Can we judge Vatican II by its fruit?

[Lormar]

The only good thing about VII is that it has brought all of the rot in the Church to the surface which had been festering for only God knows how long.

Also, there are some people posting here that shouldn’t be and who are trying to turn this nasty I find their postings curt and cold. There is warning about this by the moderator. If you don’t agree with us, go elsewhere. Say! I heard that upteem times myself in the post vatican 2 years “If you don’t like it here, leave!”

 

[Onegin]

I picked the latter option. I’m one of the types that believes that the Council was “hijacked” but I also believe that there were some problems in the Vatican II documents themselves that allowed for this.

This is to say that if there had been no “innovations” following Vatican II, I would have still have some problems with the way in which several statements in the documents at least facially appear to contradict existing tradition. Despite the best efforts of some very noteworthy theologians (much more learned then myself) I still have reservations about the documents and I’m not sure these discrepancies can be reconciled.

 

[cathguy]

The only good thing about VII is that it has brought all of the rot in the Church to the surface which had been festering for only God knows how long.

Also, there are some people posting here that shouldn’t be and who are trying to turn this nasty I find their postings curt and cold. There is warning about this by the moderator. If you don’t agree with us, go elsewhere. Say! I heard that upteem times myself in the post vatican 2 years “If you don’t like it here, leave!”

Charity…

Look, if you post this, and they come back and hit you, and you hit back, then then the thread will become entirely derailed and possibly closed.

That is my fear. I want to be able to discuss this issue without us making ourselves Popes and excommunicating each-other.

I am not saying people didn’t say to you when the foisted the changes on you “if you don’t like it leave!” I understand “those people” pushed the Church to the brink of schism.

Someone here already has accused me of saying Pope John didn’t have the Holy Spirit, and I said no such thing!

BUT… the people posting here may, or may not, be “those people” and I think the thing to do is assume the best motives in folks and just try to make the case for Catholic tradition calmly. After all, the data is the traditionalists’ side I think.

Also, how many times have you (or I) come late to a thread, read too quickly, and took someone the wrong way?

I am actually amazed this discussion has been as civil as it has been to this point. Lets try and keep it that way.

Peace!

 

[Lormar]

Thanks for the sermon!

 

[ibkc]

Charity…

Look, if you post this, and they come back and hit you, and you hit back, then then the thread will become entirely derailed and possibly closed.

That is my fear. I want to be able to discuss this issue without us making ourselves Popes and excommunicating each-other.

I am not saying people didn’t say to you when the foisted the changes on you “if you don’t like it leave!” I understand “those people” pushed the Church to the brink of schism.

Someone here already has accused me of saying Pope John didn’t have the Holy Spirit, and I said no such thing!

BUT… the people posting here may, or may not, be “those people” and I think the thing to do is assume the best motives in folks and just try to make the case for Catholic tradition calmly. After all, the data is the traditionalists’ side I think.

Also, how many times have you (or I) come late to a thread, read too quickly, and took someone the wrong way?

I am actually amazed this discussion has been as civil as it has been to this point. Lets try and keep it that way.

Peace!

I, for one, appreciate your efforts. This forum has definitely changed for the better, and the participation of knowledgeable and charitable Catholics like yourself is one of the major reasons.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Good point! And well taken!

How would you reword the Poll to make it more effective and allow your participation?

I do not know that there is a way to do such a thing as most people do not know what the actual Council Documents say. They go on what they here and what the “spirit” of Vatican II is to them.

To have a truly enlightening discussion we would all have to read the documents and then discuss them, not the vague idea of “Vatican II”.

 

[edwest2]

This “decline” was actually well on its was before the council was convened. People “remember the good ol’ days.” I hate tr break it to you, but the “good ol’ days” exist only in our minds. Instead of looking around for someone to blame for what you perceive to be problems, wouldn’t energy be better spent looking for solutions?

Those statements are false and misleading. Church attendance was higher in the past. The acceptance of Catholic values and living out our faith was present to a greater degree in our communities back then. Looking for solutions requires a clear definition of how the problem began. There is good scholarship for that.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

Speculation? Again? To borrow a phrase from a certain President: “We are on the internets.”

catholicword.net/partI.htm

This subject is being studied. Why do I get the feeling that some here believe the documents or reasons or whatever will never be found? A bit self-defeating, don’t you think?

Peace,
Ed

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Those statements are false and misleading. Church attendance was higher in the past. The acceptance of Catholic values and living out our faith was present to a greater degree in our communities back then. Looking for solutions requires a clear definition of how the problem began. There is good scholarship for that.

Peace,
Ed

Really there was the start of a decline before Vatican II. That is fact and the statistics show it.

Why this decline was occuring is very hard to define, the same as the decline following Vatican II.

We do not live in a vacuum. We are part of a very complex social organism and it is seldom, if not never, one thing that causes another.

People love to blame Vatican II, but again, I believe that those suffer from the “spirit” of Vatican II mentality rather than what the Vatican II Documents actually say and teach.

 

[Joe_5859]

I just came across this article in another thread:

Worldwide Catholic Population Rises to 1.166 Billion

The article also says that there has been “…a rise in the number of Catholic priests during the first decade of the 21st century.”

It goes on to admit, “Most of the growth in the clerical population has taken place in the southern hemisphere, however, while Europe has seen a marked decline in priests.”

How do we reconcile data such as this with the concept of a “decline” following Vatican II? If Vatican II were the cause of rapid decline, shouldn’t we expect to see this decline across the board, not just in the U.S. and Europe?

To me, this hints that there are cultural factors in play beyond the Council itself. But I’m no sociologist.

 

[CWBetts]

Those statements are false and misleading. Church attendance was higher in the past. The acceptance of Catholic values and living out our faith was present to a greater degree in our communities back then. Looking for solutions requires a clear definition of how the problem began. There is good scholarship for that.

Peace,
Ed

And I posit that it is not the Council that is to blame. Protestants have also suffered from a decrease in vocations, a decline in church attendance, and a lack in faithfulness in living their faith. Is Vatican II to blame for that as well? Or is it more logical to assume that the world is having a negative effect on Christians across the board? Instead of blaming the Church, I think we should be blaming the Devil.

 

[ProVobis]

From what Pope Paul VI himself said, it seems things only got worse after Vatican II:

Referring to the situation of the Church today, the Holy Father affirms that he has a sense that “from some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.”  There is doubt, incertitude, problematic, disquiet, dissatisfaction, confrontation.  There is no longer trust of the Church; they trust the first profane prophet who speaks in some journal or some social movement, and they run after him and ask him if he has the formula of true life.  And we are not alert to the fact that we are already the owners and masters of the formula of true life.  Doubt has entered our consciences, and it entered by windows that should have been open to the light.  Science exists to give us truths that do not separate from God, but make us seek him all the more and celebrate him with greater intensity; instead, science gives us criticism and doubt.  Scientists are those who more thoughtfully and more painfully exert their minds.  But they end up teaching us:  “I don’t know, we don’t know, we cannot know.”  The school becomes the gymnasium of confusion and sometimes of absurd contradictions.  Progress is celebrated, only so that it can then be demolished with revolutions that are more radical and more strange, so as to negate everything that has been achieved, and to come away as primitives after having so exalted the advances of the modern world.

This state of uncertainty even holds sway in the Church.  **There was the belief that after the Council there would be a day of sunshine for the history of the Church.  Instead, it is the arrival of a day of clouds, of tempest, of darkness, of research, of uncertainty.**  We preach ecumenism but we constantly separate ourselves from others.  We seek to dig abysses instead of filling them in.

jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2006/11/the_smoke_of_sa.html

 

[Joe_5859]

And I posit that it is not the Council that is to blame. Protestants have also suffered from a decrease in vocations, a decline in church attendance, and a lack in faithfulness in living their faith. Is Vatican II to blame for that as well? Or is it more logical to assume that the world is having a negative effect on Christians across the board? Instead of blaming the Church, I think we should be blaming the Devil.

You bring up an interesting point to consider: what have the past 50 years looked like for Protestants in terms of attendance and vocations to ministry? If other ecclesial communities follow the same downward trend as the Catholic Church (at least in the U.S. and Europe), then it would seem to suggest that other sociological factors are the cause rather than Vatican II.

Anyone have any statistics? From what I can recall, I believe that many of the mainline Protestant denominations have dwindled, but certain fundamentalist sects have grown quite dramatically.

 

[ncjohn]

I would request… in this thread especially… that we work especially hard to be charitable.

As Davies points out, it is nearly impossible to argue that the changes were positive.

Solutions, friend, can only be found when we ask the right questions, and understand the problem.

When one enters the discussion positing such opinions as fact and putting the “great” Mr. Davies on such a pedestal, I fear you are doomed to disappointment if you think that a large percentage of the Catholic population does not disagree with your basic premise. While he most assuredly makes many valid points he is so far off the mark on many things that it is hard to get any kind of consistent undistorted view and his personal agenda is far too visible throughout.

“Decline” in the OP is not even defined though I suspect we’re going to get into the same old tired statistics about church attendance as if Vatican II can be shown as the cause to that effect even though there are large areas of the Catholic world where attendance and vocations are actually exploding. I usually try to read through a thread before responding but the basic premise here the premise seems to be “I think things are terrible. Tell me how you agree with me.” Not meaning to be uncharitable in any way; just pointing out the perception from having encountered way more of these threads than I wish to remember that are mostly set up to bait people into an argument.

As to the idea that the Church is in the worst shape it has ever been, I would heartily disagree with you. The entire time of the middle ages saw a Church full of corruption and ruling where it did by brute force in many cases.

Is everything that came out of the council perfect? Of course not but we have yet to have a council where everything came out perfect. All councils produce things that take time to swing back and forth before relative balance is achieved. Thankfully we continue to have Popes who try to pull out the weeds without tossing the fruit until the proper implementation is in place.

Peace,

 

[cathguy]

Really there was the start of a decline before Vatican II. That is fact and the statistics show it.

Why this decline was occuring is very hard to define, the same as the decline following Vatican II.

We do not live in a vacuum. We are part of a very complex social organism and it is seldom, if not never, one thing that causes another.

People love to blame Vatican II, but again, I believe that those suffer from the “spirit” of Vatican II mentality rather than what the Vatican II Documents actually say and teach.

Maybe… maybe not…

“There are a good many sincere and exemplary Catholics who, like the Pope, believe that the paradox if the actual as opposed to the intended fruits of the Council can be solved by making a distinction between the so-called “Spirit of Vatican II” and the conciliar documents themselves. Adherence to these documents, they claim, would have brought about an unprecedented renewal. Once again it must be stressed that a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit. There was no “spirit” of Trent, or Vatican I working in a contradictory sense to the expressed intentions of these councils because their documents are not open to such misinterpretation. No one has been able to misuse Pope Paul’s Mysterium Fidei (his encyclical on the Eucharist) or his Credo of the People of God, as instruments for undermining traditional teaching because these documents are not open to unorthodox interpretation.”

This is a powerful arguments. The Documents themselves arguably lend themselves to these sort of heterodox interpretations.

The statistics on the Church since the Council are truly stunning.

If there was a decline before the Council, everyone who was there, including the Popes, recognized how quickly the decline accelerated as the Council progressed and as it came into force. Pope Paul blamed Satan.

“Even Pope Paul came to speak in very different terms from those of his opening address to the second session. By 1968 he had reached the stage of lamenting the fact that the Church was engaged in a process of self-destruction (autodistruzione. On the Feast of SS Peter and Paul, in 1972, he went so far as saying that somehow or other Satan himself had found an opening into the Church, where he was spreading doubt, disquiet, and dissatisfaction” (Davies)

Pope Paul said: “We will confide this thought to you - that there was an adverse power, the Devil, whom the Gospel calls the mysterious enemy of man, something preternatural which came to suffocate the fruits of the Vatican Council.”

The Church in the West is dying.

“The future of any religious order depends on the number of seminarians it attracts to guarantee its future. In 1965 there were 3559 Jesuit seminarians; in 2000 there were 389, a decline of 89 per cent. There were 2,251 Franciscan O.F.M. seminarians in 1965; in 2000 there were 60, a decline of 97 per cent. There were 912 Christian Brothers novices 1965; in 2000 there were 7, a decline of 99 per cent…” (the statistics for every major order are comparable).

“Every major religious order in the United States mirrors these statistics for seminarians, indicating not an influx of generous and enthusiastic candidates, but that not one of the major religious orders for men has a viable future.” (Davies)

This is stunning, and the statistics are independently verifiable and well-sourced.

Now, the gates of hell won’t prevail against the Church.

But what does this mean?

Fr. Robert Southard says:

“The Catholic Church will survive on this planet till the end of time, believing, teaching and practicing essentially what Christ wills of her. To guarantee this, He has promised us the abiding presence of the Father, the Holy Spirit and Himself. But we must understand this promise correctly. The Church in this or that particular place can be destroyed. There are limits to Christ’s promise. It apples to the Church as a whole, not to every member parish or diocese; not even to nations as a whole.”

It is not just traditionalists sounding the alarm and drawing the parallels:

One of the greatest liberal liturgical scholars at the time of the Council, and a man influential in thew new liturgical movement THEN was Fr. Louis Bouyer.

In 1964 he published a book called *The Liturgy Revived * lauding the changes.

4 years later… FOUR YEARS… he wrote The Decomposition of Catholicism. He said “Unless we are blind, we must even state bluntly that what we see looks less like the hoped-for regeneration of Catholicism that its accelerate decomposition.”

The data are clear.

We can’t keep putting our head in the sand and say “Its NOT the documents… its the way people read them and implemented them.” We can’t keep on saying “Everything is okay… stay the course!”

Souls are at risk, as is the future of Christendom.

The solution? Rediscover the fullness of our Catholic faith, and refuse… EVER… to read the documents of Vatican II outside of a hermeneutic of continuity with the past.

 

[cathguy]

When one enters the discussion positing such opinions as fact and putting the “great” Mr. Davies on such a pedestal, I fear you are doomed to disappointment if you think that a large percentage of the Catholic population does not disagree with your basic premise. While he most assuredly makes many valid points he is so far off the mark on many things that it is hard to get any kind of consistent undistorted view and his personal agenda is far too visible throughout.

“Decline” in the OP is not even defined though I suspect we’re going to get into the same old tired statistics about church attendance as if Vatican II can be shown as the cause to that effect even though there are large areas of the Catholic world where attendance and vocations are actually exploding. I usually try to read through a thread before responding but the basic premise here the premise seems to be “I think things are terrible. Tell me how you agree with me.” Not meaning to be uncharitable in any way; just pointing out the perception from having encountered way more of these threads than I wish to remember that are mostly set up to bait people into an argument.

As to the idea that the Church is in the worst shape it has ever been, I would heartily disagree with you. The entire time of the middle ages saw a Church full of corruption and ruling where it did by brute force in many cases.

Is everything that came out of the council perfect? Of course not but we have yet to have a council where everything came out perfect. All councils produce things that take time to swing back and forth before relative balance is achieved. Thankfully we continue to have Popes who try to pull out the weeds without tossing the fruit until the proper implementation is in place.

Peace,

Your assessment of his work is not very strong. Nor is your assessment of the arguments he, or others, have made.

The statistics I state are not about Mass attendance. You belittle them.

They are about vocations, orders, and the future of the Church Herself in the West. She is on the road to destruction in the West. I ask you take a look at the argument posited, based on solid data, in the previous post.

We can’t bury our heads in the sand any longer brother. The Popes have spoken. The data speaks. Christendom is in its death throws, and we must defend her!

Regarding Michael Davies, I will let Pope Benedict speak here:

“I have been profoundly touched by the news of the death of Michael Davies. I had the good forune to meet him several times and I found him to be a man of deep faith and readyh to embrace suffering. Ever since the Council he put all his energy into the service of the Faith and left us important publications especially on the sacred liturgy. Even though he suffered from the Church in many ways in his time, he always remain a man of the Church. He knew that the LOrd founded HIs Church on the rock of Peter and that the faith can find its fullness and maturity only in union with the successor of St. Peter.”

That said, I say this:

Take a look at the arguments. The only thing I have presented as facts ARE facts. I have made arguments from the facts.

I hope you prayerfully consider the arguments and the sources I listed in my prior post and not glibly just reject them out of prejudice or misplaced optimism.

 

[PJM]

=cathguy;6324730]This is a spin off of another thread: favorite Popes… didn’t want to derail that thread… so I am starting a new one.

I am just starting “Pope John’s Council” by the great Michael Davies. It is scholarly and very well written.

In the favorite Popes thread, many have mentioned what they regard as the positive effects of the Second Vatican Council and have mentioned post-Conciliar Popes as their favorites, even though these Popes, (objectively speaking here, the data are plentiful) presided over the greatest and most steep decline in the history of the Church.

It is clear to me that the Second Vatican Council caused a great and steep decline in the Church. The documents are without error yes. The Holy Ghost protects the Church from proclaiming error in its conciliar documents. But that does NOT mean that all Councils are well written, historically fortuitous, wisely convened, or well received.

What say you?

***YES!

This conforms to Christ instruction on judgement.

---

Matt.7:16 “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.”

Using this criteria, the food has become rotten

Dear God save us from those who thnink they know more, know better than your Pope!

 

[RoryMcKenzie56]

I respectfully disagree. The position you take is always the case. There is always “objective data” about what happened after a choice was made, and speculation of what would have happened in history if things were done differently. Would it have been better? Would it have been worse?

The question itself is speculative.

I agree with others who have said that we are in no position to judge Vatican II in this way.

I think we are on firmer ground if we judge the Council according to what the promulgating and subsequent popes have said about it. For that reason, I hold that Vatican II is providentially unique in the history of Ecumenical Councils.

 

[edwest2]

And I posit that it is not the Council that is to blame. Protestants have also suffered from a decrease in vocations, a decline in church attendance, and a lack in faithfulness in living their faith. Is Vatican II to blame for that as well? Or is it more logical to assume that the world is having a negative effect on Christians across the board? Instead of blaming the Church, I think we should be blaming the Devil.

I agree, the Council is not to blame. Certainly, the so-called cultural upheaval was the primary problem. And it is easy to trace. Which is why I don’t understand why some here are moving around as if in a dark room. There is a light switch, you know

The ultimate cause was the devil but I think it would be most fruitful to see what tools were applied.

There was another upheaval that I’m sure the Church was concerned about - Communism. In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Today, we need to look to find the root causes for the dysfunction in our society at large and in the Catholic community in particular. Looking back it’s easier to see how and why Catholics were manipulated. The key thing the manipulators knew was that we were never taught how to manipulate or influence others. We were unarmed and approachable.

1960 The Pill - birth control was job one. Plus manufacturers had to move product.

1968 Pope Paul VI has Humanae Vitae published and warns Catholics about what will happen if we accept artificial birth control.

Hippies. Free love! Sex with anyone.

1970s In order to help take men’s minds off their wives, graphic pornography is legalized and appears at your conveniently located Adult Bookstore. Plus magazines about Swinging, which includes ways to engage in fornication and adultery.

Remember, manufacturers of The Pill need a climate where an overturning of sexual norms occur. I mean, if women and men listened to the Pope, sales would go down.

1973 Abortion legalized. Not by you or me, but by the Supreme Court.

Keep in mind that until then, most people in this country believed that laws were enacted because they were good and right. We trusted our government a lot more back then. Suddenly, the government was saying abortion is OK.

1978 The National Organization for Women is doing its best to convince women that they are and will continue to be the victims of male chauvenist pigs - men. They didn’t offer solutions just division. Men were not to be trusted. Fear and suspicion were created. Which was perfect for…

1980s No-Fault Divorce. It’s nobody’s fault anymore! Isn’t that great? For $75 you’re out if you have no kids.

Porn on cable.

I could go on but I hope everyone here sees what I mean. Yes, the devil was involved but it wasn’t Catholics who made abortion legal or who opened all those strip clubs and made porn legal. It was a bunch of lawyers and judges. They said it was OK. Not us.

And every step of the way, the temptation level to just take a look and satisfy your curiosity kept going up and up and up. Soon, you’ll be able to watch porn on your mobile device. Can it get any clearer?

For all those so-called artists and movie directors in the late 1960s who demanded their “freedom” to show a little “tasteful” nudity, where did it get us? Wake up, my fellow Catholics. Put down that magazine, get rid of that DVD and consider dropping cable. I’m not joking.

Peace,
ED

 

[Joe_5859]

They are about vocations, orders, and the future of the Church Herself in the West. She is on the road to destruction in the West. I ask you take a look at the argument posited, based on solid data, in the previous post.

We can’t bury our heads in the sand any longer brother. The Popes have spoken. The data speaks. Christendom is in its death throws, and we must defend her!

On this point I would again ask whether we should be considering the growth or decline of Catholicism across the globe rather than just in the West.

Regarding Michael Davies, I will let Pope Benedict speak here:

No disrespect to Davies, but Benedict (when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger) also said of Raymond Brown “I would be very happy if we had many exegetes like Father Brown.” But that doesn’t mean Ratzinger agreed with everything Brown said. In fact, this quote is in the margins of an article where Ratzinger was being fairly critical of some of Browns views.

Just pointing out that respect and admiration doesn’t mean that he agrees with everything someone said. That may be an obvious point, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.