It needs reiterating: The Second Vatican Council was pastoral, not dogmatic! (With a note concerning the SSPX)

[Auntie_M]

Too bad, then, you are not the Bishop of my Diocese…maybe then we would have had a “generous” response to the Motu Proprio, instead of no response at all.

So sorry, sounds like you need to take that up with your bishop.
Maybe he doesn’t know how you and maybe alot of others feel. He would probably make a great mentor.

 

[Auntie_M]

Which pope wrote a historical account of Vatican II?

SFD

I don’t know that ANY pope actually wrote an “HISTORICAL” account of any council. But there are quite a few encyclicals, and also “vatican approved” books giving such accounts. One very good one is…

“Transforming Parish Ministry” (can be found in your parish’s library)

This tells of the history of the “changing ministry” from 1930’s and even some of the 1800’s. This tells of the “pioneer priesthood” and how the explosion of Catholic schools prompted the laity to “get envolved”, just not enough sisters or priests to keep up with these changing times. The Catholic schools were the victim of their own successes.

Overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid, the Sisters and Priests had to have some sort of solution…something had to give. The school systems were requiring more educated teachers, (and as you probably know, “higher education” of the sisters was discouraged for many years mostly by Pius X). They found themselves having to go back to school…no money to go back to school…they worked for near nothing. So hiring the laity as teachers was the only solution. But with the laity, although more educated in scholastics, some were much less educated in the Catholic faith, therein lies our problems we have now in our schools failing to teach the “Catholic faith” as we would like to see it.

Without adequate education, the sisters had to vere into other areas of ministries. The priest were so overworked, that some of the sisters actually took on some of their jobs.
The priest had to be pastor, confessor, secretary, treasurer, responsible for building maintenance, etc, etc…all of this overwhelmed the pastors too, They were well pleased to have the sisters help with some of their responsiblilties.

This book reveals the reals hardships of the early 1900’s, This was a modern age where the church had to face alot of “growth”
problems and had to deal with them as best as she could.

A very good read…It is not Vatican II that made all these “changes” as some would like for all to believe.
Most of these"modern" changes began years ago and some only came to fruition during Vatican II.

The pretty pictures of the nuns going idly around with nothing to do is a farce. We should applaud them and the Priest for sacrificing soooo much.

(I don’t think many people today would worked 15+ hours a day for “room and board” and a few pennies.)

 

[maurin]

So sorry, sounds like you need to take that up with your bishop.

We have. 3 times. no response

Maybe he doesn’t know how you and maybe alot of others feel.

Impossible. Unless he doesn’t read his correspondence.

He would probably make a great mentor.

It doesn’t appear to be so. I wish he were as steadfast in his desire to follow the Pope’s words as you have declared yourself to be above!!

 

[alih]

as the church moves through the beatification of pius xii, in his writing, “mediator dei” he warned against the use of the vernacular, citing the protection that a dead language gives to the expression of faith, the calendar should not be changed, black should not be excluded as a color for liturgical vestments, the altar should not be restored to a “primitive table form.”
what was said of the followers of martin luther, bishops, priests, religious et al; leaving the church in droves.? the moto pripio by pius x in 1907 praestantia scripturae sacrae, incorporated into the canon law of 1917 and recognized as the “law” by the post conciliar church (code of canon law 1917 canon 6); how did that affect those who seemed to have violated it and its application today? their are deep and fundamental issues that somewhere along the line must be addressed and solved.
charity and understanding must prevail in the long run. name calling or denunciation should not replace it. have a good year. (alih)

 

[otjm]

So you really don’t know anything about Fr. Wiltgen. He was a liberal when he wrote the book…and thereafter as far as I know.

SFD

It is easy to fling words around like “liberal” and “conservative” when they suit one’s purpose; but one is less than intellectually honest if one does not define what the marking point is for defining either “liberal” or “conservative”.

Too often the defining point is simply someone to the left or right of the person making the statment (accusation might be more correct).

To wit: someone who is to the left of Trotsky would define Trotsky as concservative; and someone to the right of Attila the Hun woulde define him as liberal. Use of terms in such circumstances serve no purpose other than to defame the person labeled.

A prime example is JP2; he has been castigated as a flaming liberal and as an arch conservative; those who did so were defining him by their own positions and nothing else.

 

[una_fides]

That being said, I told another friend today that the smart position is not to try to privately interpret the documents of the Council, but to depend on what the Pope and Majority of Bishops tell us they mean. Private interpretation has a danger of placing one in the camp of those who hold to sola scriptura and private interpretation.

The log has been sawn and resawn and the horse beaten to death and beyond about whether we are bound to accept Vatican II as a legitimate Ecumenical Council and at least three Popes have said yes. So…do you follow the Pope or your private interpretation?

You make a good point here that we cannot be expected to privately interpret everything privately on our own, else we are no better than protestants. This is a primary purpose of the Church and of Councils: to settle matters of dispute and clarify them. All the General Councils prior to V2 were called to clarify issues of doctrine in dispute.

V2, on the other hand, was not called for such a purpose. It was called as a “pastoral council” and to make the Church more relevant to the present day. Paul VI even said that the Council did not make use of its infallibility to define any dogmas of the faith but that it was strictly “pastoral;” however, these statements were made a few years after the council was over rather than being contained within the documents themselves. Whether or not V2 was infallible is a very difficult question to answer. It seems we have the pope of the council itself who said it was not, so to follow the pope on that matter would be to not consider it infallible and thus the interpretations of the documents that run contrary to Tradition can and must be opposed.

Unfortunately, it is not enough to say that we should merely blindly follow the majority of bishops on this matter, as there was a time in history, during the Arian heresies, that the vast majority of bishops were heretics and only the few who held to the Church’s traditional teachings on the Trinity were in the right and they were censured by the Church. I believe St. Athanasius was even excommunicated at one point. The point being that we must all follow Tradition and do our best to understand it in the same sense as it has always been taught. To interpret it in the same sense is an infallible dogmatic definition from Vatican I, so we cannot disagree with it.

Let us keep in mind the faithful words of St. Athanasius: “Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ.”

 

[una_fides]

Cutting to the quick about your verbosity and cleverness…this quote by you basically says it all.

YOU will decide what doctrine is, and you will even disobey the POPE. Do you realize what your position has degraded to?

You are apparently intelligent, and I do not doubt your sincerity…BUT, you must already know this is EXACTLY the slippery slope that lead to Protestantism - personal interpretation to the exclusion of the guidance of the Pope and the Hagstrom.

IT IS DANGEROUS THINKING.

Who said that popes cannot be in error in their ordinary teaching? If any teaching is contrary to Tradition in the same sense it was handed down, it must be rejected or at least attempted to be interpreted in light of the same sense of prior infallibly defined Tradition. A study of history will show that popes have erred (howbeit rarely) in their ordinary teachings to the extent that they contradicted previous tradition. If modern popes deviate from the same sense of understanding on infallible teachings then they are in error. If they deviate from non-infallibly defined teachings then they may be in error. We should not think, however, that the gates of hell can or will ultimately prevail against Peter or the Church; however, it is my opinion that the ark of the Church is currently traveling through a violent storm of confusion resulting from the vague nature of the documents of V2 as well as from many modernists who are infecting the flock. They are truly wolves in sheep’s clothing and must be opposed as such. I do not believe that concilliar popes are in that category, but I do think they have been influenced to some degree or another by them and by the vague, fluffy nature of V2’s language. Let us continue to pray for the pope as he needs our prayers more than anyone else on earth.