Wanting to understand the pre-Vatican II Church

[jeanannemarie]

I am very tuned in to the info being presented in this thread. I grew up in a very luke warm Protestant environment, graduating from HS in the 70-s. This is helping me to see the large, confusing picture of what happened during those times. The culture seemed insane to me as a teenager. I thank the OP for starting this thread. Please keep talking, I am all ears, oops, I mean eyes.

 

[Onegin]

Thank you. A close friend of mine came from a poor family. His parents struggled but they got him into Catholic School. Ho owns a business today. My family was only a little better. My mom took odd jobs in the neighborhood, gardening, and so on, to pick up a little money. We did without at times regarding certain things, but we got a Catholic education. People are not used to sacrificing. People are not used to doing without. People who are Catholics need to understand that sacrifices are sometimes necessary.

Peace,
Ed

Thanks for your posts, Ed. I really love hearing about how things were before the “cultural revolution” began.

My grandparents were Polish immigrants in a situation much the same way as you described. From the stories my mother told me about growing up in the 40’s and 50’s, the neighbourhoods were often divided according to ethnic background and the “mother tongue” (whatever it might be) was always spoken at home. Similarly, each neighbourhood would have it’s own Parish with a Priest that was usually a native of that country. It also sounded like each neighbourhood was very close-knit, and most of the businesses were run by friends or extended family members.

I truly believe things were better back then even though I wasn’t alive to experience it. I grew up in the late 80’s so by the time I was a kid we were already exposed to pretty much everything out there (though, fortunately, the internet didn’t come along in our home until much later). Nevertheless, when I watch the TV shows and movies and read about that era I can easily see that the culture was much more innocent and less jaded than it is today.

Regarding Catholic education, I also think much has changed. I volunteered to help our local parish with the after-school confirmation programme but when I arrived at the “orientation meeting” the nuns told us that we can’t really teach the kids anything substantial because they’ll just reject it, so we should just have fun and be glad if they learn anything. They said that most children are raised in a lukewarm Catholic homes and know nothing about the Faith. However, even the Catholic school they attend here in England doesn’t make much of an effort so the kids do not have a catechism class in school. The Confirmation programme is entirely voluntary so most will not choose to attend because they don’t even know or care what Confirmation is.

 

[edwest2]

To Onegin,

Our neighborhood was mostly Polish but other ethnic groups lived there as well. I felt no differently toward them. German, Ukrainian, Italian, White Russian, it didn’t matter. When my parents came to the US, learning English was job one. Yes, the Mother Tongue was spoken at home and certain traditions were followed.

What I call, the poisoning occurred very gradually. At first, we were told we needed to be free, to be liberated. That the ideas of the Radicals would lead to some sort of improvements for everyone. We gave them benefit of the doubt, but we were wrong to do that in most cases. We were too naive about some of these ‘new’ ideas.

By the time underground comix appeared in the late 1960s, what did they show? Perverted sex and depictions of ‘drug trips.’ The so-called Summer of Love was not about love, it was about sex. All I heard was that Catholics were sexually repressed. Apparently, normal life and getting married no longer mattered to these people.

Some of the worst said, “We’re gonna burn this country down.” And in a sense, they did. They encouraged people to satisfy the flesh. “Hey man. If it feels good, do it.” People became addicted to drugs or porn and wasted a lot of their lives on it. Some became dealers.

One day, we’re watching I Love Lucy, and not much later, Dallas, and after that, NYPD Blue, and it just kept getting more sexual, there was more profanity and graphic imagery.

How did the comedian Red Skelton end his shows? “Good night and God bless.”

Peace,
Ed

 

[brotherhrolf]

Catholicism will eventually unite various ethnic groups. New Orleans received a large number of Cuban refugees in 1960 but they did not maintain their ethnic identity. New Orleans and Havana had long historic connections. Both were Catholic and had very similar cuisines and cultures. We could easily absorb refugees from Haiti and they would feel at home. At the very least, French is still spoken here.

We have a significant population of Vietnamese refugees both here and down in New Orleans. We have newly ordained Vietnamese priests serving in the diocese and not necessarily in the two Vietnamese parishes we have here or in the multiple parishes down in New Orleans. We are all Catholic and we all love food.

I can’t talk about the experiences of y’all up north. I certainly was astounded by what I saw in Chicago when I was stationed there in the early 70s. Give it a half century or so and you will find that being Catholic is more important than ethnic identity.

 

[Anthony88]

I am very tuned in to the info being presented in this thread. … I thank the OP for starting this thread. Please keep talking, I am all ears, oops, I mean eyes.

Yes, this discussion is extremely captivating, as it is that of living historians. Praise God that there are older Catholics who are not shying away from the reality of the changes (not just liturgical) that went on in and outside the Church before and after Vatican II. And, today, not like the decades before, traditional Catholics advocating the rich heritage of the traditions of the Church and her culture, are not so sorely persecuted by often very misguided Catholics. Who, since the late 1960s oppressed other Catholics who wanted to hold to the old - timeless ways.
One perfect example of this, which a very close family friend of the age of seventy lived through - was the solid and relentless persecution many traditional Catholics received because they attended the Latin Mass in which it was well spread at the time that the Latin Mass was banned, abolished, succeeded. And so all those ‘traditional’ Catholics were classed as renegades, rebels, outcasts. This lie that the Latin Mass was banned perpetuated even into the late 1990s and into the new millennia. And what did Holy Mother the Church have to say in 2007, through our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI? It was never abrogated.

There is the argument going around that places no blame on the Second Vatican Council for the current crisis, and state of the Church since those times, and rather seeks to explain it in a purely secular, social and cultural dimension. However, it is precisely the decay of the moral dimension - so to speak - festering within the Church - but not from her - that has allowed the surge of the moral decay outside the Church. As the Church was a true bulwark prior to Vat II, until it’s defences were transformed into more of a door stopper, allowing those underground movements to walk with in freely, and roam without. The fruits are undeniably depressing, for all generations, not just the one’s who witnessed it first hand.

The underground elements, I call them for lack of better words, were not simply rumblings of uneasy Clergy men in Europe, but hiding within the ranks of movers and shakers were the enemies of the Catholic Church herself. The Liberals, being also modernists, humanists, secularists one and the same, communists, socialists, masons, atheists, feminists - a whole mixed bag including Protestants and Jews who are not in the same class as the aforementioned. Now why were they all there, because they knew both historically, from experience and from common ‘tactical’ sense that they could not advance their own cause or agenda unless that bulwark of faith was disintegrated. Where the obstacle was eventually demolished or transformed into a door stopper for their own personal use. And so we find many of the dissenters within the Church, heretics and borderline heretics and apostates being sheltered within the Church herself. True wolves in sheep’s clothing. What did Vatican II have to do with this? It merely aided to APPEAR as if opening the window - so to speak - that allowed eventually other Clergyman within the Church to advance in their secret agenda to change the Church to their liking and to the liking of other hidden non-Catholic elements, using Vatican II as a perfect scapegoat, whilst using later meetings and congregations to formalise all the dirty work.
Eventually allowing the smoke of Satan to enter as Pope Paul VI lamented. This is a reality. Sad but true, from the Holy Father Himself, in that very time in which we are now discussing.
So whilst what was said and stated in the Second Vatican Council documents are good, holy, recommendable and “praiseworthy” in themselves, what stands to be much of the problem was that which was not stated or said that should have been in order to prevent the likes of what followed. Covering all bases. Manning all stations, in other words. Or perhaps the Magisterium, clergy themselves should have done this, as opposed to expecting it from the Council.
And so that’s why the world is in greater moral chaos today, not so much because of the world herself, but because the Light within the world has dimmed, allowing the darkness to gain greater ground. And that is why Our Blessed Mother in her apparitions as Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of La Salette and Our Lady of Good Success, laments specifically our times, our generations of all times and generations in the history of the Church and mankind. One need not have extraordinary wisdom to know this, it is now a historical fact open to debate and reflection.
But Happy times are ahead, and Our Blessed Mother “Our Lady of Good Success” (Church Approved in the 17th century who prophesied distinctly about the 20th Century), calls this post-revolutionary time in the Church as being that of “RESTORATION” Can you believe that? Not even many priests or Bishops would even mutter the words restoration as it confesses the reality of deformation. But that from the Holy Queen of Heaven herself.
And on a good note: She says, “In the End, My Immaculate Heart will triumph”. Praise God. So there is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel.

There’s a video series called Passion of the Catholic Church, which I’ve seen and … well … puts this whole scenario into a visual history of this discussion:
youtube.com/watch?v=UZsOnkTk1RI
There are 14 parts worth watching, but **a WARNING that it may be distressing for some Catholics. Seriously distressing - as the truth is shocking at times. I don’t exaggerate at all.
**

 

[reggieM]

I don’t **think **

 

[edwest2]

To reggieM,

I think Catholic schools did not get harder to get into as the 1960s progressed. We had our first African-American student around the end of the 1960s if I recall correctly. And my friend from a poor family got in, even though his family had to do without to get him there.

My fellow Catholics were presented with something they didn’t quite understand. A cultural shift that appeared in magazines, in underground comic books and underground newspapers. Being well educated and curious, I picked up some of these. What was I introduced to?

In the underground newspapers like the Ann Arbor Sun and the Detroit paper, The Fifth Estate. Dope is cool. The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers - a bunch of drug dealing, dope smoking, pill popping perverts. Anarchy is cool. Eat the rich!

Underground comix. It’s a shame Robert Crumb gave his drawing talent to perverted and disgusting ideas.

National Lampoon. An illo drawn by Robert Crumb showing a cartoon rabbit. Text: Be animalistic. Go all the way!

At first a few of my friends tried dope, then a few more. The dam didn’t fully break until the 1990s.

I read a post on another forum that went like this: “Don’t you wish that porn could be dirty again? I mean, you know, like it used to?”

I remember a neighbor threw out a stack of Playboys in the late 1960s. My mom and another mom made sure that us kids couldn’t get our hands on them.

The culture degraded in steps, gradually.

Pope Benedict is telling us about Indifference. That state where everybody says, “Hey. What’s the big deal?” About anything?

Peace,
Ed

 

[reggieM]

The only “permission” needed to read any of these books would be the permission of one’s parents & one didn’t exactly ask. By the time we were adults, we could choose for ourselves whether our faith could withstand the reading of a book filled with heresy, apostasy or the glorification of immorality.

 

[reggieM]

Yes, but the thing is that Catholicism is built on culture and itself, it creates cultures. It was built on the ancient cultures of Rome, Athens and Jeruasalem. Then it created the culture of Europe (East and West) – and each of the national cultures in those countries. Catholicism shaped the local songs, traditional dances – and transformed more ancient pagan festivals and symbols and made them Catholic. Food, festivals, songs, stories and pasttimes were shaped by Catholicism.

Now, when you merge several ethnic cultures into one American melting pot, there can either be a watered-down mixture of the national cultures (Perogies and meatballs …?), a wall of separation to protect ethnic cultures (Lithuanian parishes, Italian parishes, Vietnamese parishes, etc), or a dismissal of ethnic culture in favor of something American.

But what would be some kind of American culture that all could share?

For us here in the North, many times it’s actually Protestant Christian culture. That’s considered “American”. So, instead of Italian festivals or Polish Corpus Christi processions – we might have a Southern Barbeque or a Chicken Dinner – like the American (English) Protestant churches do.

That would not be wrong or bad or unheard of because the Catholic Faith has done that for centuries. Certainly, in Mexico – the Spanish Catholic culture has mixed with the indigenous native Mexicans – and a new style came about. But in a big way, it’s ethnically Spanish and pretty much pure Spanish in that way.

In the U.S. – we have so many ethnic groups that some believe the safest way to mix everyone is to have something very bland – non-offensive. So, all of the national-ethnic qualities go away and its colorless.

Yes, we can be united in the Catholic truth. But a true bond of the people comes from the culture which is shaped by the Mass and the parish life.

For now, we borrow a lot of Protestant culture. That, obviously, becomes a problem when it’s actually Protestant belief that enters into our worship or mentality. But it’s hard to separate the culture from belief.

Right now, though, we don’t have an alternative. There’s traditional European culture, which is fading (except for Polish parishes around here), or some kind of American culture. But there’s no “American Catholic” culture that I know of. Maybe there will be some day and we won’t even know about it – it will just become what it is.

I guess the only thing I can point to now is not very flattering - but something like Bingo is distinctly Catholic, non-ethnic Catholic “culture”. Maybe Pancake breakfasts would be one thing, but even those are not as popular any more.

 

[CradleCath]

CradleCath;6233345:

I hope this can be of help to CradleCath who is here claiming that no permission was needed to read books placed on the Index and that people could “choose for themselves” whether to do it. This, supposedly, is the pre-Vatican II idea – coming from a gentleman who claims to be greatly educated in the Faith.

It is 11:00PM. as I’m reading your post & I won’t be able to answer it all tonight, as I’m tired. I’ll try tomorrow, but I have a brother who is terminally ill & I don’t really know what each day will bring right now. However, I do want to let you know that I’m not a “gentleman”. If you’d read my message carefully, you would know that, as I spoke of the nuns who taught me in high school & referred to us as “young ladies” who were old enough to learn without outside motivation.

I was going to search the 1917 Code of Canon Law, but it was even easier just to consult the Catholic Encyclopedia (Index of Prohibited Books

):

It seems to me that you are quite a “rule bound” Catholic…very uptight…& perhaps you’ve been told that Catholicism before the council was the same. Not so.Yes, the Index contained some books that were anti-Catholic & I believe dangerous. It would not take Canon Law to persuade me not to read them. If they were filled, as some on the Index were, …with heresy, apostasy & glorification of evil…I would not have read them. I appreciated the Church publishing this index because it guided me. However, though Catcher in the Rye was on the list…I DID read that. You must remember that the nuns taught people to think for themselves.

Just a sidebar: When anyone questioned them on a teaching of the Church, they were thrilled. Why? Because:

1. They KNEW that the Church stood on solid ground.
2. They knew that if these questions were raised in class where they could be answered correctly, it was much better than letting doubts linger in one’s mind…or worse yet…asking such questions of people who didn’t really have the answers.

You must also remember the ‘primacy of conscience’ law as it was taught by St. Thomas in the Summa. While this principle has been greatly abused during the last 40 years, it still holds true…with the condition, of course, that one’s conscience is properly formed. I believe that mine was & is & I give the credit for that to my Catholic parents & the good nuns who gave their lives to teaching people like me.

It seems that my post has totally upset you. I’ll try to answer it in more depth tomorrow.

Ok, that’s too bad. This proves that Cradle Cath doesn’t know what he is talking about. Again, we can notice that it doesn’t say that reading is forbidden, “except if you get permission from your parents”, or that you “could choose for ourselves whether our faith could withstand” it.

Thanks for being a living example of why our bishops and clergy decided to change the laws – obviously the pre-Vatican II education was completely false on this point.

Let’s look again:

With regard to the Congregation of the Index, however, Pius X, when reorganizing the Roman Curia by the Constitution “Sapienti consilio” (29 June, 1908), decreed as follows:

Henceforth **it will be the task of this Sacred Congregation **
​

not only to examine carefully the books denounced to it, to prohibit them if necessary, and to grant permission for reading forbidden books, but also to supervise, ex officio, books that are being published, and to pass sentence on such as deserve to be prohibited. Its further task is to remind the bishops of their sacred duty to combat the publication of pernicious writings and give information about them to the Apostolic See, in accordance with the Constitution Officiorum ad munerum of 25 January, 1897 (Acta S. Sedis, XLI, 432).​

Oh well - so you were totally wrong about that. I’m not surprised.

We can see also, that one is not permitted to “publish” these writings.

So, when an Catholic apologist copies and pastes paragraphs from Calvin’s Institutes – he is publishing text from a book that was formerly forbidden. That would have been a grave sin.

But with the freedom granted by Vatican II (which Cradle Catholic assumes and takes advantage of without even realizing it), we can study the problems in Calvin’s theology and be more prepared to counteract it.

Now, we might say that Cradle Catholic, since he was trained in the pre-Vatican II Church, still knows more about this topic than anyone else.

Ok, perhaps I’ll follow Cradle Catholic’s advice. And where will it lead? To heaven?

Hmmm. Perhaps not

The above is pretty much just a personal attack on me & your thoughts could easily have been phrased in a kinder way. This last sentence infers that I’m leading people into hell. Shame on you.

 

[reggieM]

However, I do want to let you know that I’m not a “gentleman”. If you’d read my message carefully, you would know that, as I spoke of the nuns who taught me in high school & referred to us as “young ladies” who were old enough to learn without outside motivation.

I was wrong there, and I apologize for that. I also try to be a traditional Catholic gentleman, and as such I don’t think it’s fitting to argue with a lady in public. With that, I appreciate your thoughts, but I will also refrain from continuing this discourse. Personally, I summarize your views as “you had to be there to understand it” … thus, direct quotes from historical or legislative documents end up as meaningless because “that’s not the way we did it”. I know this because I’ve argued with many pre-Vatican II Catholics and they say the same thing – even though they contradict themselves on “how we did it”. I lived through the changes from the pre-to-post VII era also, so I saw what my elders did and I was taught in a Catholic school by pre-VII nuns (who became post-VII nuns as I watched).

So, as I said before, I don’t think it’s right for me to try to summarize or give sweeping judgements on the pre-VII era (which gave us the Novus Ordo, Vatican II, changes in law, discipline, liturgy, spirituality – the wreckovators, dissenters, changers and destroyers) because I don’t have that kind of insight.

I know many who have a love and nostalgia for that time in their past. As such, any criticism of “their era” is seen as a personal attack. They defend their memories because it is personal.

I can understand and respect that. I don’t agree with it, but only a callous and heartless person (and I hope I am not that) would want to hurt the happy memories of one’s youth. I would leave it alone if it didn’t end up with false conclusions about the good ol’ days which are spread publicly. If it was just a quiet and peaceful rememberance of the past, with equal respect for **the very same Church we have today ** (because it is the same Church, in spite of some changed forms and practices) – that would be different, in my view.

Thanks again for your thoughts. Again, I apologize for mistaking your identity and not reading your post carefully enough.

Best regards.

 

[reggieM]

Lawyers, who were given lots of money, went to judges and fought for these things. And the judges gave it to them. In the mid-1980s, pervert musician Frank Zappa went before the government to argue against any form of censorship against music.

He was an apostate Catholic who caused a lot of damage. Again, a “cultural warrior” who came from a traditional Catholic ethnic background and then left the faith and tried to secularize and sexualize the culture.

Some will argue that the importing of primative African musical styles into American pop music had a very big effect on morals also. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but I tend to agree with it. The obscene sounds and messages that were popularized came through music for youth.

 

[Seamus_L]

Society didn’t corrupt our churches, they were corrupted from within. Once we were no longer a strong counterweight against a perverse society, sin had it’s way.
I'll say it again. It wasen't Hugh Hefner,Margaret Sanger, Dr Spock, Timothy Leary, the Beatles or Che Guevara that caused the problem, it was kooky priests who believed the church had to change with the times or become irrelevant.

 

[malphono]

Society didn’t corrupt our churches, they were corrupted from within. Once we were no longer a strong counterweight against a perverse society, sin had it’s way.

I’ll say it again. It wasen’t Hugh Hefner,Margaret Sanger, Dr Spock, Timothy Leary, the Beatles or Che Guevara that caused the problem, it was kooky priests who believed the church had to change with the times or become irrelevant.

Well, for once we more-or-less agree. It’s quite similar to what I said a few days ago in another [thread=421697]thread[/thread] in this forum.

 

[edwest2]

Society didn’t corrupt our churches, they were corrupted from within. Once we were no longer a strong counterweight against a perverse society, sin had it’s way.

                               I'll say it again. It wasen't Hugh Hefner,Margaret Sanger, Dr Spock, Timothy Leary, the Beatles or Che Guevara that caused the problem, it was kooky priests who believed the church had to change with the times or become irrelevant.

Oh please. Stop the nonsense, OK? If you don’t believe me just pick up a copy of The Marketing of Evil.

Do you remember the Church collection for the local strip club or Adult Bookstore? How about the Catholic Supreme Court in the Roe v Wade ruling for Abortion?

I’ll say it again – My loving, compassionate and naive Catholic community listened to people who were lying to us. We couldn’t assume they were lying. Why? Because we were Catholics.

Nobody decided to take The Pill because their priest preached a sermon saying it was OK. Nobody went to the local Head Shop to buy a ‘roach clip’ to smoke their joint because a priest told them it was OK.

And nobody went to the Local Adult Bookstore because a priest told them it was OK. Got it?

So who does that leave? Highly paid lawyers who went to the courts and the judges who said: OK. Open up your strip club, and your Adult Bookstores and legalize abortions. Go ahead. It’s legal.

My country was corrupted by criminals posing as the Counterculture. Organized crime was behind making dope cool and legalizing graphic pornography. Right now, in Detroit, a local strip club owner is saying he will spend millions to oppose proposed restrictions on his business. Are there any priests in his corner? No. But those millions will go to lawyers who will have no conscience concerns about taking his money.

Peace,
Ed

 

[CradleCath]

I was wrong there, and I apologize for that. I also try to be a traditional Catholic gentleman, and as such I don’t think it’s fitting to argue with a lady in public. With that, I appreciate your thoughts, but I will also refrain from continuing this discourse. Personally, I summarize your views as “you had to be there to understand it” … thus, direct quotes from historical or legislative documents end up as meaningless because “that’s not the way we did it”. I know this because I’ve argued with many pre-Vatican II Catholics and they say the same thing – even though they contradict themselves on “how we did it”. I lived through the changes from the pre-to-post VII era also, so I saw what my elders did and I was taught in a Catholic school by pre-VII nuns (who became post-VII nuns as I watched).

So, as I said before, I don’t think it’s right for me to try to summarize or give sweeping judgements on the pre-VII era (which gave us the Novus Ordo, Vatican II, changes in law, discipline, liturgy, spirituality – the wreckovators, dissenters, changers and destroyers) because I don’t have that kind of insight.

 

[littlequestion]

I was a little older than you indicate during Vatican II.

Porn was difficult to get. It was usually behind the counter and you had to be 21. A grumpy looking man would give you the once-over if you asked for it. The Legion of Decency was doing great work. I remember some of my favorite science fiction films making reference to God: the Day the Earth Stood Still, Robinson Crusoe on Mars and Forbidden Planet. “The Lord sure makes beautiful planets.”

We would drive along a particular street before Christmas to see the beautiful and elaborate Christmas decorations. We were taught to have respect for all ages. To say hello to everybody. Our neighborhood consisted of families. Divorce was rare. Abortion was rare. There was a Nativity in front of the local City Hall.

Playboy was pushing the Playboy Philosophy and it was all about sex. Their Sex and the Cinema celebrated more and more sexuality in movies. We were against it. We were told to stay away from it. Catholic girls were told that their skirts had to cover their knees. Catholic boys like me had to wear a tie and a suit jacket in school. The more casually dressed students at the local public school threatened to get into fights with us.

Television reflected our standards. A man in a suit and tie would appear to assure viewers that the Standards and Practices Department watched every program to make sure they “were suitable for the entire family.” The TV switched off after the 11 o’clock news, but not before showing a beautiful silver jet flying through the sky while a voice over read a poem that ended with “And I touched the face of God.”

A Catholic was in the White House in 1963. I saw President Kennedy pass in a motorcade on Michigan Avenue.

I have a copy of a booklet titled The 2nd Vatican Council, published in 1962. It outlined the issues facing the Church of the day.

In the meantime, a full-scale assault was being planned against the Church. Vatican II ended up as the scapegoat.

See this cover story from TIME magazine from 1970.

time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19700223,00.html

• cont. -

I was living in a completely insular Catholic parish when Kennedy was assasinated, as were most Catholics that I know of. We did not worship with, work with, or go to school with any other people. We may as well have been today’s Amish in many ways.

When Kennedy was assasinated there was a wave of talk that “they” were out to kill all Catholics. I was at that 11-yr-old stage of being on the fringe of adult conversations without participating, just beginning to watch news, etc. All the adults in my world were Catholic.

Within a few years the talk was more centered on “why is the Bishop closing the schools?” and we were focused on how we could continue. I went to public high school, and also at that time our young men in high school were getting shipped over to VietNam, (the draft is not anything like today’s military in its effect on young lives) and our ethnic neighborhoods were getting burned out by obscure interests. Looking back, I recognize that we were facing ethnic cleansing.

The same process that the Clintons taught us to think of when genocide was going on oversea, but it was going on over here, and still is. Martin Luther King was assasinated because he was leading both Black and White. Our parochial school teachers were down there in the summer time on those freedom rides. Our mission collections were going to that fight. We are who Kennedy and King represented.

VatII happened during a genuine American Civil WAR.

Black Americans recognized abortion for what it is, genocide, very early and tried to protest (this was before Roe v Wade) but no-one listened. The nascent connection between Black Christians and White Ethnic Catholics was broken. VatII was essentially taken over by the element in the Church that was most sympathetic to WASP culture, and with absolutely no evil intent, it fell into their hands just at the time we were in fact in a state of actual civil war in this country.

A lot of it centered in Massachusetts.

So the original quesiton of this thread is “How to find out about pre-VatII Church” and from an American point of view, it is more than the Liturgy, but our strength during all those times was in fact the Liturgy. Our ethnicities were united in the Latin Mass when only the homily was in the local language, and our sense of being united as one people (one Church) left us with all kinds of freedom within our neighborhoods. But that was when our rights to live in neighborhoods as householders, and as families, were unquestioned, and our Catholic culture of celibate adults (not just religious, but the maiden-aunts and bachelor-uncles, etc) still existed.

If we get the Latin Liturgy back Catholics around the world will be united again. The rest of our culture will follow. We don’t even need it to exclude the modern Mass, we only need it to be available in every parish.

 

[reggieM]

Cradle Cath – I said that I was going to refrain from arguing, but you tempted me too much here.
I’ll just offer a couple of comments that I hope might be of help.

1st – when posting to a quote, put your text outside of the quote marks because otherwise your respondent cannot refer to them (I copy-pasted yours here )…

One thing I must address here is the fact that the pre-Vatican II era 1940-1960 did not give us the Novus Ordo, wreckovation, etc.

Well, we disagree. The pre-Vatican II era gave us all of the priests, bishops, theologians, liturgists, seminary instructors, pastors and religious who created Vatican II, created and implemented and promoted and taught and offered the Novus Ordo, and instituted the changes in church buildings that followed for decades later. They were all trained in the pre-Vatican II schools, by PVII sisters and priests and laity. They all attended the Tridentine Mass (most, exclusively). The theologians were all taught in the Latin language, from traditional dogmatic books. Where else do you think the wreckovators and dissidents came from? Some other church? Some other time period? Some other educational system?

No – they all came from the Pre-Vatican II Catholic era. So, using your logic – the Tridentine Mass caused the Novus Ordo. It’s pretty simple.

That happened when a handful of Western European (Austria, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, mainly) Theologians

As above – all were pre-Vatican II.

were allowed

by bishops consecrated pre-VII in the Tridentine Rite.

to spread their dissidence through the open windows of Vatican II.

Windows opened by them.

Karl Rahner, & those who ageed with his “anonymous Christian” & “cosmic Christ” Theology were among those who called for the modernization of actual dogma.

What era do you think Karl Rahner came from? Do you think he was trained in a Novus Ordo seminary?

I am trying to understand why you will not admit that Vatican II has had disastrous results.

In order to prove your premise, you have to draw a direct link from Vatican II to disasterous results. I have already drawn the link from the Tridentine Mass to the Novus Ordo – it can also be drawn to dissident theology. Why will you not admit that Vatican II was created by pre-Vatican II bishops and priests? They are to blame for it. Therefore, the pre-Vatican II era is the cause of the disasterous results. Again, it’s very simple.

The figures, re Mass attendance, the Sacrament of Confession, vocations, the loss of our priests & nuns, etc. etc. AD INFINITUM. have been posted here many times. Still there are those who will stick their heads in the sand & say “the council had nothing to do with the decline”.

It’s not enough to post figures. You need to show the direct result of Vatican II texts and Mass decline, etc.

 

[edwest2]

Vatican II had nothing to do with the decline as the reasons behind the Catholic Exodus of priests and nuns is outlined in this TIME magazine cover story from 1970.

time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19700223,00.html

No, Catholics were too trusting. In my community, total strangers appeared with their Peace symbols and love beads. “Peace, man. Stop the war.” I could go along with that.

And there were always dissidents in the Church but Humanae Vitae brought protests from a few priests:

catholicnewsagency.com/news/former_encyclical_protestor_signs_humanae_vitae_pledge/

No. The perverts, the radical feminists and the makers of birth control pills had to launch their attack. They sent in the Hippies and the lawyers, to get the OK – the consent – of a naive Catholic community. We trusted their expertise, we respected their authority. After all, we respected the authority and expertise of all the professionals around us. They were not just our teachers but our role models.

Nothing after Vatican II caused me to freak out.

What I couldn’t understand was why a few of my Catholic friends now thought (in 1973) that illegal drugs were OK and not harmful. They were brainwashed.

I could not understand why a Catholic classmate ended up living with his girlfriend and having sex with her. Someone told him it was OK. Was it the Church?

I could not understand how and under what circumstances, it was allowed for graphic pornography to be sold in so-called Adult Bookstore. What judge, what lawyer, in good conscience, could allow the sale of images of prostitutes? At the time, I did not know about the cause for adult bookstores suddenly appearing in my neighborhood.

But that’s what they did. It became legal. Laws were changed, not by the Catholic community but by a group of perverts who had the backing of organized crime.

Now, I open the local newspaper and there’s an advice columnist recommending adultery to a man stuck in a loveless (read sexless) marriage.

Whose bright idea was No-Fault Divorce? I opened the newspaper in the 1980s and there were a lot of ads like this: “No kids? $75 and you’re out. Call 800-DIVORCE.” Does this sound to you like some heart-wrenching, emotional, only to be used in emergencies approach to the problem? No! It was about bringing in some quick cash for signing a few papers.

Their hearts were hardened, they succumbed to the ever-present and ever-increasing assault on normal sexual relationships. What average city does not have a lot of strip clubs? I was shocked to hear the number in Texas on Catholic Radio.

Is anyone embarrassed anymore, or ashamed or guilty? Too Many Are Not. If it’s legal, it’s OK.

And movies? In the past, boy meets girl, romance, fall in love and get married. Today. Hop in the sack, and don’t ask questions afterward.

It took 40 years, but the porn industry, the strip club industry, the birth control industry, the non-solution oriented radical feminists and a corrupt judicial system that said OK to vice, brought us to this point.

Peace,
Ed

 

[reggieM]

On a positive note that I forgot to add …

So now, I’m a nostalgic old woman pining for the “good ole days”? I am nostalgic about old-fashioned ice cream sodas & wish that children could still play in their yards without an adult watching them.

I fully agree with you about the things that were much better in the good old days. Nostalgia also can be a very good means for us to remember the past – and we need an ongoing memory of history and tradition.
My concern was with using personal memories as the main source for historical data. We “lived through it” so we do know things – true. Those things were real and we saw it and lived it. True again. But our memories can be so strong about local, personal things that we find it hard to see the bigger historical picture, or to see it objectively. (I’m not claiming that I see it objectively either – but just from a different perspective).

Closing comment, CradleCath – I agree with almost all of your views, and certainly the most important ones in Faith.