Posted on 03/05/2005 7:15:51 AM PST by AAABEST
Well, used to be that the Church threatened everyone with eternal damnation was one not to fulfill the Sunday obligation. Nowadays most people aren't inclined to buy into that anymore. Love of God is expected to be enough to get folks into the pews, but apparently that's not as effective as the coersion of the promise of hell. But the pope has done one heckuva job of trying for those with ears to hear.
It doesn't anymore?
I must be misunderstanding what you mean by that phrase, because it is the Church that has consistently adapted to the world, from my perspective. Care to explain what you mean?
I don't think it emphasizes that point because people are repelled by that notion. Wouldn't you agree that modern man, by and large, doesn't believe in hell?
All the catechism says is that "Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin." But I don't think people are too keen on acknowleging and avoiding sin either.
Y'know, the Church has to respond to these little things called the Commandments. And there is no way to remove that obligation. Especially since we have the Mass.
Imperfect contrition is sufficient to prevent one from going to Hell. I guess that isn't good enough for the post conciliar Popes. So, to Hell with anyone that doesn't get to Church without help from the Church whether carrot or stick.
Yes, I agree. All the more reason that the Church should still threaten "everyone with eternal damnation (if) was one not to fulfill the Sunday obligation."
I must be misunderstanding what you mean by that phrase, because it is the Church that has consistently adapted to the world, from my perspective. Care to explain what you mean?
No. The Church has adapted the World. Not itself to the World. It's the Church's influence that has shaped language, the arts, the morality, the laws, from simple things like foods such as the pretzel, or phrases such as "Goodbye" or "God Bless you" to the art of Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, Tintoretto, El Greco, to the music of Vivaldi, Palestrina and so on. Even the term "grace period" refers to a generous practice of the HOly Inquisition. Advertising techniques of today can be traced to the concept of altar pieces folding out. Had the Church held firm at Vatican II and followed the original schema, the 60's would not have been so turbulant.
Neither Paul VI nor JPII was ever interested in changing moral doctrine. Both from time to time made declarations supportive of traditional Catholic morality--Paul VI with Humanae Vitae, JPII with countless declarations against abortion and homosexuality.
But neither was fully supportive of the traditional faith itself. Both Paul VI and JPII knew exactly who their opponents were. Inevitably the men who were isolated supported the old theology and the established dogmas of faith, particularly Transubstantiation and Propitiatory Sacrifice.
Not daring to deny the doctrines of faith directly, however, both popes deliberately created facts on the ground which would inevitably undermine the old faith everywhere and which carried the virus of modernism into the bosom of the Church.
The one concocted a new vehicle for transmitting a protestantizing, watered-down faith--the New Mass. The other pushed an unprecedented ecumenism that bordered on indifferentism and syncretism. Both deliberately suppressed whatever dogmas were uniquely Catholic.
There's no mystery to any of this. Paul is on record as approving Blondel, the father of modernist philosophy. John Paul gave red hats to modernists like deLubac--who openly denied dogma--and Lehman and Kasper who were publicly heretical. Both pontiffs persecuted Lefebvre who clung to the ancient faith.
Many believe it was not possible that in such a short span of years such a systemic collapse of the old faith should have been unintended by the Holy See. I concur with this analysis. It certainly seems intended. That is to say, it seems to have been planned all along at the very top.
The Michaelangelo's of the rennaisance were studying the art of Rome and Greece,and the ideas of Plato, not the Church. Baroque artists represented the exorbitant wealth and excess of the nation state and the monarchy, not the Church. "Where the church goes...." When did the church go communist or develop constitutional republics or wage wars in search of WMD's? I think alot has happened without and despite the Church. I"m not saying that the Church hasn't been a huge influence, but that phrase just doesn't seem right. The world is not following the Church today.
Besides giving grace to those assisting at mass, each valid and reverent Holy Sacrifice of the Mass also brings enormous graces into the world. This acts as actual grace upon people, calling them to conversion and repentance. It is also the force that holds the natural world in order, instead of chaos.
When the mass, and the other sacraments were attacked and changed their efficacy was reduced, and so was the supply of grace to the world. The practice of the faith weakened, less vocations and a diminishment of the priesthood, less masses, (and very few of them pleasing to the Lord in my estimate), less grace for the world.
Without supernatural grace, chaos will reign.
Now just for a moment imagine that you are Satan's strategist, and you want to help him pull as many souls down as you can, what would you advise him to attack? The source of supernatural grace, The Church, and primarily the mass and the priesthood. Without the priesthood no mass and sacraments, without sacraments no grace.
This is exactly what the enemy within the Church has done.
Let me see if I get this straight. You think the sexual revolution was more devastating than the fall of the Roman Empire or the French Revolution? Okay, let's grant your thesis. Then why, in God's name, did Vatican II choose this time of all times to loosen its grip on morality? Why did it decide seminarians, for instance, would no longer study in monastic settings but would be embedded with other college students on campus? Did the council fathers WANT seminarians to go cruising in gay bars on weekends along with college kids? Why did they open the floodgates to annulments by redefining marriage at the very time marriages were most vulnerable? Why did they did they foster the very breakdown in discipline which would result in a tidal wave of theological tomes encouraging the new morality? Do you think a Charles Curran or an Andrew Greeley would have been tolerated in the preconciliar Church? I don't think so. It was the Second Vatican Council that gave them the permissive climate in which to publish their tripe. Believe me, if the Council fathers had wanted the Church to fail in its every endeavor for the next forty years, they couldn't have done a better job of it.
Michealangelo took the pagan artwork of Ancient Greece (and Egypt) and Christianized it. They did not seek to take the Church and conform it to the tastes of the modern day. They took the aesthetic qualities that were true and uplifting in ancient art forms and fulfilled their potential with Christian imagery (and consequently improved on the quality)
Baroque artists represented the exorbitant wealth and excess of the nation state and the monarchy, not the Church.
Which Baroque artists are you talking about? Certainly not those of the Flemish, Dutch or Greek Traditions. Rembrandt for one was certainly providing magnificent works based on themes of Catholic origin. In fact, just take it back a few steps. Painting itself stems from religious mosaics. Stained glass is the remnant of that craft.
"Where the church goes...." When did the church go communist
Liberation theology. Had the Church held firm that nightmare would never have happened.
or develop constitutional republics or wage wars in search of WMD's?
"Freedom" "Liberty" Aligning the Church with the principles of the Revolution. You are looking at the post-Vatican II world. The Church dropped the Ball and the power vacuum has been filled (or attempted to be filled) by the U.S.A.
I think alot has happened without and despite the Church. I"m not saying that the Church hasn't been a huge influence, but that phrase just doesn't seem right. The world is not following the Church today.
That's because the Church has stopped leading. It greeted the World at Vatican II. "All power is given me in Heaven and on Earth." He said, "All power" and that power resides in the Keys of the See of Peter. If a Pope decides to use them for God's purpose and the governments of the World take a stand against him. Woe to the world.
***Actually, I think the fall of Christianity in Europe was caused directly by the two World Wars,***
It is my understanding that occultism was rampant in Germany / Austria in the years preceeding WWII - even in the churches.
The unmooring of the culture from its Christian morality gave space for the ugly demon of Nazism to raise it's amoral head and find a firm foothold in the soul of Germany.
Nazism filled the void left by dying European Christianity.
What an asinine and terribly unlearned statement. As if all of our greatest artists were of a monolithic, uninspired and secular mind.
Would you mind explaining how the philosophy of Plato has anything whatsoever do with with the works of Rembrandt?
Interesting perspective. Attacked huh? Reduced efficacy? How many NO masses do you think it would take to equal one TLM, in terms of efficacy?
I'm amazed at what you are saying. Don't you realize that the Christian Democratic Party was the dominant party across Europe for decades after World War II? In Italy, Austria, West Germany, France, the Netherlands--it was the dominant political force during the reconstruction period. It saved the West from Communism--and it was directly connected to the Catholic Church. I don't know where you guys get your history from, but you have a lot of catching up to do. The Church was NOT in decline--it was a force to be reconned with right up to the close of the Council. Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Ireland--each was not only considered Catholic, but strongly Catholic. Church attendance was high--somewhere around 80%.
Zeigeist means spirit of the times. It wasn't any zeitgeist, but the spirit of Satan that crippled, bound, gutted and disfigured the Catholic Church in America into the hideous pagan abomination we know as the Amchurch.
I believe Christianity did experience a renewal in the POST war years (of which little trace can now be seen). This was due in no small part to men being hung out over the burning pit of hell (in what they had experienced in the War)
I can tell you for a fact that Christianity in Germany was in a shambles prior to WWII. This was largly because of post WWI existentialism and theological liberalism (Germany being the center of the storm). Austria also.
Why do you think Hitler was able to so easily transfer such intense devotion to himself? It was because people had lost sight of Christ.
***It saved the West from Communism***
But not Socialism - right?
***Church attendance was high--somewhere around 80%.***
Church attendance figures do not necessarily reflect the state of devotion in the heart of a people.
"The Michaelangelo's of the rennaisance were studying the art of Rome and Greece,and the ideas of Plato, not the Church. Baroque artists represented the exorbitant wealth and excess of the nation state and the monarchy, not the Church."
You are wrong if you think Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture were not primarily influenced by the Church. It was the papal treasury that drove the European awakening. Renaissance popes were wild about art and learning. And it was Plato and Aristotle who had formed the basis for Augustinian and Thomistic theologies and the writings of Abelard and Aquinas and later Suarez and Bellarmine. Read Aquinas. He was as apt to cite Aristotle as Scripture. And without scholastic philosophy, you would never have had the flowering of the great universities of Europe. In fact, the Church had lost Greek philosophy--and it was the Church's great Crusades that brought these writers back to the European continent from Islam--which gave impetus to the revival of philosophy and theology and the rise of the universities. You need to rethink what you've just posted.
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