Restoring Tradition

[Bbigam]

so, according to you, the VII was about coming up with another type of Mass?
because now, we have two different Masses in the CC. and lots of confusion. no one knows what to believe anymore or in whom to belive.
do you know why Pope Paul said? the smoke of satan has entered the Church. for what reason he said that?

No, I did not say that Vatican II was about coming up with another type of Mass. I said that Vatican II was an Ecumenical Council of the Church. I separately said that the Ordinary Form was a valid, duly promulgated form of the Mass. The two events are related but not the same thing.

We have a lot more than 2 Eucharistic Liturgies in the Catholic Church, and we always have. Confusion is a result of lots of bad catechesis and dissension, not Vatican II or the Ordinary Form. Some of this is from liberal nuns and priests who don’t teach the Catholic faith. And some of the confusion may come from the fact that some people seem to think that the Church ceased to teach authoritatively after 1962. We follow the Pope, the Magisterium, Sacred Scripture, the Catechism, Christ, not dissenters to the right like SSPX or to the left like liberal nuns and priests.

I don’t know why Pope Paul said that. If he meant that an ecumenical council was wrong and the Mass invalid, then, I’ll say it again, the Gates of Hades prevailed and Christ lied to St. Peter. So I doubt that’s what he meant.

 

[plefe]

Praise God for the spirit shown here. Amen!

 

[cactusbob]

There is an excellent book, The Devil’s Final Battle, ( Dec. 2009) written by Father Paul Kramer. Go to the web site, www.Fatima.org, to purchase the book. It explians how the liberals invaided the Catholic church after the death of PP-12 and how V-II stoled the Traditional church. This book will scare the HELL out of you.

 

[ChurchTorch]

As I mentioned before, Vatican II, like it or not, is part of Sacred Tradition, and the so-called “spirit of Vatican II” is not. If an Ecumenical Council approved by the Popes is in serious error, then the Gates of Hades have prevailed and Christ lied to St. Peter. If the Popes promulgated for the whole Roman Rite (i.e. most of the Church) a Mass that is of inherently questionable validity, that sounds like the Gates of Hades too.

You can question the “spirit of Vatican II” and pederasty and dissension and attacks on the Holy Father by clergy and religious. I do. You can question the many illicit practices that have crept into the way too many priests celebrate the Ordinary Form of the Mass. I do, too. But you can’t reject an ecumenical council of the Church, and you can’t reject a duly promulgated rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Well, of course you can question those, no one can stop you, but if you do, you may as well question the Council of Trent and the Mass of Trent while you’re at it, and all the rest of the Councils.

Nice…

 

[ChurchTorch]

No, I did not say that Vatican II was about coming up with another type of Mass. I said that Vatican II was an Ecumenical Council of the Church. I separately said that the Ordinary Form was a valid, duly promulgated form of the Mass. The two events are related but not the same thing.

We have a lot more than 2 Eucharistic Liturgies in the Catholic Church, and we always have. Confusion is a result of lots of bad catechesis and dissension, not Vatican II or the Ordinary Form. Some of this is from liberal nuns and priests who don’t teach the Catholic faith. And some of the confusion may come from the fact that some people seem to think that the Church ceased to teach authoritatively after 1962. We follow the Pope, the Magisterium, Sacred Scripture, the Catechism, Christ, not dissenters to the right like SSPX or to the left like liberal nuns and priests.

I don’t know why Pope Paul said that. If he meant that an ecumenical council was wrong and the Mass invalid, then, I’ll say it again, the Gates of Hades prevailed and Christ lied to St. Peter. So I doubt that’s what he meant.

This should be a sticker at the beginning of the thread!

 

[Ockham]

I still stand by my assertion: the modernization/destuction of the Mass and the weak enforcement of the tenents of our faith have led to our current situation. I feel that a return to Tradition can cure many of these ills. Not all, but many.
If you have the time, and an open mind, please read this blog and be sure to read all of the comments. I am not a Church historian but many of these posters are and give facts and first person information to support their opinions, not just canned or emotional responses.

wdtprs.com/blog/2008/05/petrus-amazing-interview-with-card-noe-paul-vis-smoke-of-satan-remark-concerned-liturgy/

Pax Vobiscum

Powerful.

"Paul VI’s denunciation of the presence of the smoke of Satan in the Church is unforgettable. Still today, that discourse seems to be incredibly relevant.

You from Petrus, have gotten a real scoop here, because I am in a position to reveal, for the first time, what Paul VI desired to denounce with that statement. Here it is. Papa Montini, for Satan, meant to include all those priests or bishops and cardinals who didn’t render worship to the Lord by celebrating badly (mal celebrando) Holy Mass because of an errant interpretation of the implementation of the Second Vatican Council. He spoke of the smoke of Satan because he maintained that those priests who turned Holy Mass into dry straw in the name of creativity, in reality were possessed of the vainglory and the pride of the Evil One. so, the smoke of Satan was nothing other than the mentality which wanted to distort the traditional and liturgical canons of the Eucharistic ceremony."

It is thought that Paul VI was the real culprit as the cause of all the ills of post-Conciliar liturgy. But based on what you have revealed, Eminence, Montini compared the liturgical chaos, even if in a veiled way, actually to something hellish.

He condemned craving to be in the limelight and the delirium of almighty power that they were following the Council at the liturgical level. Mass is a sacred ceremony, he often repeated, everything must be prepared and studied adequately, respecting the canons, no one is “dominus” [lord] of the Mass. Sadly, in many after Vatican II not many understood him and Paul VI suffered this, considering the phenomenon to be an attack of the Devil.

Your Eminence, in conclusion, what is true liturgy?

It renders glory to God. Liturgy must be carried out always and no matter what with decorum: even a sign of the Cross poorly made is synonymous with scorn and sloppiness. Alas, I repeat, after Vatican II it was believed that everything, or nearly, was permitted. Now it is necessary to recover, and in a hurry, the sense of the sacred in the ars celebrandi, before the smoke of Satan completely pervades the whole Church. Thanks be to God, we have Pope Benedict XVI: his Mass and his liturgical style are an example of correctness and dignity."

 

[Ockham]

Priests. While the number of priests in the United States more than doubled to 58,000, between 1930 and 1965, since then that number has fallen to 45,000. By 2020, there will be only 31,000 priests left, and more than half of these priests will be over 70.

Ordinations. In 1965, 1,575 new priests were ordained in the United States. In 2002, the number was 450. In 1965, only 1 percent of U.S. parishes were without a priest. Today, there are 3,000 priestless parishes, 15 percent of all U.S. parishes.

Seminarians. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700, a decline of over 90 percent. Two-thirds of the 600 seminaries that were operating in 1965 have now closed.

Sisters. In 1965, there were 180,000 Catholic nuns. By 2002, that had fallen to 75,000 and the average age of a Catholic nun is today 68. In 1965, there were 104,000 teaching nuns. Today, there are 8,200, a decline of 94 percent since the end of Vatican II.

Religious Orders. For religious orders in America, the end is in sight. In 1965, 3,559 young men were studying to become Jesuit priests. In 2000, the figure was 389. With the Christian Brothers, the situation is even more dire. Their number has shrunk by two-thirds, with the number of seminarians falling 99 percent. In 1965, there were 912 seminarians in the Christian Brothers. In 2000, there were only seven.

The number of young men studying to become Franciscan and Redemptorist priests fell from 3,379 in 1965 to 84 in 2000.

Catholic schools. Almost half of all Catholic high schools in the United States have closed since 1965. The student population has fallen from 700,000 to 386,000. Parochial schools suffered an even greater decline. Some 4,000 have disappeared, and the number of pupils attending has fallen below 2 million – from 4.5 million.

Though the number of U.S. Catholics has risen by 20 million since 1965, Jones’ statistics show that the power of Catholic belief and devotion to the Faith are not nearly what they were.

Catholic Marriage. Catholic marriages have fallen in number by one-third since 1965, while the annual number of annulments has soared from 338 in 1968 to 50,000 in 2002.

Attendance at Mass. A 1958 Gallup Poll reported that three in four Catholics attended church on Sundays. A recent study by the University of Notre Dame found that only one in four now attend.

Only 10 percent of lay religious teachers now accept church teaching on contraception. Fifty-three percent believe a Catholic can have an abortion and remain a good Catholic. Sixty-five percent believe that Catholics may divorce and remarry. Seventy-seven percent believe one can be a good Catholic without going to mass on Sundays. By one New York Times poll, 70 percent of all Catholics in the age group 18 to 44 believe the Eucharist is merely a “symbolic reminder” of Jesus.

At the opening of Vatican II, reformers were all the rage. They were going to lead us out of our Catholic ghettos by altering the liturgy, rewriting the Bible and missals, abandoning the old traditions, making us more ecumenical, and engaging the world. And their legacy?

Four decades of devastation wrought upon the church, and the final disgrace of a hierarchy that lacked the moral courage of the Boy Scouts to keep the perverts out of the seminaries, and throw them out of the rectories and schools of Holy Mother Church.

Through the papacy of Pius XII, the church resisted the clamor to accommodate itself to the world and remained a moral beacon to mankind. Since Vatican II, the church has sought to meet the world halfway.

Jones’ statistics tell us the price of appeasement.

This article is taken from townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/pb20021211.shtml

“Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church since Vatican II” (113 pages) by Kenneth C. Jones is available at many bookstores.

olrl.org/misc/jones_stats.shtml

 

[Eric_Olsen]

Can anyone think of a more powerfull argument to removing the novus ordo, restoring full tradition and cleaning house of the V-II crowd than the current scandal? I know God uses calamity to bring about good, so I cannot help but wonder at what is happenning now whithout thinking this is a cleaning process in the making. I certainly am praying for that result!

The council itself was not the problem but the liberals who had their own agenda.
Remember they did all the nonsense not called for by VII in “the spirit of VII” which was never mentioned at all at the council. The reason we are seeing this scandal is because the lack of scrutiny and lax standards of letting men into the seminaries starting back in the 60’s.

 

[Eric_Olsen]

can you back that up?

i know a lot of former Catholics and i can assure you that they didn’t leave because they want Latin

while people i know isn’t exactly valid statistical data, i’m wondering if you have anything to back up your claim

People left in droves for two things that I know of:

1. Humane Vitae
2. The mass they knew and loved changed drastically over night and without warning and for no reason. The changes implemented in 1965 were more than what the VII asked for.

 

[crazzeto]

The council itself was not the problem but the liberals who had their own agenda.
Remember they did all the nonsense not called for by VII in “the spirit of VII” which was never mentioned at all at the council. The reason we are seeing this scandal is because the lack of scrutiny and lax standards of letting men into the seminaries starting back in the 60’s.

Not so sure you can just pin it on the 60’s, there was an investigation done in the 50’s which complained of rampent hyper-sexuality in semeniaries. There has long been a problem in the Church, I think Vatican II is what was called for to deal with it, even if unfortunetly the process of weeding out sin was tramadic.

 

[Ockham]

“Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in the process of religious change. Many people who leave the Catholic Church do so for religious reasons; two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated say they left the Catholic faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, as do half of former Catholics who are now Protestant. Fewer than three-in-ten former Catholics, however, say the clergy sexual abuse scandal factored into their decision to leave Catholicism.”

pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=409

 

[CradleCath]

A final point. In his recent letter to Irish Catholics, Pope Benedict suggested that ‘the rapid transformation and secularisation of Irish society’ were to blame for clerical abuse. With all due respect to His Holiness, this is unconvincing argument here in Ireland and he is either poorly informed on the situation here or he has allowed his preoccupation with secularisation and its evil twin, relativism, to cloud his analysis. As one Irish commentator noted ‘clerical abuse predated the process of secularisation – and it was in fact the very absence of secularisation that postponed its exposure’. And as a follow on from that point it should be noted that it was the secular state rather than the Irish Church in Ireland that exposed the whole scandal.

Your post is well thought out & researched & I read the entire article you quoted about Father Gerald Fitzgerald.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Fitzgerald_(priest. It mentioned Father Stephan Rosetti (who later died of AIDS) the founder & ‘CEO’ of St. Lukes treatment center for abusive priests & Father Doyle’s thoughts on the matter. What seems to jump out of this article is that the BISHOPS paid no attention to Father Fitzgerald’s advice, so those who are blaming this on Pope Benedict are wrong to do so.

What the article failed to mention is that 90% of the abusive priests were in fact homosexual. It is & has been forever against the Laws of the Church to ordain gays since St. Paul condemned the deviant sexual practices of those who are attracted sexually to their own gender…in His epistles. the Bishops **knowingly **, in many coutries ordained homosexuals ANYWAY. How could they report these incidents of Pederasty without endangering their own “careers”? How could they “turn in” their fellow homosexuals & pederasts without opening themselves up for the type of blackmail that finally caught up with Rembert Weakland, who was, for crying out loud, an ARCHBISHOP. Then there was **Bishop **Anthony O’connell, who abused so many young boys in a minor seminary in my own home state, that it had to be closed down. How could he ask that the other priests…doing the same thing he did…be laicized?

SIGN.- Numbers might not be politically correct, but they shouldn’t offend anyone, according to an author who says the current discourse on “pedophile” priests is a typical example of a “moral panic.”

Massimo Introvigne, director of the Center for Studies on New Religions, affirmed this in speaking of the media firestorm surrounding a press conference given Monday in Chile by Benedict XVI’s secretary of state.

In response to a question asking if there is a link between celibacy and sexual abuse by the clergy, Cardinal Bertone responded: “Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and pedophilia, but many others have shown,** and have told me recently, that there is a link between homosexuality and pedophilia.”**[/SIGN]

It is time for everyone to quit blaming Rome & look at the problem of pederasty.

 

[Ockham]

Michael Rose saw a connection in Goodbye Good Men between the misinterpreted “spirit of Vatican II” and homosexuality in the seminaries.

Michael Rose, Goodbye, Good Men, pp. 56-57: “According to former seminarians and
recently ordained priests, this ‘gay subculture’ is so prominent at certain seminaries
that these institutions have earned nicknames such as Notre Flame (for Notre Dame
Seminary in New Orleans) and Theological Closet (for Theological College at the
Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.). St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore
has earned the nickname the ‘Pink Palace.’”2

“Father Andrew Walter, ordained for the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 2000,
spent several semesters at the Baltimore school as a seminarian for the Diocese of
Paterson, New Jersey. The [homosexual] problem was so bad when he was there, he
explained, that ‘some of the students and faculty used to get dressed up in leather to
go to ‘the block,’ Baltimore’s equivalent to 42nd Street in Manhattan.’”3

Michael Rose, Goodbye, Good Men, p. 57: “Father John Trigilio of the Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, diocese remembers visiting St. Mary’s in Baltimore when he was a
seminarian in Pennsylvania. ‘There was no discretion at all,’ he said of the gay
subculture there. ‘The few times I was there, some of the seminarians would literally
dress like gays from the Village. They would even go so far as to wear pink silk; it
was like going to see La Cage aux Folles.’

‘In my day at St. Mary’s,’ said Father John Despard, now a religious order priest from
the Southeast, ‘down the hall there would be two guys together in the shower and
everybody knew it.’

“Ada Mason, a philosophy professor at a prominent Catholic university, once served
on the board of a seminary in the upper Midwest. In that position she was shocked to
discover a gay subculture extremely active there. ‘Open homosexual behavior was more
than tolerated,’ she admitted. ‘I was even told by one of the seminary faculty that every
Friday a van took priesthood students to a nearby city to cruise the gay bars.’”4

 

[CradleCath]

Michael Rose saw a connection in Goodbye Good Men between the misinterpreted “spirit of Vatican II” and homosexuality in the seminaries.

Michael Rose, Goodbye, Good Men, pp. 56-57: “According to former seminarians and
recently ordained priests, this ‘gay subculture’ is so prominent at certain seminaries
that these institutions have earned nicknames such as Notre Flame (for Notre Dame
Seminary in New Orleans) and Theological Closet (for Theological College at the
Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.). St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore
has earned the nickname the ‘Pink Palace.’”2

“Father Andrew Walter, ordained for the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 2000,
spent several semesters at the Baltimore school as a seminarian for the Diocese of
Paterson, New Jersey. The [homosexual] problem was so bad when he was there, he
explained, that ‘some of the students and faculty used to get dressed up in leather to
go to ‘the block,’ Baltimore’s equivalent to 42nd Street in Manhattan.’”3

Michael Rose, Goodbye, Good Men, p. 57: “Father John Trigilio of the Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, diocese remembers visiting St. Mary’s in Baltimore when he was a
seminarian in Pennsylvania. ‘There was no discretion at all,’ he said of the gay
subculture there. ‘The few times I was there, some of the seminarians would literally
dress like gays from the Village. They would even go so far as to wear pink silk; it
was like going to see La Cage aux Folles.’

‘In my day at St. Mary’s,’ said Father John Despard, now a religious order priest from
the Southeast, ‘down the hall there would be two guys together in the shower and
everybody knew it.’

“Ada Mason, a philosophy professor at a prominent Catholic university, once served
on the board of a seminary in the upper Midwest. In that position she was shocked to
discover a gay subculture extremely active there. ‘Open homosexual behavior was more
than tolerated,’ she admitted. ‘I was even told by one of the seminary faculty that every
Friday a van took priesthood students to a nearby city to cruise the gay bars.’”4

Absolutely! Is it any surprise that so many of our good, holy, masculine men left these Seminaries. I have FOUR friends who were sent to one of these hell-holes back in the 60’s. Three of them were back home within months. For nearly 50 years, St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Hannibal, Mo., served as the first stop on the path to the priesthood for many young Catholics. But for much of that history, the men who ran the boarding high school also staked out a sinister path, one that helped lead to the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church.
The sexual abuse allegations of one former student led to the resignation two years ago of a popular and powerful bishop, Anthony J. O’Connell of Palm Beach, Fla., and the removal of two other priests.
Now, several victims are speaking out - some for the first time - providing more detail about the evil that befell them and the lengths to which the Diocese has gone to keep it secret.
Their experiences reveal that the abuse was more widespread than has been reported, that at least one other faculty member who was never publicly identified also abused students and that the abuse occurred more recently than the diocese has publicly disclosed.
While the Vatican and the nation’s bishops have called for candor and honesty in facing the sexual abuse scandal, the diocese still refuses to acknowledge the scope of the problem, victims say.
They are calling for a full accounting of how the diocese handled the cases of priests accused of sexual abuse, not only at St. Thomas but also throughout the diocese.

I am a member of the conservative diocese to the northwest of this one &, of course, the St. Louis diocese…to the southeast of the Jefferson City diocese is just about as Traditional as they come. (Thanks be to God for Archbishop Burke.) However, between these two areas lies a diocese that will suffer for literally decades…much like the Diocese of Chicago has…from the leadership of unholy men who supported the ordination of homosexual pederasts.

 

[Ockham]

I am a member of the conservative diocese to the northwest of this one &, of course, the St. Louis diocese.

Do you go to St Francis de Sales Oratory?

 

[jonpd]

Are there any seminaries that could be considered “safe” for someone considering a vocation and desiring to follow the Chuches’ teachings on priestly celibacy? I have a son who at various times has thought about a vocation, but I would find it hard to encourage him if the situation is as described at all of the US seminaries.

 

[Ockham]

Are there any seminaries that could be considered “safe” for someone considering a vocation and desiring to follow the Chuches’ teachings on priestly celibacy? I have a son who at various times has thought about a vocation, but I would find it hard to encourage him if the situation is as described at all of the US seminaries.

Yes! The FSSP in Denton Nebraska: fsspolgs.org/ I’ve heard there is a waiting list.

The Institute of Christ the King has a seminary in Tuscany. The SSPX has a seminary in Minnesota: stas.org/

I’ll include your son in my prayers for vocations tonight.

 

[crazzeto]

Are there any seminaries that could be considered “safe” for someone considering a vocation and desiring to follow the Chuches’ teachings on priestly celibacy? I have a son who at various times has thought about a vocation, but I would find it hard to encourage him if the situation is as described at all of the US seminaries.

I can find out where my Pastoral Vicar went, he came out extrodenarly Orthodox.

 

[Joe_5859]

Are there any seminaries that could be considered “safe” for someone considering a vocation and desiring to follow the Chuches’ teachings on priestly celibacy? I have a son who at various times has thought about a vocation, but I would find it hard to encourage him if the situation is as described at all of the US seminaries.

Mount St. Mary in Emmitsburg, MD, is a good one.

Or he could aim for the PNAC in Rome.

But most dioceses have a certain place (or two or three) where they send all their seminarians. Talk with your diocesan Director of Vocations for more information.

I find it hard to believe that this is still the situation in our nation’s seminaries. I know dozens of guys who have been through the seminary in the past 10 years, and none of them have had this experience. Things change. Even places like Mundelien are in far better shape than they were 10 years ago.

There’s no need to give in to fear. That’s exactly what we do not want to do: give up on a vocation because we’re afraid of what the “subculture” might be like. That’s a surefire way to keep things from changing.

 

[Phemie]

Priests. While the number of priests in the United States more than doubled to 58,000, between 1930 and 1965, since then that number has fallen to 45,000. By 2020, there will be only 31,000 priests left, and more than half of these priests will be over 70.

Ordinations. In 1965, 1,575 new priests were ordained in the United States. In 2002, the number was 450. In 1965, only 1 percent of U.S. parishes were without a priest. Today, there are 3,000 priestless parishes, 15 percent of all U.S. parishes.

Seminarians. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700, a decline of over 90 percent. Two-thirds of the 600 seminaries that were operating in 1965 have now closed.

It’s easy to take the stats between 1965 & 2002 but it’s been said in other places that all the numbers had started to fall before Vat. II. I’d like to see a comparison between the stats of say 1925-1945 and those of 1946-65.