Can we have a polite discussion on the authority of vatican ii?

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If ANYONE has denied the authority of Vatican II, It would be our own Magisterium. Many of our Bishops have shown us what they think about the actual documents & directions of the Second Vatican Council:
Code: 
      The council called for "pride of place" re. Gregorian Chant.
      The council called for liberal use of Latin within the Mass. 
      The council, in Christus Dominus, told our Pastors to 
       always make themselves available to hear the confessions       of        the faithful.
The council

What the council did NOT call for:

Completely ignoring Church teaching since the time of the Apostles about the ordination of homosexuals.
Communion in the hand.
“Dime -a -dozen” annulments of Sacramental Catholic marriages.
Total destruction of our Churches.

I could go on & on about the abuses that have occured in the name of the “Spirit of Vatican II”…however, this thread is about the authority of Vatican II. If one uses the actions of many of our Bishops as an example of the authoritative nature of the Second Vatican council, one is going to have trouble finding Vatican II infallible.
 
Traditional_Ang said:
I’ve seen in a couple of books on the American Roman Catholic Church how as the RCC in America was accepted, many of the Bishops became concerned with getting power and privilege and not so much with preaching the Gospel or teaching the Faith.
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Could you please provide the titles of these books?

This thread has been extremely enlightening to me. When my mother died in 1967, we stopped going to church, and the reforms of VII were just beginning to hit, i.e. “Guitar Mass” was one of the things I remember. I may have attended once or twice very soon after Mom passed, but then there was a gap of over 20 years, so I missed all of the events that took the Church from Latin Masses to the Protestantized format we have now.

I was under the impression, which I now see is a false one, that VII did all the damage. I knew about all the gay priests allowed into seminaries in the late 1960s and early 1970s but this thread is really interesting - that our Church could have been hijacked this way is beyond scandalous!

No wonder so many Catholics think that using artificial birth control is a matter of personal choice. :eek:

Dear God, help us!
 
TheRealJuliane said:
Could you please provide the titles of these books?

This thread has been extremely enlightening to me. When my mother died in 1967, we stopped going to church, and the reforms of VII were just beginning to hit, i.e. “Guitar Mass” was one of the things I remember. I may have attended once or twice very soon after Mom passed, but then there was a gap of over 20 years, so I missed all of the events that took the Church from Latin Masses to the Protestantized format we have now.

I was under the impression, which I now see is a false one, that VII did all the damage. I knew about all the gay priests allowed into seminaries in the late 1960s and early 1970s but this thread is really interesting - that our Church could have been hijacked this way is beyond scandalous!

No wonder so many Catholics think that using artificial birth control is a matter of personal choice. :eek:

Dear God, help us!
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I think God has helped so much this past decade. The fact that the
Cardinals elected a conservative Pope is a great sign. Within 5 years of his papal reign, Pope Benedict has moved swiftly & with great courage. He gave us back our Traditional Mass, has brought more & more of our more faithful Bishops & Archbishops to Rome, including one of the prefects from my own state, Archbishop Raymond Burke. All he has ever asked from the laity is to: Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.
 
CradleCath said:
I think God has helped so much this past decade. The fact that the
Cardinals elected a conservative Pope is a great sign. Within 5 years of his papal reign, Pope Benedict has moved swiftly & with great courage. He gave us back our Traditional Mass, has brought more & more of our more faithful Bishops & Archbishops to Rome, including one of the prefects from my own state, Archbishop Raymond Burke. All he has ever asked from the laity is to: Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.
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That is encouraging indeed. I did not realize that Pope Benedict is considered to be conservative. Has it already been 5 years since he became our Pope?? 🙂 I will remember to pray for him.

I know that he takes flak from every source for a variety of reasons, which I guess should have told me he is unpopular with the media and thus, conservative Catholic. It cannot have come too soon.
 
Traditional_Ang said:
St. Thomas:

I would submit that it’s the people who have been doing all of this garbage and then using “The Spirit of Vatican II” who have been Ignoring the Words and Teachings of the 2nd Vatican Council. and that people such as Basinite and Reginator are should be treated with a little more Charity - If I hadn’t read the Council Documents so many years ago myself, I’d be as confused as they are.

I’ve seen that quote from Pope Paul VI in plenty of places. Given the garbage the Church endured in the late 1960’s - late 1970’s, I can understand why he said what he said. A lot of people experimented in ways never even dreamed of by the Fathers of the Council, and I think it’s safe to say that a lot of these people used “The Spirit of the Council” to justify things the Fathers of the Council actually spoke against and that, in many cases, were opposed to the Tradition of the Church (I saw some of these myself). I still remember dealing with one of those situations myself in late 1977. It involved a priest who believed the Council gave him license to do Sunday Masses with the following:
  1. Changed Readings from those assigned (always dropping at least one & sometimes replacing all w/ some sort of non-Scriptural reading);
  2. No Creed of any kind - No Nicene/Apostles Creed;
  3. Sermons that had nothing to do with any of the Readings assigned for the Day - Often Buddhist or Zen Meditations;
  4. Use of Leavened, Sweetened Bread - Not Valid Matter for Confecting the Eucharist (Already checked with Orthodox Bishops); and
  5. Canon 5 - “Make it up as you go” often with no “Words of Institution”.
I remember when he called me a “Jesus Freak” because I dared to bring a Bible when I went to talk to him. So, I can understand the confusion some of these people have. We all have to realize that none of this garbage has anything to do with the Words of Vatican II - That it’s all the “Spirit” of Vatican II these Activists who wanted to remake the Church in their own image conjured up.

That is why Pope Benedict XVI is trying to “Reform the Reform”.
Your Servant in Christ, Michael
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Don’t forget to charge rejection of Vatican II to the SSPX and their ilk
 
CradleCath said:
If ANYONE has denied the authority of Vatican II, It would be our own Magisterium. Many of our Bishops have shown us what they think about the actual documents & directions of the Second Vatican Council:
Code: 
      The council called for "pride of place" re. Gregorian Chant.
      The council called for liberal use of Latin within the Mass. 
      The council, in Christus Dominus, told our Pastors to 
       always make themselves available to hear the confessions       of        the faithful.
The council

What the council did NOT call for:

Completely ignoring Church teaching since the time of the Apostles about the ordination of homosexuals.
Communion in the hand.
“Dime -a -dozen” annulments of Sacramental Catholic marriages.
Total destruction of our Churches.

I could go on & on about the abuses that have occured in the name of the “Spirit of Vatican II”…however, this thread is about the authority of Vatican II. If one uses the actions of many of our Bishops as an example of the authoritative nature of the Second Vatican council, one is going to have trouble finding Vatican II infallible.
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A bit drastic, don’t you think? My Church and neighboring Churches were not totally destroyed.

At the time of Vatican II, dissidents inside and outside the Church demanded change. Vatican II had ZERO to do with it. Nothing. The changes most people think of were not even suggested by Vatican II:

catholicnewsagency.com/column.php?n=1145

A priest on Catholic radio talked about certain problems in the seminaries in the 1970s. One significant problem was that while prospective priests were taught Humanae Vitae, they were also told that the Church would change its stance on artificial contraception someday. The result? On becoming priests, they told parishioners that artificial birth control was a personal conscience matter. Recently, a priest on Catholic radio said that this problem is being corrected.

Peace,
Ed
 
Traditional_Ang said:
Reginator:

The problem wasn’t the Council - Read the actual words of the documents. The problem was a motivated, organized group of activists with a disobedient, unbiblical agenda. The problem wasn’t the Council - The Church wasn’t exactly in great shape to begin with. The Church really was in need of reform, as too many 15 Minute Masses, too many things that bordered on real superstition, Too little real teaching by too few priests and others in the Church on the Scriptures and the essentials of the Faith (Catholics had a good Catechism, but most stopped learning after that), Hitler’s Rise to Power, WWII and the Holocaust all should have proven.

The Church had become unable to “Turn the world upside down” as it had done even when Christians were fewer than 1% of the population of the Roman Empire. and, That which can no longer “Turn the world upside down” becomes susceptible to having the world turn it “Upside down”. So, Pope John XXII knew the Church was in trouble - He had seen the difficulty the Church had in dealing with WWII and how thw Pope had to intervene and use his personal authority repeatedly, and how he himself had been placed into danger, because the Church had been unable to mobilize to keep Hitler from getting into Power or to stop Hitler’s Aggressive War or any of the other Horrible things he & his henchmen did.

I’ve seen in a couple of books on the American Roman Catholic Church how as the RCC in America was accepted, many of the Bishops became concerned with getting power and privilege and not so much with preaching the Gospel or teaching the Faith. I guess that was an easy trap yo fall into - So many people were Catholics, and Catholics represented such a huge voting block which was getting more and more prosperous every decade.

I guess you could say the Council had a lot to deal with, and then the well-organized activists took over in many countries after the Council was over, and most of the bishops who just trusted in God (or those who just muddled through) never knew what hit them. They used a phrase I’ve seen a lot now in Constitutional Studies “Living Document” - This allows them to make the documents mean anything they want them to, even and including exactly the opposite of what the documents actually say - For instance, “This is my Body…This is my Blood… My words are Spirit and Life.” becomes “It’s just a Sign - the read and wine don’t actually become Christ’s Body and Blood. Everyone knows we’re the REAL Body of Christ - Just read the Apostle Paul.”

That’s why I urge you to read the actual words of the Council - My father had me reading them in the 1970’s. You’ll find the Council Fathers believed the Mass should be said or sung out loud in Latin, and that those parts that were translated should be done in “Transcendent Language”, That Music should be beautiful and Gregorian and other ancient chants of the Church accorded “Pride of Place” in the Mass. You’d find that they believed that ALL Catholics should learn Latin, not just the priests (I don’t know Latin:shrug:, so I haven’t done my job), and that priests should be fluent in Latin and another ancient language (Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew) so they could study and transmit the Scriptures to their congregations.

In most places, the Council was FAR more traditionalist & conservative than its Liberal “Supporters” have ever conceded that it was. In fact, I know one priest who, after 25 years of trying to say the Mass facing the People and feeling uncomfortable with it, read the Constitution on the Liturgy and concluded that the Council Fathers never wanted the Mass to be said facing the People, and that they never wanted Lating to be dropped. He started saying the Mass of Pope Paul VI in Latin Ad Orientum and he said that he immediately felt at one with the Lord. He has done the Extraordinary Form, but he usually doe the Ordinary Form in Latin, Ad Orientum - Canon One (The Roman Canon), Gregorian Chants on Sundays and Holy Days…

I’ll have to catch up with him one of these days…
In Christ, Michael
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Here are some statistics about the Church before the “reforms” of Vatican II.
olrl.org/misc/jones_stats.shtml
 
basinite said:
Here are some statistics about the Church before the “reforms” of Vatican II.
olrl.org/misc/jones_stats.shtml
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All I had to see was the numbers regarding the priest crisis. The crisis was looming before Vatican II, and seminaries were not preparing priests for their pastoral duties, so you can Vatican @ is not to blame for the decrease is vocations.
 
StTommyMore said:
All I had to see was the numbers regarding the priest crisis. The crisis was looming before Vatican II, and seminaries were not preparing priests for their pastoral duties, so you can Vatican @ is not to blame for the decrease is vocations.
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Please provide a source re. your remarks about the Church & the priesthood pre-Vatican II.
 
StTommyMore said:
Don’t forget to charge rejection of Vatican II to the SSPX and their ilk
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The rejection by the SSPX is different in kind than the rejection of the innovators, and is in practice easier to accomodate. The rejection of the SSPX also highlights an interesting question, which is what, exactly, does Vatican II require Catholics to believe that they did not previously believe?
 
Warrenton said:
The rejection by the SSPX is different in kind than the rejection of the innovators, and is in practice easier to accomodate. The rejection of the SSPX also highlights an interesting question, which is what, exactly, does Vatican II require Catholics to believe that they did not previously believe?
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The SSPX holds an illogical view with regards to Vatican II
 
basinite said:
Here are some statistics about the Church before the “reforms” of Vatican II.
olrl.org/misc/jones_stats.shtml
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Those are not statistics of the Church. They are seleted statistics of the Catholic Church in America. They are not an indicator of anything other than opinion of the one doing the selecting. They also are useless as to understanding cause and effect specifically because they do not compare the Catholic Church in America to other churches in the same time period, or the Catholic Church in the America to the rest of the worlds, specifically Africa and Asia.

It is poor science.
 
StTommyMore said:
The SSPX holds an illogical view with regards to Vatican II
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I’m not sure I understand. :confused:

Do you have some particular stance or statement in mind, or perhaps do you mean in general?

They seem to have changed over time, but this is not surprising as the charge against them has also changed.
 
Warrenton said:
I’m not sure I understand. :confused:

Do you have some particular stance or statement in mind, or perhaps do you mean in general?

They seem to have changed over time, but this is not surprising as the charge against them has also changed.
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Cardinal Ratzinger was very specific about it in 1985.
 
Why is it almost inevitable that a perfectly normal thread will turn into a discussion of the SSPX? :confused:
 
Warrenton said:
That’s 25 years ago. Certainly, there have been changes since then?
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But one thing has not changed: the stubborn refusal of the SSPX to accept Vatican II on the grounds of principle…the very thing Ratzinger called illogical.
 
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