The Jim Carrey Thesis of Vatican II

[triumphguy]

Eternal Rome vs. the Magisterium: A Contemporary Myth

catholicculture.org/commentary/articles.cfm?id=541

Indeed, let us remember what else Pope Paul VI said, in a consistory of cardinals on May 24, 1976, in a direct and visibly frustrated response to the illicit challenge posed precisely by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and his followers:

It is even affirmed that the Second Vatican Council is not binding; that the faith would be in danger also because of the post-conciliar reforms and guidelines, which there is a duty to disobey to preserve certain traditions. What traditions? Does it belong to this group, and not the Pope, not the Episcopal College, not an Ecumenical Council, to establish which of the countless traditions must be regarded as the norm of faith!

It is not enough, my friends, to accept only the Magisterium of some congenial earlier period, or to obey only those judgments of the successor of Peter as were handed down in some bygone age. The real test is always the test of our own ideas, in present controversies, here and now. And the governing principle is crystal clear: It is not for us to judge the Magisterium. It is for the Magisterium to judge us.

 

[Elijah_Baley]

None of what has been written is to deny Vatican II. It is an exploration of what Vatican II as an event must say when accepting the Magisterium as infallible.

 

[triumphguy]

OK - what do you think an exploration of Vatican II must say?

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Here’s the real nut of my reaction: I’ve read all those explanations again and again. But such explanations strike me as backpedaling, of sweeping under the rug the grand horror of what happened after Vatican II as merely “one of many” times there was post-conciliar upheaval. It’s like Catholics who, in explaining the Inquisition, end up defending it. This must be intolerable.

For example: “false interpretations?” What a tiny phrase that does it no justice! Our souls must burn with righteous anger that the souls of many have been led astray into sin, that many faithful were gravely scandalized, that even more have been so inoculated against the true faith by a watered-down version of it that our countries are once more mission territories? Surely you must burn with greater anger than we have even for the abortion victims, caught in lies and pincers, each killed, for these children in the mercy of God are at least innocents.

Who in love with Truth would not feel great indignation that the (ordinary) means to Christ was denied a whole generation? It does the Church no good to cry out O Tempora, O Mores! as an excuse, the Church who must be eternal and unyielding to the times. The times played a role, indeed, but the problem is that the bishops apparently did not. That much cannot be denied.

As for blaming the bishops, you’ll notice I did not name names. I do not know, and I could not. But every bishop did something, right? Participated in some way? And how ubiquitous was the abuse afterward, and how instantaneous? If certain bishops were merely caught off-guard, isn’t that they were caught off-guard enough to wonder if there were bishops complicit by inattention if not malice or self-interest, even during the council? **If these questions can be truly dismissed, so be it, but quickness in dismissing them would betray a carelessness of their gravity or apparent merit. **

Yes, yes; nobody but Christ is perfect. Perfection was not the problem. But this is such a sudden, glaring lack of carefulness, and such an instantaneous adherence to dreck, that it suggests something more than impersonal sociopolitical forces. It is easier to explain a glaring lack of carefulness than a sudden, glaring lack of carefulness.

Evidence: There is certainly enough in the Vatican II documents to suggest exactly the same abuses that immediately took hold. You can denounce certain modern practices as “never being mandated by Vatican II” or that these abuses are merely over-emphasis of solid principles, but the point is that these over-emphasized principles were precisely the same principles first greatly emphasized by Vatican II. (Thinking here of the placement of the People of God in relation to the Church, etc., and the following “clericalization of the laity.” I’m not very far in the documents, but I’m sure there are more examples.)

Points interpreting the event of the council which do not strain credulity:

a. We know the media whipped up a tempest on each little pronouncement. Are you saying that before the conclusion of the council no bishop was caught up in their winds, intending to implement the documents just as others were interpreting them?

b. What time in history, even post-conciliar decades, were abuses so quick on the uptake? This suggests some malfeasance and malice aforethought, some kind of inside job, if not in the bishops then in their advisers, or if not in their advisers then someone influential.

c. The continued recalcitrance of certain destroyer-theologians from the '60s goes far enough that it suggests a genuine belief that they are right. Destroyer-theologians do not believe they are wrong, or do not seem to believe this. This illustration of the Holy Spirit as holding back at least some bishops in the manner that Jim Carrey was held back in Liar, Liar would seem to for once give these guys some credit. These men are in a better position than I am to suppose what Vatican II was all about at the time, and what the local ordinary allowed at the time.

There may be a pious legend here or there in the manner of Paul VI sobbing at not being able to use a particular color of vestment, but these stories are so rare that it is an exception. If the bishops had such a firm idea of what Vatican II was all about, where are the bishops who resisted the tide, or even knew to?

It is well and good to defend the council as documents, but to ignore the council as event in determining where these abuses sprang from seems vastly disingenous. Denying the oddness of the abuse of Vatican II is worse than obsessing about the council as if it were the beginning of the Church.

If we are ever to read with a hermeneutic of continuity, determining what the abuses are and where they came from, and how this was possible given the divine guarantee behind an ecumenical council, is necessary work. Otherwise, we could never sort out the truth from the abuses.

Quite honestly, I believe you are looking for a specific answer that you’re simply not going to get from any of the folks who have posted thus far. And again, I think it is unfair and borders slander to speculate that even a few bishops had malicious intentions going in to Vatican II without producing concrete evidence that such was the case - i.e. quotes from any one bishop to the effect that they were explicitly seeking to destroy the Church and her teachings.

For examples of the upheaval that has taken place in the history the post-Conciliar Church after any Council, I would recommend doing a study of the first seven Councils. What followed in the wake of nearly each of the seven first Councils was turmoil, confusion and schism. St. Jerome himself wrote that the Church woke up and discovered herself to be Arian (as in the majority of Christians had embraced the Arian heresy). Or perhaps folks here are also unaware of the huge schism that took place after the third Ecumenical Council, which resulted in a split in the Church between the “Chalcedonians” and the “non-Chalcedonians,” a split that persists to this very day. What about the “Old Catholics” who came about largely, I believe, as a result of the teachings of Vatican I. Then there are also Councils such as Lateran I - IV which largely dealt with disciplinary issues among the celibate Latin clergy and the various abuses they were perpetrating. You’ll notice each one of those Councils dealt with pretty much the exact same disciplinary issues. We can rightly insinuate from that that those clerical abuses were persisting despite the Church’s insistence that they cease immediately.

So in sum, I believe that blaming all the problems in the Church today on the bishops, or Vatican II, or the imagined malicious intentions of any bishop(s) at Vatican II is simply a non-starter. Have we had lax bishops and priests? Sure. But show me an age in the Church that hasn’t. Have we had a general decline in Catholics who actively pursue a living faith? Sure. But again, show me an age where such was not the case. Blaming the Church’s problems on a small handful of individuals, no matter how powerful or influential those individuals might be, is not going to get at the heart of the problem.

What’s wrong with the Church? Quite simply, sin. We are all sinners. The Church is not a society for the perfect, but a hospital for the sick, and a convalescent home for the recovering. I am a sinner, and my own personal sins, whether committed in private or in public, have a ripple effect in the Church because my own sins offend God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To the extent that I persist in my own sinfulness, to that extent I am unable to be Christ to my brothers and sisters in the Church, and to that extent I am unable to witness to Christ to a humanity at large so desperately in need of the salvation offered in Christ. A great Russian saint, Seraphim of Sarov, once said, “Acquire the Spirit of peace, and a thousand around you will be saved.” By this he meant, acquire the Holy Spirit, life in the Spirit in the sense of fully living a radical life in Christ as all the saints have lived, and people will be converted by the truth of your life, not just by what you say. St. Francis of Assisi is believed to have said, “Preach the Gospel at all times, when necessary use words.” Witness to Christ by a life of radical holiness. To paraphrase Ghandi, “Be the change that you want to see in the Church.”

We Americans like to blame everyone but ourselves for our problems. It’s time we Catholic-Americans start taking responsibility for our own lapse in faith rather than pointing to the bishops and Vatican II for supposedly destroying - or at least watering down - the Faith. We are to blame, plain and simple. We have not witnessed to the Gospel with our lives, how can we expect to evangelize ourselves, let alone society at large, with our words?

 

[Elijah_Baley]

You have convinced me. (No sarcasm.) But repeat the rhetoric above twenty more times if Vatican II is no different.

How does this not gravely scandalize you? How are you not gravely upset at this happening every century? How is your response so tepid, so conciliatory, so calm?

Remember: These rants were not given because I had it out for Vatican II to begin with. These were given because the licit interpretation of the fallout after Vatican II, repeated again and again, is so benign. So trite. So careless, to use a choice word. It was merely “false interpretations,” say Catholics online, as if it were little worse than a stubbed toe. Do you realize the stakes? If a man dies unsacramentalized because the Church went wacky, that is one more soul to needlessly commit to the Mercy of God.

And you, me, all of us — How can we live the call to love our neighbor if we do not wish to pray every waking moment for the souls who left this life in schisms and sin and error and lies and ruptures?

It is intolerable to ignore this for a moment when considering the council as an event. If Vatican II is no different from the other councils, it is intolerable to ignore this for a moment when considering the other councils as events.

If it is no different than any day at all, then multiply this a thousandfold. How does that not crush you? How can you breathe? It is only by the grace of God that you have any hope at all.

(As with all rebukes of others, apply this a hundred times over to yourself. How great is your sin that you lead others into their own.)

---

So really, isn’t it so much nicer to wish that Vatican II was as bad as it ever was? That way we don’t have to live crushed by such heavy pressures. Isn’t it nicer to wish that it was only a handful of unknown bishops who perverted the implementation of documents or said nothing by being unprepared for the blowback of PR?

It had seemed the more charitable option on behalf of centuries of Christians to invent an a evil cabal of bishops to explain the immediate data. You have convinced me, though, that this isn’t true. Our situation is much worse.

 

[Elijah_Baley]

OK - what do you think an exploration of Vatican II must say?

Exploration of Vatican II as an event, mind. If we are going to discern what the events happening after the council say about what happened during the council, and what the events happening outside the council say about what happened inside the council, it would be helpful to hang on to a few threads:

1. 
   *]Where did all that stuff after Vatican II come from? Call it “false interpretations,” call it “clown Mass,” but it had to come from somewhere.
   
   *]Did the bishops know what Vatican II meant at the time of Vatican II?
   
   a. If so, why did bishops allow the rupture? Was it carelessness? Malice? Were they merely caught off-guard?
   
   b. If not, or if there were some bishops who were malicious — to discuss an ontological possibility, not an accusation as such — what does this say about the Holy Spirit’s operation of infallibility?
   
   Those are two major questions of interest when discussing the event of Vatican II.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

You have convinced me. (No sarcasm.) But repeat the rhetoric above twenty more times if Vatican II is no different.

How does this not gravely scandalize you? How are you not gravely upset at this happening every century? How is your response so tepid, so conciliatory, so calm?

Remember: These rants were not given because I had it out for Vatican II to begin with. These were given because the licit interpretation of the fallout after Vatican II, repeated again and again, is so benign. So trite. So careless, to use a choice word. It was merely “false interpretations,” say Catholics online, as if it were little worse than a stubbed toe. Do you realize the stakes? If a man dies unsacramentalized because the Church went wacky, that is one more soul to needlessly commit to the Mercy of God.

And you, me, all of us — How can we live the call to love our neighbor if we do not wish to pray every waking moment for the souls who left this life in schisms and sin and error and lies and ruptures?

It is intolerable to ignore this for a moment when considering the council as an event. If Vatican II is no different from the other councils, it is intolerable to ignore this for a moment when considering the other councils as events.

If it is no different than any day at all, then multiply this a thousandfold. How does that not crush you? How can you breathe? It is only by the grace of God that you have any hope at all.

(As with all rebukes of others, apply this a hundred times over to yourself. How great is your sin that you lead others into their own.)

---

So really, isn’t it so much nicer to wish that Vatican II was as bad as it ever was? That way we don’t have to live crushed by such heavy pressures. Isn’t it nicer to wish that it was only a handful of unknown bishops who perverted the implementation of documents or said nothing by being unprepared for the blowback of PR?

It had seemed the more charitable option on behalf of centuries of Christians to invent an a evil cabal of bishops to explain the immediate data. You have convinced me, though, that this isn’t true. Our situation is much worse.

Hi EB (I hope you don’t mind the abbreviation). With regards to the bolded portion of your comment above, I want to say only this, that we are all in need of God’s mercy, whether we’ve been “sacramentalized” or “unsacramentalized.” I could go on, but I’ll leave it at that.

As to whether or not we ought to be concerned and even outraged by the myriad of false interpretations that have come from any Council, particularly the most recent one, I would say yes, of course we should be. But our outrage ought to be directed at the sin that led to these false interpretations, which means that our outrage ought to be directed at our own sinfulness first without pointing to the sinfulness of others.

Perhaps I’ve come across as though these things do not bother me, but they really do and deeply. But I’m not just bothered by the false interpretations of liberal “Catholics” who seem to want to reverse the teachings of the Church or distort them to serve their own agenda. I’m equally bothered by self-proclaimed “traditionalists” who also distort the teachings of the Council and the Church at large in order to serve their own agenda. Realizing that such things have taken place after every Council, however, does not make me complacent in my concern. Rather, it makes me more aware that I myself cannot change the minds and hearts of others. I can only change my own mind and heart; I can only convert myself. As for the rest, I can only pray for them and commend them to God’s mercy after first commending myself to God’s mercy because I am in need of that mercy above all others. Again, as St. Seraphim of Sarov said, “Acquire the Spirit of peace, and a thousand around you will be saved.”