Consequences of Vatican II?

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HabemusFrancis

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Don’t get me wrong. I am not a radical traditionalist. I believe Francis is the valid pope and that Vatican II was a valid counsel.

But despite that, I can’t help but wonder if Vatican II’s implentation/interpretation led to the major crisis in the Catholic faith that we see today?

Why for example in the 60s and 70s did many Catholic parishioners and priests feel that plastic chairs in a communal setting were superior to the pews and traditional alters?

Why did many of the implenters of VII have a sort of dismissive attitude toward Mary,the saints, eucharistic adoration and other Catholic devotions?

It was only in the wake of Vatican II that many Catholics felt it permissible to “disagree” or question the most basic tenents of the faith.

I think these were negative consequences. The positive ones as near as I can tell, were more of a people friendly centered approach to mass?

What were the consequences of Vatican II…for better or ill?
 
There was more influence from the sexcual revolution, changing roles of people in families, and widespread turning away from organized religion. Media influence, television programming, etc. Those are all social problems. Nothing to do with the Council. :compcoff:
 
The event of the Council was clearly a catalyst for all sorts of problems. I don’t think this was a result of a docile obedience to the actual texts produced (see for example your comments on what happened with Mary, versus what Lumen Gentium said, or how the liturgical reform was carried out, verses the Constitution on the Liturgy). Basically, there were two interpretations of the Council: (1) as the culmination of aggiornamento and (2) as a starting point for aggiornamento. The latter clearly won out in every day practice (all the way to the official top, again, see the liturgical reform as well as approaches to ecumenism and interreligious dialogue compared to the concilliar documents) and unfortunately many of these further updates, especially at the parish and diocesan level, departed enough from tradition to shake the faith of many.

A Church in the state of rapid, uncontrolled flux and confusion did not leave the faithful equipped to deal with the problems pianistclare mentions in her post. The bastions were being razed right when they should have been more strongly fortified.
 
I think the cause was the World War II.

That war changed history forever and threw the world into a radical nihilism.

WWII and VII just happened to be at the same time.
 
Jomann said:
I think the cause was the World War II.

That war changed history forever and threw the world into a radical nihilism.

WWII and VII just happened to be at the same time.
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There is no evidence for this. World War II ended in 1945.

Ed
 
Jomann said:
I think the cause was the World War II.

That war changed history forever and threw the world into a radical nihilism.

WWII and VII just happened to be at the same time.
Click to expand...
This is a good point and, but I don’t think it is irrelevant that VII happened during the post-WWII period. The Council didn’t “just happen” to be at the same time–it was not a coincidence. It was called precisely to shape the Church’s role in the new post-world war order that was developing and its participants and later “implementers” were clearly heavily influenced by the zeitgeist of that period. They are not just parallel events, but intimately connected.
 
edwest2 said:
There is no evidence for this. World War II ended in 1945,
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Of course they were of the same generation.

EVERY Council Father and EVERY peritus had lived through World War II. It profoundly affected the Council every aspect of the Council…and notably Gaudium et Spes.

World War II was the defining moment of that era for all of us.
 
HabemusFrancis said:
Don’t get me wrong. I am not a radical traditionalist. I believe Francis is the valid pope and that Vatican II was a valid counsel.

But despite that, I can’t help but wonder if Vatican II’s implentation/interpretation led to the major crisis in the Catholic faith that we see today?

Why for example in the 60s and 70s did many Catholic parishioners and priests feel that plastic chairs in a communal setting were superior to the pews and traditional alters?

Why did many of the implenters of VII have a sort of dismissive attitude toward Mary,the saints, eucharistic adoration and other Catholic devotions?

It was only in the wake of Vatican II that many Catholics felt it permissible to “disagree” or question the most basic tenents of the faith.

I think these were negative consequences. The positive ones as near as I can tell, were more of a people friendly centered approach to mass?

What were the consequences of Vatican II…for better or ill?
Click to expand...
The negative things the happened after Vatican II ended were caused by radicals and dissidents inside and outside the Church, and by the media. Vatican II had nothing to with it. I was there before and after Vatican II and people in the US and the West in general were far more trusting of authority and more concerned about living out their faith daily. So when the wolves appeared, we were too trusting, and were not fully aware of where things were going after the end of Vatican II in December 1965.

1960 The FDA approves the birth control pill, or The Pill as it came to be known. It is not widely available.

1966 The radical feminist group, the National Organization for Women is founded. They would cause problems starting in the 1970s. They still exist now.org

1967 In order to sell The Pill and make money, Time magazine runs a cover story about “Freedom from Fear.” Fear of what? That gift from God? That bundle of joy? Babies should now be feared. A false freedom.

1967 Some Catholic Universities decide to cut ties with the Church under the idea that they needed freedom. Another false freedom.

catholichistory.net/Events/LandOLakesStatement.htm

ncregister.com/blog/reilly/the-land-o-lakes-statement-has-caused-devastation-for-49-years

Again, remember, we did not know or see this coming at the time. We still trusted our Universities.

In 1968, Pope Paul VI got word from his advisors concerning the Church’s stance on artificial contraception. They proposed easing the Church’s constant stance against artificial contraception. He disagreed. The encyclical Humanae Vitae was published and the Pope warned what would happen if his words were not heeded.

w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html

Here was the reaction at the time:

"Within 24 hours, in an event unprecedented in the history of the Church, more than 200 dissenting theologians signed a full-page ad in The New York Times in protest. Not only did they declare their disagreement with encyclical’s teaching; they went one step further, far beyond their authority as theologians, and actually encouraged dissent among the lay faithful.

"They asserted the following: “Therefore, as Roman Catholic theologians, conscious of our duty and our limitations, we conclude that spouses may responsibly decide according to their conscience that artificial contraception in some circumstances is permissible and indeed necessary to preserve and foster the values and sacredness of marriage.”’

Source: Regnum Christi

The 1960s and 1970s were called the Golden Age of Dissent in the Catholic Church. You won’t be able to read all of the following unless you subscribe, but the beginning contains the basics.

wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704586504574654282563939764
 
HabemusFrancis said:
But despite that, I can’t help but wonder if Vatican II’s implentation/interpretation led to the major crisis in the Catholic faith that we see today?
Click to expand...
What “crisis”?
HabemusFrancis said:
Why for example in the 60s and 70s did many Catholic parishioners and priests feel that plastic chairs in a communal setting were superior to the pews and traditional alters?

Why did many of the implenters of VII have a sort of dismissive attitude toward Mary,the saints, eucharistic adoration and other Catholic devotions?

It was only in the wake of Vatican II that many Catholics felt it permissible to “disagree” or question the most basic tenents of the faith.
Click to expand...
Do you see these as crises?
 
Continued from Post 9:

The late 1960s and 1970s saw radicals, anarchists and Hippies enter our neighborhoods, preaching their own gospel. Trust no one in authority, including the Church, live with and have sex with your girlfriend, smoke dope and use other illegal drugs. In the case of Hippies, adopt their regulation clothing, hair length and manner of speaking, which was filled with profanity. A Hippie friend of mine called fornication “performing natural acts” and said, “I don’t no piece uh paper tuh live with my old lady.” A few young and foolish people decided to give their lifestyle a try and it gradually spread. Concerned parents called their cohabitating children and encouraged them to get married. They were mostly met with, “You don’t understand, Dad. Everything’s changed. We’ve got freedom.” False freedom.

The Sexual (without love) Revolution was spreading.

Now how did the average person hear about and perceive Vatican II? Through the mass media which we still trusted. Before stepping down as Pope, Pope Benedict made that clear:

ncregister.com/daily-news/benedict-and-the-second-vatican-council-calming-the-storm

ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-media-spread-misinterpretations-of-vatican-ii

1970s Adult Bookstores selling graphic porn appear everywhere, along with topless bars and strip clubs. In 1968, the worst you could do was buy Playboy which only had photos of nude or partly nude women, or, if you knew where to go, you could get “girlie magazines” that were literally sold under the counter, and just had a lot more photos of nude and partly nude women.

The other problem was a thick publication sold at Adult Bookstores that featured ads showing nude and partly nude women offering free, no strings attached sex, and how to contact them. The pornographers knew this would cause the planned addictions among men and help ruin families.

1973 The Supreme Court, citing “penumbras” and “emanations” from the Constitution, along with a vague right to privacy, legalizes abortion. I am stunned. Heartbroken. I can’t understand it.

The Women’s Liberation Movement begins. Women were told that men were “male chauvenist pigs” who only wanted them for sex. Men became the eternal enemies class and women, the eternal victims class. More confusion and doubt is sown. And ‘don’t be a housewife’ ! Get a career, and power and money because men, including those in the Church, control everything. They were called the Patriarchy and all of them had to be overthrown. Feminist icon, Gloria Steinem, co-founder of Ms Magazine (yes, that’s where that word came from), said: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

1980s The ground was made fertile before No-Fault Divorce appeared. “It got too easy.” according to a guy I knew. I saw classified ads in the newspaper: “No kids? $75 and you’re out. Call 800-DIVORCE.”

Porn on cable for the first time.

And the Mass. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the following in his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy: "Not surprisingly, people try to reduce this newly created role by assigning all kinds of liturgical functions to different individuals and entrusting the “creative” planning of the liturgy to groups of people who like to, and are supposed to, “make their own contribution.” Less and less is God in the picture. More and more important is what is done by the human beings who meet here and do not like to subject themselves to a “pre-determined pattern.”

“The turning of the priest towards the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself. The common turning towards the East was not a “celebration towards the wall”; it did not mean that the priest “had his back to the people”: the priest himself was not regarded as so important. For just as the congregation in the synagogue looked together toward Jerusalem, so in the Christian liturgy the congregation looked together “towards the Lord.” As one of the Fathers of Vatican II’s Constitution on the Liturgy, J. A. Jungmann, put it, it was much more a question of priest and people facing in the same direction, knowing that together they were in a procession towards the Lord. They did not close themselves into a circle, they did not gaze at one another, but as the pilgrim People of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us.”

Hope this helps,
Ed
 
Genesis315 said:
This is a good point and, but I don’t think it is irrelevant that VII happened during the post-WWII period. The Council didn’t “just happen” to be at the same time–it was not a coincidence. It was called precisely to shape the Church’s role in the new post-world war order that was developing and its participants and later “implementers” were clearly heavily influenced by the zeitgeist of that period. They are not just parallel events, but intimately connected.
Click to expand...
You are correct.
 
Jomann said:
I think the cause was the World War II.

That war changed history forever and threw the world into a radical nihilism.

WWII and VII just happened to be at the same time.
Click to expand...
Vatican II happened several years after WWII!!!
 
HabemusFrancis said:
But despite that, I can’t help but wonder if Vatican II’s implentation/interpretation led to the major crisis in the Catholic faith that we see today?

Why for example in the 60s and 70s did many Catholic parishioners and priests feel that plastic chairs in a communal setting were superior to the pews and traditional alters?

Why did many of the implenters of VII have a sort of dismissive attitude toward Mary,the saints, eucharistic adoration and other Catholic devotions?

It was only in the wake of Vatican II that many Catholics felt it permissible to “disagree” or question the most basic tenents of the faith.
Click to expand...
Like others in this thread, I find the use of the word crisis at best misapplied.

Your "why"questions mischaracterise the reality that we lived.

Disagreement or questioning did not begin in the 1960s.
 
Vatican II started on 11 October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis started on 16 October 1962 and ended on the 28th of that month.

Ed
 
In my view, Vatican II further cofirms that the Catholic Church is a human institution, and not an indefectable divine institution as it claims to be. Vatican II was not exactly the first time the Catholic Church changed its position on a certain matter. In the end, so called ‘Indefectability’ means that the Church is allowed to contradict itself and still remain the Church. Most Catholics will likely attempt to explain the change in doctrines as either development or critics not understanding the doctrines to begin with. Only the Magisterium can correctly interpret previously defined dogmas. The Magisterium may have the right to explain or interpret dogmas defined in the past, but how do the laity know their explanations or interpretations will be correct? Oh, because they believe the Church is protected by the Holy Spirit from teaching error. Sounds like a form of cognitive dissonance to me. Note that Christians in general reject our Prophet Muhammad (S) because they believe his teachings differed from the teachings of their New Testament and/or their Churches; yet they will ignore that the teachings of their Churches have changed over time, on the pretense that their Churches are protected by the Holy Spirit. I know most people will disagree with me, but this is just my view on the topic.
 
There is the worldly “spirit of Vatican II” that exerted influence upon the implementation of the reforms - and that is clearly seen in the general malaise affecting the Church. Catechesis was neglected, misdirected ecumenism ran wild, and the world’s sexual revolution crept into the Church. Pope Paul VI noted this in his ominous observation that the “smoke of Satan enters the Church through the cracks.” Factions have emerged from all of this, but we see that occurring in the Church from her earliest days. Imagine the frustration of Saint Paul as those whom he taught quickly departed from sound doctrine! He addressed this constantly in his epistles, so such wandering is nothing new - actually it is guaranteed. Still, this has caused a renewal within the Church so as to regain that which was lost. Another example of God permitting “evil” - if you will, in order that He alone may bring good from it.
 
pianistclare said:
There was more influence from the sexcual revolution, changing roles of people in families, and widespread turning away from organized religion. Media influence, television programming, etc. Those are all social problems. Nothing to do with the Council. :compcoff:
Click to expand...
Yes, the council was more a response to the times rather than a cause. So much was changing for so many reasons. If the Catholic Church was a living faith it needed to responde to the contemporary social, psychological and theological issues and concerns.
 
Some on here question the OP’s use of the word “crisis.” I’m not so sure. Consider this; In France, only about 5% of Catholics attend Mass. Huh?..the country that produced “the Greatest Saint of Modern Times,” and has within its borders one of the greatest Catholic Shrines in the whole wide world in Lourdes, the third most important site of international Catholic pilgrimage after Rome and the Holy Land, and there’s only 5% Mass attendance? In Germany, people are leaving the Church in droves. In 2015 for instance, a total of 181,925 people left the Church. Ireland is in a similar free fall. Right here in the U.S. roughly 1 in 4 attend Mass. If this isn’t a crisis, then I’d hate to see what one actually looks like. Read what Cardinal Robert Sarah has to say about this “non-crisis.”

Peace, Mark
 
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