If Not for You! - What if no Vatican II?

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Poor dear Sasha! My heart goes out to you. Please accept my apologies on behalf of my brothers and sisters in the one true Church who have made a gigantic mess of everything.

Are you near a Fraternity of St. Peter or Institute of Christ the King parish? I’m sure you will find there what your Catholic heart longs for.

Persevere! I do not know your age, but perhaps you will live long enough to see the Church finally out of Its’ spiritual tunnel.

God bless you, dear Sasha!
 
To all:

But no one has addressed one of the most important points I made in my OP. Indeed, the lack of such discussion does indirectly address it; that is, the provincial nature of the Church in the United States prior to Vatican II, as indicated by those of us old enough to remember such times reflecting upon them here.

How can the Church move to restore Church discipline in the United States and only in the United States? There is no significant pro-life movement in most historically Catholic countries in Western Europe. To excommunicate “pro-choice” Catholic politicians in Western Europe (save perhaps Ireland) would mean that there would be few left. How would their constituents amongst the Catholic laity react (who voted for them)?

Should the Church start over with a greatly diminished population? Is truth decided by opinions and numbers? Or should the Church muddle on the way She has been hoping for better spiritual times as materialism currently reigns supreme?
 
Yes.

In saner Church days, heretics were kept far from the fold lest they infect it. St. John even ran out of a bath house rather than be under the same roof as one.

How can She restore discipline? I think that’s already begun. I’ve noticed the young people are quite “ultra-montane.” Too much so actually. Sometimes I think they’d follow the Pope anywhere no matter what he says or does. In order to balance out, maybe the Church has to go to the other extreme first.
 
Hi Don,

Some view problems with the Church as a “management” issue, instead of an issue facing each one of us.

Why are we less disciplined? Do we regard Church only as that thing we do on Sunday and live the rest of the week as if our faith is satisfied only by that hour in Church? Do we live in the world just like everybody else does?

If you miss Mass, the priest won’t be banging on your door the next day. He will not give you a long lecture about it the next time he sees you. He might ask if you’ve been ill or just if everything is OK. You know?

God does not force anyone to love Him or keep His commandments. And we’re not going to be better Catholics on our own. We are told to pray for guidance, to pray during temptation and to ask for real strength from God to overcome whatever sinful problems we have in our lives. “Ye have not because ye ask not.” Prayer is real. Works based on our faith need to occur.

I remember, in the 1980s, passing a billboard on the freeway that showed the Sacred Heart of Jesus. How much time do any of us spend during the week thinking about God? We’ve got too many distractions and most are bad. What is TV reminding us about all the time? What is it showing us? The movies?

United States culture pre-Vatican II reflected Christian beliefs and values. The present culture does not and is, in some cases, openly hostile to them.

Work on your relationship with God. Don’t make it just about going to Church and saying your prayers at night. Any relationship that is worthwhile takes a little work on our part.

Peace,
Ed
 
One more thing:

If anything, all I heard as a Catholic over the last 40 years was constant criticism:

All you do is listen to the Pope.

You’re sexually repressed.

To the modern: believing in God is a neurological disorder.

That invisible man in the sky does not exist.

“There is no ‘up there.’” This from a man who said he was Catholic ‘until I reached the age of reason.’

And parents. Over the last 40 years, young people were told they had rights. They needed to move out and get away from their parents and live their lives ‘without their interference.’

Satan kept offering us what we were told was the easy way out.

Problem pregnancy? I give you abortion.

Not coping too well. I give you illegal drugs.

Dating a problem? I give you pornography.

As usual, satan gives us the wrong thing so that we can avoid solving our problems the right way. Often, the devil’s solution leads to more problems later on.

Peace,
Ed
 
Hi everybody,

I have been off line for a couple of months because of technical problems so no comments.
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I have read quite a few of the anti-Vatican 2 posts over the past couple of years. If not for Vat. 2 and especially for J-P II and Benedict XVI , I would not have become a convert.

The tight restrictions and ethnic insider mentality of pre-Vat. 2 kept me at a distance although I was in many ways a Catholic in thinking and doctrine.

Vatican 2 opened up the windows, and allowed the Holy Spirit to reach people who were not traditional Catholics.
 
Harri_Laaksonen said:
Hi everybody,

I have been off line for a couple of months because of technical problems so no comments.
’
I have read quite a few of the anti-Vatican 2 posts over the past couple of years. If not for Vat. 2 and especially for J-P II and Benedict XVI , I would not have become a convert.

The tight restrictions and ethnic insider mentality of pre-Vat. 2 kept me at a distance although I was in many ways a Catholic in thinking and doctrine.

Vatican 2 opened up the windows, and allowed the Holy Spirit to reach people who were not traditional Catholics.
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I have often wondered the same thing about many of todays converts, many of whom seem deathly opposed to any form of Traditional Catholicism. I hate to say it but it does make me wonder exactly what their motivation was to convert in the first place, especially since the progressive types will tell us that the faith itself has not changed merely a few of the outside trappings. And what exactly are the tight restrictions that you speak of?

If the faith itself has not changed then why would you not have converted before? That is of course if the faith is the same. That is a question that begs to be answered.
 
Lormar said:
What tight restrictions?

What ethnic insider mentality?
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The poster may, of course, speak for himself. However, this, from my OP, is what I think he was referring to and not without some justification:

“What many Americans fail to realize is that the Church here prior to Vatican II was far different than it had been in many other parts of the world, such as Latin America and, most especially, in Europe, Her heart. Catholics in America had been a minority. Our ancestors faced the “Know-Nothings,” the KKK, and all sorts of less drastic forms of persecution and discrimination. Therefore, the Church here adopted a sort of fortress mentality and, as a result, being a Catholic was more than just being a member of a particular religion. It became a badge of honor and a source of pride. Being Catholic in the United States meant something. It was an identity to be fervently grasped.”

I think this is what in our heart of hearts many of us trads wistfully yearn for, the lost sense of identity and cohesiveness, the us against them mentality historical events carried over from Europe engendered here in the predominately WASP society and power structure.

My late father had been Lutheran. Twenty years after his conversion (after marrying my Irish mom in the rectory (the church building must not be defiled by a heretic!)), every priest who came to our house for the annual block collection would make note of the fact that he was a convert, as if that somehow made him suspect, and he must be carefully scrutinized to guard against recidivism. Was he really one of us?

Then, of course, despite we being the *Catholic *Church, we had a plethora of ethnic parishes, which seems rather a contradiction in terms.
 
I don’t see the problem with ethnic parishes. My parish had a Mass in English and one in Polish. Later, it had one in Spanish. However, most immigrants in the 1940s and 1950s learned English so it was no big deal.

Peace,
Ed
 
I find these criticisms of Vatican II to be ignorant and borderline blasphemous. The Holy Spirit spoke through Vatican II. Read the documents, they are articulate and beautiful expressions of what the Church has always taught. Vatican II has been a great thing for the Church, and we would probably be in much worse shape without it.
 
Please speak for yourself, Don, and not for this traditional.

We still have a “plethora of ethnic parishes” only they are different nationalities (Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian, Fillipin…). What’s wrong with ethnic parishes? And what’s wrong with wanting to be with people who think the same way you do, especially in today’s world?

Yes, we do yearn for our lost sense of identity and cohesiveness, but the reason that it is gone is because we are so divided and are not united in faith and, at times, seem to be embarassed to actually LIVE our faith. We have traditional, conservative, liberals, women priestess, SSPX, sedevacantists, marxists, socialists, communists, new agers endlessly eneagramming and walking their labrynth and working on their new “spirituality.” We have Catholics in “good standing” who support abortion, euthenasia and homosexual marriage. We have Catholics who support actively homosexual priests (as long as they don’t get caught) . Catholics who see nothing wrong with IVF and birth control. The list does go on. So, yeah, it would be nice if we could get back to all being on the same page. Beats a divided Church anyday.
 
In regards to the “ethnic church”, here’s something I posted in another thread.
I just checked mass listings in Chicago for the year 1942, and out of 259 parishes in the city only (didn't count the suburbs) 161 were entirely English, with many of the remaining 98 offering at least one homily in English. That's hardly an ethnic church.
 
Seamus_L said:
In regards to the “ethnic church”, here’s something I posted in another thread.
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                        I just checked mass listings in Chicago for the year 1942, and out of 259 parishes in the city only (didn't count the suburbs) 161 were entirely English, with many of the remaining 98 offering at least one homily in English. That's hardly an ethnic church.
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Its very much an ethnic church. Sure, if DeAngelo walks out of the neighborhood and into St. Patrick’s, he can understand the homily, but he isn’t doing that; he’ll stay at St. Anthony of Padua because that’s where his family goes to church… And O’Brian isn’t going to come wandering into St. Anthony’s. And Orlovsky is probably going to stay over at St. Casimir’s.

Now I don’t particularly see anything wrong with the way ethnic parishes operated back in the 1940’s, but you can’t pretend that they weren’t particularly ethnic. They might have been speaking English at an Italian ethnic parish, but the parish was very much Italian nonetheless. There’s more to ethnicity than the language; almost all the Irish who came over spoke English, but how can you deny that they lived in ethnic neighborhoods?
 
Lujack said:
Its very much an ethnic church. Sure, if DeAngelo walks out of the neighborhood and into St. Patrick’s, he can understand the homily, but he isn’t doing that; he’ll stay at St. Anthony of Padua because that’s where his family goes to church… And O’Brian isn’t going to come wandering into St. Anthony’s. And Orlovsky is probably going to stay over at St. Casimir’s.

Now I don’t particularly see anything wrong with the way ethnic parishes operated back in the 1940’s, but you can’t pretend that they weren’t particularly ethnic. They might have been speaking English at an Italian ethnic parish, but the parish was very much Italian nonetheless. There’s more to ethnicity than the language; almost all the Irish who came over spoke English, but how can you deny that they lived in ethnic neighborhoods?
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I still don’t see ethnicity as being a problem. So what if one parish is Irish and another Italian? I lived in a predomantly Polish neighborhood but we had Italians, White Russians, Germans and others. We all got along. We had a shared sense of values even if we all did not go to the same Church.

That was a key difference in the 1950s and 1960s, we knew our neighbors and most of us got along.

Peace,
Ed
 
When V2 opened, 2 of my aunts belonged to a parish that was still about 75 pct Italian. To my knowledge, no one ever asked them why they couldn’t find an Irish parish to attend. They simply got used to potluck dinners with lot’s of Italian food.
 
Mattapoisett64 said:
I do not dispute the unintended consequences or imperfect implementation of Vatican II. But neither was the Council responsible for the social and sociological changes beginning in the 1960’s which so transformed society. I hate to see the Council blamed for everything that’s happenned since.
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So why was the Council called when it was? Didn’t Pope John XXIII, who has always been held in high esteem, see something in society that warranted it? I’m sure it wasn’t called for the heck of it.
 
Harri_Laaksonen said:
I have read quite a few of the anti-Vatican 2 posts over the past couple of years. If not for Vat. 2 and especially for J-P II and Benedict XVI , I would not have become a convert.

The tight restrictions and ethnic insider mentality of pre-Vat. 2 kept me at a distance although I was in many ways a Catholic in thinking and doctrine.
Click to expand...
So you were waiting for the rules to be relaxed before you considered converting? Well, I hope the Catholic Church has accommodated you because after all it’s all about you and what you like. :rolleyes:
 
In 1962, The America Press published a 96 page booklet titled: The 2nd Vatican Council. Only 50 cents.

Contents

How to Understand the Council
Perspectives for the Council
The Liturgy and the Council
The Laity and the Council
Problems of the Modern Church
The Council and Church Unity
Inner Life and the Council

I think Catholics had an idea of what to expect.

Peace,
Ed
 
Wow, or perhaps it should be Whoa, I stirred a bit of a hornet’s nest.

My comment was intended to say that Vat. 2 opened up a way converts, especially from Nordic areas, could be made to feel welcome. Those of us from a Lutheran background found the new Mass very familiar, with a few exceptions that keep it Catholic…

The question of Ethnic parishes was not the issue. I spent my childhood and early adulthood in the U.S. I never met any Finnish Catholics. I spent most of middle-age in Canada where the names of the Catholic parishes tended to identify the founding ethic group directly or indirectly. To call one’s self “The Croatian Catholic Church” or “St. Mary, Queen of Poland” does not really send out a welcome mat to a Finn living in the diaspora. (The Finnish Lutheran Church does not either, the name is now Hilldale for the road where the new building was put up.)

I am now in Finland and became a convert at Easter last spring after many years of searching the scriptures and reading the church fathers and several of the saints I currently am a member of the parish in Turku, another city because Pori is a preaching point for them. The parish is mostly not Finnish, ethnically, Vietnamese predominate but ex-pats from all over Europe are the members. Our priest is Polish and he speaks 7 languages, the asst. pastor is a Vietnamese who arrived in this part of the world as a “boat lift” refugee child. The principal Mass is in Finnish with others in Polish, Vietnamese, Swedish and English. Oh, and in Latin too.

Armoa ja Rauhaa (Grace and Peace)
 
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