What were the post-Vatican II changes like to live through?

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Ridgerunner said:
The man had a very strong Chicago accent. At a point, my grandfather asked him if he would care to “…show me the saint”. The man was agreeable and we went into his basement. To my astonishment, there was a large glass enclosure with a clothed skeleton with a fabricated face and hair. The outfit was something like a Roman soldier’s uniform. There was just one little spot where you could see the bone of his leg. There was a golden plaque that said “St. Hyacinth”. The man from Chicago explained that a pastor in Chicago whose parish was being “renovated” in a modern style gave it to him for safekeeping until a proper permanent recipient could be found. it has been in the basement for some time, so I guess it wasn’t easy to find a permanent recipient.
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When we were traveling in Poland many years, the sacristan of a historic church in Zamosc took us to the undercroft, led us to a coffin, and said “would you like to see the mummy?”. I said OK, let’s take a look. He lifted the lid off a glass window on top of the coffin and there you saw the face of a very, very dead nobleman from many years ago. He was, indeed, mummified and very brown.

That was an interesting day.
 
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That link required getting an account. Here is the same article without the WSJ account request:

www.manhattan-institute.org

As the Flame of Catholic Dissent Dies Out

Mary Daly, a retired professor at Boston College who was probably the most outré of all the dissident theologians who came to the fore of Catholic intellectual life in the years right after the Second Vatican Council, died on Jan. 3 at age 81. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, which might be called...
www.manhattan-institute.org www.manhattan-institute.org
 
OldCAFMember said:
That link required getting an account. Here is the same article without the WSJ account request:

favicon.ico
Manhattan Institute – 24 Aug 15

As the Flame of Catholic Dissent Dies Out | Manhattan Institute​

Mary Daly, a retired professor at Boston College who was probably the most outré of all the dissident theologians who came to the fore of Catholic intellectual life in the years right after the Second Vatican Council, died on Jan. 3 at age 81. Back…
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Without wishing anyone — even the dissidents — anything other than length of years in good health, “the flame of Catholic dissent” can’t die out soon enough. At least the kind of dissent these sages were practicing.

There is always room for further and deeper study, analysis, and asking questions. That’s how doctrine develops and we come to a more profound understanding of it. But that is not the same thing as declaring that the Church is wrong when she teaches doctrines of faith and morals.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
There is always room for further and deeper study, analysis, and asking questions. That’s how doctrine develops and we come to a more profound understanding of it. But that is not the same thing as declaring that the Church is wrong when she teaches doctrines of faith and morals.
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Where do you put the scholars who accuse the Pope of heresy? Are they looking for further study and a more profound understanding? Or are they declaring the Church is wrong in her recent teaching?

We were better off when we could not read this article. I could at least imagine there might be rational arguments. The principal complaint seems to be that people got old, something that has happened to almost everyone I know. It even happened to John Paul II and Benedict XVI! There are no prominent champions of liberal causes because there are no opponents.
 
Dovekin said:
Where do you put the scholars who accuse the Pope of heresy? Are they looking for further study and a more profound understanding? Or are they declaring the Church is wrong in her recent teaching?
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It looks like they are saying “Pope says x”, “based on what we know from Church teaching, x sounds heretical”, “x needs to be examined in the light of that same teaching”.
Dovekin said:
We were better off when we could not read this article. I could at least imagine there might be rational arguments.
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Not sure I understand. Why would we not want to read something if it is out there? The article is just one person’s slant on things.
 
There are two prominent saints named Hyacinth.

St Hyacinth of Rome/Caesarea was martyred in 108 CE. His bones were transferred from Rome to Caesarea in Cappadocia at some point, according to an Orthodox source I just looked. A monastery outside of Munich claims to have his skeleton now. A picture of the relics can be seen in the atlasobscura.

The other St Hyacinth was a 13th century Dominican from Poland. The church of St Hyacinth dedicated to him in Chicago has been the center of the Polish community there for over 100 years. They have some relics of St Hyacinth, but the way they list them I doubt that it is anything like a full skeleton. Besides, his gravesite in Poland is known. If you saw relics of this Saint from a Chicago church, I assure you there is a place that would welcome them! The church was made a minor basilica in 2003 CE and serves as a center for Polish Catholicism not just in Chicago, but in the country. Its baroque style could surely accomodate any size reliquary.

I suppose I am suggesting not every relic found in an Arkansas farmer’s cellar is the real thing. But I will look and see if there is another St Hyacinth who might be missing his bones.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
It looks like they are saying “Pope says x”, “based on what we know from Church teaching, x sounds heretical”, “x needs to be examined in the light of that same teaching”.
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To me, that sounds more like “the Church is wrong in her teaching” than “room for further and deeper study, analysis, and asking questions.” I wondered if you felt the same, and if you wanted their “flame of Catholic dissent” to die out quickly? Of course, if you do not see the similarity, never mind.
HomeschoolDad said:
Not sure I understand. Why would we not want to read something if it is out there? The article is just one person’s slant on things.
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It is, but having read it, I would never cite in support of anything. It is not incoherent, but almost. It cites several scholars with successfull academic careers as if they have been failures, and condemns them for getting old. I almost think the author wants to get the old “flame of Catholic dissent” burning again.
 
It has been so long ago, I’m not entirely sure of much of anything. But I couldn’t be sure it was a full skeleton, and there was a sort of “doll face” made of something. You couldn’t see the skull as I recall. But maybe I’m confusing it with something else. The only bones you could see were in a sort of little “window” on one leg.

It wasn’t a farmer. He was a retired businessman from Chicago who moved to a more or less resort area in northwest Arkansas. As I said, the case and body (if it was an entire body) were entrusted to him by some pastor in Chicago to avoid their loss or desecration during a turbulent time. Someone, perhaps the pastor was working on finding a permanent home for the relic. It was in a glass case, but without all the fancy stuff shown in the photo. But the clothing does look like what I saw.

And, yes, there might be more than one, especially if none of them is complete. I only remember ever seeing something that big; some saint whose name I can’t remember in a “relic chapel” of some order of nuns in Clyde, Missouri. A lot of those, even big displays, were not actually complete. So what I saw might have really been just a piece of bone, massively embellished. But I know what I saw and the story itself was believable because of the layout.
 
Dovekin said:
To me, that sounds more like “the Church is wrong in her teaching” than “room for further and deeper study, analysis, and asking questions.”
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Not everything the Pope says constitutes official Church teaching. Some say the Pope can fall into formal heresy as a private theologian. The definitive judgement on this, though, rests with a future Pontiff.
 
Full skeleton shrines are not that unusual. St John Neumann has been on display in a glass case in Philadelphia for many years. St Katharine Drexel was in a stone sarcophagus beneath an altar at the motherhouse outside of Philadelphia(until last year). The practice cut down on relic thefts and marketing that popped up in the middle ages.

The whole subject is treated with irreverence by some people with sacred thefts and saints with multiple heads providing opportunities for levity. It is hard to know the tone of your account, how seriously your father and the arkansan were being.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
The definitive judgement on this, though, rests with a future Pontiff.
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Well, that is the case as well with Mary Daly and the others mentioned in the article. Well, not Mary Daly since she left the church. But Küng, Schneiders, Curran are all faithful Catholics.
 
That is incorrect. The Pope is there to guide the flock, not to just say things that don’t conform to Church teaching.
 
Dovekin said:
Well, that is the case as well with Mary Daly and the others mentioned in the article. Well, not Mary Daly since she left the church. But Küng, Schneiders, Curran are all faithful Catholics.
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The Church could make that judgement at any time, but probably will not. Declaring someone a heretic is not something the Church regularly does.
edwest211 said:
That is incorrect. The Pope is there to guide the flock, not to just say things that don’t conform to Church teaching.
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I never said that the Pope is there “to just say things that don’t conform to Church teaching”. Am I missing something here?
 
The I assume you intend to call me a liar. I was born in 1946, and by the time I was in 4th grade I had a missal - Latin on one side, English on the other. I was the only child in my grade who had one, and that continued on through high school; we were in a minority in our parish for buying and using them.

the majority of the congregation = whether on Sunday or a weekday, were saying their rosary, or reading novena booklets, or staring off into space. They did not converse in Latin, nor did they have missals - that was a distinct minority who had them (mostly adults).

And as to responses, that started in 1962, Prior to that the congregation had no part. there might be some hymns sung, many of debatable musical quality; if there was a choir they sang, but the congregation did not.

And with participation after 1962, people parroted back a response in Latin - again, a language extremely few spoke (none in my parish). Most did not know an ablative from a dative.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
The Church could make that judgement at any time, but probably will not. Declaring someone a heretic is not something the Church regularly does.
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As the Church could do at any time with the theologians who called the Pope a heretic.

If you read the article Ed West posted, the author described how Küng and another theologian were handled. Küng apparently never adopted the “obstinate” posture that is part of heresy and so was not excommunicated. The other theologian did adopt an obstinate belligerent attitude and was excommunicated.

The group calling Pope Francis a heretic displays the obstinacy that is characteristic of heretics. I doubt that they will ever be excommunicated as heretics because the Church rarely does that, as you say. If they continue in their stance and obstinately deny a truth of our faith, they may get to the point where they will be excommunicated.
 
Dovekin said:
The group calling Pope Francis a heretic displays the obstinacy that is characteristic of heretics. I doubt that they will ever be excommunicated as heretics because the Church rarely does that, as you say. If they continue in their stance and obstinately deny a truth of our faith, they may get to the point where they will be excommunicated.
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I would like to know what the accusers have said that is heretical, or for that matter, what they have said or done for which they could be excommunicated.
 
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