Traditional Catholics - Do They Understand the Context of Vatican II

[trickster]

I don’t know if it’s a reflection of the early Church or not (the NT talks mostly about bishops, priests, and deacons doing things), but it does seem like a theme drawn the latest council.

But, usually history is written and recorded not only from the perspectives of the "winners’ but also of the leaders…history - like the NT Acts and Gospels are a recalling of history from the leaders perspecive, so the fact that it is not a recounting of average followers of Christ doesn’t mean that the church did not have any role for the laity…seems to me having mass in your living rooms and other services implied in the gospel and acts reading indicate a higer participation of the laity that declined as catholicism became more formal over the centuries…

Bruce

 

[trickster]

And is this thread about trads and Vat II or once again about how to have an aboriginal mass?

No, not to have an “aboriginal mass” but a mass within an aboriginal context…it’s a huge difference, one cannot have an “aboriginal mass”, nor an “urban mass”, nor a feminist mass, nor an American mass…but the one and only mass in existence can be informed by subjective and experiential knowledge drawn from socio-cultural dynamics…that’s all I’m saying…does that makes sense to you?

Bruce

 

[trickster]

I am one who is not a fan of the EF. I would probably attend if it was the only Mass around and a way to meet my “Sunday obligation”. Otherwise - Not.

Interestingly, I do consider myself a traditional Catholic albeit delighted to see Vatican II com around. I grew up with the legalisms that really got in the way of developing a relationship with Christ, and still does in some ways. Catholic guilt survives a long time!

I have read and posted in this forum partly as a way to reconcile this issue for myself. Can I continue to be a Catholic while adhering to my understanding of Vatican II teachings. I see the Church changing and becoming much less welcoming than it has been over the last 40 years. I have gotten some pretty good “dings” on this forum, and probably have delivered a few. Nevertheless, I really fear the rigidity I see reentering the mainstream of the Church. Hope suffers.

Ohana, well spoken and I stand with you. Seems to me that actually experiencing the “traditional church” when it was a power in places like Quebec, etc., really balances out and challenges these new catholic traditionalists to moderate their positions…I agree with you my concern and fear that if the trend towards narrowly and legalistically defining things will result in the death of a dynamic church and a suffocation of the work of the Holy Spirit…and that is the true danger to fundamentalism of any kind.

Having said that and a major reciever of “dings” I have read some remarkable and inspiring things written by traditional catholics who only seek to nourish their relationship with God, Jesus and the Spirit through the old forms that our church has known for so long…nothing wrong with that…if that is an option based on “style” or “taste”…I haven’t heard traditional catholics say that today’s mass is not valid, only that it does not inspire them…

But yes, I stand with you on your statements…

Bruce

 

[HelenRose]

I have to get this off my chest- my experience with Traditionalists is that they lack joy and are not very friendly and are very uptight and don’t like change - just my observations

Oh well. How we argue about that. Your experience is different than mine.

 

[TrueLight]

No, not to have an “aboriginal mass” but a mass within an aboriginal context…it’s a huge difference, one cannot have an “aboriginal mass”, nor an “urban mass”, nor a feminist mass, nor an American mass…but the one and only mass in existence can be informed by subjective and experiential knowledge drawn from socio-cultural dynamics…that’s all I’m saying…does that makes sense to you?

Bruce

Everyone has different ethnicities and cultures, but you seem to think that that the Mass should include mementos and symbols from all types of cultures, particularly the aboriginal cultures.

But what really doesn’t make sense to me Bruce is 1) your fixation on this and; 2) your insistence in bringing this up all the time in the Traditional Catholic forum (look how you are bringing it up in a thread you yourself started on Vat II; and 3) your tendency in general of starting up threads in the Trad Cath forum basically challenging and subtly insulting trads on different issues and beliefs.

I don’t get it.

 

[trickster]

Many things are blamed on Vatican 2 which are simply cultural problems. Affluence is probably the largest corrupting influence for spirituality. As people became more upwardly mobile, affluent, assimilated into society from closely knit immigrant cultures, the Church and spirituality in general became less important to them. It is revealed pretty quickly if your spirituality is a merely cultural thing, or has some true substance. Affluence can really dull the spiritual senses. People don’t feel the need for the Church, unfortunately, until someone dies or gets married. People leave the Church because secular and temporal concerns have taken charge of their spirituality. The idea that people left the Church because Vatican 2 “let them” by relaxing the standards is just absurd. Vatican 2 is an easy scapegoat for people who see the world changing against their will and have no explanation. for it.

Contrary to the idea that Vatican 2 attempts to make Catholic life easier, it more accurately challenges the heart and will, calls for a more serious spiritual committment beyond observance and form, but not to the neglect of it. It’s painful to grow, but so worth it. It’s the only way. Hopefully gone are the days when being Catholic was merely an observant and passive experience for the laity. The culture I grew up in was devoutly Catholic. It was also somewhat exlusive, neglectful, narrow in it’s outlook. It was more focused on saying the rosary during the Mass than living Matthew 25 31:46. The attitude was, pay pray and obey, Father will do the spiritual work. We have an unavoidable call to do more as Church, outside the building.

Thank you so much Clem for those words I stand in 100% agreement with you…and it sounds like you grew up when traditional catholicism was not all it was cracked up to be like the romantisized “traditionalism” of today…Thanks for the Matthew 25 quote, right on.

Bruce

 

[trickster]

Like it or not, believe it or not, the early Church was more - and I am going to use a word that trads don’t like - the early Church was more horizontal.

Christiantity was illegal and likely to get you killed. The hierarchy and structure of the Church was shallower and wider. You couldn’t set up shop and hang out a sign.

The idea of cursus honorum, or rising up through the ranks, was not really an attribute of the Church prior to the legalization of Christianity. The idea of cursus honorum and the vertical, hierarchical structures which came along with it were really an adaptation of secular ideas by the Church. Some of it was necessary because of the growth of the Church but the fact is that these hierarchical structures grew massivly after Christianity was legalized.

I see Vatican II in part as an attempt to recapture part of that early Church. For example, the sacrament of anointing of the sick had become a sacrament only for those who were in immediate danger of death instead of what Christ intended it to be, a healing remedy for anyone who is sick. Vatican II put the sacrament back in its rightful place.

Vatican II also restored the permanent diaconate which had been abandoned for one thousand years.

For all the cries of modernism, Vatican II actually attempted to turn the clock back to a more authentic Christianity, the way it was originally practiced.

-Tim-

Exactly…well said Tim…

Bruce

 

[trickster]

Sounds like agenda posting to me.

An agenda posting? I don’t have the power to “rile” anyone up…hope no one is giving me that power over their own thoughts… believe it or not, my questions, statemetns, etc. are a genuine effort to get insights from all sides of the issue(s) so that I can become a better thinker…and given that I am so not conservative, what better place to go to test my ideas than a conservative Catholic webiste.

Catholic Answers to me has been a god-sent because hanging out with people who are not “like minded” for the most part has been my honour and it has been my teacher…so while I don’t deny people get riled up at me…that’s ok, as It’s their right to get riled up…or amused by me as another poster said…only happy to bring joy in peoples’ lives…

Cheerz

Bruce

 

[trickster]

I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. An enormous number of weird and novel things were done and taught by clergy and religious who kept a straight face while telling us that this is what Vatican II called us to become as catholics. They virtually banned the use of Latin in the liturgy for decades, they changed the posture of receiving Christ in the Eucharist from one of penitence and reverence to a posture that eerily resembles receiving a Big Mac (stand in line, walk forward, put hand out…), they told us that conscience is more important than revealed teachings, they effectively denigrated the devotions and prayers of the saints and invented ‘centering’ and pursued yoga and oriental forms of meditation, the religious abandoned regcognizable habits and ceased living in community, they designed churchs to resemble theaters instead of places of worship. They all claimed to be acting on the orders of Vatican II and nobody called them on it. It has been quite a revelation to learn jsut how many of these things fly directly in the face of the ACTUAL Vatican II documents. “Hijackers” is probably the best word for many of these clergy religious and theologians. They knew full well that their ideas were novel and were their own, but they made the straight faced claim that they had a mandate from Vatican II to teach and do what they did. I think Jesus said something about millstones regarding such people…

Oh I don’t think that anyone disagrees with the fact that in a creative and perhaps chaotic time (and chaos or playing in the margins is a good thing as it produces movement)… a time when the world was decolonizing, that new voices were founded and new ideas began new conversations with traditional catholic ideas and teachings…it was a wonderful time of renewal…and I remember the excitement of the post-vatican church and such movements as the Charismatic Renewal which I experienced in my mid teens… there is another side of the story that you tell…neither of us is totally correct or totally wrong we only speak from our experiences.

In my diocese, we grew up with being introduced to changes, but reverence, love, honour and time honoured catholic traditions were not thrown out the window. Old nuns living in the 60’s were not required to abandoned their old habits for the newer shorter habits etc. Bishops are a diverse group adn there was much diversity…I personally am and was proud of social justice activist bishops who laid down on railroad tracks to stop shipment of nuclear material…

I love the work of JP II as he worked hard to balance the church to both reflect the spirit of what Vatican II was a bout within the overall historical context of the church…that is why my catholicism includes traditional catholics rather than a traditional catholic perspective that excludes or minimizes the wonderful changes and energy brought about by Vatican II…

Bruce

 

[trickster]

Then it was a worthy attempt. I do believe in an authentic living of one’s Christianity because of my background. Our Catholicism should not be all about routines.

Whatever the original aims of Vat II were, was there not a modernist agenda from some that caused Vat II, at least in its application, to morph into something less worthy?

Good question True Light…you should expand upon your thinking about “modernist” influence on theology adn the teachings of the church…since my theological orientation is “pre-modern” (Indigenous spirituality) and “post-modern” perspectives, we may have a lot we can agree upon…look forward to your thoughts…

Bruce

 

[trickster]

I agree. I don’t think there is a problem with people not understanding the context of Vatican II as much as a problem with the way that Vatican II was implemented. Take liturgy, for example. One of my main concerns with the Ordinary Form of the Mass is that it does not seem to follow the changes called for in the Council document, Sacrosanctum Concilium. In practice, the Mass often directly contradicts this document. I don’t have problems with what it actually says, but with what was done, using the Council as an excuse.

Floresco, I think you hit it on the head…“the way that Vatican II was implemented”…while it was an energetic time of renewal in our church, creativity and renewal also have elements of chaos and confusion and I think God sent us JP to help us steer towards a balance of the overall history fo the church with the movement of the Holy Spirit called for by John XXIII. As an aboriginal catholic I often think about pedagogy of teaching catechsim as an example, and want to draw more upon our onw peoples’ experiential knoweldge to explain (NOT CHANGE) church teaching from a cutlural perspective…

I like how you see that particular point(s) of the liturgy.

Bruce

 

[trickster]

I think what bothers me about questions like this is that the Catholic church is still the Catholic church it was prior to Vatican II. A lot of the changes we see happened not because Vatican II told people to do such things but because they acted in the “spirit of Vatican II”. There were changes but the council didn’t call for them.

There were some issues Vatican II dealt with but I find it disheartening when I hear people talk about the post-conciliar church as if it is totally different than it was. As I said a lot of the things we see today aren’t Vatican II but what people wanted Vatican II to be, entering in many abuses.

IMHO God is calling us back to our Catholic identity.

Yes, Diana, your right. I certainly don’t believe that we are two different churches. However, people who resist or minimize the workings of the Holy Spirit, the leadership of John XXIII and the movement to renew the church would make one think that they don’t believe the Catholic Church of 2012 is the Catholic Church of 1959…but I agree with you…and I believe that the work of JP II was a calling to call us as Catholics to balance and re-emerge the yin and yang of post and pre-consular catholicism to “one” of being the Chruch…

Bruce

 

[trickster]

Unfortunately, I have seen people on CAF advocating not reading the Bible on their own because it is too hard to understand and out of fear that it will lead to protestantism.

Leading to Protestantism…that would suck eh

Bruce

 

[Mike30]

It’s probably a good topic for another thread.

Diacanoia is service. It is Christ washing the feet of the disciples. Deacons have a threefold ministry - litury, word, charity - and wherever service is needed, a deacon is a public minister of the Church ordained to the role of the servant, and he goes there to serve.

Our Church has a very specific hierarchy. Christ is the head. Just below Christ are the poor. The poor are at the top of the Church, just below Christ who always assocated with the poor - Christ’s body must do so as well. Then comes the laity. Then the Bishops and the Holy Father. Then priests. Deacons are at the lowest level - servants. That’s what they told us in the inquiry meeting. You are aspiring to the lowest rung on the ladder. They said that you will even loose your name. You will become “The deacon” instead of Joe or Bill or Tim. Great…

What do deacons do? Serve. What does that look like? It looks like whatever job needs to get done, and it doesn’t matter if the person is Catholic, Christian, rich, poor, whatever. Deacons serve. And they wear the collar as public ministers of the Church - the Church herself entering the world as a servant. A deacon is the sacramental presence of the visible Church serving the world.

Prisons. Hopspitals. Hospice. The poor. Families who have just had a child die. The elderly. Autism. In one place in Germany, deacons in formation are told to go out and create their own ministry. Porn addiction is a new scourge and I would like to work there somehow. Catechesis, yes, and baptism, benediction, blessing, homily, prayer, prayer, prayer. Word-Liturgy-Charity. But what you see a deacon doing at Mass is only a small part of what he does.

There is a good book titled “The Emerging Diaconate” by Bill Ditewig if you want to explore further. I really don’t want to derail the thread into a discussion of the theology of the diaconate.

-Tim-

Could you point me to where this heirarchy is specifically stated, as I have never heard of it and it totally contradicts what I was taught prior to Vatican II. Not saying you are wrong, but I would like to see it from some official source.

 

[trickster]

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.

Peace,
Ed

Oh, I agree. There are many things that can be done. I see the Latin or Traditional Mass as one of many options now available to us via the changes envisioned by Vatican II. Mass is the Mass and the litury is the liturgy…but within that there are many varieties…and I know that an Aboriginal mass that reflects on the liturgy and Mass is within today’s possibilties…a bit tired right now…so apologies if I’m not making sense…should quite and go to sleep

 

[trickster]

I think what bothers me about questions like this is that the Catholic church is still the Catholic church it was prior to Vatican II. A lot of the changes we see happened not because Vatican II told people to do such things but because they acted in the “spirit of Vatican II”. There were changes but the council didn’t call for them.

There were some issues Vatican II dealt with but I find it disheartening when I hear people talk about the post-conciliar church as if it is totally different than it was. As I said a lot of the things we see today aren’t Vatican II but what people wanted Vatican II to be, entering in many abuses.

IMHO God is calling us back to our Catholic identity.

What is a Catholic Identity? Is that identity monopolized by the historical and cultural circumstances of western civilization? If so, would that be the totality with respect to Catholic identity? Is there room for growth or evolution of that identity as the message of Jesus reaches the entire globe?

 

[trickster]

Here’s the opening address of Pope John XXIII.

ourladyswarriors.org/teach/v2open.htm

Vatican II was successful. Other events, which had nothing to do with the Council, caused it to be called a scapegoat for the misdeeds of others.

Peace,
Ed

Ed I agree totally with your point that the “change” resulting in our faith community since the completion of Vatican II has been totally blamed on Vatican II when many of these “changes” were well intention, theologically challenging to the status quo, theologically supportive of moving the church to be more involved in the world but seperate initiatives than John XXIII’s wish to explore how the teachings, structure and spirit of the church could be engaged in the world of the 1960’s and perhaps the 21st century…that would make sense…and put Benedict’s XVI statements about Vatican II as consistent evolution of the church by defining change as either destructive to the church OR connective…

I sense that each of the changes (i.e. removing communion rails, turning the alter around, etc.) must be examined on a case by case basis…question…so are there any founding Vatican II documents that allow for the flexibility and diversity we saw since Vatican II?

Thanks.

Bruce

 

[trickster]

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.

Peace,
Ed

And if that were true, I think it is sad. As an example, one of the beauties that would not be explored - if this pirest is right - is liturgical dance of the Native American (Aboriginal Canadian), symbols like peace pipes, songs/chants, drums and rattles, etec., that have formed a part of indigenous spirituality…for me - as an Aboriginal person who has this in his blood from time immemorial - what is lost is an opportunity to "spread the news of Jesus like he asked us to - in an indigenous world, creating a home that is spiritually nourishing for the likes of me…

 

[trickster]

Everyone has different ethnicities and cultures, but you seem to think that that the Mass should include mementos and symbols from all types of cultures, particularly the aboriginal cultures.

But what really doesn’t make sense to me Bruce is 1) your fixation on this and; 2) your insistence in bringing this up all the time in the Traditional Catholic forum (look how you are bringing it up in a thread you yourself started on Vat II; and 3) your tendency in general of starting up threads in the Trad Cath forum basically challenging and subtly insulting trads on different issues and beliefs.

I don’t get it.

TrueLight, momentos and symbols are included in the mass, sacraments and even sacramentals, those symbols and momentos’ come from a western culture that since 300 AD have dominated the articulation and formation of the Christian faith, the western culture in fact has monopolized the packaging of Jesus, Mary, etc., to be reflective of European values (although I acknowledge that European values , i.e. pagan,etc.,were also reflective and influenced by the spread of Christianity in Europe). All I am saying is that we can - with equal validity - not limit a Catholicism to that traditional history as much of the discussion in the Traditional Catholic group suggests…in fact a limiting the church to the latin mass and ideology of traditionalists is quite dangerous, counterproductive to the movement of the Holy Spirit and it works in a manner that does not build an inclusive place within the church for all peoples.

As an Aborignial person (and my culture is a gift from God too) and a Catholic, I strive to be closer to my God and my Lord and in my interaction with the Holy Spirit within the teachings and life of my church through an aboriginal lens…because that is who I am, I cannot be anything BUT an Aboriginal Catholic…and I sometimes see the narrow perspectives of traditional Catholics as a slowly closing door to me expressing my full Aboriginal heritage and the fullness of my expereince as Catholic.

If fixation means following what has been so convicted in your conscience and soul to follow yes, you can call me fixated…In terms of traditional catholicism I do see both an authentic renewal of a long standing history and cutlure within our church (some whom refer to it as the Catholic Identity), but I also see emerging trends within the chruch to move away from the energy and spirit of Vatican II - (which I believe inspired by the Holy Spirit) towards a more legalistic church and a church of thou shalls and thou shall nots, hardly motivating to spiritual growth and experience of our Creator…

I might be challenging to traditional catholics, but honestly there is a good conversation between the majority of respondents, whom disagree with me and teach me many great things, and that re-focuses and challenges my thinking. One does not learn if one’s own ideas are not left unchallenged and people like yourselves are a gift to me because you challenge me to think and re-pose my thoughts and explanations in a more informed way that builds our church and our community…

Hope that helps a bit …

Bruce

 

[ProVobis]

Like, are you talking about the 1900 years of doing the mass in Latin…I’d be interested in your take on this.

I prefer to use the term ECCLESIASTICAL LATIN, the language the Church designed for its liturgy in the West and preservation of most if not all its documents. If you think it should be abandoned, then what does it say about your respect for the Church?