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

[ProVobis]

Oh, and in Latin too.

Armoa ja Rauhaa (Grace and Peace)

Okay, fair enough. But what if the Church changed its communion fast to 3 hours instead of 1hr. Or required fasting three times a week? Would this drive away all the converts? Or maybe create new ones? Just asking since this is a “what if” thread anyway.

 

[pnewton]

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.

Nothing wrong with accommadation.

To the Jews I became like a Jew to win over Jews; to those under the law I became like one under the law–though I myself am not under the law–to win over those under the law. To those outside the law I became like one outside the law–though I am not outside God’s law but within the law of Christ–to win over those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some. All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.

I Corinthians 9: 20 - 23​

 

[ProVobis]

Nothing wrong with accommadation.

Glad you’re comfortable.

 

[otjm]

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?

I was going to go to your original post, but I’ll start here.

I am aware of the provincial nature of the Church pre V2; so on to the next point:How can it restore discipline?

I don’t think the Church will ever restore discipline as it was in the 1950’s. And that will be for, if no other reasons, the changes in the views of morality.

Moral theology prior to V2 was formed by The Manual. When the manual was actually put together I don’t recall, but it was some time after Trent and long, long before V2. It was wonderful in terms of training seminarians to be confessors as it parsed each sin down to its finest detail. However, at the same time it caused, eventually, a very negativistic, minimalistic, legalistic approach to morality in general, and to faith life specifically. V2 intended to change that, and get back to a much more scriptually oriented understanding of morality and faith.

What intervened? An Episcopal priest who came up with Situational Ethics. Read some recent works in moral theology by allegedly Catholic theologians, and you will have a very hard time separating out situational ethics from what they propose.

Coupled with the outright and immediate rejection of Humanae Vitae and the (already) widespread useage of the Pill when it came out is the linking of sexual morality to Situational Ethics, and the moral sexual slide that began within Christianity from the Lambeth Conference in 1930 infecting the Protestant Churches (in 1930 no mainline church allowed any form of birth control; by HV; only the Catholic Church did) and we can see the next round: abortion.

Abortion did not come up on its own; it was the result of more and more pregnancies out of wedlock, and the response of the Courts, thinking that abortion would be minimal but should no longer be criminal. And the pregnancies out of wedlock were due to the failure of various forms of birth control. And birth control, which promised sexual freedom from conception, which in turn lead to more and more extra-marital sexual encounters, and more and more premarital sexual encounters. The sexual revolution of the 60’s didn’t happen then; it started in the 30’s; but was made public by a new generation. That generation was using the “fruits” of WW2 - the GI bill giving access to one and all to college. There were far more institutions of higher learning in the 60’s than there were in the 40’s; and the children conceieved in the 40’s and 50’s were going. And college is notoriously prejudiced to the liberal side of the spectrum. Children faced with older siblings who had fought in the first war the US lost - Korea - were going to the killing fields of the second one that looked just as unwinable - Viet Nam. And the children of that generation (mine) were perhaps far more cynical than we give them credit for. Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out came out of that.

This group lost its innocense; in the rice paddies of Viet Nam; in the drug dens starting at Haight and Ashbury; in the beds of their dates, on the knoll at Kent State, in the classrooms across the nation, in Canada or jail, and in a yellow submarine.

Continued…

 

[otjm]

Continued…

Subsequent to and not long after the sexual reolution got underway, people looked at catechesis and wanted to make changes. While this may not have been directly out of V2, it certainly was a product of it. We had had the Baltimore Catechism (criminy, I quoted from it last night in RCIA; that is going back about 50 to 55 years ago) and we memroized the answers, and the answers were all doctrinally correct. However, it was fairly clear that there was a gap between memorization and people’s everyday faith life. Between rote memorization and a legalistic, negativistic, minimalistic approach to the moral life (What do I have to do to avoid hell how far is to far; what is my Sunday Obligation [how late can I come to Mass and how early can I leave and still fulfill it]; will I go to hell if I accidentally eat meat on Friday), people wanted to change catechesis to what is important - Christ. However, in doing so, they through out the baby with the bath water; now we have two generations and starting on our third who don’t really know what it means to be Catholic. We have gone from 70+% attending Mass on Sunday to somewhere between 25 and 35%.

However, we have broken with the “blind obedience” of the 40’s and the 50’s; we have moved beyond simple answers to what appeared to be simple questions, and now face complex answers to complex questions. and more and more people are reading Scripture on their own, and hearing more Scripture in the Mass. And when they read Scripture, they find that Christ laid out a plan for following Him, and it was not simply about Sunday Obligation and simply not doing something that would send one to hell.

In short, we have come through a moral swamp; and those who have avoided the alligators and pythongs and water moccasins and sinkholes know far too much. If they can see aanything, they can see the failure of their parents and grandparents in sexual morality; but they can also see that the call of the Gospel is not simply about avoiding hell. A rigid, authoritarian, “Do this because I said so and I am the bishop” attitude will not get anywhere, and there is no reason to presume that will ever come back. Cardinals and bishops no longer can use an authoritarian approach to morality with legislators - especially when 70% or so of CAtholics don’t go to Mass regularly and dont follow Catholic teaching (e.g. abortion, and related sexual morality), and when the legislators themselves don’t.

The Church is most attractive when it preaches the truth. Not all will accept it; maybe even most won’t. But when the Church preaches the truth - e.g. about sexual morality - it needs to preach it not because one is going to hell if one doesn’t follow it, but because it is the truth, and because at the same time the Church preaches Christ - and Him crucified.

Fire and brimstone sounds great (“Amen, Father! Preach it!”) and can rouse the emotions, and at one time it filled the pews. And how many who were sitting in the pews then for as little time as they could, could face Christ’s dictum about those who were lukewarm? Seems to me He said He would spit them out…

The duty of the Church is evangelization - Go and preach the Good News. the Church needs to follow that absolutely. Christ did not give us numbers; and many turned away from Him and “walked no more with Him”. That didn’t stop him and shouldn’t stop us. The Chrch needs to preach the truth, and if that means private counseling with a legislator, then that needs to be done; telling them to not receive Communion if that doesn’t work, and publicly refusing it if that doesn’t work; and if that doesn’t work, then considering excommunication - which the Church ahs never done with either frequency or alacrity. More bishops are moving in that direction, and more need to.

But the bottom line is that we need to get back to the basics - evangelization, catechesis, reverence in liturgy, more and better prayer. The rest - the works of mercy - will fall into place. Fewer numbers? That is God’s problem, not the Church’s. Muddling through? We need to get the mud out of our mouth and preach Christ.

Truth is decided by God’s revelation of Himself to mankind, and in particular through his revelation of Himself in Christ. Not by numbers. The Church doesn’t need to start over - it needs to keep moving forward. Excommunicate politicians? That is to a large extent a side issue; it needs to be done where necessary, but if a politician is not going to Mass on a regular basis, what has been accomplished by shutting the barn door after the horse is in the next county?

 

[otjm]

Okay, fair enough. But what if the Church changed its communion fast to 3 hours instead of 1hr. Or required fasting three times a week? Would this drive away all the converts? Or maybe create new ones? Just asking since this is a “what if” thread anyway.

It probably would not drive away a large number, except possibly in the large liberal cities, where they may simply be cultural Catholics; or they might simply ignore it, as they ignore other laws. And I kind of doubt it would attract many converts; if one were simply seeking rigorism, they could find that without the Chruch generally going to a 3 hour fast.

On the other hand, rigorism is no more about follwing Christ than is cultural Catholicism.

 

[otjm]

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.

For starters, I am not sure how you are defining Traditional Catholicism.

If by that you mean the EF, I have yet in 15 years of teaching in RCIA to meet any converts who are afraid of the EF. Given that out here is is scarse as hens teeth, when explained to them they say “oh, that’s nice” or “Oh, I would like to see that” and that is pretty much it. For a while there was a Latin OF with a choir that had international acclaim, and could sing Palistrina with the best of them… I would take the clas to it, and some liked it, and some didn’t, and of those who liked it, a 20 to 25 minute drive was more than they liked it - or so it would seem, as they did not go again.

And if you means something eklse, you will have to define it; but in my parish, we teach according to the Magisterium. And they join.

and if you are distinguishing between the Mass (what ever format) in Latin, and in English, to a person they want the vernacular, and I have yet to find one who really knows anything about the EF vs, the OF. They are not converting because of something we don’t have (the EF); they are converting because they believe the Catholic Church is where they belong.

 

[otjm]

The Church in the USA was quite strong before Vatican II. The Archdiocese of New York, under Cardinal Spellman, had a great deal of power.

The Bishops in this Country, had they not been distracted by the Spirit of Vatican II, would never have let abortion be legalized. They had enough power and clout to quash it completely. But after the Cardinal O’Boyle fiasco in Washington, D.C., and the Cardinal McIntyre debacle in Los Angeles, they became reticent in doing anything.

I am not sure what you mean by “quite strong”. there werre more bodies in the pews bya bout a factor of 2+; and Cardinal Spellman certainly was hob nobbing with the power brokers. How much sway he actually had may be debatable.

They would never have let abortion be legalized? What makes you think they had any sway over the Surpeme Court, or any of the Federal Appeals courts? That is where that battle was (legally) lost.

Furthermore, the issue about Humanae Vitae started before Vatican 2 and was unrelated to it; and the sexual revolution, which is the foundation of the abortion movement, started 3 and 1/2 decades before Vatican 2.

 

[otjm]

Perhaps I have blamed too much on the “reformers” of Vatican II, a bunch of old fools, as I would always maintain. After all, there is no fool like an old one, or so it is said.

that view, however, presumes the bishops of the world were old (not particularly any older than today) and fools (I would not call John Paul 2 or Benedict 16 fools by any stretch of the imagination). There were then, as now, a mixture of wise and not so wise, learned and not so learned, pious and not so pious. None of that has particularly changed. What has happend with many if not most V2 bashers is that they know precious little of the day to day history of the Church for the 100 years prior to V2; they know little or nothing of any movements within the Church prior to V2; they can spout some or all of documetns by selected popes prior to V2 but have no context and ignore anything else that doesn’t suit them, and often they have not even read the documents of V2 themselves. In addition, their critical thinking skills are in short supply (as seen by the vast amount of post hoc, ergo propter hoc arguments that are consistently made, with no foundation other than “it happend after, therefore because”.

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.

But arguably, a Church whose heart had either been cut out, or had ossified. Having had the privilege of getting to know some Europeans well, I have been astounded at the views and bitterness they have had over the Church. But we have never had the experience they had - of a Church that had tremendous political clout and wielded it, allegedly in the name of Christ but having nothing to do with what He taught. Right, wrong or indifferent, the Church in Europe (and interestingly, in Central and South America) was intimately involved in politics; oringinally because it was the only unifying force, and later, because of the venal individuals from time to time in the Church who wielded power they had no Gospel business doing. and the other thing that has struck me is how long people’s memories are and how long they carry a grudge. How much of Bosnia and that tea kettle had to do with issues that go back to the 1200’s? That was an interesting example of tribal warfare if ever there was.

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.

Coupled with that fortress mentality was a mentality towards moral minimalism, legalism and negativism. People just didn’t seem to get the message that life was not about how close we can skate to the moral edge before falling off; and the prime example, Mass as seen as Sunday Obligation - how late can I get there and how early can I leave and still complete my obligation - certainly showed little or no formation from the knowlege instilled in them - Mass as Sacrifice. They could rattle off the answers from the Baltimore Catechism; but that was head knowlege. there seemed to be little interconnect with Christ Himself and what the Gospels actually call us to.

Most of the impetus behind Vatican II and its lust for reform came from the European prelature and not from the very conservative American bishops of the time. (Look what has happened to them since!)

this simply ignores the very real problems the Church had at the time, and the very real questions that were being asked and had been asked for decades before V2. Scripture scholarship really got underway in the 1800’s, and the Church was behind the curve on that. And while it can be readily admitted that some scholarship seems to be not particularly scriptural nor scholarship, the rest of it is of great value, and much of it was bubbling up (down?) in the Church before Vatican 2. The Church was beginning to realize that it had been reading the book and pronouncing all the words, but not necessarily paying a lot of attention to what the words meant. The people in the pews certainly were late in coming to that movement.

However, at the time of Vatican II, the Western World stood on the threshold of radical new changes regarding technology, travel, mass communication and financial prosperity. As dismal as the Church’s state of affairs might be in Southern Europe today, She might be judged as thriving compared to Her “separated brethren” churches in Protestant Northern Europe, where many once flourishing Protestant denominations now seem to be on the point of extinction. Indeed, many within the media have dubbed the current state of affairs to be “post-Christian Europe,” and not without justification.

Europe was also the scene of two vast and extremely devastating wars. Further, it was the source of the Enlightenment, which lead to the chaos often dubed “Modernism” (a word I hate to use as it is too often the boogeyman for other issues - and I detest the use of a word that cannot be clearly defined; but it will suffice).

 

[otjm]

People confuse the attitude of the time - questioning everything - with V2 documents. Nothing in the documents suggests that everything needs to be questioned. The documents, contrary to some people’s opinions, give the directions the Church wanted to go at that time. As to the peodphilia crisis; there is an assumption made that this is a recent phenomenon. The sexual attraction between homosexual men and boys is nothing new, and neither is hiding scandals in the Church - of whatever type. That is a result of clericalism, and clericalism is about as old as the Church itself.

For example - radically declining attendance. Not everyone went to Church before V2; we were missing almost a third at the peak (about 72%) which was in the 1950s, and it ignores that attendance was already dropping before V2 even began. But those who lay the blame never bother to explain that anomaly. And further, attendance drops pretty much paralleled the Protestant mainline churches, which had nothing to do with V2 and V2 had nothing essentially to do with them. Again, an anomaly never explained.

Veils - an extremely small issue in Catholicism, was an issue of the 1917 Code. The new Code did away with the requirement; and style already long before V2 was doing away with the veil. As to the issues of women staying at home - that was not a Cathoic issue per se. That was pretty much the issue pre-WW2; and the massive outflux of men to war created the vacuum that gave us Rosey the Riviter - of which my mother was one. It was not Vatican 2, but the economic stimulus and experience women gained in the workforce, not to mention the second income, that caused that.

V2 gets blamed for what all who blame it ignore. As much as I hate to use the word Modernism, the various issues at play within it were already rampant in the upper levels of the Church. Priests who were in their parishes as the bishops were in Rome, were all trained in seminaries long before John 23 became pope. And for all the worth of the paper on which they took the oath against it, (not much), these were the priests who lead the charge after Vatican 2. Where were they trained? Seminaries. Where were the fruits of Modernism showing up? In the citadels of higher education, among which were the seminaries. The priests who drank the kool aid did so before Vatican 2; many of them were not prepared for the documents; and then along comes HV, and all bets are off. But what occured after Vatican 2, but before the charge became full blown? Humanae Vitae. That was the watershed event of dissidence. That was the watershed event that left a whole lot of people - bishops, priests, theologians, and married couples - rejecting Rome’s authority. It was not the documents of V2 that engendered dissent, and brought everything into question. It was the outright and immediate rejection of papal authority in the response to HV. If Rome was wrong about that, what else was Rome wrong about?

Where did sexual morality take a major turn for the worse? In the Lambeth conference in 1930. Within 30 years we went from all mainline churches prohibiting birth control to only one. What came when the sexual revolution was forming its base? The Pill, in the late 1950s. What were Catholic women taking in larger numbers because they were being told that it simply regulated the woman’s cycle - before V2 began? The Pill. What lead to more and more adultery and sex outside of marriage? The breakdown of sexual morality because birth control was now “safe sex”. What gave it full steam? The Pill. What was HV about? The Pill. What lead to abortion? The failures of birth control methods (including the Pill) and children out of a specific marriage (through adultery or fornication). That steam roller started down hill, and the Church simply got rolled over.

Vatican 2 had nothing to do with any of that. Had it not occured, there is no reason whatsoever to think that we would not have had the dissent in the Church that was engendered by HV. There is no reason to assume that the 1983 Code would not have been written. And given that work on the liturgy began strongly about 50 years before Vatican 2, there is no reason to assume that the EF would not have had changes made to it; perhaps more organically than what we have, and perhaps not. Scripture scholarship would have occured as well as it was already underway for about 100 years. No one can say what would have occured in the field of moral theology, but there is no reason to presume that Situational Ethics would not have been proposed by the Epsicopal priest and no reason to presume that Betty Frieden would not have spewed her nonsense, and that both of them would not have impacted the theologians they both did.

All of the criticizing of the documents of Vatican 2 ignores several things: never in the history of the Church has a Council’s work been quietly, graciously and openly received; there has been chaos to one extent or another with all of them. Further, we have noow had two popes - both of whom were intimately and actively involved in the shaping of the documents - who have said that the documents need to be read in light of the 2000 year tradition and history of the Church, and that they can be so read. It also ignores the fact that one country went effectively and quietly about implementing the documents - Poland. Anyone recall who was the bishopp and then Cardinal of that country? and if it can and was done there, then it is not the documents which are at fault; it is something else.

But those whose nature it is to whine will start a new vineyard, and those who must carp, a new fishing pond…

 

[Harri_Laaksonen]

otjm

Wow, you have said it all. Not quite in a nut shell, but it is an issue that can not be handled any other way.

BTW, for those who care, my conversion was largely a result of the teaching on the Sacraments. Lutherans are not essentially at odds with Catholic teaching on Baptism and the Eucharist (Real Presence), but dealing with the fact that the others are also Sacraments brought me to the Catholic Church.

 

[ProVobis]

Lutherans are not essentially at odds with Catholic teaching on Baptism and the Eucharist (Real Presence), but dealing with the fact that the others are also Sacraments brought me to the Catholic Church.

From the Lutherans I talk to, and two of them are good friends, I don’t agree with you. It may seem like a minor issue but Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation are opposite ends of the spectrum. And justification by faith alone is an important matter for them; that’s partly why they don’t have confessions. However, they do seem to applaud the fact that the Church has relaxed a lot of rules regarding fasts and abstinence and communion in the hand.

 

[Lormar]

Wow, OTJM! How did Benedict XVI and the Curia ever miss you? Why, if you were in the Vatican, all would be ironed out in no time.

I stand by what I wrote. Neither you nor I can prove our point and, besides, isn’t it useless?

 

[Harri_Laaksonen]

From the Lutherans I talk to, and two of them are good friends, I don’t agree with you. It may seem like a minor issue but Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation are opposite ends of the spectrum. And justification by faith alone is an important matter for them; that’s partly why they don’t have confessions. However, they do seem to applaud the fact that the Church has relaxed a lot of rules regarding fasts and abstinence and communion in the hand.

I guess it depends on the Lutheran to some extent. The opposite end of the spectrum from Transubstantiation is Calvin’s “Memorial” in Bread and Wine (or grape juice). After the Marburg Colloque, Luther was quoted that he would far rather consume Body and Blood with the Pope than bread and wine with Calvin. Consubstantiation declares that the Body and Blood of Christ are really present “in, with, and under” the forms of bread and wine in the Eucharist. The real difference is in what happens after the Mass and many if not most Lutherans feel that the unconsumed hosts revert to plain bread and thus do not require storage in a Tabernacle.

The Lutheran Book of Worship has a rite for “Individual Confession and Forgiveness of Sins”. It is there for all to see and most pastors I have known remind people of it but no-one approaches them for the rite. The recent “Joint Declaration on Justification” reached between the Lutheran World Federation and the Holy See has addressed that issue although the word may not have reached everyone in the pews.

The fasts etc. have been part of my informal practice for many years and so were not an issue for me. I have also reached the magic age of 60 so I would personally be exempt from the regulation, but as long as my health holds, I will practice them.

 

[ProVobis]

The fasts etc. have been part of my informal practice for many years and so were not an issue for me. I have also reached the magic age of 60 so I would personally be exempt from the regulation, but as long as my health holds, I will practice them.

Not necesary to fast but you answered my question. Thank you. I could have thrown in other and more restrictive limitations to Communion, but you passed my test.

 

[Lycorth]

A second council convened at the Vatican and addressing ways in which the Church could cause a renewal of the Faith was necessary - the modernizations and waterings-down that happened during the council was not, and the details are what made Vatican II such a “self-inflicted wound” and an “unmitigated disaster”.

We need a Third Vatican Council, one that rolls back all the unnecessary changes of VII, one that reaffirms the validity and efficacy of all the traditional beliefs and practices of the Church prior to VII, and one that soberly and properly looks at ways to teach the traditional Faith in the modern world rather than teaching the modern world to the traditional Faith.

 

[LoyalViews]

Vatican II was misinterpreted. As Pope Paul IV said “The smoke of Satan has entered the Church!” He was clearly stating that what was happening, is not at all what he wanted or expected to happen. If Pope John XXIII had to have lived longer, I suspect things would have went better than they did. Poor old Paul IV, he had to put up with these abuses – as did his glorious successors, especially the Venerable Pope John Paul II. All this is changing now, because Pope Benedict XVI is on the throne! Nevertheless, Pope Paul IV was a good man.

The sede-vacantists and schismatics? Well, they are just lost sheep.

 

[ProVobis]

For what it’s worth, there were two Vatican II’s, one that convened under Pope John XXIII and one that was reconvened under Pope Paul VI. While Pope John XXIII’s council was met with enthusiasm, it was reported that at his bedside he said “Stop the council, stop the council” and that was supposed to be it. Pope John XXIII, a very respected Pope among trads and progressives both, never signed a single council document. Pope Paul VI reconvened but he did so with grave apprehension. Judging by what he said afterwards, he was probably happy it was behind him. Vatican II was very costly and, because it had to raise money to cover it, the Vatican took risks and that led to all kinds of financial scandals afterwards. (You can probably read about Markinkus et al for more details). It is unknown exactly what Pope Paul referred to when he said “the Smoke of Satan has entered the Church.”

 

[Seamus_L]

John XXIII respected by Traditional Catholics ? I wouldn’t say he’s disrespected, but he’s not thought of very highly either.

 

[otjm]

From the Lutherans I talk to, and two of them are good friends, I don’t agree with you. It may seem like a minor issue but Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation are opposite ends of the spectrum. And justification by faith alone is an important matter for them; that’s partly why they don’t have confessions. However, they do seem to applaud the fact that the Church has relaxed a lot of rules regarding fasts and abstinence and communion in the hand.

That may depend on which part of the Lutherans they fall within, as justification has been pretty much laid to rest with some. Not all, but some.