Yes, the Second Vatican Council was bad but was it as bad as Trads say?

[GiftOfGod]

Trads blame it for most of the trouble in the Church but this assumes that secular society didn't change during and after the 1960s. Secular and even Protestant morality and beliefs radically changed in that time period just as "Catholic" beliefs did.

Had the exact same Council outcome occurred in the 1930s or 1950s would the results have been the same?
Had the Council not occurred at all, would Catholics today be as lapsed as they are now?

It's an interesting thought. But of course it's counterfactual and of not much use outside of intellectual stimulation.

[LausTibiChriste]

It was worse than Trads say, but let's make no mistake in thinking it all started with V2. V2 was the icing on the cake - problems started much earlier.

[Vetus Ordo]

God willed Vatican II.

That's the bottom line.

[Melkor]

God willed Vatican II.

That's the bottom line.

God doesn't and can't will evil. He does however allow it, in order to draw a (potential) good out of it.

Edited because I'm on mobile and suck at typing. 😂

[Michael Wilson]

Much worse. As Catholics we cannot fathom what it means that one soul is damned for all eternity; then multiply that by millions of souls that have fallen into Hell because of the Council, either directly through its teachings or indirectly by the almost total destruction of the functioning of the Church's public teaching through the effects of the apostasy of so many of its clergy and religious; including the putative Popes.

[Vetus Ordo]

God willed Vatican II.

That's the bottom line.

God doesn't and can't will evil. He does however allow it, in order to draw a (potential) good out of it.

Edited because I'm on mobile and suck at typing. 😂

If God can't protect His Church from convening and ratifying an Ecumenical Council full of heresies, then you've got a bigger problem than you might think.

[LausTibiChriste]

God willed Vatican II.

That's the bottom line.

God doesn't and can't will evil. He does however allow it, in order to draw a (potential) good out of it.

Edited because I'm on mobile and suck at typing. 😂

If God can't protect His Church from convening and ratifying an Ecumenical Council full of heresies, then you've got a bigger problem than you might think.

I think you're barking uo the false dialectic tree.

Same could be said about God allowing His Only Son to be brutally crucified.

Drawing parallels between the life of Christ and the life of the Church does a lot to mitigate any ideations of perfection some believe the Church ought to possess

[Vetus Ordo]

God willed Vatican II.

That's the bottom line.

God doesn't and can't will evil. He does however allow it, in order to draw a (potential) good out of it.

Edited because I'm on mobile and suck at typing. 😂

If God can't protect His Church from convening and ratifying an Ecumenical Council full of heresies, then you've got a bigger problem than you might think.

I think you're barking uo the false dialectic tree.

Same could be said about God allowing His Only Son to be brutally crucified.

Drawing parallels between the life of Christ and the life of the Church does a lot to mitigate any ideations of perfection some believe the Church ought to possess

Drawing parallels between the life of Christ and the life of the Church does nothing to mitigate the fact that if Vatican II was heretical (not to mention the subsequent papal magisterium), then the Church defected.

This is impossible, as per Catholic dogma.

[Maximilian]

Trads blame it for most of the trouble in the Church but this assumes that secular society didn't change during and after the 1960s. Secular and even Protestant morality and beliefs radically changed in that time period just as "Catholic" beliefs did.

Yes, there were massive changes both in the Church and in secular society, but which was the cause and which was the effect?

I believe that Vatican II was necessary first in order for the Sixties Revolution to take place. The Catholic Church was holding back the flood, but the one who holds needed to be removed in order for all other events to fall into place.

Historical evidence demonstrates that both theologians and ordinary Catholic faithful continued to believe the Church teaching on marriage and children right up until 1962. Then there was a sudden transformation.

Time Magazine glorified John XXIII as "Man of the Year" for a reason.

So yes, these events are related. But the spiritual is always the formal cause of the effects in the natural realm.

[Miriam_M]

Agree with Laus and Michael:  worse.   The reason is that V2 upended and reversed the entire paradigm of Catholic identity (identity as a Church, especially).  When, as an institution ruling with an absolute authority that stems from the absolute authority of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, you artificially and arbitrarily dissolve the absolute into the vague and relative, and the permanent into changeable novelty, you have nullified yourself in the practical sphere. 

In addition, looking to the World for answers and validation is the opposite of what Jesus Christ commanded, proclaimed, and represented during His earthly ministry.  It left the flock to the wolves of the world for "wisdom" and direction.

[ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez]

If God can't protect His Church from convening and ratifying an Ecumenical Council full of heresies, then you've got a bigger problem than you might think.

There aren't any heresies in it, strictly speaking.  It contains no false statements regarding Catholic doctrine.

e.g. The idea that a Hindu attempts to "contemplate the divine mystery" (which is obviously not the Trinitarian God) is not a statement about Catholicism.  It makes no explicit claims about the object of the Hindu's contemplation.  It makes no claim that Hinduism is salvific.  It's egregiously vague and unnecessary, but it's not a heresy.  We know that the "gods" of Hinduism are demons, but Nostra Aetate doesn't make claims about them.  Instead, it makes claims about the Hindu individual.  His attempts to "contemplate the divine mystery" are a statement regarding the human condition, not the economy of salvation.

It's the same way with all of the other purported heresies.  Volumes of ambiguity, but no explicit heresy.  No new dogma or doctrine.

[james03]

Vatican II, as Laus stated, was the finish.  It started with the denial of EENS, which was late 19th century.  From there modernism crept in.

Boomers also get a rap on this.  It was the "greatest" generation that caved.

Since the jews have returned to Jerusalem, we are in the end times, as per the Bible.  The Church will seem to be dead, which really is already the case.  She flees into the wilderness, as the Bible says.  So no surprise.

[Michael Wilson]

Max hit the nail on the head; the 60's revolution would not have happened if Vee-Poo (to quote the hilariously sophomoric expression of James03) had not happened.

[Prayerful]

Every document of V2 is bad, aside from obvious ones like Lumen Gentium, Sacrosanctum Concilium was a boat designed and built full of holes.

[GiftOfGod]

I have a really hard time believing than V2 caused it. I'm thinking that The Pill had a bigger effect. Morality-wise, the entire world went to the left. This occurred even in non-Catholic countries.