Vatican II- Please Critique Me

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JSmitty2005:
My point is that you don’t have a case. Give it up. The Church still believes that “…that God cannot truly be adored except within its fold.” Pope St. Gregory the Great

I think that the operative word in that quote is “truly.” I don’t think that you would claim that heretics like Protestants don’t worship the same God even though they may have gross misunderstandings concerning Him, His nature, His teachings, or His Church. Likewise with the Mohammedians.
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If the Church still professed to believe with Pope St. Gregory “…that God cannot be truly adored except within its fold”, John Paul II would not have kissed a Koran.

Certainly Protestants claim to worship the same God, but oftentimes it surely does not seem that way. Jews and Moslems,
because they deny the Trinity, are not worshipping the same God.
 
“Catholics must follow the wishes of their prelates with obedience. Behavior like that of Archbishop Marcel Levebvre which incurred de jure excommunication is not acceptable.”

Should then the laymen of Bishop Nestorius followed him into heresy rather than running out into the streets exclaiming, “An Emperor we have, but no bishop!”?

How many times was St. Athanasius excommunicated? Two? Three? I lost count.

When one tries to stay Catholic life becomes very hard, very quickly.

Dominus vobiscum.

Loyola
 
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loyola38:
Jews and Moslems,
because they deny the Trinity, are not worshipping the same God.
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Would you say the same for O.T. characters like Moses and Abraham that lived long before Christ revealed the Trinity to us? :confused: The distinction is that Catholics are the only that worship God truly even though others may still worship the True God.
 
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loyola38:
Should then the laymen of Bishop Nestorius followed him into heresy rather than running out into the streets exclaiming, “An Emperor we have, but no bishop!”?
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I very strongly agree with you here. In fact, I had a thread deleted from 2 days ago for something along these lines, but Lefebvre was still wrong for not obeying Peter. 😦
 
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loyola38:
If the Church still professed to believe with Pope St. Gregory “…that God cannot be truly adored except within its fold”, John Paul II would not have kissed a Koran.

Certainly Protestants claim to worship the same God, but oftentimes it surely does not seem that way. Jews and Moslems,
because they deny the Trinity, are not worshipping the same God.
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There is not even proof that that is the Koran. This is something that anti-Catholic Protestants assume. The man in the photo with JPII is not Muslim. He is an Eastern Patriarch. Given that, it is incredibly likely that that book is a gospel. My parish has a fancy gospel just like it, as do many.
 
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Lazerlike42:
There is not even proof that that is the Koran. This is something that anti-Catholic Protestants assume. The man in the photo with JPII is not Muslim. He is an Eastern Patriarch. Given that, it is incredibly likely that that book is a gospel. My parish has a fancy gospel just like it, as do many.
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You’re half right. It is an Eastern Patriarch, but he admitted that it was the Koran.

traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/A055rcKoran.htm

catholicapologetics.net/pope_kissed_koranor_did_he.htm
 
I stand corrected. I was unaware that the Patriarch had made those comments. I will return to the way I thought about it before I learned that man was a Patriarch. :cool:
 
loyola38 said:
“Catholics must follow the wishes of their prelates with obedience. Behavior like that of Archbishop Marcel Levebvre which incurred de jure excommunication is not acceptable.”

Should then the laymen of Bishop Nestorius followed him into heresy rather than running out into the streets exclaiming, “An Emperor we have, but no bishop!”?

How many times was St. Athanasius excommunicated? Two? Three? I lost count.

When one tries to stay Catholic life becomes very hard, very quickly.

Dominus vobiscum.

Loyola
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And that is why we can comfortably say “We have no Emperor, we have no Bishop but we have a Pope.” This and the assurances therein allow us a particular amount of comfort because of the absolute certitude that one can have in the teaching office of the Pope.
 
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MichellemyBelle:
The damnable remark made by Ratzinger, here, is the last statement. Read it closely. “It has the first place of rank among modern doctrinal texts…”

Modern? Where does Tradition come into play. The first mark of the Church is Her traditions.
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Well, dear, Tradition doesn’t come into play when one is speaking of texts.
 
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loyola38:
Yes, joining the likes of the SSPX is certainly a dangerous path.

You will have to brave the attacks of heretical clerics, the worldly congregations that they half-lead and half-follow, and some members of internet fora. On the other hand, you will help to restore the Mass, the heart of the Church.
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So one needs to leave the Church and join a schizmatic group in order to save it. That, in osme cirles, is referred to as an oxymoron.
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loyola38:
You will serve as a counter-weight to Modernist, Protestant, and Masonic influences.
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Ah, yes, the conspiratorialists again. Do tell, I just love the juicy details of those Modernists (oh my!) and Protestants (oh my!!) and Masons (oh my!!!). I can just hear Dorothy now, skipping down the Yellow Brick Road…
 
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loyola38:
If the Church still professed to believe with Pope St. Gregory “…that God cannot be truly adored except within its fold”, John Paul II would not have kissed a Koran.
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Of course he would have kissed it. He understood the meaning of that gesture, which you and others have continually attempted to twist into something it is not.
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loyola38:
Certainly Protestants claim to worship the same God, but oftentimes it surely does not seem that way. Jews and Moslems,
because they deny the Trinity, are not worshipping the same God.
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You have to be kidding! Jews do not worship the same God? You have just thrown out half the Bible (did you forget they wrote it?).

The fact that they may not understand as much about God as we do does not preclude them from worshiping the same God as we do.
 
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otm:
So one needs to leave the Church and join a schizmatic group in order to save it. That, in osme cirles, is referred to as an oxymoron.Ah, yes, the conspiratorialists again. Do tell, I just love the juicy details of those Modernists (oh my!) and Protestants (oh my!!) and Masons (oh my!!!). I can just hear Dorothy now, skipping down the Yellow Brick Road…
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I do agree with what you’re saying, but there’s no reason to be so cynical. If you’re going to be cynical with the traditionalists, I would hope you would be much more so with the modernists. Traditionalists sincerely believe that they are preserving the Truth which is much more noble than those that actively seek to destroy it.
 
Frank Roman:
Could you critique my current understanding of Vatican II?

It was NOT and infallible unless it was reiterating previous infallible teachings. This is the impression given by the Theological note of the council. The majority of the pronouncements were pastoral in nature and they were completely contradictory to the decrees of previous popes, especially Blessed Pius IX as was said by then Cardinal Ratzinger.

“If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text [Gaudium et Spes] as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus. …] Let us be content to say that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789.” (Principles of Catholic Theology, 1987, pp. 381-2, Ignatius Press 1987)
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By “countersyllabus” Cardinal Ratzinger didn’t mean that Gaudium Et Spes was contrary to the Catholic doctrines of the past. He meant that Gaudium Et Spes used an approach (positive, promulgation of truth), that was contrary to the past approach (negative, condemnation of errors) used by the Syllabus of Errors. That’s what he meant by “contra-syllabus.” It was “contra” to condemnation, insofar as it taught the same doctrine in a positive way, not by condemnation of error.

This is evident from the corpus of works by Ratzinger, where he asserts that Vatican II represents "the unbroken, the unique Tradition of the Church and of her faith."

In a letter to Msgr Lefebvre, Cardinal Ratzinger stated:“You may not, however, affirm that the conciliar texts, which are magisterial texts, are incompatible with the Magisterium and with Tradition.” (Cardinal Ratzinger letter to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on July 20, 1983)Furthermore, Cardinal Ratzinger states regarding Vatican II:It is a necessary task to defend the Second Vatican Council against Msgr. Lefebvre, as valid, and as binding upon the Church. … [Vatican II is] one part of the unbroken, the unique Tradition of the Church and of her faith.
(Cardinal Ratzinger’s July 13, 1988 remarks to the Bishops of Chile regarding the Lefebvre Schism)

To understand this better, think of the way in which Dei Verbum teaches the inerrancy of Scripture. One can teach the doctrine negatively: “Scripture is without error,” or as a counter-catechesis, one can teach it positively: “Scripture teaches truthfully.” This counter-catechesis is not a contradiction of the prior teaching. Instead, it is contrary in method.

You may also consider what Ratzinger said about the infallibility of all ecumencial councils:… it is clear that conciliar decisions are infallible in the sense that I can be confident that here the inheritance of Christ is correctly interpreted (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Canon of Criticism, Salt of the Earth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997))
 
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itsjustdave1988:
By “countersyllabus” Cardinal Ratzinger didn’t mean that Gaudium Et Spes was contrary to the Catholic doctrines of the past. He meant that Gaudium Et Spes used an approach (positive, promulgation of truth), that was contrary to the past approach (negative, condemnation of errors) used by the Syllabus of Errors. That’s what he meant by “contra-syllabus.” It was “contra” to condemnation, insofar as it taught the same doctrine in a positive way, not by condemnation of error.
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I think that this is a good approach because now we have both sides: what is recommended (positive) and what is forbidden (negative). However, it seems too often that people use the V2 documents to the exclusion of any past ones and try to ignore the former condemnations. This approach has lead to people having an attitude of “no one ever said that I couldn’t do/believe this or that because it’s not addressed in V2.” Thankfully, B16 has rejected this time and time again.
 
According to the First Vatican Council, there doesn’t appear to be a caveat for “pastoral” versus “dogmatic” pronouncements of the magisterium…“We teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are*** bound to submit ***to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world.” (Pastor Aeternus , ch. 3, par. 2)

Whether or not one’s lack of submission to Vatican II is heretical, strictly so-called, is rather unimportant. By dissent with Vatican II, one necessarily dissents with Vatican I.
 
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JSmitty2005:
I think that this is a good approach because now we have both sides: what is recommended (positive) and what is forbidden (negative). However, it seems too often that people use the V2 documents to the exclusion of any past ones and try to ignore the former condemnations. This approach has lead to people having an attitude of “no one ever said that I couldn’t do/believe this or that because it’s not addressed in V2.” Thankfully, B16 has rejected this time and time again.
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I agree. The Church must authentically interpret Vatican II in continuity with Catholic Tradition, not in contradiction to it.Cardinal Ratzinger: **“The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest”. (given 13 July 1988, in Santiago, Chile before the nation’s Bishops.) **
 
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itsjustdave1988:
According to the First Vatican Council, there doesn’t appear to be a caveat for “pastoral” versus “dogmatic” pronouncements of the magisterium…“We teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are*** bound to submit ***to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world.” (Pastor Aeternus , ch. 3, par. 2)

Whether or not one’s lack of submission to Vatican II is heretical, strictly so-called, is rather unimportant. By dissent with Vatican II, one necessarily dissents with Vatican I.
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This is not quite true but you are correct on another level. It is not true that a pastoral and dogmatic statement carry the same weight however it is true that both are infallible in the sense that while in Dogmatic statements and formulation the Church proclaims de Fide but in the forms of the pastoral council it proclaims things with lower levels of certitude in the hierarchy. The Vorgrimler commentary notes several areas in the Vatican Two Documents that are considered higher or lower levels of certitude based upon either conciliar or papal statements on the particular statement. In short, for theological speculation we can discuss the various levels of certitude however on a practical level we must believe and adhere to all things posited for belief by the Church no matter what level of certitude it is posited as in the interim.
 
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