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pnewton
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I agree with you on this. It so happens to fit my personal liking as well, but then I am both ecclectic and accommodating.
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ConstantineTG
Guest
I tend to look at Vatican II in a different light, but it is my own personal opinion And that is that these things that took place right after Vatican II were already set in motion by events that happened in the past. Vatican II was meant to prevent or mitigate these from coming to fruition. I always look back at the Reformation as the source of all the Protestantization in the Catholic Church, and what happened in the 60s and 70s were just centuries in the making and not precisely Vatican II’s fault. You can see the effects of the Reformation on Catholics today, and I don’t believe it just started after Vatican II. It has been building up slowly since Martin Luther. I actually am concerned that I feel that the Church is being reactive to the Protestants rather than just being true to what it was in the past.
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sw85
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Good remarks from YTC at post #54.
If Vatican II was ultimately an attempt to deal with the problem of modernity, it’s clear the course they chose: to stop emphasizing their separation from it and points of disagreement with it, and to couch those disagreements they could not avoid in more modern language. Did that course bear fruit? You tell me.
If Vatican II was ultimately an attempt to deal with the problem of modernity, it’s clear the course they chose: to stop emphasizing their separation from it and points of disagreement with it, and to couch those disagreements they could not avoid in more modern language. Did that course bear fruit? You tell me.
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Cat
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This seems rather contrary to Pope Benedict XVI’s “new evangelization.”
Perhaps you can explain what your idea of “fortress culture” is and how you think it would “look” for Catholics.
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Cat
Guest
Perhaps I’m just a little slow here this morning.
Could you please elaborate on "the attack that was coming against the Catholic Church in the late 1960s…etc.)? What exactly was “the attack,” and who/what was responsible?
And could you please state plainly whether you believe Vatican II was helpful or harmful or neutral? In one of your posts, you seem stated that Vatican II is being used as a scapegoat and blamed for all the Church’s problems and that this isn’t true.
I’m sorry for my denseness, edwest2, but it seems that so many on this thread are being rather vague about Vatican II (perhaps because it feels like heresy to them to condemn a Church council?).
At least YoungTradCatholic comes right out and says that it was bad for the Church. I disagree with him, but at least I’m clear about what he thinks of this Church council. Others seem to be tiptoeing around it. It sounds to me like you harbor no ill thoughts about Vatican II, but I’m confused by your posts, and would appreciate some clarification. Thanks.
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YoungTradCath
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Yes, I really am flabbergasted that some are saying that Vatican II tried to deal with–as in intended to get rid of–the problems of modernity. I mean that sincerely. That, to me, seems exactly the opposite of what it was intended to do and also what it actually did. No, I don’t think that Vatican II intended to stroke the modern world’s ego and actively tried to make the problems of the modern world worse; but in practice I cannot come to any other conclusion than, that is exactly what it “intended” to do if we look at the Council itself apart from whatever the personal intentions of the Council Fathers alone or collectively were. I mean, I might be able to understand this line of thinking given the era, but in the end I sincerely think it is just so very short-sighted to think, “Well, if we just adapt to the modern world, the problems of the modern world will go away.” Well, no, they won’t. That is quite outrageous to me.
The outward “form” of the Church, given our human limitations, is almost as important to us on a psychological level as the inner contents of the faith are to our souls. This is essentially what I have been trying to argue all along. “We don’t need ______: Latin, vestments, beautiful churches, priests in distinctive and maybe even weird attire, sisters in habits, popular devotions galore, holy cards, etc.” I hear that all the time. But, we do! need those things. These are what make us able to identify as a group. These form the corpus of our outward identity, that is, they are what visibly bind us together AND, on another level, they are the outward eccentricities that make the first step in evangelization–to pique the interest of a non-Catholic–so much easier.
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YoungTradCath
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I do not think this is contrary to the New Evangelization at all. In fact it is absolutely crucial to it.
By “fortress culture” or “ghetto Church” what I mean is that we must have a strong Church that has a strong outward identity–identity and why it is crucial is something that I dealt with thoroughly in post 54 and the post right above this one. If Holy Roman Church is meek and afraid of itself and has no outward eccentricities for a potential convert to “latch on to,” then pray tell, what is going to pique his interest in Catholicism? A visit to a Catholic hospital where he meets a gracious and helpful religious sister? Maybe, but then we’ve got to wait for his appendix to rupture first. Seeing a lovely young couple walking out of a parish church with their small children? Every church has got that.
No, what is going to attract him is his Catholic friend who starts wearing a weirdo medal with some funky image of the Blessed Virgin on it. Imagine the conversation he could have with his friend who–and he doesn’t know this but just you wait =)–had apologetics courses in high school and college! which might start something like, “What is that? I thought it was bad to have graven images…”
What is going to attract him is seeing a sister wearing a habit shopping for food. He’s probably thinking that is very weird. And so maybe she starts a conversation with him by asking, “Are you Catholic?”
Etc.
We have lost our ability to do this because so few Catholics even know the outward identity of their Faith. Holy cards, rosaries, chant, priests in cassock, holy water you can take home, whatwhatwhatwhatwhat? It is all tied into why we must have a common and perceivable outward identity, a rich identity. I have already shown why: to bind Catholics together and to make evangelization easier. If we’re like every Protestant denomination in every practical way, then why should Suzie Uncatechized Catholic remain Catholic? Why should Jimbob the Protestant even consider Catholicism? In reality, he shouldn’t. He has no reason to.
So by fortress culture I mean just that, a strong Catholic culture. In no way do I mean that it can’t receive new members, converts. In fact I think it absolutely necessary to do so.
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Cat
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Perhaps younger people will be drawn to “weird funky medals” etc. because young people are historically drawn to things that are new and different. Then once those things become old and routine, the young people drift away in search of the next funky thing.
But I think most Protestants and indeed, most people, will be drawn to the Catholic church by Catholics who consistently practice their faith through their good works and loving hearts.
I think you are placing too much faith in the externals.
Many Protestants have discovered this; i.e., they decide to turn their worship service into “worshipalooza,” and at first, people flock to attend. But once the novelty wears off, the inquirers stop coming because they are looking for the next “palooza.”
It’s not the externals that attract Protestants to Catholicism, or anyone to Catholicism, although externals might cause someone to investigate out of curiousity. What truly has changed the hearts of many Protestants towards the Catholic Church was the firm, unwavering stand against abortion that Catholics maintained. I personally think that this is the reason why many Protestants have been led to make peace with the Catholic Church and even convert to Catholicism, as many Protestant denominations, especially the mainline denominations, have caved and actually support abortion rights.
Also, as communication technology has improved, Protestants have learned about the faithful service by the Catholic Church to the world’s poor, the prisoners, the downtrodden, and the disenfranchised. Mother Teresa was and still is immensely respected by Protestants, not because she wore a “habit” (actually, she didn’t wear a traditional habit, but adapted the dress of the people she worked with), but because of her incredible sacrificial works of service to the world’s least-fortunate. Indeed, she even stood up to the POTUS and told him that abortion is a great evil! This is the kind of strong testimony that draws people to Jesus Christ! It’s not the medals or any of the externals–it’s the simple goodness that is clearly done through the power of the Holy Spirit and for the sake of love of Jesus.
These good works and service are and should be true “Catholic Culture,” not the medals and Latin. The externals and appearances are merely traditions, but the good works are what Christ intends for all Christians to be doing with our earthly time, and are a tremendous witness of Jesus Christ to the entire world.
Finally, I can speak for my husband and daughter when I say that had the Catholic Church been doing the Latin Mass and singing chant, we never would have visited, or if we had visited, we would have never gone back. We had the typical evangelical Protestant suspicion of “externals,” which we considered “works of man.” We were delighted that the Mass was in our own language and we absolutely loved the contemporary hymns.
Never fear, it did not look like Protestantism to us. Quite the opposite. The OF Mass felt very different from the Protestant “worship service” that we were used to. It certainly didn’t need to feel any more different by being in Latin or utilizing a lot of chant! (We probably would have run away, or at best, we never would have returned!)
I think a lot of evangelical Protestants would agree with me–the OF Mass is miles removed from what they are used to in their worship services. While the OF seems “modern” to Catholics who love the traditional Latin Mass, to evangelical Protestants, the OF Mass seems ancient and “traditional.” It’s a question of perspective–what you’ve been brought up with
We were definitely drawn in by the “modern” Mass, and still appreciate it greatly.
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TimothyH
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What binds us to gether is Jesus, and that means the Eucharist.
Catholic culture is Jesus. Catholic culture is the Eucharist. Every Protestant should consider Catholicism because of Jesus. Every Catholic should remain Catholic because of Jesus. And Jesus means the Eucharist.
I barely see Jesus in all this discussion - four and a half pages of discussion.
We area a Eucharistic faith. There is nothing else.
-Tim-
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Cat
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You are so right.
And of course, Christ in us compels us to help the less fortunate and love our fellow man through tangible good works of service.
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YoungTradCath
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I don’t disagree. But this absolutist way of looking at it utterly rejects our human psychological dependence on outward and perceivable identity.
Every Protestant should consider Catholicism because of Jesus? Really, okay, tell one that and he will say, “I already have Jesus.”
My entire argument is completely dependent on, is a slave to, Christ. It works from the point of view of a strong community identity. We don’t bring Christ to people by wishing for it. We do it with a genuine smile, kindness, Mass/prayer intentions and a strong identity.
God gave us senses for a reason, and if we are totally ordered to Christ, then our senses should be totally ordered to His Church.
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sw85
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Well, one must give them the benefit of the doubt.
Look at the Church, and especially the Mass, in, say, the 1950s. The main differences are that the Church emphasized its otherworldliness more effectively. The Mass emphasized the ontological superiority of the priesthood and the centrality of the Eucharist. No one would’ve mistaken it for anything like what you encounter in ordinary experience: you went to Mass not for community but to swim in the sea of perfection.
Now there is a possible world where choosing to de-emphasize that otherworldliness would’ve made sense. For instance, a world where Catholic ghettoization is actively contributing to their own persecution (or their spontaneously persecuting others), where Eucharistic adoration has gone to such extremes that people neglect their other duties, where Catholic families send all their sons to seminary and fertility begins to drop precipitously, etc. In such a world, something like Vatican II would make sense. Something like the Novus Ordo, with its decision to downplay the importance of the priest, would make sense. Abrogating the TLM would make sense and forcing people to attend Novus Ordo Masses only would make sense. But it’s clear to me that the preconciliar age was not such a world, so these moves simply did not make sense.
Which means we are dealing not with doctrinal errors but with prudential ones. This is the only way I can understand Vatican II and its consequences. It cannot be heretical as the sedes think because it taught nothing new. It just tried to adopt new strategies. Those strategies can be said to have failed without reflecting on the Church’s doctrinal authority. Its guarantees from God are fairly limited: it won’t teach error. It has no guarantee that, in any particular time, it will teach the truth as well as it could or ought to.
One of Hegel’s key insights, and pretty much the only one worth retaining, is that the way people perceive reality is as important a fact as the way reality objectively is. It’s not enough for a political authority, for instance, to have a legitimate claim to rule. It must be *known *to have a legitimate claim. Peter Drucker wrote about the loss of visible legitimacy in prewar societies as being one of the main contributors to the rise of fascism and the start of World War II. My conversion to Catholicism was prefigured by my readings of both of them.
Up until Vatican II the Church was intentionally set up in such a way as to present those truths readily to the senses, especially for those who didn’t have the sophistication to see it otherwise. Hence big, beautiful, ornate churches. Hence fancy vestments. Hence Latin and chant: all prefigurations of Heaven.
St. Peter, at the gates of Heaven: “Are you ready for this?”
Rescued soul: “Oh, I’ve been here before.”
What we have now are crummy wooden and brick churches shaped like circus tents, priests with austere or rainbow chasubles, vapid homilies that put people to sleep, etc. Does this prefigure Heaven? Maybe, if Heaven looks like a Pier 1 Imports in uptown Boston. What it looks like, really, is the world. Dark. Boring. Unappealing. Unmysterious. Utterly stripped of its sacral appearance.
It’s actually a bit worse of a sentiment than you let on.
There is a very disturbing and unsettling tendency in conciliar enthusiasts to try to sort out X as some “bare minimum” of the Catholic faith and then declare everything else, not-X, as extraneous or irrelevant. Usually they are not wrong when they say X is the bare minimum, but where they go wrong is seeing not-X as addenda rather than the logical fulfillment of X.
For instance, I am a man. If I lost my legs, I’d still be a man – legs are nonessential to manhood. It doesn’t follow, though, that my legs are irrelevant to me, or that I should get rid of them, or that I’d not be terribly impoverished or even be better off without them. None of these things are reasonable to believe. I may not need legs to be a man, but they are the logical fulfillment of my being a man. I may not need them but I am vastly worse off without them. You are right to point out that this is essentially a Protestant sensibility. Its the reductionism that gave us sola scriptura.
So no, vestments and Latin and incense and rosaries and chant, etc., are not the core of the Catholic faith. But whoever believed they were? Rather they were logical expressions of certain soteriological truths; they presented those truths to the senses in a way that it is more easily recognizable. Getting rid of them has not made X more visible, it has obscured our vision of X. Again, we only need to look at its fruits to know it. People are falling away from the faith in catastrophic numbers. The priesthood is disgraced by scandal after scandal. Vocations are only now starting to pick up, and I suspect only because the economy is imploding like a dying star. Catechesis is worthless where it is not actively malicious. Most people are ignorant even of the basic truths of their own faith. What we have seen is really the willful debasement of our stores of knowledge of the Catholic faith, for… what, exactly? Is this “for Jesus”? If the apparition of Our Lady at Akita is trustworthy, He’s not happy.
This sort of sentiment reminds me of something I was reading a while back, about how sophisticated elite leftists intentionally debased and destroyed marriage, the traditional family, and the virtues that sustained both so that they could gratify their own lusts without consequence. Because of their own intelligence and resources, they were largely insulated from the catastrophe they loosed on the rest of society, which lacks those advantages and which became riven with broken homes, neglect, and abandonment. As it turns out, some (very very few) people do well without these structures and virtues in place, but the vast majority suffer, being unable to make things work without them. I wonder if a similar thing is going on here, if the epistemic chaos, ambiguity, and obscurantism that has been loosed intentionally in the Church is intended to benefit a narrow class of Catholic elites (extremely sophisticated theologians, for instance, who are alone able to make sense of the mess), even at the expense of the vast majority of the laity and even the priestly orders whom this nonsense is actively hurting.
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pnewton
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I consider it impossible to even conceive of getting rid of the problem of the modern world, short of a massive nuclear release that devastates the world. We must live with the modern world and no where has the Church said this is a bad thing. Besides, the Vatican lacks the nuclear arsenal to change this fact. Of course we have to live with the problems of the modern world (I do not know what the word “modernity” even means)
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edwest2
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Did anyone see the link I provided to the opening speech about the Second Vatican Council made by Pope John XXIII? We need the holy cards, nuns in habits, the vestments and all the rest, just as we need other outward signs such as statues in our Churches. Vatican II was not formed to present new truths but to present the same truths anew. It was called just as the means to cause global destruction were being deployed and the United States and the world were faced by that possibility during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. There were Communists in the United States, as well and those who were distracted by false teachers like Ayn Rand and the lure pf psychology, which offered valuable insights, but had nothing to say about man’s inherent sinfulness.
From the beginning, there were those that sought to dismiss, ignore or change Church teaching. In the last century, there were Modernists.
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=7873
If we are to move the Catholic faithful back to a normal life free of the pagan media culture that was carefully planned and gradually rolled out in front of us over the last 40 years, we need to understand the motives of those involved. And their motives are clear, very clear: to get us to live and accept all that they believe and live and accept. Does anybody here not get that? I heard a priest on Catholic Radio state that too many Catholics are living like pagans.
The first step to start the New Evangelization is to make sure that we are living authentically Catholic lives ourselves, not by showing people our Churches. God knows, we, and I, are all sinners but we cannot let that become an obstacle or a reason to do nothing. We need to tell them about the risen Christ, why He died and their need to come into a relationship with Him by accepting Him as Lord and Savior, followed by instruction in our faith and water Baptism.
Peace,
Ed
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TimothyH
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I’m just curious, not trying to challenge but sincerely interested. How far does the outward and perceivable identity go with regard to Mary.
Marian processions? Bowing before statues? Consecration to Mary as her slave?
-Tim-
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sw85
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Well, it’s a bit of a struggle understanding the word “modernity.” We can use it in two ways. The first is simply “the modern age,” i.e., the present period in history, post-medievality (probably beginning around 1700). The second is the “spirit of the modern age.” It’s the spirit of the modern age that makes the modernity/medievality distinction meaningful, so we often mean both things by the same word. So “modernity” is just the present age and its ideological baggage. That baggage may be usefully summed as “atheist androgynist utilitarianism.”
Now what can the Church do about this? Nothing to actively destroy it, certainly. But then modernity is destroying itself, as we can well see. Europe will be majority Muslim in a lifetime or two, for instance. There will be no atheism or liberalism there afterward. Saying “what can we do about modernity?” is really the wrong question. May as well ask “what can we do about the Titanic?” Well, for one thing, you can get off the Titanic before it sinks and takes you down with it. Get into a lifeboat. That’s what we needed around the time Vatican II started: lifeboats, not soapboxes, as a friend of mine put it once. We needed *more *insularity. We needed *higher *walls. We needed an even stronger identification with the faith – even more signs and symbols and externals and sacramentals. We needed even sharper distinctions between the faith and the world.
Instead, we did the exact opposite: we tossed the boats overboard (they’re so divisive!). We threw open the gates and let the walls fall into disrepair. We stopped emphasizing our differences with the world. Well, surprise, huge numbers of Catholics are now “of the world.” Contracepting (probably a majority endorse this). Increasingly endorsing sodomy and abortion, or voting happily for those that do. Denying central tenets of the faith, like the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (last I heard around 40-45% of Catholics deny the real presence). And so on. The city was besieged and we abandoned its defenses; small wonder it’s been sacked!
Abandoning the structures and symbols of the old way may have been of use to those with the intelligence and sophistication to persevere in faith after losing them, but it has obviously harmed the vast majority of people who lack that intelligence and sophistication and who were relying on those structures and symbols to make immanent the soteriological realities of the Catholic faith in their lives. Lots of souls have probably been lost over this series of completely gratuitous errors.
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triumphguy
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If we believe in the Church, if we believe that the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, if we believe in the Magisterium, and if we believe that the Holy Spirit guides the Magisterium, then the only conclusion is this:
Vatican II was exactly the right Council, led by the right People, at exactly the right time, and gave exactly the message the the Holy Spirit wished.
If there are any mistakes, issues, problems stemming from Vatican II then they are entirely of human making and have no bearing on the truth or teaching of Vatican II, nor can Vatican II be interpreted in light of them.
Vatican II was exactly the right Council, led by the right People, at exactly the right time, and gave exactly the message the the Holy Spirit wished.
If there are any mistakes, issues, problems stemming from Vatican II then they are entirely of human making and have no bearing on the truth or teaching of Vatican II, nor can Vatican II be interpreted in light of them.
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Cat
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This thread seems to be all about externals like using Latin in the Mass, various articles of clothing and other items, etc.
I’ve been thinking about what I would like to see Catholic culture be in 2012 and beyond:
I’ve been thinking about what I would like to see Catholic culture be in 2012 and beyond:
- Good works and practical acts of love for fellow Christians as well as non-Christians.
- Intellectualism–the Catholic Church started universities, right? The BEST schools for all ages in the world.
- Prolife, pro-family, pro-marriage one man/one woman.
- The originators and patrons of the very best in the arts: music, theater, visual arts, dance, literature, film, etc. The “movers and shakers” of the arts worlds.
- The wellspring of the most reliable and politically-neutral science.
- The voice of reason in politics–the “peacemakers” of the world, who are able to persuade enemies to sit down together and discuss issues rather than waging war.
- Pro-woman–not women priests, but women as valuable members of society and worthy of taking on any intellectual issue.
- Pro-children–ALL children welcomed and loved, and provided with the basic decent necessities of life.
- Shameless and outspoken followers of the Lord Jesus Christ in all areas of private and public life, and constantly speaking of Him and giving Him all glory and honor.
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YoungTradCath
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I agree with your propositions but I might as well point out that 4, potentially 5, and potentially 6 seem rather “external” by your definition. I think you have defeated your own argument. You say that externals are not important but then say how the Church should patronize the arts. ??? Of course she should! But if she should patronize the arts then it isn’t too much of a logical leap to say that the Church should be resplendent in every other external way insofar as possible.
I am trying to use specific examples to illustrate larger, more elusive principles. As I said, Latin and cassocks are not “the” Faith, but these and other related external things make up the corpus of how we sensually EXPERIENCE the Faith–even if we don’t “like” every one of these things–and are almost just as important to us on a psychological level as the Sacraments are to our souls.
We are not emotionless, perfectly intellectual brains. We are body, soul and mind, and if we neglect one aspect of it–and I think it is clear that I think we have been neglecting our psychological and physical dependency on externals for identity purposes–then we are not doing a particularly good job.
We can say what we “think” would be “the best way” of living the faith in some fantasyland where people aren’t limited by the human condition and the natural world, but that is not the way it works. We are limited by the human condition and we live in the natural world and that is why building brutal modernist churches, sacropop, awful liturgy, and a lack of people praying devotions are wrong. In a perfect world it wouldn’t matter what our churches look like, what music we have at Mass, how sloppy Father is at the altar. But since we live in the natural world and since the human condition limits us, these things do matter.
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pnewton
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I think the problem lies in that the amorphous nature of the concept is used to criticism Vatican II for something it did not do. The council met to consider the current challenges and is criticized by sliding the term more toward philosophical modernism, something that the council never approved of or embraced.
I guess this is why I consider complaints about Vatican II empty and devoid of substance. If the term “modern” in its various forms is so slippery, how much more so when we have to refer to the “spirit” of things. Only when specifics are addressed can Vatican II be discussed without everyone talking past each other, each slipping terms around to their point.
I mean this in the best CAF spirit.
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