You are right. But for the most part, Asia is fertile mission territory. The USA and Canada and Europe are not mission lands. I agree that a spirit of inculturation works well in mission lands and was needed, which the Church got. But in the USA and Europe, there is not very much to inculturate, if you get what I’m saying.
I think Canada, the USA, and Europe are a different type of mission land. More of a mission to bring back fallen away Catholics.
I’m sure he’ll be very helpful.
Right. But what I mean is that, at least historically, these are Christian places. And so to imply that we have to “inculturate” Latin Rite Catholicism in these countries is, to me, absurd, because Latin Catholicism is Western Catholicism and all these countries are Western countries.
Firstly, its never bad and always good every time that a non-catholic converts to the one true faith. No traditionalist thinks otherwise. I would point out, however that I think the “traditional look prevented conversion” is an absolutely false and unsubstantiated claim. It didn not stop Avery Dulles or GK Chesterton or John Newman from converting. The truth of Christ has been leading non-catholics to the church for 20 centuries and to imply that somehow making the truth of Christ look more protestant was necessary to gain protestant converts I find a horrible proposition.
This is absolutely false…the church being the way it is today has allowed catholics who forsake their faith to kinda-sorta in some ambiguous way still be in a state of “staying-in-it-ness”? No sir (or ma’am), I am one of those run aways, and that is false. These “catholics” are not anywhere where they can hear the truth, and even if they were, since the truths they need to hear are rarely preached by anyone (priest or laity) today, it wouldn’t matter if they were close enough. No, trying to find a way to paint the fact that somewhere around 70% of Catholics have given up on the church as anything but what it is is very misleading.
This is a correct statement, but it is a double edged sword and in no way supercedes the rights and duties put forth in Canon 212.3 of Canon law.
Well V2 didn’t actually teach anything new, just rephrased previous teaching in an effort to make it more user friendly (an effort which failed, if judged by results). How people interpret it and what happened within it go hand in hand because the liberal periti in charge of selecting the wording (advised sometimes by protestant heretics during meetings outside the main chamber, unfortunately) purposely chose wording that theoretically could have an orthodox and a modernist/liberal interpretation. So you cannot seperate the two, but yes you are correct in that interpretation is the main issue, not doctrine.
I’m going to presume (perhaps incorrectly) that you mean to imply that the council taught new doctrine or produced dogma and was therefore protected by the promise of indefectibility in the documents in produced. This is incorrect and any number of magesterial authorities can be cited to confirm that this is a misconception. Vatican 2, a pastoral council, produced no new doctrine, defined no dogma, created nothing that was endowed with the note of infallibility. A common (and understandable misconception) is that because two documents bear the word “Dogmatic” in their title, they were therefore dogmatic and infallible. But “Dogmatic Constitution” is simply one of three possible names by which to refer to an apostolic constitution and apostolic constitutions could theoretically be written about the consistency of goat’s milk or about how well the superbowl went, etc.
But traditionalist TLM communities (FSSP, ICK etc) today lived through all of that too and live in the same world you do and yet don’t have the same problems…so the ecclesial and liturgical changes definitely must have played the larger role.
True - and as I posted in another thread:
In other words, what we have here is the fact that the council failed in that respect is being acknowledged. Since councils are called (partly) in order to fortify and strengthen in light of new dangers — and since councils are called (partly) in order to absolutely condemn new errors and the false ideologies of the time — then it makes no sense to say “well you can’t blame the council because xyz was happening in the sixties”. In fact, we can blame the council based on this for two reasons:
Somewhat I do agree with you. Then the problem is again regarding implementation in regional basis.
I think we need to stop thinking as if a Council is like jotting down what the Spirit told verbatim. It is not.
I would say that a large majority of those Catholics who attend mass regularly actually prefer the OF. I am not saying, nor will I ever attempt to claim that the EF ought to be outlawed, or even banned to one or two small parishes. I think the fact that the EF is becoming more and more common is a very good thing. I also recognize, however, that there are many people who have trouble connecting with the EF. Sure, one way to solve this difficulty might be to have them find a different Catholic Rite which suits their spirituality better, but changing Rites is kind of a big deal as people tend to be very attatched to their cultural roots. Instead of forcing many of these people to be stuck with a liturgy they find hard to relate to the OF presents an opportunity for them to be able to develop their Catholic faith and spirituality more deeply in the Latin Rite. I am not claiming that there are not liturgical abuses in the OF as celebrated in many places. I believe very much so that there are many problems with the way it is often celebrated, but I have also attended many very reverent OF masses, including some in latin.
Again, not criticizing you or your post, because I agree with it in many ways — but it does seem disingenuous and a bit too late to start worrying about forcing something upon the people. That is exactly what happened to the Western Catholic world beginning in the late 60’s and was accomplished by the early 80’s. Nobody asked for the changes. Nobody wanted them. Nobody really liked them (save for a few Europeans who were doing some illicit things since the 20’s, but we’ve always had those kinds). Yet the changes were made “for the good of the Church” and people had to deal with it. Now suddenly this logic is too harsh and people can’t accept it? It’s a contradiction and a very, very bitter kind of lesson to learn especially for those Catholics whose spiritual life was wiped out in a matter of weeks and replaced with banal, psuedo-Protestant liturgical practice. Some of these stories are heartbreaking when you read them/listen to them. People go on holiday, leave a thriving parish, come back two weeks later and nothing is recognizable. Now it’s 2012 and we’re weeping on the rivers of Babylon and suddenly it’s too much of a big move to insist on authentic Catholic liturgical practice (ad orientem, sacred language, reverence, etc)? It’s all a bit… bizarre, and more than that it’s depressing.
As I said in my post, I do believe there are many practices which should be corrected. I’m not entirely sure what you mean by sacred language… do you just mean that its in latin? This can be good and it can be bad, depending on the person. I think it would be a great idea to incorporate more use of latin in the vernacular masses celebrated around the world, not that they have to always be said in latin, but it is a good thing to be able to keep closer to your roots. As for reverence, I am all for reverence please believe me on this one. I believe one of the biggest problems in the church today is the lack of reverence at mass in many parishes. I was not trying to claim that it is too difficult to force such changes on people, (especially that of reverence which ought to be a no-brainer for any Catholic. If you really believe that God is truly present, body, blood, soul and divinity, how can there be any other option?) My point was simply that I believe the OF (when devoutly and reverently celebrated) and EF (when devoutly and reverently celebrated) are both good forms of the mass, but tend to speak more to people with different spiritualities. Many people find the EF hard to relate to. It is also true that many people prefer the EF and find that it helps bring them closer to God more than the OF. I believe both forms of the mass ought to be available so that people can go to whichever is more helpful for them. The reason I focused more on the benefits of the OF is because a) I was responding to another poster, b) the question of this thread was about what good came from Vatican II. I see the availability of the OF as a positive good (while realizing that many parishes still need much reform). I do not see the lack of the EF as a good, in fact I do not believe it is as available as it ought to be.
Most FSSP priests I’ve met were born after the 60s. Most grew up in the late 70s-mid 80s.
What about all of the 70+ year old parishoners? And waht about the 40 year old parishoners? Their parents lived through the 60s and it should have affected how they were raised, etc. Point being, traditionalist communities lived through the same world everyone else lived through and still live in the same world, and they simply don’t have the same problems.
Why is it unrealistic to expect Catholics to learn latin? Every Muslim person I know speaks arabic, regardless of where they are from.
As well as the Eastern Catholics who (mostly) still pray in their sacred language without trouble (and they often come from poorer societies unlike many Latin Catholics who have more ways to learn). As well as the 1500 years of the Catholics who have gone before us - young, old, scholastic, simple.
My wife and I got the hang of the important stuff in under a year. It was and is a fun learning experience.I thought so too! I felt kinda cool learning it. I mean really, is there anything cooler than learning a sacred language that connects you with the past? So often we have patronizing attempts at making things “cool” in the Church today but the real awesome stuff is right under our noses. I’m rubbish at languages and I picked up the prayers quite quickly too - not just how to say them but their general meaning too. It’s really quite a fun learning experience on top of being absolutely edifying. My step-brothers (ages 11 and 16) almost immediately begged me to teach them to pray in Latin too once I had mastered the Rosary - and they’re a bunch of goofballs (not in a bad way)
I’m not sure the council of Florence helped much.