Hypothetical Question

[Prometheum_x]

palmas85:

After posting on this site for a while, I have seen that there appear to be two main camps. Traditionalists and Liberals with a scattering of middle of the roaders thrown in as well as a few from outside the Roman Rite. The question that I am going to pose may cause some agitation but it is not meant to be divisive. Before anyone answers, I want them to think hard about their answer. I am just interested in seeing what people really think, feel and believe. This is kind of like AA; without complete honesty it will not work, so please be honest. Thanks
HYPOTHETICAL
At a uncertain date, Pope Benedict makes a proclamation in which he totally rejects the Vatican 2 Council and all of its teachings, decisions and changes. In one fell swoop, the changes of the last 40 years are to be undone in an effort to get the Church back on track. No more receiving in the hand, no more laity receiving the chalice, no more extraordinary minister, lectors, female altar servers. The mass would return to the traditional mass. Nuns would be required to return to the habit, prayers would be returned to the pre-vatican 2 models, ecumenical dialogue stopped or curtailed, charismatic, healing and bilingual masses scrapped , debunked saints returned holy and feast days resumed, tradeitional litugy returned etc etc etc.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

You said that in your hypothetical situation, “all its teachings, decisions, and changes” were thrown out. However, the list of things you provided were all matters of practice and discipline, not teachings.

 

[Prometheum_x]

Servus Pio XII:

I would be in Heaven! I pray for that every day. I am not a schismatic, and accept through obedience the practise of the day, but I long for the Mass of the first two millenia of the Church. No other Mass can satisfy me in that manner.

Well, you’re in luck, because that mass is celebrated all over the place.

 

[palmas85]

I want to thank those who responded to the question that I posted. The answers were about what I expected. They gave me some insight into what thinking is going on in the church these days. While the answers were few they did answer one question that had ben burning in the back of my mind…

If Vatican II did not the cause the problems in the church today, what did?

I think that after reading the answers to my clumsy poll and other postings I have an answer.

Collegiality is the foremost cause. The weakening of Papal authority and reducing the Pope to the level of first among equals

The early, primitive church, beloved, apparently by many, started to slip away from true teaching very quickly. This necesitated the early church fathers to take quick decisive action to reign them in. At least from my readings of Acts, Galations, Corinthians Colossians,Philippians, Timothy, Romans, etc. that is the impression I got. I must assume that he early fathers recognized that left to their own devices and given too much freedom of choice, people will start to drift, to take liberties, to commit abuses and to basically do what they want because it is human nature that each one of us thinks we know what is best. Thus I have to assume that the abuses committed in the early church directly led to the centralization of power in the Church.

Vatican II afforded the Bishops the opportunity to shake off to a degree the constraints of centralized power and establish what could best be described as semi autonomous communities under a kind of loose supervision from the Vatican. This fairly accurately represents what existed in the early church. If you look at the problems encountered by the early church fathers they are remarkably similar to the problems facing the Church today. Twisting of doctrine, picking and choosing what to believe, false teachings, out and out disobedience to constituted authority etc etc.

Human nature is human nature. Give people too much freedom in a certain area and they will by and large take advantage of the situation to get what they want.

Is there a solution to the problem? Yes, I would think that the re-centralization of power in the Vatican and placing the Pope squarely and completely in charge instead of being first among equals would be the best answer. That of course would require a very strong Pope who was not afraid of exerting control over the Bishops, and willing to take whatever steps were necessary in order to save the Church from self destruction.

Will this happen? Probably not. But I can always hope.
.

I

 

[Pug]

palmas85:

Is there a solution to the problem? Yes, I would think that the re-centralization of power in the Vatican and placing the Pope squarely and completely in charge instead of being first among equals would be the best answer.

Historically, at what point would you say the papacy reached its zenith in terms of centralized power? During which centuries was it very strong?

 

[Fortiterinre]

The Pope is hardly the first among equals. Thanks to technology alone there are so many minute details that can be vetted by Rome if it so chooses that the Fathers could hardly imagine it. And because we all adopt advances in technology fairly quickly, Rome is in fact doing far more in terms of volume. The priorities might not be what you would like, but the volume of management is undisputably there.

Could the Pope centralize authority even more? Certainly. But to say “the problem is collegiality” is doctrinally unsound. The problem much more is romanitas, the culture of Rome that strives to put a good face on everything, even serious problems. Romanitas has not kept pace with the speed of change and the exponential multiplication of problems, and arguably is not a good operating principle anyway.

 

[puzzleannie]

HYPOTHETICAL
At a uncertain date, Pope Benedict makes a proclamation in which he totally rejects the Vatican 2 Council and all of its teachings, decisions and changes. In one fell swoop, the changes of the last 40 years are to be undone in an effort to get the Church back on track. No more receiving in the hand, no more laity receiving the chalice, no more extraordinary minister, lectors, female altar servers. The mass would return to the traditional mass. Nuns would be required to return to the habit, prayers would be returned to the pre-vatican 2 models, ecumenical dialogue stopped or curtailed, charismatic, healing and bilingual masses scrapped , debunked saints returned holy and feast days resumed, tradeitional litugy returned etc etc etc.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

900% of this had nothing to do with Vatican II, or if it did came about because of open rebellion against the Vatican, either by so-called progressives or so-called conservatives, so your hypothetical case won’t work.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

“Accept it and deal with it through obedience.”

What’s that line in scripture, when Jesus asked the Apostles,“Do you wish to leave me, too?” They answered,“To whom should we go? You have the words of everlasting life.”

That said, I wouldn’t be happy (of course, my idea of happiness and God’s idea of happiness are probably radically different).

 

[otm]

palmas85:

I want to thank those who responded to the question that I posted. The answers were about what I expected. They gave me some insight into what thinking is going on in the church these days. While the answers were few they did answer one question that had ben burning in the back of my mind…

If Vatican II did not the cause the problems in the church today, what did?

I think that after reading the answers to my clumsy poll and other postings I have an answer.

Collegiality is the foremost cause. The weakening of Papal authority and reducing the Pope to the level of first among equals

The early, primitive church, beloved, apparently by many, started to slip away from true teaching very quickly. This necesitated the early church fathers to take quick decisive action to reign them in. At least from my readings of Acts, Galations, Corinthians Colossians,Philippians, Timothy, Romans, etc. that is the impression I got. I must assume that he early fathers recognized that left to their own devices and given too much freedom of choice, people will start to drift, to take liberties, to commit abuses and to basically do what they want because it is human nature that each one of us thinks we know what is best. Thus I have to assume that the abuses committed in the early church directly led to the centralization of power in the Church.

Vatican II afforded the Bishops the opportunity to shake off to a degree the constraints of centralized power and establish what could best be described as semi autonomous communities under a kind of loose supervision from the Vatican. This fairly accurately represents what existed in the early church. If you look at the problems encountered by the early church fathers they are remarkably similar to the problems facing the Church today. Twisting of doctrine, picking and choosing what to believe, false teachings, out and out disobedience to constituted authority etc etc.

Human nature is human nature. Give people too much freedom in a certain area and they will by and large take advantage of the situation to get what they want.

Is there a solution to the problem? Yes, I would think that the re-centralization of power in the Vatican and placing the Pope squarely and completely in charge instead of being first among equals would be the best answer. That of course would require a very strong Pope who was not afraid of exerting control over the Bishops, and willing to take whatever steps were necessary in order to save the Church from self destruction.

Will this happen? Probably not. But I can always hope.
.

I

Although you have touched on a number of areas, I think you need to read both a history of the Church and a history ot the world, and in particular of Europe, since the time of Christ. Although there was a change to a more centralized authority in the Church, it took a lot longer than you appear to see. It could reasonably be argued that it didn’t really start seriously down the path towards intense centralization until after the great schism between East and West. The centralization was probably pushed along most strongly by the Reformation.

Further, I would question that the issue of collegiality would ever be put aside, as removing that reduces the bishops to not much more than mid level managers, and the issue of collegiality goes directly to the haert of what it means to be a bishop. Even before Vatican 2, bishops had a good degree of autonomy in their own diocese. The idea that the pope “ran” everything presumes a greater scope of information, knowlege, time and ability than most people realize; what is really being said although I don’t necessarily believe recognized, is that it places greater power not directly in the Pope but in the Vatican bureaucracy.

The bishops are directly descended sacramentally from the apostles. Christ didn’t set up the Vatican bureaucracy, he set up a group of leaders who were to spread the good news. Time and demands have required the formation of bureaucracy in order to deal with the numerous issues that a church of this size is bound to have. However, the primary mission of the bishops is evangelization. It seems that too many have lost sight of that, and become mid level corporate managers.
I would further suggest that the loss of authority that almost any authoratative structure you can name has suffered in the last 40 to 45 years has much more to do with the issues of disciplinary and doctrinal dissent we have seen in the Church than any issue of cloeegiality.

 

[Fortiterinre]

Excellent, otm. The doctrine of collegiality is not some invented social experiment but theologically more of the flip side of papal infallibility. The bishops are a college and not merely a group of branch managers.