Prior to Vatican II

[srfnolen]

Give the poor guy a break. He’s a Catholic catechumen and asking for information. Could you not answer him without sounding so condescending?

Haha! I’m female but thanks for sticking up for me!

 

[srfnolen]

I hope this is on topic. It deals with Vatican II, and I dont mean to derail, but if this isnt considered on topic I apologize.

I just read this article: crisismagazine.com/2015/wrecking-churches-iconoclasm-continuity

And was wondering, did Vatican 2 really promote iconoclasim and if so why?

I mean look at the image on the right, compared to the way the church looks now: 3m7ajlsrzj92lfd1hu16hu7vc.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Saint_Turibius_chapel-660x350-1422615352.jpg.

Why would someone do that to such a beautiful church? This is a problem I always had with the Baptist churches I grew up in. They were just brick buildings with sheet rock walls and red carpet. I never got the sense that the builders were trying to build a house worthy of the presence of our LORD. It’s something I always admired about the Catholic Church and their beautiful cathedrals but now I’ve found this article that says post Vatican 2 some decided to strip Catholic churches of their beauty. Is this true? Is it a sin to want the places we worship and receive our LORD to be beautiful and something more than white sheetrock walls and carpet?

I’m with you! When you enter a baptist church for instance, the pulpit is in the center as if the pastor/minister is the focus instead of Jesus.

 

[CB_Catholic]

Well, think about it. Based on my actual experiences, and those of others who were there, certain facts about the way we lived simply worked. We didn’t lock our doors at night. We didn’t worry about nuclear war. We slept well at night. For us kids, life was about school, chores and wholesome entertainment. We respected each other and our parents more. We respected our government more. I remember reading beautiful editorials about the birth of Christ in the newspaper and there were a number of fun comic strips I collected. Neighbors were good neighbors. Yes, we had a few bad apples but we left them alone and didn’t bother them. No, society wasn’t perfect but it was far better than what too many are going through today.

Ed

Ed, that was society in general before the '60’s. I was there, too. That is a general cultural decline unrelated to Vatican II. Also, we did worry excessively about nuclear war–we had fallout shelters, air raid drills, the Communists were knocking on our doorsteps literally–remember the Cuban Missal Crisis? (1962, I believe). There was a cultural revolution in the 60’s, but it was not the result of Vatican II. Don’t blame the Church for that.

 

[ProVobis]

And of course, there was NOTHING else going on in society that would have affected any of these things.

Seems that this is more of a chicken or egg argument.

Did the council respond to the new secular world or did the secular world respond to the council? After all each day newspapers and black-and-white tv reported the goings on of the council.