I know HV didn’t have anything to with Vatican II per se. But it WAS a “2 X 4 between the eyes”, so to speak, to those who thought Vatican II was the Catholic Church doing what the mainline Protestants were doing, i.e., accepting new, liberal social values like birth control, abortion, co-habitation, and the like. And the reaction to it was a bit of an eye-opener to Paul VI as to what was going on within the Church at the time.
Individual strange incidents may occur, but I agree: This subject is brought up frequently to either:
No. Definitely not. A Traditionalist follows Tradition as established by the Church. None of the changes that occurred after the Council were even suggested by the Council. Example: Folk music and related. I heard a priest on Catholic Radio say that such things are on the way out.
To people like us, who care enough about the Council and Church Tradition to study and debate things like this, yes. But to the average person in the pew who you only see on Sunday, if not only on Christmas and Easter, V-II is “we can eat meat on Friday,” “we don’t have to bring a Missal to Mass to understand the prayers,” etc., and not much more.
Yes, the laity are being called to do more regarding Evangelization even today. But within a few years after the Council, serious impediments were put in our way. I was there. The Council was not to blame.
The practices and outlook of the early Church cannot be used as a means of condemning or changing the practices and outlook of the Church as She developed under the guidance of the Holy Ghost for 2000 years. Antiquarianism has been condemned.
Yes, it was understandably shallower and wider because of the context and circumstance. That doesn’t mean shallower and wider is more or less authentic.
But this does not mean that it is not an authentic attribute given to the Church by God.
The hierarchy of the Church is of divine institution, not an adaptation of secular ideas. While growth certainly creates a need for hierarchy, it was not the growth that created it; it was God.
The hierarchy is of divine ordination.
Are you implying that the Catholicism practiced for the past 500+ years was less authentic than the ancient Church? This is seriously bordering on antiquarianism, which was condemned in its various forms by Pope Pius XII in “Mediator Dei”
Sorry, I can’t close my eyes to reality but I’d rather pray for deliverance from the crisis than argue on the Internet.
Vatican II created no such options. The not eating meat on Friday becoming optional did what? Cause people to become Protestants or behave differently? Honestly.
Who made it hazy is the question. I’m not sure about the unwilling part. I was in Catholic school before and after Vatican II. Did the nuns call us to unwillingness? We gave them our due respect as proper teachers in our Religion Class. Our hearts were in the right place, but outside forces called for the rejection of all authority.
You’ll have to define what you mean by aboriginal. In my ethnic community, there were many things that we did that connected our ethnic heritage with the Mass. We even had Mass in our native language.OK the overwhelming respondents think that traditional catholics are more aware of the context and forces (i.e. a 60’s de-colonizing world for starters) that energized the church through the Vatican II council. There was a debate about the old fashion or new fashion “legalistic” interpretations of church teaching in the form of discussion around a woman who did not want to sleep with her husband and that all traditional catholics are sad…
So let me “amuse” my critics a bit more. I am - as many know - an Aboriginal Canadian - Native American person. I am a post-modern theological student because I believe in the message adn work of Jesus and I also believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church as they exist today and as they have been clarified and evolved (in terms of clarity for the last 2000 years. I am a fan of the Extra ordinary (Latin) Mass as a range of options available to Catholics as the traditional mass is a beautiful form of worship, of intensity with respect to the all mighty nature of God and the nature of the sacifice bloodlessly re-enacted in our masses.
I also live in an aboriginal community and many aboriginal people are between traditional religions and a desire to reconcile their (our) Catholicism to our culture and spirituality as native people. The diversity, flexibility, common sense love that Jesus showed of the Post-vatican II church makes me feel welome to ur communion…and I believe we have much more work toinclude all of the world’s people in the basic message of sharing Jesus’ message to the whole world.
Is traditional catholicism open to aboiginal forms of a mass? That is where I am leading to with respect to a new openess (albeit with mistakes) envisioned by Vatican II…by the way, I am old enough to remember the traditional mass when it was the “mass of the day”…and I am truly a Vatican II kind of baby-boomer
Bruce
“No wonder we keep killing each other.”? Check the list of current wars. Do the research, and it’s about land, resources and control of those resources. Iran wants to disrupt the transport of oil through a certain location and the US Navy is ready to thwart that.The problem with communications is that humans are so bad at it!
We tend to use vague terms, make sweeping generalizations and then are surprised when people are hurt or get angry defensive. No wonder we keep killing each other…
Take the poor Aussie bride example that derailed things for a bit. It is possible that the priest interpreted her as saying that while she was about to get married, she had no interest in sexual relations with her soon to be husband? That’s how I read it. And I’d be alarmed too (especially if I were said fiance and had no idea of the rude shock approaching for me!). Sexual intimacy isn’t just nice, it’s an integral piece of marriage. So much so that the union isn’t permanent until it has been consumated.
In large part, this is more relevant to Vatican II than one might at first suspect. My suspicion is that catholic culture had become too entrenched and tribalized into a system where the laity tended to receive the message that the faith was a system of rules to obey in which you received a reward if you completed certain minimum requirements. Real faith and heroic virtue became something clergy and religious did, not the average guy. I think Vatican II was called to challenge that culture and call the laity AND religious to know God in a personal way both as individuals and together as a church. Ironically, IMO some of Vatican II’s greatest successes are within the traditional catholic movement where people have recognized the spiritual treasure that exists in the millenia of devotions, liturgies and pious practices that have lead countless saints to know God and fall ever more deeply in love with him.
Traditional catholics do not necessarily oppose cultural adaptation of liturgy and practices to the cultures that are receiving them. What we DO object to is being told that our OWN heritage is worthless, archaic and should be tossed in the scrap heap of theological history. Other cultures accepting Christ can and will bring their own adaptations to the externals of church life. The trick (no pun intended) is to discern the essentials from the peripherals. Diversity in the latter, uniformity in the former.
Vatican II did not call for everybody to invent their own catholicism. How it came to popularly stand for that is arguable, but IMO has a lot to do with personal agendas of clergy in place after the council. But what those old guys tried to do with Vatican II is less important than what the Council ACTUALLY says. We finally are arriving at the point where the agitators are retiring and the next generation is reading the council documents themselves, not manifestos of the innovators who claimed to speak in its name, but didn’t.
Here is what Vatican II was about. The long version, but it gets to the point.
The rejection of authority is the siren call of the broader culture, not the teaching of Vatican 2.
What are we most asked to tolerate? Lately, it’s sin.
I don’t think so. He called a group together prior to the publication of Humanae Vitae. Not surprisingly, this group recommended a loosening of restrictions regarding artificial birth control. If you read the encyclical, Pope Paul VI correctly predicted a rise in promiscuity if his words weren’t heeded. He was right. And the reaction?
The council returned parts of our faith to a more authentic practice, the way Christ intended it.
Your terms “common immutable worship language” brings up some questions for my mind, so could you expand a bit on wha that means? Like, are you talking about the 1900 years of doing the mass in Latin…I’d be interested in your take on this.
