Post or Pre Vatican II

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Judging truth claims on whether or not they’re “divisive” is a useless endeavor. If an observation about the world is true, it doesn’t matter if it’s “divisive”.
 
StarMapp said:
The Latin Mass Magazine: The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition - Articles

“…The impression is given that the teachings of the previous Magisterium cannot stand on their own and must be given some form of “relevance” by being promulgated anew in a current document. Moreover, the current documents often lack the clarity and succinctness of the prior Magisterium, and, with relatively few exceptions, are exceedingly long and tedious to read in their entirety. As a result, the frequency of the documents, taken together with their length, have eroded their authority because, as a general rule, people simply do not have the emotional or psychological discipline to plow through them…”

In the prior paragraphs to this, Fr. Ripperger speaks of the effect of immanentism, Hegelianism and the consequences of ignoring extrinsic tradition.
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The Magisterium since Vatican II often ignores previous documents which may appear to be in opposition to the current teaching, leaving the faithful to figure out how the two are compatible, such as in the cases of Mortalium Animos and Ut Unum Sint. This leads to confusion and infighting within the Church as well as the appearance of contradicting previous Church teaching without explanation or reasoned justification.
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Again, seeming contradictions and/or or ambiguity rests on misunderstanding, mostly of the laity.
 
You seem to be missing the point. If people consistently have a hard time understanding you, that’s a sign that your manner of speaking could use improvement.
 
Arkansan said:
You seem to be missing the point. If people consistently have a hard time understanding you, that’s a sign that your manner of speaking could use improvement
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Are you referring to the Magisterium and Magisterial documents after Vatican II?
 
Theological discourse in general. Magisterial documents seem to be less affected than others.
 
As others have said (and rightly so…)
Nothing has changed. But…
I’d stick with pre VII books and learning material just to be safe.
 
"PJM2h
The FULLNESS of God’s truths were FAR more evident in the Pre Vatican II, OFTEN not desired by ROME changes and innovations. I lived through both.

The numbers of priest, religious, churches and Catholic Schools have ALL taken steep declines in the POST Vatican II church. Many Catholic Schools are no longer even taught by Religious. And the severe LACK of priestly vocations is from a weakening FAITH throughout the USA Catholic-populace.

IF you are able to locate an Extraordinary Form [Latin MAss] Parish near you; check it out.

While piety is a PERSONAL thing; it is also a TAUGHT condition."

First of all there is no Pre or Post Vatican II Church. There is only the Church. I would venture to say anyone who claims two Churches is a heretic.

As for your other claim that things are in steep decline I don’t know where you live but here in the Philippines your comment is absolutely false.
 
It’s the same Church, and Vat II did nothing in terms of declaring new dogma; it only clarified and expanded on what she already had. So, since it’s the same Church, giving us a wiser and clearer and even bolder directive IMO, we’re to do what we’re always supposed to do: follow her. Don’t follow those weak souls who might try to exploit the council for their own ends, abusing its teachings, but follow her, the concilliar decrees and documents, the catechism, the popes who were part of the council’s framing.

Vat II wasn’t the reason for the loss of clergy and religious in the Church; that was caused by a radical paradigm shift in our culture. In fact, the council actually anticipated this change if anything, rather than precipitate it.
 
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The charges of vagueness and/or lack of clarity, with no support to show what is being complained about would not have survived in 1963 in my high school junior year class, taught by Jesuits. They required an intellectually rigorous analysis which is markedly lacking in the complaints herein.

And lest people born well after Vatican 2 wander down the path of “people back then could understand the encyclicals”, the fact was that Catholics were not encouraged to read them, and in fact often had no idea one had been promulgated.

It is interesting to see remarks made about, apparently, the writings of John Paul 2 and Benedict 16. Both were rigorous in their writing and analysis. And if I may be so bold, JP 2’s Theology of the Body did what was entirely lacking when Paul 6 ran smack dab into the rejection of a neo-scholastic approach to the issue of birth control - an intellectual approach which was above and outside the vast majority of Catholics who had no training in scholastic philosophy and natural law.

Yes, reading some of their (JP 2 and B 16) writings takes more than a mere modicum of spinning through the document. But then what are we to presume from a Pope with Ph.D.s in both Philosophy and Theology, and from the next Pope, who has been largely considered to be one of the most, if not the most brilliant theologians alive?

And as to the OP positing that the “pre Vatican 2 Church was conservative”, it shows a profound lack of knowledge of the social encyclicals, starting with Rerum Novarum, written by Pope Leo 13 in 1891. If it was anything, it was not conservative, and none of the social encyclicals since then have been conservative.

The Church is the Church, and many have disdain for labels of “conservative” and “liberal” in regards to the Church, as the Church is not a political institution. However, for the sake of clarity, the Church is both liberal and conservative at the same time… it is liberal in the areas which come under the social Gospel - what we owe to one another and to society (and in particular, to the poor) and it is conservative on moral issues, as it always has been.

So basically we get down to liturgy; but liturgy is neither liberal nor conservative. It is the order of worship of God. And when 2,147 out of 2,151 bishops of the world clearly wanted significant changes made to the liturgy, then those who reject the bishops’ expressed wishes are basically trying to pitch water upstream with a pitchfork. I doubt that any historian will ever produce evidence that those 2,147 bishops ever envisioned that there would be two forms of the Mass. That came about because of the stubborn intransigence of a group led by a French bishop.

In spite of that, the Church has seen fit to provide two forms of the Mass, the EF and the OF, and I have no problem with anyone attending either one. But if they start down the path of going to one because it is somehow superior to the other, (and that goes for attendees of either), then Houston, we have a problem. A very significant one.
 
otjm said:
But if they start down the path of going to one because it is somehow superior to the other, (and that goes for attendees of either), then Houston, we have a problem. A very significant one.
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Why is that a problem?
 
As others have stated, the Chuch is the Church, it was the same church before VII and after VII. The Mass is the Mass, one is in Latin, the priest faces away. The other is in English, the priest faces you. Some of the prayers are different, but the consecration is the same, and that’s really the part that matters. So pick one, it really comes down to how you want to worship.

There will always be people who claim one is superior to the other, but the fact of the matter is bread and wine are turned into the body and blood of Christ at either one. It’s really just about personal preference.
 
My friend we disagree ONLY on terminology:thinking:

You;re speaking of our Beautiful and SAME one TRUE Faith while WE are speaking of church practices; whose effectiveness to SAVE Souls has indisputably been gravely diminished as evidenced by the closer of numerous churches & schools; the combining of parishes under one Pastor; the Vocations crisis; the exodus of oh so many catholics to other faith as they have NOT been rightly catechized, the SHOCKING degree of unbelief in the Real Presence and so on…

God Bless you and may you have a graced Christmas

Patrick
 
And I maintain that the Church would’ve lost those members either way. Atheism, hedonism, libertinism are rampant in our society now. People simply changed, for reasons other than changes in the Church.
 
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fhansen said:
And I maintain that the Church would’ve lost those members either way. Atheism, hedonism, libertinism are rampant in our society now. People simply changed, for reasons other than changes in the Church.
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There is a lot to be said for this argument. Church attendance is down sharply with non Catholics as well- your Episcopalians and United Presbyterians weren’t involved in Vatjcan 2 at all, yet are both a lot smaller than they were 50 years ago.
 
Because the Mass is the the Mass. I don’t know of any Rite which does not have, effectively, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. So the Mass is the Mass, whether it is called the Divine Liturgy or the Divine Mysteries, or the Ordinary Form, or the Extraordinary Form. In all of them, Christ is made present through the reading of the Word, and is made present body, blood, soul and divinity through the Consecration.

Some may like the aesthetics of one as opposed to another, but none are more efficacious.

And those who start down the path of “this is superior” are walking a thin line of denying the efficaciousness of whatever form they do not like. Doing so is bordering on denying the truth the Church teaches. And that is a problem, because too many who go down that thin line do not really know which side of the line they are on, thus often causing damage to others, who are even more ignorant of what the Church teaches.
 
All of the mainline churches have experienced a drop off of attendance, and track reasonably close statistically to the loss of attendance in the Catholic Church.

And those who have little or no concept of sociology are too often caught up in what little they know; the Church made some changes to the Mass, and therefore… which is simply a post hoc, ergo propter hoc argument based on nothing more than this occurred, then that, therefore because of that.
 
Are we sure that no particular celebration of the Mass is more efficacious than any other in dispensing grace? Will a Mass celebrated by an uncaring priest to an uncaring laity be as ‘efficacious’ as a Mass celebrated by a devout priest for a devout laity? I agree that saying one form is invalid is wrong, but merely suggesting that one Form is better, or perhaps is more conducive to devotion, I don’t necessarily see a problem with that.
 
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The claim that two different forms of the Mass will both be equally conducive to devotion is pretty absurd on its face, to be honest.
 
One form might be more conducive to devotion for some people. That would be fair to say, people have different preferences & different reactions.
But not to make it a blanket generalization, as though the Church has given us superior and inferior forms of Holy Mass,
 
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I guess I need to look at the catechism and see what rings true and what doesn’t.
Thanks all.
 
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