With all due respect, but your post is very confusing. I cannot tell if it’s anti-Catholic or anti-Protestant. In either case, it’s not a very constructive response.
I have no idea how old you are, but I do agree with other people. It does get old to hear people want to blame Vatican II on all the problems of the world. Vatican II achieved many wonderful things too. It would be nice to hear about those.
I was around before Vatican II. Not everything was as perfect as some people want to make it out to be. And not everything is as it appears to be. Please allow me to point out a few things.
- Benches and kneelers: Did you know that the Protestants introduced benches into Church buildings, not Catholics? When the Protestant Reformation took place, the sermons got longer and longer. People go tired and began to bring benches to church. As the Protestants spread, they began to design churches with benches. American Catholics copied it and they introduced kneelers. Churches in Europe did not have benches. People stood during the liturgy, as they do in the East.
- Tabernacle front and center: Did you know that the tabernacle was not always front and center? The practice was introduced by St. Francis of Assisi around 1212. Tabernacles were on the side altar or in a side chapel. When Francis began to rebuild abandoned chapels around Assisi, they were very small. There was no room for a side altar. Francis has the tabernacle placed on the main altar so that it could be housed in the chapel. As his friars migrated through Europe, they took this model with them. As they built churches they put the tabernacle on the main altar. Other religous who ran parishes followed suit.
- Communion rails: Did you know that communion rails were originally erected for political purposes. In Medieval times people often took refuge in churches when invaders came. If you were standing in the sanctuary you could not be arrested. That’s where the word sanctuary was introduced into civil law. The rails had nothing to do with communion per se. People went to communion at a kneeler that was setup in the front of the church, before there were communion rails. In addition, many churches were attached to monasteries. Gradually, people began to kneel at the railing instead of at the kneeler. It made communion faster if the priest would just walk from side to side.
- Statues in churches: Did you know that statues in churches were not introduced until the Renaissance? The usual church had a crucifix over the center altar. As architecture became more elaborate and there was more money for it, the altars got bigger with all kinds of nitches for statues. Until the 1200s, the altars were very simple.
- Confessionals: Did you know that there were no such things as confessionals until after the 1500s. Even today, many European churches do not have a booth as we know it in the USA. Confessionals were a partition with the priest sitting on one side and a kneeler on the other, but they were open for all to see the confessor and the penitent. People did not go to confession every week until after the Middle Ages. So confessionals were not frequently used.
- Protestants at Vatican II: Did you know that they were invited by Bl. Pope John XXIII. He invited them to participate on some committees. But they did not have free reign of the liturgy as some want to say. They did participate in the discussions. There was a proposal for a mass that came out of the discussions. However, that proposal never made it into practice. Bl. John XXIII did not like it and sent it back. The reform that was finally approved by Pope Paul VI was not written by Protestants and it was authorized by a canonically elected pope.
- Simple churches: The first big churches in Christendom were part of monasteries. They were called the moanstic church. They were built and designed according to the Benedictine tradition in the West and the Basilian tradition in the East. The Churches in the East were very colorful with many painting and iconography. In the Benedictine tradition, the churches were white-washed and very asutere. Later stained glass was introduced, but the white walls remained and are still part of the Benedictine and Franciscan traditions. Religious art developed, many bishops and popes commissioned artists to paint the great churches. We don’t have too many Giotto’s, Raphael’s and Michelangelo’s around anymore. Which is sad, because they did create beautiful worship spaces.
There are many things that we take as a given, because we were born in the 20th century. But when we speak of them, we have to put them in proper context so that people can see where they came from and not feel as though someone changed the faith of the Church. Should we preserve them? Of course. They are a product of faith. Even if they are not present in a particular church or diocese, the faith does not change, because the faith pre-dates these things.
Finally, the words of consecration were mistranslated in the English. However, the mistranslation does not invallidate the consecration, because the essential words are still there. Be patient. The corrected translation is coming.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
