My statements are backed up by the CARA institute choy. Pope Paul VI predicted CITH would lead to a decrease in belief in the Real Presence and guess what? There’s been a decrease in the Real Presence belief. If you want to try and spin this into any other causation then you are grasping at straws.
Ockham, your argument is: “So-and-so predicted that if Cause A occurred, Effect B would follow. Cause A did indeed occur, and sure enough Effect B followed. Case closed, causality is established.” Suppose I predict that if John Doe drives drunk tonight, he’ll get into a car accident. The next morning, I hear that John is in the hospital recovering from injuries he suffered in a serious car accident. Case closed, right? Nope, in this case, as it turns out, he was struck while sitting at a stoplight by a teenager talking on her cell phone.
you mean this → cara.georgetown.edu/sacraments.html
there’s nothing there that speaks about CITH bringing about less belief in the Real Presence. also, given the last part i highlighted, since the indult was granted in 1977 if i’m not mistaken, then there’s actually more young Catholics who believe in the Real Presence during the time CITH is allowed in the US. contrary to what you claim
My argument is more complex than that. You seem to pick single facets and proclaim that it is the entire case. Review your own posts.
Then I’m not sure what to make of statements like, “Pope Paul VI predicted CITH would lead to a decrease in belief in the Real Presence and guess what? There’s been a decrease in the Real Presence belief. If you want to try and spin this into any other causation then you are grasping at straws.”
That’s part of my argument and I stand by it.
Are you talking to me?
Only in a world of fantasy is it that “basic.” In real life, discussing a set of global phenomena over the course of decades touching a wide sector of beliefs and practices, a vast web of interwoven causes and effects is at play. I know it makes things a lot more difficult to deal with, and doesn’t allow you to assert that any one undesirable effect had a single, undeniable cause which you can then complain about, but that’s facts. It’s like if I asked you why Quebecois nationalism is up over the last 50 years. Hopefully you’d reject as childish anyone who insisted that some one person, or one event, was, without elaboration, the “cause.” National ethnic politics can be complicated. Half-century religious shifts can be complicated as well.
No I wasn’t talking to you.Are you talking to me?
Again, you’re just quoting surveys and hypothesizing that temporal propinquity implies causality. By the way, do you think you can prove that the desire for Communion in the hand was not itself a result of already-declining belief in the Real Presence?
i didn’t make that statement, CARA did. and you were in full faith with the CARA survey until this post. you dropped them like a hot potato after i posted their study
again, there’s nothing that relates these statistics to OF practices especially the CITH, which didn’t come until much later. in fact, wasn’t the Vatican II supposed to address the needs of the modern world? these problems were already occuring even before V2
clearly you were never in a position that would have sucked you out of the Church regardless of your belief in the Real Presence. people go through many things which shakes their faith and regardless whether they believe in the Real Presence or not at one point, they may be convinced in the future to believe otherwise. clearly Apologetics of denominations who doesn’t believe in the Real Presence would try and convince people otherwise.
you seem to be the one who is emotional here by this statement. is that how you want to represent a Traditional Catholic, one who rejects present day Church teaching? shouldn’t Traditional Catholics know more about submission and obedience to the Church? why the constant attack on Vatican II? you’re only promoting hatred and division within the Church, and for what? form of liturgy? is that really the core of our faith? the form of liturgy? whether we reveive CITH or COTT? is that the foundation of the Church?
That’s a predictable tactic. I think the Soviets practiced it. Take a simple conclusion and cloud it with rhetoric, conjecture, and falsehoods; tell a lie enough and it sounds like truth. Mabye George Bush is responsible for the decline in Mass attendance and belief in the Real Presence. Surely it can’t be CITH and the other 'spirit of V2" changes. They are just coincidences and besides, without them nobody would go to church anymore.
Well, when the extent of the argument you can offer comes down to “But it’s just so OBVIOUS!!!”, it becomes a little tough to continue the discussion, sorry. Beyond your theory, there are alternatives, as well as more complex appraisals which relegate your theory to a supporting role, or perhaps recast it as itself largely an effect rather than primum mobile. Like I said, it seems hard to move on from here for the time being.
You are misunderstanding the CARA surveys. They indicate a declining trend in Mass attendance and belief in the Real Presence. Spin away if you want to but you are falsify data and possibly violating the Eighth Commandment.
Another point to consider is that if a law is consistently broken (e.g., the speed limit) and is continued to be enforced according to custom rather than the legal law (e.g., you can go at least 5 over just about anywhere, some places even 10 or 15 over), then that custom begins to have the force of law. It would be illegitimate to ticket someone for simply following the established custom (though, of course, legalists of America wouldn’t shrink from doing this). It is true that those who began to break the law did commit sin, but once it became the common custom, those who follow it do not commit sin. I don’t know that it’s a perfect analogy because with this example the law was actually changed, making it even stronger than my example, in fact.
Not to get too far off topic, but that’s not really true, except in a very small collection of cases in which, for instance, a law hadn’t been used in decades and then was enforced one day against the town’s only black family, that sort of thing. I believe there’s variance in state law, but you can be ticketed for going one mile over the speed limit. The primary reason these cases aren’t brought is that the margin of error on radar guns makes them difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
There are too many mutanda for that to work, though. We might as well look at opera attendance over the last 33 years, notice that it’s down, and blame it on the death of Maria Callas in 1977.
What you have said may be how people interpret the law in our country (which is based upon Calvinistic legalism). I’m not familiar with Blackstone’s particular commentary on this, though I’m sure he would say that a law loses its efficacy if it is not observed after a certain period of time. St. Alphonsus (and basically all moral theologians follow his opinion, perhaps adjusted slightly for length of time based upon prudential reasons, etc.) teaches that if a civil law isn’t enforced for 10 years (or is enforced in a way that is different from the technical law), that becomes a binding interpretation. Most people are familiar with the same principle in ecclesiastical law, though this is considered to be true only when the law is interpreted in a certain way for 30 years. A contrary custom can even revoke a law if it is practiced for 100 years or time immemorial (as long as anyone living can remember).
As regards ecclesiastical law, I’ll take your word for it.
