What do you think the state of the Church would be if there was no Second Vatican Council?

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So, according to you, what’s the best source for good Catholic news?
 
The article you link to, by Chris Jackson, states at one point:

Although any excommunication that was previously levied against the living bishops of the SSPX has long since been remitted, …

Is that the plain truth? When did it happen?

Please note, I am asking this queston respectfully and in good faith. I have no reason to follow SSPX affairs closely, and I hadn’t heard until now about the remission of the excommunications.
 
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Pope Benedict XVI remitted the excommunications back in 2009.

“On such occasion, the Supreme Pontiff expressed his will to proceed gradually and in reasonable stages down such path and now, with pastoral concern and fatherly mercy, by means of a decree from the Congregation of Bishops dated January 21, 2009, revokes the excommunication applied to the aforementioned Prelates.”

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...communication_of_bishops_ordained_by_lefebvre
 
Thank you, @Ioannes_L. I see that the Jan. 21, 2009, decree issued by the Congregation of Bishops names the four bishops concerned, but says nothing about the excommunication of Bishop Lefebvre himself. Was he, in fact, excommunicated back in 1988, or did that apply only to the four bishops whom he consecrated?

… On the basis of the powers expressly granted to me by the Holy Father Benedict XVI, by virtue of the present Decree I remit the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae incurred by Bishops Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta, and declared by this Congregation on 1 July 1988. At the same time I declare that, as of today’s date, the Decree issued at that time no longer has juridical effect.

Rome, from the Congregation for Bishops, 21 January 2009

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re
*Prefect

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...ops_doc_20090121_remissione-scomunica_en.html
 
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So in a weird way couldn’t the SSPX be classified as “Protestants”? Weird seeing as they are pious about tradition but they do protest the Church’s actions…
 
Well, Benedict XVI couldn’t really lift his excommunication, as he died almost 20 years before.
 
Genesis315 said:
The Church emerged from World War II stronger and more proven and respected than ever, as Ratzinger notes
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Yes, I agree. And it is stronger today than it was then, largely as a result of Vatican 2.

As to John XXIII’s opening speech, while exuberantly optimistic it did not ignore the shadows:
It is easy to discern this reality if we consider attentively the world of today, which is so busy with politics and controversies in the economic order that it does not find time to attend to the care of spiritual reality, with which the Church’s magisterium is concerned. Such a way of acting is certainly not right, and must justly be disapproved. It cannot be denied, however, that these new conditions of modern life have at least the advantage of having eliminated those innumerable obstacles by which, at one time, the sons of this world impeded the free action of the Church…

In this regard, we confess to you that we feel most poignant sorrow over the fact that very many bishops, so dear to us, are noticeable here today by their absence, because they are imprisoned for their faithfulness to Christ, or impeded by other restraints. The thought of them impels us to raise most fervent prayer to God.
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The big problem for the Church that John identifies is this:
In the daily exercise of our pastoral office, we sometimes have to listen, much to our regret, to voices of persons who, though burning with zeal, are not endowed with too much sense of discretion or measure. In these modern times they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin. They say that our era, in comparison with past eras, is getting worse, and they behave as though they had learned nothing from history, which is, none the less, the teacher of life. They behave as though at the time of former Councils everything was a full triumph for the Christian idea and life and for proper religious liberty.
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We have not overcome that problem, I will grant you that.
 
LaudeturIesus said:
Therefore, the Council is solely pastoral (confirmed by Pope Paul VI himself) and therefore is temporary.
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The opposite of pastoral is permanent? I have seen the false dichotomy between “pastoral” and “dogmatic”, but this is a new one.
 
Dovekin said:
We have not overcome that problem, I will grant you that.
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He was addressing the situation in 1962. St. John XXIII, in his speech’s section on optimism, says, “Present indications are that the human family is on the threshold of a new era.” And maybe that was the reasonable reading of the present indications and the “prophets of doom” were paranoid–there were indeed indications for such an optimistic outlook. But as I mentioned, things changed rapidly. Those indicators were gone in less than a decade.

His successor, Paul VI, commented on the common outlook, expressed by his predecessor, and what actually happened: “We believed that after the Council a sunny day would dawn in the history of the Church. But instead that day has proved to be dark, cloudy and stormy – a day of searching and uncertainty.” His words about the “smoke of Satan” entering through a fissure or the Church’s “self-destruction” are well known.
 
Canvas said:
Well, Benedict XVI couldn’t really lift his excommunication, as he died almost 20 years before.
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Technically speaking, I think you’re right, the deceased can’t be in “excommunicated status”, regardless of what they did.

However, they have officially nullified excommunication orders before.
 
But Benedict did not even retroactively lift Lefebvre’s excommunication. He did for the Bishops he consecrated, but not for the ringleader, even if he did die 18 years before.

I wonder if part of that is that Lefebvre promised Cardinal Ratzinger he wouldn’t follow through with the illicit consecrations and then reneged on his word. Of course, lifting Lefbvre’s excommunication, even posthumously, might be read wrong by some as totally legitimizing SSPX before SSPX accepted Rome’s terms.
 
Genesis315 said:
He was addressing the situation in 1962. St. John XXIII, in his speech’s section on optimism, says, “Present indications are that the human family is on the threshold of a new era.” And maybe that was the reasonable reading of the present indications and the “prophets of doom” were paranoid–there were indeed indications for such an optimistic outlook.
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So you think that maybe, at the time of the Council, the situation was one of triumph and anyone who did not recognize it was paranoid. But now all is a disaster and saying that is not paranoia. We need to prophesy doom!

And further, that is in no way like the people John XIII eschewed:
They behave as though at the time of former Councils everything was a full triumph for the Christian idea and life and for proper religious liberty.
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Since Vatican II, we have a lot of writings on Contemplative Prayer and Contemplation.

Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, Basil Pennington, Martin Laird, just to name a few.

Also, the writings that existed before Vatican II, like St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, were now brought to the laity along with works by contemporary authors to help the laity through these works were now available, where before, they were pretty much confined to monasteries and convent libraries.

The majority of Catholics even those who were devote, were not exposed to these works unless they went digging. Most were condition to do novena’s and say the Rosary, which was mostly recited by rote, rather than prayed as St Teresa recommended, i.e. “mental prayer.”

Jim
 
You’re suppose to receive from the minister serving the line you’re in, not go around to avoid him./her.

The minister makes no difference in the sacredness of the Sacrament you’re receiving.

Jim
 
And old artist rendition of saint Christopher, doesn’t make him real.

Also, it wasn’t that the Church forbade devotion to St Christopher, but just that his existence was more legend than fact.

Jim
 
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