New Book Examines Vatican II

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Continuing the quote from UR ch.3:
“For men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect.”
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This is one of the bigger UR oddities. It declares that people outside the Church, through a valid baptism, are in an “imperfect communion”. What is that supposed to mean? The document nowhere explains. As I have stated before, it fails to define its terms. Now Catholic teaching is that valid baptism puts a “character” – a permanent mark – on the soul. The baptism is always a Catholic Baptism, into the Catholic Church, whether this has been done by a Protestant or a Catholic. There is speculation over the point at which a Protestant who has received a valid baptism must be said to have left the Church. Obviously an infant up until somewhere beyond the age of reason is a member of the Church. However the adult Protestant who receives a valid baptism is another story. He could possibly be joined to the Church at that moment but a conscious denial of the Church just minutes later could kill that. The actual Character will remain on his soul, however, for all eternity. One must also consider the problems of ignorance, culpability, etc.

There are no clear answers to these questions, because so much depends on the secret motivations of the individual soul. But UR makes no attempt to differentiate between various Protestants and their beliefs. It rather invents the idea of "imperfect communion’ (without defining its boundaries) and applies it to ALL who believe in Christ and who have received a valid baptism. We know it’s not “all.” A Protestant who explicitly rejects the Church is not in any type of communion because he has voluntarily left the Body of Christ.

Simply having the mark of baptism does not mean that one is “in communion though imperfect.” If you are not in communion you are not in communion. “Imperfect communion” is another ambiguity that anyone can twist to mean whatever they want. If it actually means “not in communion” then why not say so? Why render it “imperfect communion” as if to indicate some kind of partial communion – as if to say that they are 50% joined to Christ?

Once again this part of UR is a joy to liberals because they can take it, based on the foundations of Lumen Gentium and the other many parts of UR and twist it to their liking.

To continue UR3 …
“The differences that exist in varying degrees between them and the Catholic Church – whether in doctrine and sometimes in discipline, or concerning the structure of the Church – do indeed create many obstacles, sometimes serious ones, to full ecclesiastical communion. The ecumenical movement is striving to overcome these obstacles.”
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So exactly what is the “ecumenical movement?” We must ask this because the Protestant version, which started long before Vatican II, certainly does not say "Hey, let’s all come together and return to the Catholic Church.” And can we imagine how a liberal is going to interpret “overcoming” the obstacles of doctrine, discipline and structure of the Church? Through constant dialogue until each side submits to the other to the point where certain articles of doctrine and discipline can be forgotten, or at least permanently ignored?

Again, this is what Cdl Kaspar says now explicitly (it would have been unsafe to say it on the Council floor) – and gets away with invoking Vatican II for support.
Just a coincidence? But such writers as Fr Schillabeckx wrote quite explicitly that this tactic was employed deliberately throughout the council. These are the famous “Vatican II time-bombs” which the present book (the subject of this thread) – and the SSPX – are now seeking to defuse.
 
I think a lot of the hoo-hah since the 1940’s can be put in a proper perspective if one recalls that:
  1. The purpose of the Church is to save souls from Hell.
  2. There’s a possibility of everyone on the planet going there; no guarantee of Heaven for any mortal man.
If this is the case, great efforts must be made to avoid that fate. It makes messing about with the liturgy kind of like moving the furniture about when the house is on fire.
 
Just so I am not misunderstanding some of the posters in this thread, the claim is that Pope John Paul II and the post-Vatican II pontiffs (and their appointees such as Cardinak Kaspar) are friends of heretics and schismatics, and that Lefebvre and SSPX (who are opposed to the errors of Vatican II) are victims of the post-conciliar Church. Or did I read this wrong?
 
Layman said:
I think a lot of the hoo-hah since the 1940’s can be put in a proper perspective if one recalls that:
  1. The purpose of the Church is to save souls from Hell.
  2. There’s a possibility of everyone on the planet going there; no guarantee of Heaven for any mortal man.
If this is the case, great efforts must be made to avoid that fate. It makes messing about with the liturgy kind of like moving the furniture about when the house is on fire.
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Well, I’m afraid that is like saying, “The purpose of Medicine is to avoid sickness and remain in good health. There is a possibility of eveyone falling into sickness and no guarantee of perfect health for anyone. If this is the case, great efforts must be made to avoid illness. It makes messing about with one’s medication and diet look very trivial”.

The main purpose of the Liturgy (Leiturgia = work; also called ‘Opus Dei’ – ‘The Work of God’ {No necessary connexion with the Religious community of the same name}) is to do the Work of the Saviour, in rendering glory to God the Father. We, the Faithful (sinners though we be) are the Members of the Body of Christ and therefore we, in our persons, are carrying out this Work of God. That is why all Liturgical Prayers are addressed to God the Father.

A secondary motive of the Liturgy, which has normally flowed naturally from the first, is to build up and strengthern the Faith of the congregation. As S. Thomas Aquinas noted, if we were angels we would ‘see’ the Truth with unerring intuition; but we mortals need material props, because of our natures. Thus every detail of the Liturgy: the setting, the furnishings, the words, the language, the music, the actions – were directed to make the Divine Mysteries reachable by the Body of Christ, who were in the pews (and on the Sanctuary – the Holy Space). The message was absorbed subliminally as well as consciously.

It was the error of the Protestants to reduce these Mysteries to a this-worldly “Prayer Assembly”. Catholics can meet together whenever they like, read the Bible or Lives of the Saints, and sing hymns. But this is not the Liturgy.

Pope Paul VI engaged six Protestants onto the committee that devised the New Order of Mass, with the stated intention of making it as much like the Protestant Prayer Meeting as possible.

All this is in the public domain.

Since the 60s there has been a general loss of the Sense of the Sacred, a loss of respect for authority, a loss of the sense of Hell. This has swept the world. At the very moment that the Church should have been resisting these corrosive influences, her leaders enforced a programme that lent active support to them; and the New Liturgy was a very major factor.

The ‘trads’ saw all this straight away, and to this day have been trying, with various strategies and varying success, to recover the lost ground. To recover the lost generation is, unfortunately, not within our power.
 
John_Larocque said:
Just so I am not misunderstanding some of the posters in this thread, the claim is that Pope John Paul II and the post-Vatican II pontiffs (and their appointees such as Cardinak Kaspar) are friends of heretics and schismatics, and that Lefebvre and SSPX (who are opposed to the errors of Vatican II) are victims of the post-conciliar Church. Or did I read this wrong?
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That’s about it. No one is entitled to judge their motives. There is no special reason to believe they intended harm. But they did actively promote what here in Ireland is called “The Liberal Agenda” in decisive ways; and they singled out the trads to throw the book at, while allowing heretical teaching in innumerable schools and seminaries, not to mention more shameful crimes, to flourish unchecked for decades.

Look at Pope John Paul’s Official Visit to Cuba. You can probably find a website that quotes large segments of the Pope’s speech, and large segments of Fidel Castro’s, and invites you to guess who said what. In fact, the contents of the speeches – all about bettering the human condition and human dignity – are completely indistinguishable. Does this make JPII a friend of Fidel Castro?
 
I don’t know about being their friends. I think the clergy make the mistake of confusing supineness with charity in modern times. It’s an act of charity to tell someone who’s going badly wrong that they are doing so, to their face, and maybe accompanied by a slap if they’re being villainous. Otherwise they might persist in error for years and drag others to Hell with them.

Discernment is required. Faced with the possibility of Hell and damnation, you’re not doing a sinner any favours by tip-toeing around their behaviour. Plus, in these tolerant and psycho-babble-addled times, directness is refreshing and unexpected.

[Layman’s sermons are available on CD and DVD at most reputable bookshops, priced $9.99.]
 
numealinesimpet said:
Well, I’m afraid that is like saying, “The purpose of Medicine is to avoid sickness and remain in good health. There is a possibility of eveyone falling into sickness and no guarantee of perfect health for anyone. If this is the case, great efforts must be made to avoid illness. It makes messing about with one’s medication and diet look very trivial”.
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Illness may come and go. Hell is final. Using your analogy, sections of the Church have been playing intellectual games of doctors and nurses instead of delivering the medicine.
 
Layman said:
Illness may come and go. Hell is final. Using your analogy, sections of the Church have been playing intellectual games of doctors and nurses instead of delivering the medicine.
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Yes. As C.S.Lewis reminded a group of anglican seminarians in the 1940s, the injunction to Peter was “Feed my sheep”, not “Experiment with my rats”.
 
The first twelve must have had similar even greater chalanges. And they made it.🙂 We are a Church of the faithful, just trying to discern who are faithful. To what degree.

Feed the sheep and don’t let them wander whereever they want to go. Instead there seems to be a bit of the sheep leading the shepherd.
 
Through_Him said:
The first twelve must have had similar even greater chalanges. And they made it.🙂 We are a Church of the faithful, just trying to discern who are faithful. To what degree.

Feed the sheep and don’t let them wander whereever they want to go. Instead there seems to be a bit of the sheep leading the shepherd.
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There was a hugely popular (because ruthlessly true to life) TV series in Britain called “Yes, Minister!” about government. In one episode the Minister says to his secretary, “But I’m their leader! I have to follow public opinion!”
 
numealinesimpet said:
There was a hugely popular (because ruthlessly true to life) TV series in Britain called “Yes, Minister!” about government. In one episode the Minister says to his secretary, “But I’m their leader! I have to follow public opinion!”
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That is probably like our court TV shows

I suppose you could call that passive leadership.
.
 
I think it’s a case of tradition-minded men being screened out at diocesan level.
Then, those who get past the vocations director, study at Catholic universities or liberal seminaries, which are noted for being near-heretodox these days.
Then, armed with the ‘latest thinking’ on matters liturgical, they go back to a parish in a diocese run by a Bishop more interested in ecumenism than exorcism.

Thus, you have bare churches and Masses laden with novelties. Coupled with a plain-clothes nun helping out in the office and one or two strong personalities on the parish council, you have events which leave the guys in the back pews wondering what Father is up to this week.
 
This is what we are talking about:
The following was released yesterday (22nd September 09).
Can we blame Bp Fellay for insisting on “clarification” of the Vatican II documents that have led to this rejection of 2000 years of Catholic teaching and practice?

agenziasir.it/pls/sir/V2_S2DOC_B.quotidiano?tema=Quot_english&argomento=dettaglio&sezione=&data_ora=22/09/2009&id_oggetto=179823&id_session=&password=&quantita=

angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=328454#328454

TUESDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2009
14:07 - ITALIAN BISHOPS: MEETING BETWEEN CARD. BAGNASCO AND RABBIS LARAS AND DI SEGNI
Today Card. Angelo Bagnasco, President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, had a meeting with Giuseppe Laras, President of the Rabbinical Council of Italy, and Riccardo Di Segni, Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Community in Rome. As written in the statement released by the Italian Bishops’ Conference, “the Cardinal wanted to express his cordial wishes for the beginning of the Jewish year and asked the Rabbis to pass them on to all Italian Jews”. During the meeting the cardinal and the two rabbis had the opportunity to discuss some “open issues” with the Jewish Community in relation to the publishing of “Oremus et pro Iudaeis”. To this regard, the statement points out that*** “there is absolutely no change in the attitude the Catholic Church has had towards the Jews since the Second Vatican Council”.*** Accordingly, the Italian Bishops’ Conference reaffirms that “it is not its intention to actively pursue the conversion of Jews”. At today’s meeting, the cardinal also expressed his “concern about those episodes of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism that are occurring from time to time, reaffirming the need to retain strong vigilance and expressing the hope that relations between the two parties may become stronger”. (continued)

Original Italian version:
chiesacattolica.it/pls/cci_new/bd_home_cci.vis?id_n=2013
 
numealinesimpet said:
This is what we are talking about:
The following was released yesterday (22nd September 09).
Can we blame Bp Fellay for insisting on “clarification” of the Vatican II documents that have led to this rejection of 2000 years of Catholic teaching and practice?

agenziasir.it/pls/sir/V2_S2DOC_B.quotidiano?tema=Quot_english&argomento=dettaglio&sezione=&data_ora=22/09/2009&id_oggetto=179823&id_session=&password=&quantita=

angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=328454#328454

TUESDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2009
14:07 - ITALIAN BISHOPS: MEETING BETWEEN CARD. BAGNASCO AND RABBIS LARAS AND DI SEGNI
Today Card. Angelo Bagnasco, President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, had a meeting with Giuseppe Laras, President of the Rabbinical Council of Italy, and Riccardo Di Segni, Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Community in Rome. As written in the statement released by the Italian Bishops’ Conference, “the Cardinal wanted to express his cordial wishes for the beginning of the Jewish year and asked the Rabbis to pass them on to all Italian Jews”. During the meeting the cardinal and the two rabbis had the opportunity to discuss some “open issues” with the Jewish Community in relation to the publishing of “Oremus et pro Iudaeis”. To this regard, the statement points out that*** “there is absolutely no change in the attitude the Catholic Church has had towards the Jews since the Second Vatican Council”.*** Accordingly, the Italian Bishops’ Conference reaffirms that “it is not its intention to actively pursue the conversion of Jews”. At today’s meeting, the cardinal also expressed his “concern about those episodes of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism that are occurring from time to time, reaffirming the need to retain strong vigilance and expressing the hope that relations between the two parties may become stronger”. (continued)

Original Italian version:
chiesacattolica.it/pls/cci_new/bd_home_cci.vis?id_n=2013
Click to expand...
Here is a thread I started on this very subject: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=373100

Of course the Church is supposed to seek the conversion of the Jews. She seeks the conversion of everyone to the fullness of grace and truth only found within her, the sole ark of salvation. The statement that the Italian Bishops Conference made should be quite disturbing to anyone who realizes that Jews need Jesus for salvation just like everyone else and them most importantly as Christ himself was a Jew and since the Jews are still beloved of God for the sake of their fathers. What more does our Lord seek than that they convert to his Church.

Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye** all** nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.
 
una_fides said:
Here is a thread I started on this very subject: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=373100

Of course the Church is supposed to seek the conversion of the Jews. She seeks the conversion of everyone to the fullness of grace and truth only found within her, the sole ark of salvation. The statement that the Italian Bishops Conference made should be quite disturbing to anyone who realizes that Jews need Jesus for salvation just like everyone else and them most importantly as Christ himself was a Jew and since the Jews are still beloved of God for the sake of their fathers. What more does our Lord seek than that they convert to his Church.

Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye** all** nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.
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Well done, Una Fides, and thanks for the link. It is the greatest Act of Charity, not to mention one of the Spiritual Works of Mercy, to convert the erring – not to mention its being what we were ordered to do.

Thank Heavens for those willing to stand up and request these things be set in order – of whom the SSPX, almost by default, have been among the most prominent.
 
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