What is the "Crisis"?

[mgrfin]

No, the Holy Spirit didn’t take a vacation, but an unholy spirit certainly made its presence known in the so-called “spirit of Vatican II”.

I don’t know if you are serious. The Spirit of Vatican 2 is only one Spirt, the Holy Spirit.

You are a sociologist who can find reason to blame the world’s ills, and the Church’s on Vatican 2?

If the Holy Spirit didn’t take a vacation, then where do you think he was during all this. In answer, He was right there, infusing 'the spirit of the Council.

If you are a student of church history, what do you blame the Protestant Revolution on? Every Council of the Church faced a problem, and having faced it, it didn’t mean that it was over. The Spirit moves as it wills.

But, our problems are not because our last five popes were heretics, or that the Traditionalists have a solution in they whining about the liturgy. What is beyond me is how a restored liturgy, as they envison it will do absolutely everything for the Church as you find it. What they are crying for is so simplistic as to believe that will fill the world’s needs - that we burn two hunks of charcoal at Benediction, rather than one.

I wish you God’s grace and charity and patience to all who post here.

peace

 

[bobzills]

I am sure it makes sense to educated, intelligent, knowledgeable adults that the problem in the Church was caused by changing the Liturgy into the vernacular so people could better understand it?

That is not the correct picture. First of all, the fact is that the words for the Consecration of the wine have been mistranslated so that pro multis is mistranslated as “for all.” Why has this been done except to hint at the possibility of universal salvation. Further, the New Liturgy has a flexibility which is not present in the TLM. The New Liturgy is so flexible that it allows the celebration of clown Masses, monkey Masses, Halloween Masses, where Eucharistic servers are dressed in Satanic costumes, cowboy Masses, semi-nudie Masses, dancing girl Masses, rock and roll Masses, folk Masses, Mariachi band Masses, and the list goes on. How can there be any doubt that the introduction of theis type of liturgy has led to a lack of reverence and a watering down of belief among Catholics today?
And take a look at the explosion in the number of annulments granted to Catholics today from what it was before Vatican II?

 

[mgrfin]

That is not the correct picture. First of all, the fact is that the words for the Consecration of the wine have been mistranslated so that pro multis is mistranslated as “for all.” Why has this been done except to hint at the possibility of universal salvation. Further, the New Liturgy has a flexibility which is not present in the TLM. The New Liturgy is so flexible that it allows the celebration of clown Masses, monkey Masses, Halloween Masses, where Eucharistic servers are dressed in Satanic costumes, cowboy Masses, semi-nudie Masses, dancing girl Masses, rock and roll Masses, folk Masses, Mariachi band Masses, and the list goes on. How can there be any doubt that the introduction of theis type of liturgy has led to a lack of reverence and a watering down of belief among Catholics today?
And take a look at the explosion in the number of annulments granted to Catholics today from what it was before Vatican II?

Well, about annulments, you ought to speak to your Bishop about that. I don’t agree with it either, but it is within their power to view the liceity, validity of marriages, and declare whether such and such and such a marriage was valid.

However, even agreeing with you, I am not marching against Vatican 2 because of it.

As for the consecration of the species of wine at the time of Consecration, the words used are fully valid. That is a question of matter and form, which is theologically certain.

Universal salvation? Of course, Jesus died for all men, that was his intention, and He carried it out. You don’t have anything theologically to argue against the fact that Jesus died for all.

Universal salvation is proved through Sacred Scripture and Tradition. To hold otherwise is against the Faith.

prayers and charity for all who post here.

peace

 

[bobzills]

Well, about annulments, you ought to speak to your Bishop about that. I don’t agree with it either, but it is within their power to view the liceity, validity of marriages, and declare whether such and such and such a marriage was valid.

Well, it was only until after Vatican II that so many trivial objections were used to justify annulling a marriage. JJust take a look at the preVatican II statistics and compare that with the post-Vatican II numbers. For example, in the USA in 1930, there were about 9 annulments for that year, whereas recently, in the USA, it has run higher than 60,000 annulments per year. So you say that Vatican II had nothing to do with the incredible increase in annulments?

 

[bobzills]

Universal salvation is proved through Sacred Scripture and Tradition. To hold otherwise is against the Faith.

It is my understanding that the doctrine of the apocatastasis, according to which everyone will share in the grace of salvation, has been formally condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 543: Ei tis ten teratode apokatastasis presbeuei anathema esto

 

[mgrfin]

Well, it was only until after Vatican II that so many trivial objections were used to justify annulling a marriage. JJust take a look at the preVatican II statistics and compare that with the post-Vatican II numbers. For example, in the USA in 1930, there were about 9 annulments for that year, whereas recently, in the USA, it has run higher than 60,000 annulments per year. So you say that Vatican II had nothing to do with the incredible increase in annulments?

I am well aware of the numbers. I have done some serious study on the matter

The bishops in the U.S. are acting on the powers given them by the Holy See. Oddly, appeals to decrees of nullity appealed to the Holy See generally are reversed at a rate of 90%

peace

 

[Brother_John]

Well, it was only until after Vatican II that so many trivial objections were used to justify annulling a marriage. JJust take a look at the preVatican II statistics and compare that with the post-Vatican II numbers. For example, in the USA in 1930, there were about 9 annulments for that year, whereas recently, in the USA, it has run higher than 60,000 annulments per year. So you say that Vatican II had nothing to do with the incredible increase in annulments?

Or, could it be that the great increase in civil divorces lead to higher annulment numbers?

Another Red Herring to blame Vatican II for the world’s secular issues.

 

[japhy]

The Faith has not been watered dowm. and putting the Mass in English, or having had the Vatican Council is not the reason why one soul left the Church.

Perhaps the council itself was not the reason some people left the Church, but it was the aftermath of the council. People who consider the new rite of the Mass to be a heresy, for example.

And as far as the faith not being watered down, I disagree. Otherwise, why would so many people consider themselves Catholic despite their pro-choice, pro-conception, pro-gay-marriage, pro-active-homosexuality stances? Why would people consider women priests a Catholic idea?

A significant amount of doctrinal material was REMOVED from the prayers of the Mass. When is the last time you heard “purgatory” mentioned at Mass? Prayers were excised from the Mass entirely. Prayers, such as the Confiteor, were altered to remove the mention of Sts. Peter, Paul, John the Baptist, and Michael the Archangel, and the English translation doesn’t translate “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault” at ALL. The English translation of the Missal is poor: it constantly omits phrases like “Most Holy” and “Blessed”, and mis-translates important phrases like et cum spiritu tuo (literal: “and with your spirit”, ICEL: “and also with you”), pro multis (literal: “for [the] many”, ICEL: “for all”). Other major languages translated it correctly; why does the English translation miss the mark?

 

[MaryJohnZ]

Are you actually serious? We have lost two generations of Catholic Christians because of poor catechetics. The Church in the United States has lost the greatest amount of membership of any denomination. If it weren’t for the influx of immigrants keeping it afloat, it would have gone the same route as mainline protestant denominations. Divorce among Catholics is at the national norm. And what about the recent sex scandal among the clergy? Are you going to put your head in the sand about that too? Less and less importance has been given to the Eucharist where now a significant amount of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence. I suggest you begin by taking off those rose-colored glasses of yours and see things in the context of what is real. The Church is still in a mess, although we are coming out of it little by little. No, the Holy Spirit didn’t take a vacation, but an unholy spirit certainly made its presence known in the so-called “spirit of Vatican II”.

AGREED! God never said His church would not be attacked from within. Different people, I believe even a Pope has said the smoke of Satan has entered the sanctuary.

And sometimes I feel that evil even more during Lent when they remove 'Holy" things, like Holy Water from the founts and take down the Corpus of Christ during season where we especially meditate on His sufferings…and then I hear things like we are just another denomination within all the Christian denominations…

That is false unity and that is having our church hijacked. Jesus talked about this so many parables…like the one about the vineyard that was left in the hands of others and the vineyard was destroyed…everyone He sends to talk to the servants are beaten, and finally when the Son is sent he is killed. Well, I know there are many good people in the church and no one posting wants the church to be destroyed, and I know by faith that it won’t be…but I do think we need to do some “breast beating” and have some true repentence within our Church. I do wish the Pope and others would throw out the rebels, but maybe they understand that is up to God.

Mary, Help of Christians pray for us!
Mary Protectress of the Faith come to our assistance.
O Lord, make Haste to help us…

MaryJohnZ

 

[peary]

I don’t know if you are serious. The Spirit of Vatican 2 is only one Spirt, the Holy Spirit.

You are a sociologist who can find reason to blame the world’s ills, and the Church’s on Vatican 2?

If the Holy Spirit didn’t take a vacation, then where do you think he was during all this. In answer, He was right there, infusing 'the spirit of the Council.

If you are a student of church history, what do you blame the Protestant Revolution on? Every Council of the Church faced a problem, and having faced it, it didn’t mean that it was over. The Spirit moves as it wills.

But, our problems are not because our last five popes were heretics, or that the Traditionalists have a solution in they whining about the liturgy. What is beyond me is how a restored liturgy, as they envison it will do absolutely everything for the Church as you find it. What they are crying for is so simplistic as to believe that will fill the world’s needs - that we burn two hunks of charcoal at Benediction, rather than one.

I wish you God’s grace and charity and patience to all who post here.

peace

**I don’t think you “get it” or there must be a misunderstanding somewhere. Vatican II did not authorize the use of the vernacular for Mass; that came later as a special indult by the Vatican; in fact, it became official in 1969 - four years after the council. The Novus Ordo was originally supposed to have been celebrated in Latin.

Are you saying that the protestant reformation was the result of the Holy Spirit? For who? The protestants or the Catholic Church?
Are you implying also that the last four or five popes were heretics?? As for your incredible lack of historical understanding on the Divine Liturgy itself, maybe you need to study what consitutes liturgy, why it is referred to as the Divine Liturgy and all that entails, and why it is so important for us to worship within its context properly and with humility. **

 

[DustinsDad]

…

He’s very serious. As was Michael Davies writing many years ago in the wake of the Council:
…I must make a distinction here. It is the distinction between the Council itself, and the Council as an event, and it is an important distinction. We will first consider the Council in itself, that is, in the teaching found in its sixteen official documents. These documents contain much sound and even inspiring teaching, but some are banal and full of platitudes, and in some places there are unfortunate ambiguities. There was considerable tension between the conservative and progressive Fathers, and where agreement could not be reached compromise texts were drawn up, which each side could interpret in its own way.

Where Pope John XXIII was concerned, there was no question but that his Council should uphold orthodoxy. In his opening speech he stated:

“The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian Doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously . . . to transmit that doctrine pure and integral without an attenuation or distortion which throughout twenty centuries, notwithstanding difficulties and contrasts has become the common patrimony of men.”
…In 1968 he (Pope Paul VI) stated openly that these deviations from orthodoxy were being justified in the name of Vatican II:
“It will be said that the Council authorized such treatment of traditional teaching. Nothing is more false, if we are to accept the word of Pope John who launched that aggiornamento in whose name some dare to impose on Catholic dogma dangerous and sometimes reckless interpretations.”
…It was the Council as an event which was primarily responsible for generating the ubiquitous spirit of Vatican II.

…We simply cannot recognize this Faith in most of the religious textbooks imposed upon our children in so-called Catholic schools today; we cannot recognize it in what is imposed upon us as Catholic liturgy in many of our churches; we cannot recognize it in the prefabricated socio-political pseudo-religious claptrap emanating from the commissions which seem to have taken over the government of the Church from the bishops in so many countries today.

And what is the justification for all these aberrations? There is a blanket response to any complaint you will make: you are opposing the Second Vatican Council. Bear in mind that by 1968 Pope Paul VI had protested publicly at the already established practice of invoking the Council to justify “dangerous and sometimes reckless interpretations.” In many cases a change imposed in the name of the Council is diametrically opposed to what the Council actually mandated.
*(Michael Davies, *The Church since Vatican II)
​

“You are opposing the Second Vatican Council!” Boy don’t that sound familiar, eh? This short paper by Michael Davies certainly helps to put it all in perspective. And before you start accusing Davies of being a rebel schismatic or some such nonsense, here are the Holy Father’s words about him after his death:
"I have been profoundly touched by the news of the death of Michael Davies. I had the good fortune to meet him several times and I found him as a man of deep faith and ready to embrace suffering. Ever since the Council he put all his energy into the service of the Faith and left us important publications especially about the Sacred Liturgy. Even though he suffered from the Church in many ways in his time, he always truly remained a man of the Church. He knew that the Lord founded His Church on the rock of St Peter and that the Faith can find its fullness and maturity only in union with the successor of St Peter. Therefore we can be confident that the Lord opened wide for him the gates of heaven. We commend his soul to the Lord’s mercy…
(…Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 9 November 2004)
DustinsDad

 

[stmaria]

Or, could it be that **the great increase in civil divorces lead to higher annulment numbers?**Another Red Herring to blame Vatican II for the world’s secular issues.

What does the increase in civil divorces have to do with the increase in annulments?

 

[Sure]

Well, it was only until after Vatican II that so many trivial objections were used to justify annulling a marriage. JJust take a look at the preVatican II statistics and compare that with the post-Vatican II numbers. For example, in the USA in 1930, there were about 9 annulments for that year, whereas recently, in the USA, it has run higher than 60,000 annulments per year. So you say that Vatican II had nothing to do with the incredible increase in annulments?

That does not prove cause and effect. Not even close.

Probably the most likely cause is lack of catechesis and proper preparation for marriage. In other words, if a couple does not understand what the Sacrament means and has no real intention of respecting it, the marriage is invalid. It is not as though the annulments are “dissolving” marriages that used to be respected as valid, they are merely recognizing the very sad fact that many marriages ARE invalid due to a total lack of understanding. Every year millions of “cultural” catholics are “married” in the Church. When they divorce, as many do, the Church often recognizes the fact that they were never really married in the first place.

Vatican II NEVER called for a lack of catechesis or Sacramental preparation. Those were evils inflicted on the Church in the name of the “Spirit of Vatican II” but in reality had nothing to do with the Council.

 

[MaryJohnZ]

That does not prove cause and effect. Not even close.

Probably the most likely cause is lack of catechesis and proper preparation for marriage. In other words, if a couple does not understand what the Sacrament means and has no real intention of respecting it, the marriage is invalid. It is not as though the annulments are “dissolving” marriages that used to be respected as valid, they are merely recognizing the very sad fact that many marriages ARE invalid due to a total lack of understanding. Every year millions of “cultural” catholics are “married” in the Church. When they divorce, as many do, the Church often recognizes the fact that they were never really married in the first place.

Vatican II NEVER called for a lack of catechesis or Sacramental preparation. Those were evils inflicted on the Church in the name of the “Spirit of Vatican II” but in reality had nothing to do with the Council.

And since marriage as an institution is such an important concept , especially in understanding the relationship of a soul to Christ or even of the Church as Bride to the Bridgroom it seems that the way marriage has been ‘re-written’ in our culture is parallel to how the church is being ‘re-written’.

Father Torraco of Asumption College (he is the moral theologian on the EWTN question and answer forum) wrote a beautiful piece maiking parallels between the physical barriers put up in marriages to prevent procreation and “fruitfulness” to a form of spiritual birth control within the Church when clergy and laity are incorrectly alianced and the Holy Spirit is not really allowed to work to bring about spiritual fruitfulness.

How 'fruitful" can our Holy Communion be if a large percent of those receiving don’t really believe it is a living Christ they have received/ How fruitful can our actions be when confession is downplayed … how well can anyone bring light to the world when they have been deprived of correct teaching and spiritual food in that sense? All of this is rendering the church into a desert when it should be a garden…

Mary

I think there is a lot to be said for drawing that parallel…

 

[mgrfin]

Or, could it be that the great increase in civil divorces lead to higher annulment numbers?

Another Red Herring to blame Vatican II for the world’s secular issues.

Maybe some of the canon lawyers on site would be willing to comment on the increase in annulments.

My take on it is the use of psychological analysis of people’s mental dispositions assumed to have be at the time of the marriage.

The party brings evidence, for example, of immaturity, of force or fear, or some other element missing in their ability to give full consent. It is a difficult thing to disprove if a person claims that they were too immature for marriage, or if they were pregnant at the time of marriage.

In practice it all seems very clear cut. If you were immature, and there is evidence of that, you could not give full consent.

Diocesan boards became bombarded with cases of people claiming such, and it being difficult to disprove, have to take people at their word, since they are giving their own testimony about the state of their mind.

There is lesser of this throughout the world outside the U.S., since there is less a reliance on this kind of psychological analysis.

I’ve done a poor job in explaining this. However, if you are interested, read “Annulment, Your Chance to Remarry within the Catholic Church” by Joseph P. Zwack, 1983, Harper & Row.

peace

 

[Brother_John]

What does the increase in civil divorces have to do with the increase in annulments?

Is that a rhetorical question?

 

[mgrfin]

That is not the correct picture. First of all, the fact is that the words for the Consecration of the wine have been mistranslated so that pro multis is mistranslated as “for all.” Why has this been done except to hint at the possibility of universal salvation. QUOTE]

UNIVERSAL SALVATION exists. It is in Scripture and it is in Tradition. It is a doctrine of our faith.

Try proving your heretical thesis that Jesus didn’t die to save everyone.

The words of Consecration are licit and valid.

This stuff is put out by Feeneyites, SSPX and SV’s. It is contrary to the Catholic faith.

prayers and patience to all who post here.

peace

 

[japhy]

Is that a rhetorical question?

I think stmaria is asking why you relate legal divorce to decrees of nullity.

There are myriad reasons that people get divorced. There are not so many reasons for a decree of nullity to be granted.

 

[mgrfin]

It is my understanding that the doctrine of the apocatastasis, according to which everyone will share in the grace of salvation, has been formally condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 543: Ei tis ten teratode apokatastasis presbeuei anathema esto

That is interesting. You have the original acts of 2nd Constantinople. They must be worth lots of money, since the original acts are lost.

peace

 

[bobzills]

That is interesting. You have the original acts of 2nd Constantinople. They must be worth lots of money, since the original acts are lost.

Do you deny that the Council of Constantinople in 543 condemned and anathematised the doctrine of the apocatastasis, according to which everyone will share in the grace of salvation? It appears from post number 243, that you maintain that Catholics are supposed to hold to thiis doctrine which has been formally condemned and anathematised by the Catholic Church?