My only real problem with Vat II Documents

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Our_Refuge said:
Isn’t it fair to say that this statement is ambigious? The way that it is worded it is easy to read that the church accepts this teaching.
What if it said that " Mormonism teaches a way in which we can become gods in the next life. The Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in this religion"

That statement does not imply a rejection of the teaching.It implies an acceptance.

Why not say in Nostra Aetate “ In Buddhism…a way is taught whereby those with a devout and trustful spirit may be able to reach….the supreme illumination, which the Catholic Church rejects as it is only through Jesus Christ that one may attain perfection."

I understand the need for dialogue with these religions but the mandate from Christ to teach all nations and baptize them seems to be pushed to the side when one goes out of the way to praise false beliefs.
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I can definitely see your point.

The Vat II generation seemed obsessed with avoiding conflict. This seems rational, considering they had lived through two world wars and there was a cold war staring them in the face, thus there was more of a desire to avoid conflict, war, etc, and the exclusivity thought to create it.

They wouldn’t put the anathemas in. Ironically, it makes it easier to disregard, because they don’t condemn you if you don’t.
 
I guess no one read post 39 or is really interested. If that’s the case, then I have not much more to add to this thread and shall take my leave, unless someone needs me or has a question or comment on what I shared.

Thanks and God bless,

JR 🙂
 
Hello JREducation,
I think your post #39 is very informative. I even tried to back it with my post on Nostra Aetate. But people were refusing to understand. Please don’t stop posting, Thank you.
 
I read the post.
Code: 
I don't understand how its being directed at Catholics is the cause of the ambiguous content. It would seem that the fact that it was directed at Catholics would call for more of a condemnation of the other faiths, since it would want to strenously avoid implicitly (or accidentally) encouraging people to switch faiths.
All of what you said is good, but without the clear condemnations, I can see the source of why so many people have converted out of the faith.

For example, it doesn’t mention that Catholicism is necessary for salvation under normative conditions, does it?

What if it said, like in the previous post,

" Scientologists believe that an alien overlord banished all humanity to Earth, The Catholic Church rejects nothing true in this religion."

We lose a sense of why being Catholic is necessary, or even important. It might be better for it to be explicitly stated.

We dread seeming “arrogant” when it comes to our religion, but if we don’t highlight how and why Catholicism is the superior faith, by virtue of its being true, then how can we have people convert?

In Catholicism we don’t get the free reign a lot of these other religions do. We have a lot of stringent rules that are hard to abide by. If it’s not necessary for salvation, no one is going to convert, unless maybe they come from a protestant sect and have been scandalized by it.

“You can convert, but you can’t use birth control, have to go to Church every week, have to learn a ritual (even the NO is hard to learn for converts), can’t get divorced, can’tdo this, can’t do that, but there is truth in your religion. We reject nothing true in your religion.”

I just don’t anybody buying that. Times have changed since 65. You can belong to some protestant denominations and have practically complete freedom. If Catholicism isn’t necessary for salvation, or isn’t uniquely true, not many people are going to convert.

The opposite is certainly in effect, though. Lots of people are becoming something else (or non-religious) because they feel like Catholicism is unnecessary.

Just my thoughts.
 
I posted Nostra Aetate in the non-catholic forum under a posting on Buddhism. Here is what I asked a Buddhist.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=245817#post3788185
How do you interprete the statement that the Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in your religion
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“There are many paths leading up the mountain. The may take different routes, but eventually all will reach the summit. Buddhism can be summed up as: do good, cease to do evil and meditate. The first two are certainly contained within Catholicism; meditation is somewhat lacking but it is present in some degree.”
Do these paragraphs in any way give you the desire to investigate the Catholic faith?
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No. I was brought up Christian, and after the usual adolescent bout of atheism I looked for a religion to follow. I tried a number of religions, but in general I got on better with the Indian (Dharmic) religions than the Abrahamic religions. I have been Buddhist since my late teens.

There are immense differences in the theology behind the two religions; Budhism has lots of gods, but they are of no real importance. Buddhism rejects any form of a soul. There are heavens and hells but they are all impermanent. Impermanence and change are emphasised over permanence; the phrase “the radical insufficiency of this changeable world” applies to the heavens, hells and gods as well as to the earth. Christianity seems to me to view the world as fundamentally unchanging with a veneer of apparent change laid over it. Buddhism sees the world as fundamentally changing with a veneer of apparent stasis laid over it.
rossum"

OK. He believes that “There are many paths leading up the mountain” and clearly Nostra Aetate did nothing to change his mind about that. Christ said,
John 3:3 “ Amen,amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”

John 14:6 “ I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me”

“And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold;** I must bring them also,** and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd”

, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”

*Nostra Aetate *fails miserably in following the commands of Christ to teach all nations.
When asked if Nostra Aetate would at the minimun get him to “investigate” the Catholic faith he said “No”

It is the duty of the Church to bring all men to the truth.
1983 Code of Canon Law
Can. 748 §1. **All persons are bound to seek the truth **in those things which regard God **and his Church **and by virtue of divine law are bound by the obligation and possess the right of embracing and observing the truth which they have come to know.

1917 Code of Canon Law 1322/2 … all men are bound by divine law to embrace the true Church of God

Nostra Aetate is more proof that Vatican was pastoral and not infallible. In my opinion Nostra Aetate was influenced by modernist thinking at the Council. It clearly mirrors the very words of Pius X
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*Pascendi *14.2
. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with that of symbolism, **every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. **What is to prevent such experiences from being found in any religion? In fact, that they are so is maintained by not a few. On what grounds can Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? Will they claim a monopoly of true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed, **Modernists do not deny, but actually maintain, some confusedly, others frankly, that all religions are true. **… In the conflict between different religions, the most that Modernists can maintain is that the Catholic has more truth because it is more vivid, and that it deserves with more reason the name of Christian because it corresponds more fully with the origins of Christianity. No one will find it unreasonable that these consequences flow from the premises. But what is most amazing is that there are Catholics and priests, who, We would fain believe, abhor such enormities, and yet act as if they fully approved of them. **For they lavish such praise and bestow such public honor on the teachers of these errors **as to convey the belief that their admiration is not meant merely for the persons, who are perhaps not devoid of a certain merit, but rather for the sake of the errors which these persons openly profess and which they do all in their power to propagate. "
 
Here’s my ultra-simplistic take on VII -

This council must be interpreted in light of the historical documents of the Church. The historical documents of the Church were put into practice over the centuries…this practice we call “Pre-councilar Catholicism”. So, in any place I cannot be certain of properly interpreting VII, I must conform my undertanding of VII to Pre-councilar Catholicism. Therefore, the right way to live, to be certain of properly interpreting VII, is to live as a pre-councilar Catholic.

Someone see a flaw in that?
 
That there were six protestant representatives in attendance as consultants, making sure that the NO wasn’t still too catholic in its expression and visual content?

Just a guess.

Gospa Mir.
 
Yeah, talk about your great, Earth-shattering blunders, that has to rank.
 
I read the “Rhine Flows into the Tiber” book a while back. It reminded me of the comment about things men weren’t meant to see being made - laws and sausages. I would add “Councial Decrees”.
 
Howard_Roark said:
I read the “Rhine Flows into the Tiber” book a while back. It reminded me of the comment about things men weren’t meant to see being made - laws and sausages. I would add “Councial Decrees”.
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I’m reminded of Rod Stewart’s album: Every picture tells a story.😃

If you look up the event in question, you will find a picture of these six men standing in line with the Pope (?) extending his hand to them in appreciation.

We continue to mend fences.🙂
 
PrayforMallory said:
I read the post.
Code: 
I don't understand how its being directed at Catholics is the cause of the ambiguous content. It would seem that the fact that it was directed at Catholics would call for more of a condemnation of the other faiths, since it would want to strenously avoid implicitly (or accidentally) encouraging people to switch faiths.
All of what you said is good, but without the clear condemnations, I can see the source of why so many people have converted out of the faith.

For example, it doesn’t mention that Catholicism is necessary for salvation under normative conditions, does it?

Just my thoughts.
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Nostra Aetate is not going to say any of those things that we want it to say about the primacy of Catholicism, becasue that was not its goal. It is a summary of the discussions that were had regarding how Catholics must view other faiths. It was meant for Catholics to teach Catholics to see the good in other faiths and to confirm that God’s saving activity is not limited to Catholcism, but that in some mysterious way, Catholicism finds its way into other faiths, even when they do not realize it or welcome it.

Nostra Aetate like Ut Unum Sint highlights the power of Catholicism to break through barriers and be uncovered in other faiths, even it is just bits and pieces.

It is really a compliment to Catholicism and the action of the Holy Spirit.

It is also a guide for Catholics to respect other faiths and to always see the saving act of Christ everywhere we look.

If one wants to read about the primacy of Catholicism over all other faiths, then one has to read Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes. Those Council documents were written for the world. They tell the world about the primacy and role of the Church in the world

Each document in Vatican II has a specific audience. For example, Perfectae Caritatis was written for religious and for Catholic lay people, not for non Catholics.

Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes were written for the universal community.

Then there is the sequal to Vatican II, the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If we read the sections on other faiths, we will find that it speaks to Catholics in some paragraphs and to people of other faiths in other paragraphs.

If we read the section on the Church, it uses Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, and prior writings to drive home the point of the primacy of the Church.

Always make sure that you are clear who the target audience is and what the document wants to discuss with the target audience. Nostra Aetate wanted to speak to Catholics. It did not want to speak to Catholics about staying Catholics. It wanted to speak to Catholics about how to interact with other faiths and about our relationship with other faiths.

Whether or not we would have preferred a document that persuaded us to remain Catholic is another issue. But that’s not what the editor and the meetings were discussing.

The reason they dicussed this is because they wanted to make sure that Catholics treat other faiths with justice and recognize any ray of truth and Catholicism that is there.

Pope Benedict repeated the same message in NY. He said that the difference that separates us and Protestants are misunderstandings in hermaneutics and that Catholics and Protestants alike, mut forget what has been said in the past and work on this assumption. There is a misunderstanding that has to be clarified. He’s not saying that what was said in the past was in error, but it just didn’t work to reunite the Church.

So now he wants to try something different. This is the same thing that Nostra Aetate and Ut Unum Sint try to do. They want to work on the mind of the Catholic, to soften the heart of the Catholic.

In other documents they speak to the non Catholic.

JR 🙂
 
Our_Refuge said:
Hindus worship animals as gods. Cows are the most sacred, but they also worship monkeys, snakes and other animals.
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"Hindus don’t worship cows. We respect, honor and adore the cow. By honoring this gentle creature, who gives more than she takes, we honor all creation … Gandhi once said, “One can measure the greatness of a nation and its moral progress by the way it treats its animals. Cow protection to me is not mere protection of the cow. It means protection of all that lives and is helpless and weak in the world. The cow means the entire subhuman world.”
 
I’m under the impression that Nostra Aetate mostly serves as a document to remind us (Catholics) that there are some common elements we share with other religions, and that we can work towards communicating with said other religions by focusing on those common elements. Generally speaking being able to establish a rapport with others through being in agreement can make it easier to communicate overall, and also allow for people to maintain civility and inherent respect. This is the methodology that both Dominic and Francis had used, and passed onto their families.

When taking in that context, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with the document, nor do I see it conflicting with any other documents.
 
Kind of reminds me of an old Bishop Sheen re-run on EWTN (from before VII), where he said that you might have some new-age sect founded in Los Angeles, which has 10% Truth, 90% human invention. To bring that person into the Church, it’s best to start with that 10% you agree on, and go from there, rather than immediately drive that person off by condemning him a pagan and a heretic.

I think a more general problem I see with a lot of the Vatican II statements on ecumenism is that, before VII, the focus seemed to be to go out and bring people into the Church. Period. You were either a part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church or you were not, and if you were not, you SHOULD be, for the sake of your soul.

After VII, the focus seems to be more on “getting along,” and avoiding offense to other religions by avoiding telling them “we’re right, you’re not.” Even though the official position of the Church is “we’re right,” we don’t want to SAY that to other religions, lest we offend them. Maybe the idea was that we could “catch more flies with honey,” and draw more people into the Faith by setting a good example and not putting anyone off? Who knows… I suppose the numbers will speak for themselves as to which approach is more effective.
 
It’s against forum rules to resurrect a thread more than a year old.
 
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