If Vatican II never happened

[GerardP]

For short, criticizing a Pope is the same as criticizing everyone; you need to draw a line between (constructive) criticism and false speech.

Just my 2 cents.

Don’t forget the other side of the coin. It’s the false adulation of the recent Popes even in plain sight of their errors that has lead to a quasi-idolatry of the Pope.

As the Trent theologian Melchoir Cano said against an overreaction to Protestantism, "“Peter has no need of our lies or flattery. Those who blindly and indiscriminately defend every decision of the supreme Pontiff are the very ones who do most to undermine the authority of the Holy See—they destroy instead of strengthening its foundations.”

 

[MariaGorettiGrl]

"“Peter has no need of our lies or flattery. Those who blindly and indiscriminately defend every decision of the supreme Pontiff are the very ones who do most to undermine the authority of the Holy See—they destroy instead of strengthening its foundations.”

So don’t try to make the pope look better OR WORSE than he is. Just because the pope said it doesn’t make it God’s word. But at the same time, we can’t pretend to know more about deeply spiritual matters than a person who has not only made their career the study of their faith but was also chosen as leader of the Catholic Church. That position is not given out lightly and God would not let a leader ruin His church. One has to listen to the pope not blindly, but obediently. Popes sin and their sin should not be defended. Their humanity cannot be denied. But neither can their authority.

If we deny the authority of the pope, we deny our Catholic faith and follow dangersously close in the footsteps of Luthor and our Protestant bretheren who feel that the Holy Spirit will guide the lay person, but not the pope, in matters of interpreting faith. God gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom for a reason. We are sheep. We need a shepherd.

 

[Nevarlander]

I guess it’ll be the same as before the sexual revolution of the 1960’s: Pleasantville.

Pax
Laudater Jesus Christus
Instaurare omnia in Christo

Dude, have you actually seen Pleasantville? The point of that movie was to show how terrible the director thought the 50s really were (while I think the 50s were the 60s with more glamor - if you read what I think of as A.S. Byatt’s psuedo-memoirs, you’ll understand).

 

[highlander]

So don’t try to make the pope look better OR WORSE than he is. Just because the pope said it doesn’t make it God’s word. But at the same time, we can’t pretend to know more about deeply spiritual matters than a person who has not only made their career the study of their faith but was also chosen as leader of the Catholic Church. That position is not given out lightly and God would not let a leader ruin His church. One has to listen to the pope not blindly, but obediently. Popes sin and their sin should not be defended. Their humanity cannot be denied. But neither can their authority.

If we deny the authority of the pope, we deny our Catholic faith and follow dangersously close in the footsteps of Luthor and our Protestant bretheren who feel that the Holy Spirit will guide the lay person, but not the pope, in matters of interpreting faith. God gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom for a reason. We are sheep. We need a shepherd.

I guess that St Paul and St Anathasius were “bad sheep” for correcting their “shepherds”.

 

[bear06]

I guess that St Paul and St Anathasius were “bad sheep” for correcting their “shepherds”.

And which one of these two denied the authority of their pope? I fail to see on what in MariaGorettiGrl’s post your comment is made.

 

[bear06]

I guess that St Paul and St Anathasius were “bad sheep” for correcting their “shepherds”.

And which one of these two denied the authority of their pope? I fail to see on what in MariaGorettiGrl’s post your comment is made.

 

[bear06]

I guess that St Paul and St Anathasius were “bad sheep” for correcting their “shepherds”.

And which one of these two denied the authority of their pope? I fail to see the part in MariaGorettiGrl’s post on which your comment is made.

 

[GerardP]

So don’t try to make the pope look better OR WORSE than he is.

Doesn’t the Pope make himself look better or worse? I didn’t make the Popes of recent years engage in an ecumenical policy that would have scandalized Pope John XXIII not to mention his predecessors.

Just because the pope said it doesn’t make it God’s word. But at the same time, we can’t pretend to know more about deeply spiritual matters than a person who has not only made their career the study of their faith but was also chosen as leader of the Catholic Church.

What do you mean by “pretending” to know more about spiritual matters? Is the Pope automatically the greatest theologian? If you know something is wrong based on what the Magisterium has always taught or even common sense, then the Pope is wrong. Not because we “pretend” to know, but because the fact is self-evident.

That position is not given out lightly and God would not let a leader ruin His church.

We’ve had Popes who were given the office for very lousy reasons. And that fact doesn’t prevent God from preventing His Church from being completely destroyed. God will actually let a leader ruin a major portion of His Church if He permits it.

One has to listen to the pope not blindly, but obediently.

You have some mixed metaphors here. “listening blindly” doesn’t make much sense. The word “obey” means “to hear.” That doesn’t mean we have to be servile.

Just as the word “respect” means “to look back to” it means you take the Pope into consideration when you are contemplating some decision.

Popes sin and their sin should not be defended. Their humanity cannot be denied. But neither can their authority.

But the problem is nowadays people “pretend” to use your word that the Pope is using his authority all the time.

If we deny the authority of the pope, we deny our Catholic faith and follow dangersously close in the footsteps of Luthor and our Protestant bretheren who feel that the Holy Spirit will guide the lay person, but not the pope, in matters of interpreting faith.

But we have a problem of Catholics imbibing in the Protestant caricature of the Pope. An absolutely irresistible force that must be believed in all things and is positively guided by the Holy Ghost.

God gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom for a reason. We are sheep. We need a shepherd.

The job of the sheep is to protect themselves when the shepherds show themselves to be wolves.

If Peter keeps the keys in his pocket and never uses them, he’s negligent in his duty and denying Christ like St. Peter before him.

 

[GerardP]

And which one of these two denied the authority of their pope? I fail to see the part in MariaGorettiGrl’s post on which your comment is made.

What makes you think Highlander is saying that Saints Paul and Athanasius denied the authority of the Pope?

He said they must have been “bad sheep” for correcting their “shepherds.”

MariaGorettiGrl brought up several subjects.

I would think that St. Paul and St. Athanasius could easily be accused of “pretending” to know more than the Pope. They could be called bad sheep for that reason alone according to some standards.

St. Paul couldn’t point to Scripture to justify correcting St. Peter. He just did it because it was the right thing to do.

We’ve got a major problem in Catholic apologetics with people running to “slogans” about “denying the authority of the Pope” and another popular one is “loyalty to the Magisterium” when people don’t even know how to define the terms.

 

[Jean_Anthony]

This thread has strayed into side issues. Please return to the original topic or I will have to close the thread. Thank you.

 

[otjm]

What makes you think Highlander is saying that Saints Paul and Athanasius denied the authority of the Pope?

He said they must have been “bad sheep” for correcting their “shepherds.”

MariaGorettiGrl brought up several subjects.

I would think that St. Paul and St. Athanasius could easily be accused of “pretending” to know more than the Pope. They could be called bad sheep for that reason alone according to some standards.

St. Paul couldn’t point to Scripture to justify correcting St. Peter. He just did it because it was the right thing to do.

We’ve got a major problem in Catholic apologetics with people running to “slogans” about “denying the authority of the Pope” and another popular one is “loyalty to the Magisterium” when people don’t even know how to define the terms.

And this is alls tarting to get seriously off track.

 

[GerardP]

To bring those points back into alignment with the topic:

If Vatican II never happened we might not be having so many discussions about quasi-papolatry and the meaning of authority.

It was Vatican II’s encouragement of the idea of “collegiality” that has lead to a conflict between the power of the bishops and the power of the Pope.

Many bishops want the Pope to be simply “Bishop of Rome” and pretend he’s an equal among other bishops like the archbishop of Canterbury.

JPII managed to take the idea of collegiality in governance and then basically turn the papacy into a kind of cheerleader for the Church with a high profile but very little effectiveness in governance. Hence, the ignoring of his prohibition of communion in the hand in 1981.

Had Vatican II not happened, that mode of operation probably would not have occurred.

 

[Genesis315]

To bring those points back into alignment with the topic:

If Vatican II never happened we might not be having so many discussions about quasi-papolatry and the meaning of authority.

It was Vatican II’s encouragement of the idea of “collegiality” that has lead to a conflict between the power of the bishops and the power of the Pope.

Many bishops want the Pope to be simply “Bishop of Rome” and pretend he’s an equal among other bishops like the archbishop of Canterbury.

JPII managed to take the idea of collegiality in governance and then basically turn the papacy into a kind of cheerleader for the Church with a high profile but very little effectiveness in governance. Hence, the ignoring of his prohibition of communion in the hand in 1981.

Had Vatican II not happened, that mode of operation probably would not have occurred.

You do realize that this was a problem well before Vatican II–in fact, Vatican I deals heavily with this issue because the Pope was completely disregarded in general by the faithfil–as does the Council Florence, Lyons II, and Constance (in an indirect way–the Fathers at Constance and Flroence actually tried to reduce the Popes authority))–this has always been a problem. One reason St. Pius X had to instute a secret spy network (which was suppressed by Benedict XV) is because he couldn’t trust anyone to actually obey what he said. Likewise, the African bishops disobeyed St. Stephen I and kept re-baptizing heretics so St. Sixtus II just let them be, tolerating their sacrilges because he could do nothing about it. Pope Paul III threatened to excommunicate anyone who practiced slavery in the New World and yet slavery became a major long lasting institution in those otherwise thoroughly Catholic cultures with the bishops doing nothing about it. Likewise, St. Catherine of Siena didn’t have to write a treatise on obedience to the Pope in her day because he received a lot of respect–in fact, much of what she says is geared to horrendous liturgical practices.

If you think the Pope has at any time experienced tranquil docility to his authority–even from his own bishops, you are ignorant of Church history. There will always be the small faithful who obey the Pope while most people will simply submit to their fallen ways and go about their business with little reference to the Pope’s commands.

 

[Genesis315]

The idea of the college of bishops in union with their head being the supreme body (but never apart from the head or at odds with the head) is a constant teaching of the Church which can be seen in her praxis and doctrine. The problem is that Vatican I was cut short by the war, and therefore only dealt with the authority of the Supreme Pontiff (notice it was the college of bishops who defined this doctine in the first place) but it left hanging it’s treatment of bishops and ecumenical Councils.

The same teaching concerning the relationship between the Roman Pontiff and the College that is described in Lumen Gentium is also found in Leo XIII’s Satis Cognitum, for example.

 

[otjm]

To bring those points back into alignment with the topic:

If Vatican II never happened we might not be having so many discussions about quasi-papolatry and the meaning of authority.

It was Vatican II’s encouragement of the idea of “collegiality” that has lead to a conflict between the power of the bishops and the power of the Pope.

I would disagree. It was Vatican 1’s definition of Papal authority which brought the issue of the authority of the bishops into discussion. Many see the history of the Church as if viewed through the lense of a corporation; the Pope being the Prsident and CEO, and the bishops as some sort of mid-level managers. A more careful reading would show that through the history of the Church, both in terms of practical practice and theological thought, the issue of the relationship between the bishops and the Pope was not clearly defined, and Vtican 1 brought that much mroe clearly into focus. Vatican 2 did not “create” questions and then supply answers; the questions already existed and the Council provided answers.

The fact that some don’t like the answers does not mean that the questions did not exist prior to the Council, and it is naive to assunme the questions would not have become more pointed over time.

Many bishops want the Pope to be simply “Bishop of Rome” and pretend he’s an equal among other bishops like the archbishop of Canterbury.

Some may question that; on the other hand, many people looking at the interaction between bishops and Pope presume the CEO model and cannot uanderstand the bishops exercising any authority; they seem to presume that the Pope will provide explicit directions on all matters.

JPII managed to take the idea of collegiality in governance and then basically turn the papacy into a kind of cheerleader for the Church with a high profile but very little effectiveness in governance. Hence, the ignoring of his prohibition of communion in the hand in 1981.

I have seen nothing which indicates how the matter resolved itself over time, or what was the cause of his thinking. It is a fact that he himself said that one of his weak spots was administrative; he said that in reference to dissident theologians, specifically, but I would take it to extend to bishops who were too far out of line (the issue of liberation theology and South and Central American bishops comes to mind).

Had Vatican II not happened, that mode of operation probably would not have occurred.

Again, since the questions were already existing before the Council was called, tht is eminently debateable. Further, much of the attitude of dissent to Church teachings and rulings, I submit, has far more to do with the reaction to Humanae Vitae than it does to Vatican 2. HV occured at a time of massive secular questioning and rejection of authority and the response to HV played out almost lockstep to such other issues as Civil Rights and the Viet Nam war. Vatican 2 itself didn’t engender dissent, but HV did and it was almost immediate. To presume that many of the problems in the Church would not have occured if V2 had not occured is to presume that the questions which were behind much of the change did not exist prior to V2. Liturgical research and a call for change didn’t start with V2; it went back 50 years of more. And the changes in moral theology occuring at a time when Situational Ethics was the darling of the philosophical world are so tranparently related to Situation Ethics, that to blame V2 for the change is to ignore the reality at the time completely.

 

[bear06]

What makes you think Highlander is saying that Saints Paul and Athanasius denied the authority of the Pope?

Uh, that was the content of MariaGoretti’s post. That’s why the question? Why bring up them when the context of her post had nothing to do with it?

He said they must have been “bad sheep” for correcting their “shepherds.”

 

[GerardP]

You do realize that this was a problem well before Vatican II–in fact,

Yes. On another thread I referred to a quote from Fr. LeFloch of the French Seminary who stated that the extension of infallibility into impeccability was going to cause trouble down the line.

Vatican I deals heavily with this issue because the Pope was completely disregarded in general by the faithfil–as does the Council Florence, Lyons II, and Constance (in an indirect way–the Fathers at Constance and Flroence actually tried to reduce the Popes authority))–this has always been a problem.

Papal declarations had their intrinsic authority. No one in real numbers disputed the infallibility of the declaration of the Immaculate Conception. Gallicanism was a major problem that Vatican I did a good job of suppressing. Vatican II opened the door to Gallicanism and the overreaction Ultramontanism. Both of which have taken the form of “collegiality” and “quasi-idolatry” of the person of the Pope.

One reason St. Pius X had to instute a secret spy network (which was suppressed by Benedict XV) is because he couldn’t trust anyone to actually obey what he said.

Which brings us to another Vatican II inspired blunder. The abolishment of the anti-modernist oath.

Likewise, the African bishops disobeyed St. Stephen I and kept re-baptizing heretics so St. Sixtus II just let them be, tolerating their sacrilges because he could do nothing about it.

You can also cite the tolerance of the heirarchy on married clergy in the East. Vatican II’s dealings with the Eastern branches and the schismatics have lead to another attack on celibacy.

Pope Paul III threatened to excommunicate anyone who practiced slavery in the New World and yet slavery became a major long lasting institution in those otherwise thoroughly Catholic cultures with the bishops doing nothing about it.

In the post-Vatican II world, excommunications mean nothing. The heirarchy won’t even use the word “heretic” anymore thanks to John XXIII’s opening speech.

Likewise, St. Catherine of Siena didn’t have to write a treatise on obedience to the Pope in her day because he received a lot of respect–in fact, much of what she says is geared to horrendous liturgical practices.

I wonder what she would have thought of Post Vatican II papal masses?

If you think the Pope has at any time experienced tranquil docility to his authority–even from his own bishops, you are ignorant of Church history.

I’m not. But equally I’m not ignorant of the fact that the Vatican II inspired crisis has brought on situations and conditions that have not had their equal in Church history.

The fact is we don’t have tranquil docility towards the Popes on faithfulness. What we have had is tranquil docility of the Popes themselves towards abuse, misdirection and indirection.

There will always be the small faithful who obey the Pope while most people will simply submit to their fallen ways and go about their business with little reference to the Pope’s commands.

Here we are back at square one. Are you talking about true obedience as defined in Vatican I or are you talking about absolute obedience?

There are circumstances possible where the “small faithful” may have to disobey or merely rebuke the Pope in order to be faithful Catholics.