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Abenadar
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Thanks for including Blessed Pius IX. He was the pope who declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Strangely enough, he was born on…May 13th (1792)! A significant day indeed.
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IntegraCatholic
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Um, yes, the Church is in a crisis. Anyone who has two eyes (or one… or an ear, or any sense, probably) can see that. You listed a lot of things that were bad in the history of the Church. One difference. Everyone knew those things were wrong. Today people don’t even know what is right and wrong. That is a much graver situation than having rampant immorality that everyone clearly calls immorality.
I’m not blaming John Paul II entirely for the problems in the Church, but he certainly didn’t help. To realize some modern problems in the Church, you may enjoy the book “Handbook of Leading Catholic Indicators,” a compilation of the vocational crisis, the number of people who are entirely ignorant of their faith, the number of people who go to Mass on Sundays and holy days. Compare that to any period in the history of the Church, and you will see that in all these categories today we have a crisis that is immeasurably worse than at any point in history.
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- I don’t see how this makes a Pope “the Great.” Such travels were impossible before modern transportation, but what’s more, he probably traveled too much rather than taking care of more serious business at the Vatican. I’m not saying all his trips were bad, but it was a bit much. There are rock stars who travel the world, too; I just don’t see how this correlates to greatness in any way.
- Fair enough, but even this doesn’t seem to merit the title “Great” when there hasn’t been a Pope in over a millennium to have received this title, and there are several Popes who are saints who aren’t “great.” How can someone who’s not even canonized receive such a title? Besides, martyrdom is a greater feat than this, but there are dozens of martyred Popes who are not the “great.” If we compare why the three Popes that are the Great have the title, I don’t think it will match up to this criterion.
- Blessed Pius IX. and Leo XIII. were both Pope nearly as long. It is characteristic of the modern Popes to reign for a long time, even if not for 25 years. Again, I’m not sure how this makes someone great. I think we should look into what constitutes these other Popes “great.”
- Unfortunately many abuses “stopped” only because they became approved liturgical dispensations under John Paul II. In his pontificate the absurdity of the 60s and 70s diminished, but the banality and number of several liturgical abuses (perhaps less grave) were so far spread that they have become nearly universal. Furthermore, practices not at all in line with Vatican II have been solidified by his pontificate (facing the people and universal vernacular), among hundreds of other objections that could be raised. I think it can be safely said (especially if someone has no problem with Vatican II and the new rite liturgically) that his pontificate was the worst in history regarding the liturgy.
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Tsuwano
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Sword_Brethren
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Altar girls
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pnewton
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It can be safely said, in the sense that no one will hurt you for your opinion, but it still is no more than an opinion. As most of the liturgical changes that led to abuses were introduced under Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul XVI, I disagree.
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ProVobis
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pn, you mean Pope Paul VI.
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pnewton
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Oops. I was wondering where I lost that* X*. I accidently dropped it in that last post.
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Abenadar
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I guess it’s very safe to say that there are people on both sides of this one.
I’d like to know which ones you consider worse. The protestant “reformation” cost the church 9,000,000 souls…I guarantee you that there has been a much larger loss of faith since Vatican II, both numbers-wise, and percentage-wise. Also, the recent apostacy isn’t so much Catholics being deluded into believing other faiths (and still being “believers” who go to church on Sundays as during the protestant revolt) as it is souls being swept away by lukewarmness and apathy to God and His Church and becoming de facto “non-believers” whose faith isn’t in church, but in materialism and selfishness, pornography and violence…exchanging the perfection of the next life for momentary pleasures in this one.
Nobody’s saying there haven’t been big problems in the past. The difference is that you describe certain problems that have belonged to certain times and have threatened the Church more than the faith of the individual, but today we’re living with a broad, general loss of faith, even among what are today considered “good” Catholics. That’s why everybody (there are, of course, exceptions to all of these) carelessly handles the Blessed Sacrament, nobody goes to Mass, nobody goes to confession, and holy days of obligation are translated to the closest Sunday because they know full well that people ain’t gonna come during the week. For example, did most people in your diocese go to Mass last Thursday for the Ascension? Did anybody even know about this holy day of obligation? The list goes on and on, and it effects Catholicism in general, as well as the faith of each individual, and not just in a certain city or country for a time either.
Your opinion. You have pointed out bad times that have affected the Church itself but you are failing to take note of current events which are both tearing the Church itself apart, as well as causing millions of individual Catholics to leave the Church and lose their faith etc.
How long did this last??? Was it 40+ years? Was it accompanied by a vast loss of faith among the faithful? During the great schism there were saints produced on BOTH sides of the issue because, while their were multiple popes, the people still kept the faith even though there was confusion. Where are the people keeping the faith today? There are small groups at every parish…very small. Oh yeah, and life-teen, of course…
…I wouldn’t ever let my children anywhere near one of those.Yes, but again, these are threats to the Church itself, not necessarily a threat to the individual’s faith. “And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.” -Matthew 10:28. Of the dozen or more Catholics I work with I’m the only, ONLY one who EVER goes to Mass. That even includes Christmas and Easter. If I consider my circle of acquaintances, I’d say, yeah, there’s a big-time crisis.
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IntegraCatholic
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Fair enough. I agree that Paul VI is a close second-worst (which is saying a lot since he single-handedly, well, with Msgr. Bugnini, destroyed the external ceremonies of every sacrament in the Church). As long as we all agree that the liturgy during his pontificate is certainly not on the list for reasons that he should be “Great” (rather, it is a reason he shouldn’t).
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Tsuwano
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You’re right, I’m not talking about threats to the faith of individual Catholics, but to the institution of the Church itself. As an institution, the Church is not threatened by a crisis similar to those which threatened the Church in the past. Popes being carried off as prisoners (as Napoleon did with two Popes) or being forced to flee the city of Rome by the Roman populace itself strike me as bigger threats than what the institutional Church faces today. Of course, as you said, this is my opinion (though I feel sure it is shared by many) and certainly is not an attempt to downplay the problems we face in our own era. You mention the great loss of faith that many have experienced, but again I would point out that loss of faith is not a new problem in the Church. I would also mention that if you see negative points in the modern experience of the Church, I see positive ones. If the faith is declining in Europe, it is increasing in Africa and Asia. If there are fewer members of the faith, it could be that the faith of those who remain is stronger and deeper. But to return to the thread, whatever problems the modern Church is enduring, I don’t believe they can be laid at the feet of Pope John Paul or the Second Vatican Council. Again it is only my opinion, but I believe that if the Second Vatican Council had not been called, the Church would be undergoing even more difficult trials and loss of faith than it is at present. Which leads me to my final thought on the subject; after reading Church history and recognizing the severe crisis that has afflicted the Church in the past, one can only come to the conclusion that the Church is indeed guided and protected by the Holy Spirit. If we disagree on the severity of the problems facing the Church in the present era, perhaps we can agree in faith that the Holy Spirit continues to be with the Church and that, in the end, it is God’s will that is achieved in her.
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Tsuwano
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Pope Paul Vi and Msgr. Bugnini “Destroyed the external ceremonies of every sacrament in the Church?” Over the top nonsense!
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palmas85
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Interesting. Why do you say this? I would be interested in learning the justification for this particular viewpoint…
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Lormar
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So would I.
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SpiritusSanctus
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SpiritusSanctus
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Without Vatican II, the crisis we have in the Church today would not exist. In fact, it would be near-impossible to have a crisis like this had Vatican II not been called. Why do you think Our Lady of Fatima talked about a “diabolical dis-orientation” in the Third Secret of Fatima? The only thing that has taken place since Our Lady stated that is Vatican II, so that is obviously what she was talking about. Then again, that’s why they released the false secret in 2000 so nobody would find out the truth.
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Tsuwano
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I’m not sure what you mean by “justification,” but I’ll give you my opinion why I think the Church would be enduring greater problems if the Second Vatican Council had not occurred. First of all, I don’t believe the problems the Church is presently facing is primarily the result of internal missteps or a loss of faith on the part of Church leaders. They are the result of external cultural and historical forces which have been gathering and gaining strength since long before the Second Vatican Council was even called. The Second Vatican Council was called in order to confront those forces and keep the Church relevant in a rapidly changing and fearful world. What were some of those forces? One was the growing conflict between a spiritual view of the world and a scientific view of the world. In these conflicts, from Galileo to the Scopes Monkey Trial, religious people came off as ignorant and superstitious, even to the point that faith was losing relevance because it was not seen as something separate from human reason. The Second Vatican Council hoped to reconcile science and religion by allowing scientific scrutiny of our most valued treasures and giving credence to the belief that a scientist could be a person of faith and this did not compromise his credibility as a scientist. A second force was the conflict between authoritarian governments on one hand and more liberal, democratic forms of government on the other. The Church, for better or worse, was seen as hostile to the growing cry for inclusive and democratic government and, in the era of decolonization which followed the second world war, was in danger of being accused of fostering colonialism and compromising the message of Christ for political ends. The Church was seen as allied to those European states which had fostered colonialism and was very near to losing relevance for the colored peoples of the world who had been subjugated by Europeans for centuries. The Second Vatican Council attempted to oppose this tendency by opening the Church to greater diversity, both within the leadership of the Church, and withing the body of the Church. It attempted to see culture as a means by which God’s grace can flow to a people, making them more open to the working of the Holy Spirit. This meant that the Church could not be merely a Eurocentric Church, but had to open itself to cultures and peoples who were outside the “traditional” centers of Catholic culture.
A third external force which the Church hoped to respond to through the Second Vatican Council was the growing irrelevance of faith in a world in which fear had overtaken hope as a primary human experience. The first and second world wars, the Holocaust, and the atomic bomb had raised questions of meaning for human experience. Many believed we lived on borrowed time or that God, if there even was a God, was not interested in the sufferings of human beings. Many questioned how the great suffering of the 20th century could have occurred if there was a loving God in the heavens. Fear and lack of identity in a rapidly changing world questioned the usefullness of faith and religious belief. This led to a sense that all morality was meaningless among many people and a growing decadence in society. The Second Vatican Council sought to respond to this fear as well. It sought to make the Church approachable to those who felt abandoned in society by making the mass understandable and immediate to people. These are only three of the external forces which I believe have buffeted the Church since the enlightenment and which I believe both the First and the Second Vatican Council, in their own ways, attempted to respond. I do believe that if the Second Vatican Council had not occurred, these forces would have been even stronger in our society and that the Church would be even less prepared to meet them than at present. The Second Vatican Council was a response to the problems which some now see as resulting from the Council, but these problems were present or in the making long before the Council was called. The problems the Church faces come from cultural and historical forces that have influenced it, not from a lack of faith or a falling away from the traditional faith of the Church on the part of Church leadership.
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Tsuwano
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VetA
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dont get me wrong i did not mean to imply i thought he was the best pope to walk the face of the earth. i am just a young ignorant person who wanted to get a stepping point to start researching. i just think JPII was a holy man, but as for being a good pope i have not much of a clue. after all he is after he is one of the best popes of my lifetime and i was born in '92 so i only have tow popes for comparison
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Abenadar
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Actually, I think it is both. Yes, cultural standards were playing in the muck, but I think instead of being what the Church is (unchanging Truth) it started wrestling with culture in the muck as well thinking it could drag society out of the muck by getting itself dirty. Catholic clergy cannot combat secular errors by becoming wishy-washy as they have been since the council. If anything the clergy should have become even more unambiguously clear, not less so.
And yet, when all was said and done in the spirit of “update”, the council itself issued some problematic statements, causing confusion in light of its history, and somehow was simultaneously ignored by innovators looking to an insane ‘someday’! Clergy started doing any old thing they wanted to do. There was no consolidation of the tried-and-true aspects…rather there was a shift, willingly made by lukewarm clergy and laymen alike, toward this crazed and ridiculous “spirit” of innovation
The crisis is so bad precisely because the Church is being bombarded both from without and from within.
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Abenadar
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…this is true…
…this is false. A case can easily be made (and already has been many times here and elsewhere) that will stand up to historical scrutiny, even by those who don’t actually believe that this is “THE WORST”.
I have to ask. If there is no crisis now, when was there ever? Tsuwano, in your opinion, name a specific crisis in the history of the Church (i.e. a specific 10, or 20, or 50 or whatever year period of true crisis) that would clearly make me, or anybody else on here say “oh, he’s right…there’s no crisis today, but that other time back in the —th century…now that was a crisis”
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