Vatican II Propaganda

Started by Bonaventure, January 15, 2013, 10:17:25 PM

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Bonaventure

A Council! A Council!

by Rev. Theodore C. Ross, S.J.

The place was the Benedictine Monastery adjacent to the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome. The date was January  25, 1959. After Mass for Church Unity, our Holy Father, John XXIII, Pope for less than three months, stunned the 18 cardinals present and the 900 million Catholics who were not present with the words: "I want to call an Ecumenical Council." In the 2,000-year life of the Roman Catholic Church there had been only 19 Ecumenical Councils — many of them in the first seven centuries of the Church's existence. The most recent council had been the First Vatican Council in 1870. Most Catholics in 1959 could not see a need for an Ecumenical Council. The most superficial bird's eye view would show that our Church was, "riding high!" At least in America, our churches were  packed and paid for. More than half of all Catholic children were in Catholic schools, paying very little, if any, tuition. Young people were entering seminaries and religious houses faster than we could build them. The media were extremely respectful and sensitive to all things Catholic.

We had a very strong symbol-system: Catholic children grimaced and finished their spinach to get Aunt Constance out of purgatory;
devotion to the saints; May Altars; fish on Friday; a strong, almost pugnacious, loyalty to Notre Dame football – just a few of the items
that made up American Catholic identity. Things were going well for us. And so, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
But, the prophetic element in the Church saw other signs, some of which could be very troublesome: Archbishop Patrick Boyle said it well: "Religion seems to be a benign sedative to settle our nerves." Many wanted our Church to validate our goals instead of questioning them. Many wanted something to enhance our self-regard instead of challenging it. Many wanted something to offer us salvation on easy terms instead of demanding repentance and a contrite heart. The easy terms would be fish on Friday and Mass on Sunday.

In addition to all of them, there was a new age on the horizon. Catholics had to be challenged to respond to the age without joining it. Every age has to live with change. Cardinal John Henry Newman's famous quotation when he was about to leave Anglicanism and embrace Roman Catholicism: "In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below, to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often."

Change is part of history. What was special about the 20th Century was the dizzy pace of the change. Father Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetic observation was prophetic: "Christ truly plays in 10,000 places" — computer technology, medical miracles, space, to name just a few; and some places where Christ was not playing – the sexual revolution, the breakdown of the family, new and more terrifying instruments for war and killing, total disregard for secular authority and especially religious guidance.There was a man sent by God whose name was John – John XXIII. His Council updated the Church to respond to the challenges and crises of a new age. With the Council came a whole new attitude to those who were not Catholic: Protestants, Orthodox and every variety of non-Christian: Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Islam. Vatican II emphasized collegiality or shared responsibility. Our liturgy was renewed and made more meaningful. Scripture was given the prominence it deserved. The Church examined its very nature as well as its relationship to the world. Unlike Vatican I, condemnations were at a minimum. A whole new spirit pervaded the Catholic community: encouragement for science and art and family and every human endeavor. In all of this the laity took their place in the life of the Church and its ministry.

Before Vatican II, Catholicism was almost identified with its European-American roots. Vatican I had 800 bishops in attendance. More than three-fifths were European. More than a third came from Italy alone. There were no native Asians or Africans. Language was used in some of the proceedings that would be considered politically incorrect today. In contrast, Vatican II had 2,500 bishops in attendance. Fewer than 40 percent were European. There were 126 native
Asians and 118 Africans. The Council was truly Catholic. When the Council ended in 1965 after four years, there was such an element of optimism. All the world, Catholic and non-Catholic, had such great expectations. This did not happen. Discussing the issues and implementing the issues is not the same thing. We should have heeded the advice given by Cardinal Newman in 1870 after the First Vatican Council: "After every ecumenical council there is confusion." Vatican II was no exception. Disagreements bred blame and arguments. At the heart of the blame was the Council.

The best defense for Vatican II came from Monsignor George Higgins, a Chicago priest and theological expert who attended Vatican II. In an address at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. on April 16, 1981, Higgins said:

"The Council did not generate the phenomenon of rapid change in the Church, but merely coincided with it, validated it, and gave it a certain theological and pastoral respectability. Rapid change would have come into the Church with or without a Council, but with this
all important difference: In the absence of a Council, it probably would have come largely in protest against the real inadequacies of Catholic thought and pastoral practice and not in response to an orderly study of theological and biblical sources and a systematic reappraisal of the Church's needs and opportune. The Council, in other words, was the providential safety valve that made it possible, or so it seemed to many observers, to forestall a disastrous explosion in the life of the Church."

Source: http://athenaeum.edu/pdf/athenaeummagazine_sum2012.pdf

Hat tip to Mr. Mario Derksen of Novus Ordo Watch (novusordowatch.org)
"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."

Bonaventure

Quite simply, they don't want to abandon this Council. They think it's a good thing.

Look at what Tom Lehrer, a secular Jew, said way back in 1967:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvhYqeGp_Do[/yt]
"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."

Christknight104

This article of course just had to be written by a Jesuit  ::)

Bonaventure

Quote from: Christknight104 on January 15, 2013, 11:02:32 PM
This article of course just had to be written by a Jesuit  ::)

Not a real Jesuit, though.
"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."

Christknight104

QuoteMany wanted something to offer us salvation on easy terms instead of demanding repentance and a contrite heart. The easy terms would be fish on Friday and Mass on Sunday.

Yeah, the Novus Ordo truly asks for more contrition, repentance and  a strict adherence to difficult Catholic teachings in the face of an increasingly Godless and hostile world.  ::)

QuoteOur liturgy was renewed and made more meaningful. 

The liturgy was banalized and Protestantized.

QuoteThe Church examined its very nature as well as its relationship to the world. 

The Church embraced the world,  ruled  by Satan, and was in turn corrupted by it. 

 

Christknight104

Quote from: Bonaventure on January 15, 2013, 11:06:40 PM
Quote from: Christknight104 on January 15, 2013, 11:02:32 PM
This article of course just had to be written by a Jesuit  ::)

Not a real Jesuit, though.

Indeed, rather, he belongs to the Society of Judas  ;D

Gottmitunsalex

Quote from: Bonaventure on January 15, 2013, 10:23:17 PM
Quite simply, they don't want to abandon this Council. They think it's a good thing.

Look at what Tom Lehrer, a secular Jew, said way back in 1967:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvhYqeGp_Do[/yt]
....
"Nothing is more miserable than those people who never failed to attack their own salvation. When there was need to observe the Law, they trampled it under foot. Now that the Law has ceased to bind, they obstinately strive to observe it. What could be more pitiable that those who provoke God not only by transgressing the Law but also by keeping it? But at any rate the Jews say that they, too, adore God. God forbid that I say that. No Jew adores God! Who say so? The Son of God say so. For he said: "If you were to know my Father, you would also know me. But you neither know me nor do you know my Father". Could I produce a witness more trustworthy than the Son of God?"  St. John Chrysostom  Sunday Homily

"The two goals of the Jews: The universal domination of the world and the destruction of Catholicism, out of hatred for Christ" --Mgr. Jouin