Opinions of Vatican II Poll

[Pius_X]

Vatican II was one of the most important events in all of church history. Vatican II brought new life to the church, and opened the windows to allow for a breath of fresh air.

 

[Walking_Home]

Vatican II was one of the most important events in all of church history. Vatican II brought new life to the church, and opened the windows to allow for a breath of fresh air.

---

Then----there must be different meanings as to what—“fresh air” is.

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

I believe that Vatican II was a disaster for the Church. Look at the state of the Church today. Forty years of Modernism and novelties have driven away millions of Catholics.

I suppose that my opinion doesn’t count for much, but who can dispute the lack of church attendance, lack of faith on the part of Church leaders, failure to discipline outright heretics, and the overemphasis on Social Justice to the detriment of doctrine?

Can anyone say that the Church is stronger today?

I’m prepared to believe, in fact I hope, that Vatican II has invigourated the Church in China and in Africa. However I have never been to either of those places.

In Europe and to a lesser extent in the USA we are in crisis. However it is impossible to say whether things would have been better or worse without the council. The generation that fell away was the one educated in the fifties, after all.

 

[abu_kamoon]

Then why are the churches empty?

ابو كمون

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

Then why are the churches empty?

ابو كمون

Cars destroy communities.
The car means that you don’t live near your family or your workplace. So the people you work with, socialise with, and are tied to are entirely different.
Parish bonds are stretched very thin. There is simply no social reality that the parish boundary reflects, no real motivation for attending other than the fact that it is a formal requirement.

The answers are often quite simple and almost trivial. It is nothing to do with contraception, science, eqaulity ethics, or the Second Vatican Council. Purely the ability of people to jump in their cars and be twenty miles away in as many minutes.

 

[stmaria]

Cars destroy communities.
The car means that you don’t live near your family or your workplace. So the people you work with, socialise with, and are tied to are entirely different.
Parish bonds are stretched very thin. There is simply no social reality that the parish boundary reflects,

no real motivation for attending other than the fact that it is a formal requirement.

No real motivation? I drive almost an hour to go to Mass. I don’t need motivation. I go because I want to go.

 

[Pius_X]

Then why are the churches empty?

ابو كمون

If I am correct, mass attendance declined sharply when Humane Vitae was published, not as a result of the Council.

 

[Pius_X]

---

Then----there must be different meanings as to what—“fresh air” is.

What I meant was that it brought the church into modern times in its practices, as a result of the council. For example, before Vatican II, in this diocese and others, priests could not own a car within 5 years of ordination, and rarely left the rectory. Lay people were mere spectators at liturgy, and now can participate as readers, for example.

 

[rpp]

If I am correct, mass attendance declined sharply when Humane Vitae was published, not as a result of the Council.

Those two events are so close in time that I do not believe you can say “this one and not that one.” You might blame the Novus Ordo Mass, which was promulgated shortly afterwards as well. Many people want to put the blame on one thing or another.

The fact is that it is probably a combination of things. The cause will be different for different people. It could also be that some people began to have the overall impression that the “unchangeable Church” had indeed changed in the late 1960s.

Certainly many people were disgusted by the public protests against Pope Paul VI after publishing HV. A protest that included some American bishops!

We must also not forget the influences and lures of the secular world. TV watching increased and movies became more and more racy and irreverent. Clergy sex abuse was being whispered about and covered up, but there were some who knew the truth. Then there is the news media. If I recall correctly, Walter Cronkite got on the air one night and said that Vatican II had done away with the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. An incorrect report, but an example of media error and bias even then.

But I can only say these things as an outsider looking in. I was not Catholic at the time, even though I am old enough to remember many of the events subsequent to the release of V-II. I certainly remember the direction secular society was taking.

 

[Caesar]

What decadence? You mean decadence in the Church? Certainly not!

 

[Pius_X]

-Snip-

People obviously disagreed with Humanae Vitae, and ignored it. They thought (and think) that if the church is wrong about contraception, then why not mass attendance?

 

[rpp]

People obviously disagreed with Humanae Vitae, and ignored it. They thought (and think) that if the church is wrong about contraception, then why not mass attendance?

True. And when the Council of Nicea in 325 came out and declared Jesus Divine and the Second Part of the Trinity, the approximately 70% who followed the Arian heresy, including most bishops, disagreed with the Church then too. That did not make the Church wrong. Just unpopular at the time.

 

[abu_kamoon]

The answers are often quite simple and almost trivial. It is nothing to do with
contraception, science, eqaulity ethics, or the Second Vatican Council. Purely the ability
of people to jump in their cars and be twenty miles away in as many minutes

Wouldn’t that make it easier to get to church?

ابو كمون

 

[BobP123]

If I am correct, mass attendance declined sharply when Humane Vitae was published, not as a result of the Council.

Mass attendance actually started declining in 1964. In Europe it was earlier than that. Humane Vitae couldn’t have had that much of an impact on ATTENDANCE as many who receive communion today admit to using birth control.

 

[BobP123]

Lay people were mere spectators at liturgy, and now can participate as readers, for example.

But I as an average handmissal reader in the pew do not participate? Please explain.

 

[Pius_X]

Mass attendance actually started declining in 1964. In Europe it was earlier than that. Humane Vitae couldn’t have had that much of an impact on ATTENDANCE as many who receive communion today admit to using birth control.

Either way, Vatican II was not a cause of mass attendance decline, as some claim.

 

[BobP123]

Either way, Vatican II was not a cause of mass attendance decline, as some claim.

Well, that can’t be proven either.

Maybe that some seeing the decline in the integrity of the Catholic Church had something to do with it. The changes in the liturgy started a long time before the Novus Ordo. I know, I lived through it. I saw people actually leave during the homily where changes were announced. I was shocked at the time but decided to leave myself eventually. The Catholic Mass didn’t seem to be taken seriously anymore, not when each parish chose to cut this and cut that, add this and change that. Serving Mass became a joke. Priests were taking “sabbaticals.” Nuns left to teach and nurse for more money. Newman clubs in public colleges were being discontinued. My Protestant friends even started wondering and fearing what was happening and how it would affect them. Was the Catholic Church losing its leadership?

As someone pointed out, the news media may have been responsible for the decline as well, on how they reported what Vatican II said or did. But it still took a council to trigger a lot of these events, whether they were reported correctly or not.

If Vatican II helped flourish the churches in China and Africa, that’s good. Unfortunately, Vatican II affected the West as well. So badly, that even Paul VI admitted the “smoke of Satan” had entered the Church. Pretty harsh words coming from a Pope, wouldn’t you say?

 

[stmaria]

What I meant was that it brought the church into modern times in its practices, as a result of the council. For example, before Vatican II, in this diocese and others, priests could not own a car within 5 years of ordination, and rarely left the rectory.** Lay people were mere spectators at liturgy, and now can participate as readers, for example**.

Dear Pius X have you not read Pascendi? It was written by your namesake Pope Pius X. It is “ex cathedra” and it states, “that most pernicious doctrine which would make of **the laity **the factor of progress in the Chruch”

You speak of " fresh air " and modern times. Do you believe that as the world changes, religion should also change?

 

[roccoangelo]

Greetings,

My thoughts of Vat II are the same as those of B-XVI, that is, that Vatican II is a continuation of past councils. I don’t believe that what we’re seeing today - liturgical abuses, confusion etc.- is as a result of Vat II itself. If anyone reads the council documents, I think they’ll come to a pretty clear conclusion of how orthodoxed they are (which reflect the orthodoxy of the council fathers). Though I admit that there are a number of paragraphs in the documents that seem a little too vague, I think that overall they’re quite good in they’re intention.

Pax Christi,
Rocco

 

[rpp]

Greetings,

My thoughts of Vat II are the same as those of B-XVI, that is, that Vatican II is a continuation of past councils. I don’t believe that what we’re seeing today - liturgical abuses, confusion etc.- is as a result of Vat II itself. If anyone reads the council documents, I think they’ll come to a pretty clear conclusion of how orthodoxed they are (which reflect the orthodoxy of the council fathers). Though I admit that there are a number of paragraphs in the documents that seem a little too vague, I think that overall they’re quite good in they’re intention.

Pax Christi,
Rocco

I would go along with this. It has, however, been used, always without citation, as an vehicle to justify theological and liturgical “innovations”.

Remember these formulas.

Theological development = better understanding.
Theological innovation = heresy.