, she says “Church Militant, or 1p5, how …”

Same staff.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

V2 has been clarified many times, especially by the two previous recent popes, in Encyclicals and other ways. It will be clarified more. Nobody will be totally satisfied by the clarifications.

I see. It would be nice to clarify V2 points that actually are controversial- for example clarify what SSPX has problems with so they get back into full full communion etc.

• V2, or the “spirit of V2” was cited constantly in the 1970s. It is cited infrequently now. Priests I disagree with are citing other sources. They wouldn’t be affected at all by “clarifications” because they challenge Catholic authority, the “hermeneutics of suspicion”.

True I guess. Perhaps what would help are authoritative guidelines against doing so rather than just clarification?

The websites that constantly chant “clarification” are part of the attack on authority, also nurture the “hermeneutics of suspicion”.

It is obviously publicity stuff. All websites that write those things are supposed to attract people. That doesn’t make their arguments less logical just because of this reason.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Almost everything you list here would not be known to the church led by the apostles.

We must be careful not to succumb to heresy of antiquarianism where one wants to return into Earliest Church and Earliest Church only. I am not saying you are doing so, just pointing that out.

Otherwise I agree with you.

 

[commenter]

Perhaps what would help are authoritative guidelines… rather than just clarification?

Starting shortly before V2, the Left began undermining authority. They still do, but in recent years the Right has done it too. It used to be very selective, against a few bishops, now there is suspicion of all bishops…not because they are dissenting bishops but because they are bishops.

This is especially true of younger conservatives I know, raised on internet.

In other words “authoritative” guidelines, or authoritative anything, will have less benefit now.

 

[stpurl]

While I understand your contribution, you seem to have misunderstood the point I was making to the poster I addressed.

Catholicism isn’t some ‘minimalist’ religion. And it is universal even if you perceive a “European focus’. After all, its form is based on the Jewish services of the time of Christ (making its origins Middle Eastern), and prior to Islam the Eastern Church was North African and Middle Eastern. Rome was not just some European city, it was the focal point of a world civilization.

For some 1900 years, people around the globe managed to become Catholics themselves and to celebrate (from the 16th century on, coinciding with an opening up and exploration of the world) a liturgy which had itself been carefully and organically developing from “day 1”. All the “African people’ including hundreds of saints we are celebrating ‘known’ as well as probably thousands and thousands known only to God, celebrated the TLM, knew and loved it.

And still in many cases celebrate it today.

 

[Crusader13]

They still do, but in recent years the Right has done it too. It used to be very selective, against a few bishops, now there is suspicion of all bishops…not because they are dissenting bishops but because they are bishops.

This is especially true of younger conservatives I know, raised on internet.

I think that part of the problem is how we over generalize a few bad apples and attach their behavior to an entire group.

Personally, I don’t see a concentrated effort by those on the Right or Traditionalists in general, to attack the entire magisterium. This same generalization is often used when insisting that a certain group is against all of VII.

Distinctions have to be made and positions properly understood, if we are to clear up errors and misunderstandings.

 

[commenter]

I don’t see a concentrated effort by those on the Right or Traditionalists in general, to attack the entire magisterium.

Not a concentrated effort. More like a general attitude, a vague preference for skepticism. It grows on you, unconsciously. I’m not referring to Traditional (orthodox) Catholics but Traditionalists (The Right).

Both the Left and Right minimize: this V2 Document is just pastoral, that Encyclical is “time or culture bound” so I don’t have to follow it.

If pope or bishop teach something, well we have to see it in light of Tradition, or in context of latest psychology or similar findings, etc, attitude of both Right and Left. I don’t have to obey it unless it has no effect.

The Right and Left use slightly different wording for suspicion nurturing, but the outcome is the same.

 

[Crusader13]

If pope or bishop teach something, well we have to see it in light of Tradition, or in context of latest psychology or similar findings, etc, attitude of both Right and Left. I don’t have to obey it unless it has no effect.

I think there are those who outright reject VII, but they are a minority fringe group, without a proper understanding of what the real issues are.

I see the problem as being one of interpretation. If we are to view Vatican II in light of tradition than these new interpretations have to be based on and uphold the old.

Therefore if our past teachings and Traditions have said we need to pray for and evangelize to all unbelievers, then it becomes problematic to suggest that there are groups or religions that have no need of this missionary work.

So just because the documents are vague and ambiguous in certain places, this does not justify certain clergy to teach error and then validate their beliefs by saying “Well, Vatican says…”

That’s what some traditionalists are objecting against.

 

[Rubee]

For some 1900 years, people around the globe managed to become Catholics themselves and to celebrate (from the 16th century on, coinciding with an opening up and exploration of the world) a liturgy which had itself been carefully and organically developing from “day 1”. All the “African people’ including hundreds of saints we are celebrating ‘known’ as well as probably thousands and thousands known only to God, celebrated the TLM, knew and loved it.

And still in many cases celebrate it today.

And now they love and celebrate mass in their vernacular. Thank God. Why is that development less desirable than a European-based one?

If you’re not attached to the first century and can accept the latter developments, like TLM, these ones should be fine too. Like, I said, as an African, I’m glad I don’t have to express my faith in a wholly European fashion just because the church was there before it came to my people. If Christianity isn’t minimalist, as you say, then these developments are just fine. And I repeat, the church of the apostles was just fine without the TLM, rails, pews etc and a future church without those will be just fine without them as well.

My point was that these things are non-essential, not that they are useless: the same faith could be expressed in a wholly different way and would be just fine since none of those things, however attached people may be to them, are essential. The church, the faith, and the sacraments are essential. Period.

 

[Genesis315]

@Genesis315 provided his quote from Lumen Gentium on how the document was to be received. It lays out two ways of responding to the Council: 1) as binding; and 2) by accepting and embracing. There is no option 3) by correcting its errors. Nor 3) dismissing it as outdated or insufficient.

The proper response to our question is “Catholics are not bound to accept Vatican II; they freely accept and embrace the Church’s teaching.”

You’re forgetting the clause “according the mind of the Sacred Council” which is what the rest of my post you omitted demonstrates. The Council itself stated much of its acts to not have permanent value being based instead on changing circumstances (certainly, its enunciation of the revelation of God, and those doctrines necessary for defending and expounding upon it, always have permanent value). The whole point of the Council was to address the Church’s approach to the “modern world” (by definition a finite time).

And what are those circumstances? Are they still the same today? Pope St. John XXIII in his opening speech explained the circumstances to which the Council intended to apply its pastoral guidance:

For example, he says “the fundamental doctrine of the Church which has repeatedly been taught by the Fathers and by ancient and modern theologians…is presumed to be well known and familiar to all.” This presumption is no longer valid.

Likewise, with regard to the errors in the world, he says

But all such error is so manifestly contrary to rightness and goodness, and produces such fatal results, that our contemporaries show every inclination to condemn it of their own accord—especially that way of life which repudiates God and His law, and which places excessive confidence in technical progress and an exclusively material prosperity. It is more and more widely understood that personal dignity and true self-realization are of vital importance and worth every effort to achieve. More important still, experience has at long last taught men that physical violence, armed might, and political domination are no help at all in providing a happy solution to the serious problems which affect them.

Again, this is clearly no longer the case at all.

Those are just a couple examples.

If Vatican II’s pastoral program was aimed at these circumstances, clearly that program is now out of date. The world today is much different than 1962 or 1965. The approach geared toward those past times should not be clung to with rigidity-- which Pope Francis defines as “intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past”–in the face of new circumstances. Sometimes new approaches are needed, and sometimes a return to older practices are needed (Vatican II itself did each for its own time, and each can be done again).

 

[stpurl]

However, Latin is not to be completely omitted from the liturgy. It never was intended to be so.
While the OF as properly celebrated (that is, including the Greek Kyrie, the Latin Credo, Gloria, Hosanna, and Agnus Dei as well as the Pater Noster) is certainly acceptable, there was not a complete ‘dearth’ of vernacular ever. Homilies were not conducted in Ecclesiastical Latin. Missals were often available, and a study of the TLM which would have been the Mass in question shows that the parts the people heard would have become quite familiar on their repetition. Personally, I think that Viking barbarians, European serfs, Japanese peasants, and various peoples of the Americas and Africa over the last 500 to 2000 years were not so much more intelligent than the person of today who is often literate and relatively affluent.

Cardinal Sarah is an African cardinal who speaks very well of the liturgy, EF and OF, and indeed of Catholicism today. Are you familiar with his books?

 

[Rubee]

However, Latin is not to be completely omitted from the liturgy.

We say mass without any Latin and we are just fine, thank you. You may believe Latin is essential, you’re free to burden yourself with such things but we are just fine here hearing the ENTIRE mass in our language all year round. I don’t care how clever/slow people are, I care that people are not burdened with things that are in no way essential to faith. To me, people insisting on this specially outside European cultures sound like 1st century Judaizers wishing to burden non-Jewish Christians with all manner of non-essentials just because it was what they were used/attached to. Latin is not in any way/shape/form part of Sub-Saharan African culture or Christian faith. Why do you need people with absolutely no connection to this language forced to use it? Is it the faith or Roman civilization that matters to you?

 

[StudentMI]

Is it the faith or Roman civilization that matters to you?

I’m sorry to say but it would seem you are the one with the fixation on culture. The EF was built up out of almost two thousand years of tradition and practice, with much theorizing taking place to justify every element. I would recommend the books Nothing Superfluous by the FSSP, and The Case for Liturgical Restoration.

In addition, stpurl is correct. Vatican II says nowhere that Latin is to be omitted.

 

[Rubee]

I’m sorry to say but it would seem you are the one with the fixation on culture.

Says the people wanting everyone using a language outside their culture: irony much? Whatever you think of Vatican II, we say mass without Latin and our Bishops and the church are fine with it. So your opinions are just that.

 

[StudentMI]

Says the people wanting everyone using a language outside their culture: irony much? Whatever you think of Vatican II, we say mass without Latin and our Bishops and the church are fine with it. So your opinions are just that.

You’re the one calling bells and pianos ‘European’ and saying no we’re fine with it thank you. Obedience to the Church is a virtue. If you were born in 1900 would you be critical of the Mass for not including drums?

 

[Rubee]

You’re the one calling bells and pianos ‘European’ and saying no we’re fine with it thank you.

Bells and pianos are European. Am I supposed to pretend they are not to suit you? We have instruments we use here, more and more, and I much prefer them. Do read on the church and inculturation. If you think those things don’t matter, you shouldn’t care which one we use.

Obedience to the Church is a virtue.

Thank you. CAF posters are not the church, though. We are just fine with our Bishops watching over us and never requiring us to speak languages we don’t understand in church. Feel free to inform Pope Francis if you believe this is disobedience.

If you were born in 1900 would you be critical of the Mass for not including drums?

Why are you critical of the Mass not including Pianos? I’m not critical of the mass, would be good to quit the strawmen. If you need pianos to feel like a Christian, no one is forcing you to stop using them. I don’t care for them, for the most part, and I don’t care that you apparently care that I don’t.