VaticanII heresy

[DebChris]

I know people like this and for a time, seriously considered their position. I now warn people to just stay away from them because what I did was very bad for my spiritual life; I became suspicious and fearful.

Overall, what someone else wrote helped me: those who think this way interpret the V2 documents in the same way that the modernists do and thus believe they contain heresy.

However, the goal of the Council was not to put forth anything new but to recast Church teachings in a way that modern thinkers could more easily understand, using new ways of thinking.

The Pope said before he signed the documents that *they must be interpreted in Light of Tradition, *and this is what the modernists refused to do, and it is also what the “radical Traditionalists” refuse to do.

As a result of this, what the radical Traditionalists are doing is setting up a straw-man argument. It’s easy enough to “win” if you misrepresent your opponent’s reasoning.

Thank you for restating what I was trying to say. The goal of the Council was to bring the Good News into the Modern World, to “recast Church teaching in a way that modern thinkers could more easily understand.”

 

[Neofight]

My Catholic faith has been challenged very often, especially by atheists and protestants and I am very grateful for CF for strenthening my faith. But recently I have been confronted with “catholics” claiming Vatican II being a heresy.
They are pointing to a freemason conspiracy that infiltrated the Church, influencing the outcome of the papal election making it invalid and everything following from it including Vatican II.

I actually feel very challenged, so I was wondering if anyone here has experience on this issue and could give me some advice.

Thanks!

Those making such claims are hardly “Catholic”, and you would be better served just steering shy of their conversations on such matters.

 

[SaintFrancis333]

Vatican II is not and has never been a/the problem. The real problem is the fact that V2 was never faithfully implemented. Too many Bishops/Priests implemented their own touches into things and now liturgical abuse is rampant. If the Church (especially in the US) were held accountable and forced to fully implement Vatican II, everyone would be better off.

 

[NiceMarmot]

Vatican II is not and has never been a/the problem. The real problem is the fact that V2 was never faithfully implemented. Too many Bishops/Priests implemented their own touches into things and now liturgical abuse is rampant. If the Church (especially in the US) were held accountable and forced to fully implement Vatican II, everyone would be better off.

At this point it would take “Vatican III” to undo the damage.
Or, just copying Trent onto new paper and calling it Vatican III!

 

[Goya]

My Catholic faith has been challenged very often, especially by atheists and protestants and I am very grateful for CF for strenthening my faith. But recently I have been confronted with “catholics” claiming Vatican II being a heresy.
They are pointing to a freemason conspiracy that infiltrated the Church, influencing the outcome of the papal election making it invalid and everything following from it including Vatican II.

I actually feel very challenged, so I was wondering if anyone here has experience on this issue and could give me some advice.

Thanks!

“…they will know we are Christians, by our love…by our love…yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love…”.

Here’s my $.02–I’ll try to boil years of journeying, down to a few small lines.

First, I’m a cradle Cat., married to an evangelical protestant.

I began flirting with protestantism, as a result of meeting my wife.

The thing that brought me back (if you will)–or rather, which confirmed me in my Catholic faith–it really came down to one thing, that set the Catholic Church apart from any other variant of Christianity–the Saints (many of whom are also Doctors of the Church).

Look at the lives of the Saints; beginning with the ECF’s.

First, what they taught–was consistent with what the Church maintains today (e.g.–St. Ireneus, St. Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, St. Isidore…through St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, and such (including many popes);

…and secondly, later Saints, and how they lived their lives–e.g. St. Anthony of Padua, St. Dominic, St. Bernard of Clairveaux, St Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa of Lisseaux…(again, including many popes).

All very Catholic, deep in Marian devotion, deeply committed to the Eucharist.

I saw nothing even remotely comparable, amongst our separated brethren.

Now, with that background in mind, I ask you this:

What do you think of Saint/Pope John Paul II, the Great?

St. Theresa of Calcutta?

Both were strong proponents of Vat. II.

Do they strike you as Freemasons? Freemason puppets? Agents?

Additionally, the Catechism echoes the Vat II docs often; it’s practically a recap of the Vat II docs; a symphony of the Vat II docs, with various docs from prior councils, and docs from the ECF’s. Seamlessly consistent.

I don’t see where or how, masonic beliefs fit anywhere in that context or framework, while the Vat II docs fit seamlessly with the Church’s 2,000 year history.

FWIW.

 

[grannymh]

The “Freemason conspiracy” probably refers to the heresy of Modernism. See the syllabus of Errors for a condemnation of specific ideas of Modernism.

Vatican 2 refers to the documents promulgated by the Second Vatican Council. Interpreted correctly, they are in line with traditional Catholic teaching. Misinterpreted, they can be twisted into falling in line with Modernism.

I am floored that someone would respond to my silly post. For you :flowers: Thank you.
Because I am casually studying the 21st century form of the Modernism heresy, I know I need to go back to the 1907 Encyclical Pascendi Dominic Gregis. However, your suggestion of the Syllabus of Errors looks like an easier read. Again, thank you.

What I was suggesting is what would be called in my old neighborhood as “put up or shut up”. Instead of debating Vatican II heresy or conspiracy, aim for the jugular which would be the person reciting the specific elements of the Vatican II conspiracy/heresy Catholic doctrine properly defined and duly declared as guided by the Holy Spirit according to the promise of Jesus Christ in chapter 14, Gospel of John and according to the protocol of the visible Catholic Church on earth. That should end the conversation in favor of the Catholic defender who can then smile and walk away.

 

[Prayer_Warrior]

I don’t know much about this group of “catholics”. Who do they think the Pope is and how was he validly elected? Is there another “valid” group of cardinals in their group that elected their Pope? I’m truly curious…

 

[Joe_5859]

I don’t know much about this group of “catholics”. Who do they think the Pope is and how was he validly elected? Is there another “valid” group of cardinals in their group that elected their Pope? I’m truly curious…

They are called sedevacantists because they believe the chair of Peter is vacant.

There are a few really fringe groups who have taken it upon themselves to elect a new Pope. As far as I know, most sedevacantists don’t do this.

I’m not sure how these groups will press on after some more years have passed and the only ordained clergy left are those ordained after Vatican II.

 

[MacQ]

My Catholic faith has been challenged very often, especially by atheists and protestants and I am very grateful for CF for strenthening my faith. But recently I have been confronted with “catholics” claiming Vatican II being a heresy.
They are pointing to a freemason conspiracy that infiltrated the Church, influencing the outcome of the papal election making it invalid and everything following from it including Vatican II.

I actually feel very challenged, so I was wondering if anyone here has experience on this issue and could give me some advice.

Thanks!

I’d ask them to read all of the documents (16 of them) that came from VII and point out specifically where the “heresy” is.

 

[Thorns]

Jesus gave Charge to Peter and his successors to hand on the faith and protect it.

How do we know that we are Peter’s successors? For 300 years we had no successors to Peter, seems like the lineage was broken there.

 

[Goya]

How do we know that we are Peter’s successors? For 300 years we had no successors to Peter, seems like the lineage was broken there.

Huh??? What are you talking about???

Are you thinking about the Bible?

Because we know who the last 265 successors to the Chair of St. Peter were, going back to St. Peter himself, and up to Pope Francis.

 

[MarkaurelE]

Thanks so far for all your responses and advices, very helpful!

 

[Genesis315]

The Church teaches that the legitimacy of the Roman Pontiff and the legitimacy of an ecumenical Council are dogmatic facts–ie they are truths that are not revealed themselves, but are necessary to know revealed truth and defend it. The Church must be infallible with regards to these too. This document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith teaches this:
ewtn.com/library/curia/cdfadtu.htm

But here is a theology manual from the 1800s explaining why this must be the case:
Hunter's Outlines of Dogmatic Theology Vol 1:

First, then, the Church is infallible when she declares what person holds the office of Pope; for if the person of the Pope were uncertain, it would be uncertain what Bishops were in communion with the Pope; but according to the Catholic faith, as will be proved hereafter, communion with the Pope is a condition for the exercise of the function of teaching by the body of Bishops (n. 208); if then the. uncertainty could not be cleared up, the power of teaching could not be exercised, and Christ’s promise (St. Matt. xxviii. 20; and n. 199, II.) would be falsified, which is impossible.

This argument is in substance the same as applies to other cases of dogmatic facts. Also, it affords an answer to a much vaunted objection to the claims of the Catholic Church, put forward by writers who think that they find proof in history that the election of a certain Pope was simoniacal and invalid, and that the successor was elected by Cardinals who owed their own appointment to the simoniacal intruder; from which it is gathered that the Papacy has been vacant ever since that time. A volume might be occupied if we attempted to expose all the frailness of the argument which is supposed to lead to this startling conclusion; but it is enough to say that if the Bishops agree in recognizing a certain man as Pope, they are certainly right, for otherwise the body of the Bishops would be separated from their head, and the Divine constitution of the Church would be ruined. In just the same way the infallibility extends to declaring that a certain Council is or is not ecumenical.

Finally, if there are any particular points of the Church’s doctrine that someone says is heresy and you need help understanding it, please don’t hesitate to ask on these forums. Defending Catholic doctrine is kind of the point here!

 

[Genesis315]

I am floored that someone would respond to my silly post. For you :flowers: Thank you.
Because I am casually studying the 21st century form of the Modernism heresy, I know I need to go back to the 1907 Encyclical Pascendi Dominic Gregis. However, your suggestion of the Syllabus of Errors looks like an easier read. Again, thank you.

You definitely need to read Pascendi, not the Syllabus, on Mondernism. Here’s a good summation of this heresy as defined by Pope St. Pius X by the Catholic dictionary:
catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=34926

If you’re interested in the problems of 19th century Liberalism in various European contexts, then the Syllabus is what you should read. You also need to read the Syllabus the right way. The Syllabus is not meant to be treated like an encyclical to the universal Church. Many of the propositions in fact refer to very particular, local issues. It is an index of many papal documents and allocutions and points to those sources–that’s where its authority lies and those original texts are what you need to read to understand what each error actually means.

The Pope specifically chose to not personally condemn them as a list of errors. The old Catholic Encyclopedia article on it gives the history of its drafting, noting how the drafting commission put it together:
CE:

The commission took the wording of the errors to be condemned from the official declarations of Pius IX and appended to each of the eighty theses a reference indicating its content, so as to determine the true meaning and the theological value of the subjects treated.

newadvent.org/cathen/14368b.htm

Here’s a very helpful letter from Bl. John Henry Newman explaining the authority of the Syllabus and giving examples of propositions that are often distorted.

newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section7.html

An excerpt:
Bl. John Henry Newman:

But to return:—the Syllabus then has no dogmatic force; it addresses us, not in its separate portions, but as a whole, and is to be received from the Pope by an act of obedience, not of faith, that obedience being shown by having recourse to the original and authoritative documents, (Allocutions and the like,) to which it pointedly refers. Moreover, when we turn to those documents, which are authoritative, we find the Syllabus cannot even be called an echo of the Apostolic Voice; for, in matters in which wording is so important, it is not an exact transcript of the words of the Pope, in its account of the errors condemned,—just as is natural in what is professedly an index for reference.

Some people make the Syllabus into a superdogma while also distorting its meaning, and then use it to bash the Church. Newman was fighting this.

Bl. Pius IX himself praised similar explanations, like the famous pamphlet of Bishop Dupanloup, and after all the misunderstandings of the Syllabus, wrote in a letter to Frédéric Alfred Pierre, Vicomte de Falloux du Coudray that the Syllabus was admittedly “raw meat, needing to be cooked and seasoned.”

 

[Prayer_Warrior]

They are called sedevacantists because they believe the chair of Peter is vacant.

There are a few really fringe groups who have taken it upon themselves to elect a new Pope. As far as I know, most sedevacantists don’t do this.

I’m not sure how these groups will press on after some more years have passed and the only ordained clergy left are those ordained after Vatican II.

Interesting. Thanks for filling me in. When their “branch” withers and dies due to lack of clergy and no apostolic succession, perhaps they will re-think their position.

 

[Michael_Francis]

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