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Ultima_Ratio
Guest
Can you name one Bishop, or one Pope, who has given us the “correct” interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae - Vatican II’s teaching on religious liberty? It is not as though this document did not immediatly cause chaos in the Church due to its apparent contradiction to what the Popes taught prior to Vatican II.
I have never seen any Bishop attend to interpret this controversial document in line with what the Church has always taught.
And if so many of the Bishops who were present at Vatican II have misinterpreted the documents, why in the world would you expect that a layperson would interpret it “correctly”?
Actually, Rome has finally agreed to address the apparent contradictions in this document, and many other ambiguities that have come about since Vatican II,* thanks to the persistence of the SSPX.*
Rome has wanted an agreement with the SSPX for years. For the good of the Church, the SSPX said they would not sign an agreement before the Pope admitted that the old Mass was never abrogated (which Rome told them privately all alone), and clarify the apparent contradictions in the Vatican II documents. In 2007, the Pope admitted that the old Mass was never abrogated, and it is now making a comeback along with the expected good fruits; and now Rome is in doctrinal talks with the SSPX over the apparent contradictions and ambiguities in the Vatican II documents.
For those with eyes to see, God is using the SSPX to restore the Church; and that explains why the devil unleashes such hatred toward them. The same exact thing happened with St. Athanasius, who stood virtually along in defense of the truth during the Arian crisis. St. Athanasius was banned from his diocese 5 times; spent 17 years in exilse; was condemned by a council of 300 Bishops; accused of all kinds of horrible sins, such as witcraft; and excommunicated by the Pope. The saying was “Athanasius against the world”. Yet in the end he was proven right, and canonized.
**Bishop Rudolph Graber, of Regensburg: **“What happened over 1600 years ago [at the time of the Arian heresy] is repeating itself today, but with two or three differences: Alexandria [the patriarchal see of St. Athanasius] is today the whole universal Church, the stability of which is being shaken, and what was undertaken at that time by means of physical force and cruelty is now being transferred to a different level. Exile is replaced by banishment into silence of being ignored; killing, by assassination of character.” (Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, p. 23)
Here’s a few quotes from St. Basil and St. Gregory who lived at the time.
St. Basil: " The danger is not confined to one Church… This evil of heresy spreads itself. The doctrines of Godliness are overturned; the rules of the Church are in confusion; the ambition of the unprincipled seizes upon places of authority; and the chief seat is now openly proposed as a reward for impiety; so that he whose blasphemies are the more shocking, is more eligible for the oversight of the people. Priestly gravity has perished; there are none left to feed the Lord’s flock with knowledge; ambitious men are ever spending, in purposes of self-indulgence and bribery, possessions which they hold in trust for the poor. The accurate observation of the canons are no more; there is no restraint upon sin. Unbelievers laugh at what they see, and the weak are unsettled; faith is doubtful, ignorance is poured over their souls, because the adulterators of the word in wickedness imitate the truth. Religious people keep silence, but every blaspheming tongue is let loose. Sacred things are profaned; those of the laity who are sound in faith avoid the places of worship, as schools of impiety"
St. Basil: “Matters have come to this pass: the people have left their houses of prayer and assembled in the deserts, – a pitiable sight; women and children, old men, and men otherwise inform, wretchedly faring in the open air, amid most profuse rains and snow-storms and winds and frosts of winter; and again in summer under a scorching sun. To this they submit because they will have no part of the wicked Arian leaven”.
St. Basil: " Only one offense is now vigorously punished, an accurate observance of our fathers’ traditions. For this cause the pious are driven from their countries and transported into the deserts. The people are in lamentation… The ears of the simple are led astray, and have become accustomed to heretical profaneness. The infants of the Church are fed on the words of impiety.
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: “Surely the pastors have done foolishly; for excepting a very
few, who either on account of their insignificance were passed over, or who by reason of their virtue resisted, and who were to be left as a seed and root for the springing up again and revival of Israel [the Church] by the influence of the Spirit, all temporized, differing from each other only in this, that some succumbed earlier, and others later; some were foremost champions and leaders in the impiety, and others joined the second rank of the battle being overcome by fear, or by interests or by flattery, or, what was the most excusable, by their own ignorance”.
