How has VII lowered Mass Attendence and Vocations?

[consumedconvert]

My two cents:

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. After this, therefore because of this. It’s a common logical fallacy, and it seems to me, a common fallacy about VII.

The sexual revolution ravaged society in general, and Catholics in particular. It just happened to more or less coinside with the immediate post-conciliar period. Therein lies the root of our problems.

It seems more than a bit narrow-minded to look at what’s happened in the last forty years–the liberalization of all vice on all levels of society, political upheaval, the sexual revolution, the widespread use of contraceptives, iron secularization of the schools and colleges, the rise of militant atheism and agnosticism, the death of the old Protestant denominations, the fall of the Anglican Communion, widespread religious indifference on all levels of society, the upheaval caused by the Vietnam war and ensuing protests–and then say that the reason why levels of obedience and vocations in the RCC have fallen is becase of VII–because the mass is in English, or because of Lumen Gentium. I understand that the silliness of many in the post-conciliar season (never anticipated nor approved of by the Council) has done damage to the Church—that’s indeniable! But saying the decline in the number of Catholics is due to Vatican II is a bit like saying a hurricane occurred because you forgot to bring your umbrella.

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

Since we seem to be dealing with opinions, I will add mine. In my opinion no one has ever proved a link between either Vatican II or the so-called “Spirit of Vatican II” had much if anything to do with Catholic bailouts by clergy, religious, and laity. Anyone who moved into adult hood during the 60’s and 70’s realizes that almost everyone’s values, whether Catholic, mainline denominations, or plain old vanilla nothings was cast totally into chaos by the events of those decades. Few people still lived in the towns where they were born. Grandma and/or Grandpa no longer lived in the same house as their Children and Grandchildren. It may not have been as indiscriminately bloody as the French Revolution but “the system” took one helluva hit.

To look at a broader picture the world changed more in the last century than any other period of time in its history. Just one example. In 1863 one could travel by rail from Buffalo New York to Chicago in just 16 hours. I would guess today, not counting travel and wait times at the airport, the trip is about two hours by commercial jet, lots less by military. Lincoln depended on the telegraph for war news in 1862, today Bush can watch the news happening clear around the world in his office in almost real time. Consider that in 1940 many Americans had no refrigerator, no telephone, and many families one if no car at all. The TV was an experimental novelty. Supermarket? What’s a Supermarket. Open on Sundays? No way! The outdoor biffy and hand pumped water and no electricity in rural areas was common. Running hot water? Shower everyday if desired? Near miracle. If anyone does not think this rush of almost daily change did not impact our ways of living and coping they gotta be no younger than “boomers.” I think we have yet to learn how to “live and die” in our new environment and I don’t just mean green grass, shrubs, and trees. It is still all so amazing to anyone born before the end of the great depression.

Yes, there were profound cultural changes in the 60’s. I argue that this might have been a really good time not to throw out our traditions and completely revamp the liturgy, and even issue the essay type documents of Vatican II which seemed to allow dissenters to take advantage of them.

I also think that since the drops were so across the board, not just in Mass attendance but in vocations, conversions, baptisms, etc. that we can’t just solely blame secular society. Here is an article which attempts (gasp!) to actually link the drop in Mass attendance with the liturgical revolution. Yes, it actually attempts to say that when you radically alter the liturgy, that just might affect Mass attendance. I realize this is ridiculous. Sort of like saying that if you have a car that is selling well, then you completely redisign it and car sales go down, that might have something to do with the redesign of the car when of course we know it has to do with people just not wanting to buy cars anymore. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, after all!

Here is one paragraph from the article and then the link:

“The picture that emerges is distressing. Mass attendance of U.S. Catholics fell precipitously in the decade following the liturgical changes and has continued to decline ever since. This decline moreover is not an isolated phenomenon, confined solely to the Church in America. In England and Wales, the time pattern of Mass attendance has been just as bad, perhaps even worse. Church attendance of Protestants, in contrast, has followed a much different path. For most of the period it was without any discernible trend, either up or down. In recent years it actually has risen. The notion that the Catholic fall off was simply one part of a larger societal trend, therefore, receives absolutely no support in these data.”

catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Homiletic/2000-10/lothian.html

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

Maybe drafdog wasn’t, but I am–at least the first part.

Ask yourself a question, what was Paul VI’s last encyclical? That’s right–Humanae Vitae. He was pope for nearly 10 more years and never published another one.

When Bl. Pope John XXIII established the birth control commission in 1963, some hopes were raised that articifical birth control would be permitted by the Church. Even after Pope Paul had added many members to the commission, it gave the Holy Father their recommendations in 1966. He chose not to implement their recommendations (which he was, of course, under no obligation to do).

If he had no intention of permitting birth control for Catholics, hindsight tells me that he would have been much better off leaving the pronouncements of Pius XI in Casti Connubii in place without further comment.

Of course, 1968 was a time of turmoil anyway for the United States and much of the world. Throwing a countercultural encyclical into that mix didn’t help.

He needed to rely on these earlier words and be guided by them:

John

John,

These are some really good points you make. What you are saying makes a lot of sense.

Why give everyone the expectation that the dogma on birth control might be changed when you know it can’t be.

God bless.

 

[Eric_Olsen]

Well let me restate that what I said is not really fact but something I heard from many people.

It is not clear to me that this is why many priests left the priesthood after Vatican II. Where is your supporting evidence for this.

 

[ethelzguy]

Correct. But a lot of these problems accelerated after Vatican II, didn’t they?

But can you definitively attribute that to Vatican II, while completely ignoring the other societial issues of the time?

 

[bobzills]

But can you definitively attribute that to Vatican II, while completely ignoring the other societial issues of the time?

Yes, I can, because everyone else was affected by these same issues and yet their churches did not experience the rate of increase in the problems that the RCC is experiencing.

 

[Deacon_Ed_B]

I get so tired of seeing and hearing people blame Vatican II and the Catholic Church for the problems that are being manifested today. It always easier to pass the “buck” so to speak than to look in one’s own heart to examine what part one may have played in thought, word or deed that may have contributed. It’s like the pharisee standing in the temple and saying how good he is when compared to the sinner saying “God have mercy on me a sinner”. Lets ask ourselves which role we are playing. That would solve the problem very fast. The ultimate culprit is Satan, not the Bride of Christ.
Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B

 

[ethelzguy]

Yes, I can, because everyone else was affected by these same issues and yet their churches did not experience the rate of increase in the problems that the RCC is experiencing.

Surely, you jest ?

 

[bobzills]

Surely, you jest ?

Not at all. I am dead serious about this. For example, some people are going around saying that the annulment rate for Catholics has gone up in the same fashion that the divorce rate has gone up for everyone else in society. But this is not true, since the increase in annulments in the RCC in the USA is much, much larger than any increase seen in the divorce rate in the American society.

 

[ethelzguy]

Not at all. I am dead serious about this. For example, some people are going around saying that the annulment rate for Catholics has gone up in the same fashion that the divorce rate has gone up for everyone else in society. But this is not true, since the increase in annulments in the RCC in the USA is much, much larger than any increase seen in the divorce rate in the American society.

But is it for the laity to determine under what conditions annulments are to be granted?

I think that is what gets lost in this issue. HMC determines if and when and how folks are granted annulments, not the folks in the pews. We can speculate and grumble all we like, but it’s not our call.

 

[bobzills]

But is it for the laity to determine under what conditions annulments are to be granted?

I think that is what gets lost in this issue. HMC determines if and when and how folks are granted annulments, not the folks in the pews. We can speculate and grumble all we like, but it’s not our call.

The conditions for granting an annulment have been loosened since Vatican II, and it is of course true, that it is not the call of the laity to decide on whether these conditions should have been lossened up or not. The question was whether or not this has happened after Vatican II. My belief is that the watering down of conditions for granting a marriage annulment occurred after Vatican II.

 

[ethelzguy]

The conditions for granting an annulment have been loosened since Vatican II, and it is of course true, that it is not the call of the laity to decide on whether these conditions should have been lossened up or not. The question was whether or not this has happened after Vatican II. My belief is that the watering down of conditions for granting a marriage annulment occurred after Vatican II.

AFTER Vatican II doesn’t necessarily mean BECAUSE of Vatican II. Unless, there are specific documents in the V2 writings that specifically state that annulment requirements are to be loosened?

If I lose my job after my house burns down in a fire, it doesn’t mean I lost my job because of the fire… But it would make a good country music song.

 

[bobzills]

AFTER Vatican II doesn’t necessarily mean BECAUSE of Vatican II.

Then what was the cause for the loosening of requirements for obtaining a marriage annulment? And why did this loosening occur only after Vatican II ?

 

[ethelzguy]

Then what was the cause for the loosening of requirements for obtaining a marriage annulment? And why did this loosening occur only after Vatican II ?

Perhaps a Canon Law priest can answer that. I can’t. But I won’t go about declaring something to be, that I can’t decidedly ascertain.

 

[Catherine_S]

Perhaps we all need deeper prayer and deeper understanding at this point in our Catholic history :yup: !
.
Jay Dunlap is director of communications for Regnum Christi…
Thousands of priests and religious abandoned their vows to more fully participate in the world—in a manner of speaking. Laypeople followed, becoming more like their Protestant and agnostic brothers and sisters,* divorcing, contracepting,** and eventually aborting at similar rates" (p. 416).*
But was Vatican II indeed a “liberal reform”? Might that not be conceding too much to the “progressives” who believed they really understood Vatican II, a belief challenged by the Church’s ongoing and authentic interpretation of the Council? Surely, one might argue, the changes in the liturgy were a liberal move. Not necessarily so, I say: When Mass was first being said in Latin in the third century, it was the common tongue of the day. Therefore the move to Mass in the vernacular is quite conservative*, in a long** view of history.*
The history of* another council near and dear to critics of Vatican II adds to this history of “failure”: the Council of Trent. First called in 1537, the council met off and on—mostly off—for a quarter century. When Pius IV became pope some 22 years after the council was first in session, "obedience to the pope [had] almost ceased" (p. 271).
There is a key difference, though, between Vatican II and the other councils discussed here. The previous councils all arose in response to a heresy threatening the Church. Vatican II, by contrast, arose not in response** to a heresy but to the **perception **that the Church was too insular and thus remiss in its mission to “make disciples of all nations.” Historians speak of the “Catholic ghetto” within which the Church thrived, though it was tangential to secular society.
If we spend too much time worrying about whether we are succeeding or failing, we will miss the **opportunity **the Holy Spirit gives us right now to make the most of Vatican II and win the post-modern world for Christ. Resigning Vatican II to the scrap heap of history as a “failure” **is precisely *the wrong approach for a Catholic of the third millennium.
*The real “Vatican II priests,” I would argue, are the young men now emerging from seminaries that have been more authentically reformed in the letter and spirit of the Council. The Church will produce “Vatican II priests” so long as Vatican II and the New Evangelization animate seminaries. *
Faithful Catholics can look at history and say that the Holy Spirit knew what was coming and worked through the Church to prepare us. It’s up to us to heed the Holy Spirit, and that means to be the Church of Vatican II.
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0307fea1sb.asp
.

 

[bobzills]

Perhaps we all need deeper prayer and deeper understanding at this point in our Catholic history :yup: !
.
Jay Dunlap is director of communications for Regnum Christi…
Thousands of priests and religious abandoned their vows to more fully participate in the world—in a manner of speaking. Laypeople followed, becoming more like their Protestant and agnostic brothers and sisters,** divorcing, contracepting,** and eventually aborting at similar rates" (p. 416)…

Of course, if we are to believe some of the posters here, this had nothing to do with Vatican II.

 

[Eric_Olsen]

Well thats all interesting however, the reason the churc retained latin as the official language of the church was for unity and because it was indeed a dead language where words could not evolve in meaning. Prior to vatican II, you could go pretty much anywhere in the world and the mass would be the same because of the common language. Today that is not so.

Perhaps we all need deeper prayer and deeper understanding at this point in our Catholic history :yup: !
.
Jay Dunlap is director of communications for Regnum Christi…
Thousands of priests and religious abandoned their vows to more fully participate in the world—in a manner of speaking. Laypeople followed, becoming more like their Protestant and agnostic brothers and sisters,** divorcing, contracepting,** and eventually aborting at similar rates" (p. 416).
But was Vatican II indeed a “liberal reform”? Might that not be conceding too much to the “progressives” who believed they really understood Vatican II, a belief challenged by the Church’s ongoing and authentic interpretation of the Council? Surely, one might argue, the changes in the liturgy were a liberal move. Not necessarily so, I say: When Mass was first being said in Latin in the third century, it was the common tongue of the day. Therefore the move to Mass in the vernacular is quite conservative**, in a long** view of history.
The history of* another council near and dear to critics of Vatican II adds to this history of “failure”: the Council of Trent. First called in 1537, the council met off and on—mostly off—for a quarter century. When Pius IV became pope some 22 years after the council was first in session, "obedience to the pope [had] almost ceased" (p. 271).
There is a key difference, though, between Vatican II and the other councils discussed here. The previous councils all arose in response to a heresy threatening the Church. Vatican II, by contrast, arose not in response* to a heresy but to the **perception **that the Church was too insular and thus remiss in its mission to “make disciples of all nations.” Historians speak of the “Catholic ghetto” within which the Church thrived, though it was tangential to secular society.
If we spend too much time worrying about whether we are succeeding or failing, we will miss the **opportunity **the Holy Spirit gives us right now to make the most of Vatican II and win the post-modern world for Christ. Resigning Vatican II to the scrap heap of history as a “failure” **is precisely **the wrong approach for a Catholic of the third millennium.
The real “Vatican II priests,” I would argue, are the young men now emerging from seminaries that have been more authentically reformed in the letter and spirit of the Council. The Church will produce “Vatican II priests” so long as Vatican II and the New Evangelization animate seminaries, a process that is in fact scarcely a decade old.
Faithful Catholics can look at history and say that the Holy Spirit knew what was coming and worked through the Church to prepare us. It’s up to us to heed the Holy Spirit, and that means to be the Church of Vatican II.
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0307fea1sb.asp
.

 

[Catherine_S]

Of course, if we are to believe some of the posters here, this had nothing to do with Vatican II.

It may have speeded things up a bit !
Faithful Catholics can look at history and say that the Holy Spirit knew what was coming and worked through the Church to prepare us. It’s up to us to heed the Holy Spirit, and that means to be the Church of Vatican II.
.

 

[Catherine_S]

Well thats all interesting however, the reason the churc retained latin as the official language of the church was for unity and because it was indeed a dead language where words could not evolve in meaning. Prior to vatican II, you could go pretty much anywhere in the world and the mass would be the same because of the common language. Today that is not so.

Change is always difficult :yup: but sometimes necessary for a larger good !
Vatican II, by contrast*, arose not in response** to a heresy but to the **perception *that the Church was too insular and thus remiss in its mission to “make disciples of all nations.” Historians speak of the “Catholic ghetto” within which the Church thrived, though it was tangential to secular society.
.

 

[SenorSalsa]

“The picture that emerges is distressing. Mass attendance of U.S. Catholics fell precipitously in the decade following the liturgical changes and has continued to decline ever since. This decline moreover is not an isolated phenomenon, confined solely to the Church in America. In England and Wales, the time pattern of Mass attendance has been just as bad, perhaps even worse. Church attendance of Protestants, in contrast, has followed a much different path. For most of the period it was without any discernible trend, either up or down. In recent years it actually has risen. The notion that the Catholic fall off was simply one part of a larger societal trend, therefore, receives absolutely no support in these data.”

catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Homiletic/2000-10/lothian.html

Of course, in a form of skewing data near and dear to Protestants, this Author decides to group 1000s of Protestant and presumably Nondenominational Churches together, as if switching Baptist to Anglican is less of a switch than from Catholic to Anglican. The fact that Protestant attendence hasnt trended upward is a sign that it is going down in and of itself. Many lapsed Catholics will start to attend your “Jesus loves you just the way you are” Church, so if so many left the Catholic faith, why has Protestantism not trended upwards in a similar pattern?