Posted on 04/15/2005 4:34:46 PM PDT by Grey Ghost II
In church's dreams, Vatican II never happened
April 13, 2005
BY ANDREW GREELEY
The American TV networks spent huge sums of money and sent scores of people to Rome last week. Characteristically, they spent little time or energy on research and hence provided weak and stereotypical journalism, limited to questions about married priests, female priests, gays and sexual abuse. They missed completely the most critical issue for the church in the 21st century -- Vatican Council II and the changes it created.
Many, if not most, of the cardinal electors would tell you that the council was an incident, a bump in the road. The council fathers wrote some useful documents. There was misguided enthusiasm after the council, but Pope John Paul II sternly reimposed order on the church. The council is interesting mainly now as a historical matter.
Leaders lost their nerve
They could not be more wrong. The council was a revolutionary event that had a profound impact on Catholics who lived through it and indirectly on their children, who have barely heard about it. It's still the green dragon lurking in the Sistine Chapel even if the electors can't quite see it.
The model of unchanging Catholicism in response to the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution assumed that the church would not change, should not change, could not change. Suddenly the laity and lower clergy experienced changes in liturgy, in Scripture interpretation, in theories of religious liberty, in attitudes toward other Christians and Jews, in trust of the modern world. The structures -- patterns of behavior and supporting motivations -- that had supported the church for several centuries collapsed.
The council fathers may not have foreseen this collapse, but they did vote for the changes (in overwhelming numbers) and hence the documents themselves and the action of the fathers (presumably in Catholic theology guided by the Holy Spirit) were responsible for the destabilization.
It was, as it seemed then, a new spring for the church, now flexible, joyful and confidently open to the world. However, the ferment frightened some of the leaders who lost their nerve and responded the only way they knew how -- repression. They issued new orders without any serious attempt to explain the reasons for them. They silenced some theologians. They appointed reactionary bishops, who were not always the brightest or most humane. They investigated seminaries. Their mood changed from optimism to grim warnings and solemn denunciations. The church, for a few years a bright light on the mountaintop, had once again become an embattled fortress afraid of the modern world.
House of cards collapsed
The leaders confidently expected that the laity would do what they were told. They could not have been more wrong, nor their strategy more counterproductive. The laity and the lower clergy for the most part simply ignored them and went about creating new structures in which Catholics would affiliate with the church on their own terms. Resignations from the priesthood and the collapse of priestly vocations began only after the desperate attempts to slow down change turned the mood of the council years sour. The present crisis of the credibility of church leadership arose precisely from mistaken attempts to reassert the old leadership style. The problem is not so much the council as restorationist attempts to undo it.
To be fair, no one realized how potentially frail was the so-called confident church of 1950, both in America and around the world. A push from a handful of conciliar documents and the whole house of cards collapsed. For many leaders who had known the seeming serenity of the pre-conciliar church, it was unthinkable that the structures had disappeared overnight and with them their own credibility. So they fell back on them to prevent a disappearance that had already occurred.
The restorationist style continues here in Rome, though it should be clear that it doesn't work. Despite the late pope's efforts to reassert the church's traditional sexual ethic, acceptance of it has declined everywhere.
Few willing to admit truth
In the pre-conclave atmosphere, it is necessary to pretend that this is not true. Or if there is a bit of truth in it, the proper response of the new pope should be yet tougher repression, more vigorous restoration. Almost no one is willing to admit even to themselves that the leadership strategy since 1970 has caused most of the problems in the church -- the decline of vocations and church attendance and the alienation of the young.
Vatican II is the dragon in their midst that they cannot see and they wish would go away. Unfortunately they have not, will not learn that you cannot repeal an ecumenical council and cancel its effects.
This is far more likely to occur in a culture in which even the "ordained" clergy are personally opposed to HV, though they pay lip service to it in their classes with engaged couples.
People can see through damnable hypocrisy of dissenting clergy.
That's why the poor couple may still get to heaven while those sheep in wolves clothing WILL have a millstone tied around their necks and be cast out.
As does NFP
More Amchurch heresy: NFP is NOT the same, according to the teachings of Roman Catholicism, "deacon."
Roman Catholicism says contraception is inherently evil, while NFP is morally neutral, depending upon the motives of the couple to make it morally licit or illicit. And that is known only to God, the couple, and their confessor. So while the objective viewer can look at a couple admitting the use of contraception, and tell them that objectively at least they are committing mortal sin, the same CANNOT be said about the couple having recourse to NFP.
Don't you know when its time to hang up the keyboard for the night?
You seem awefully emboldened in your open public dissent and heresy since the death of JPII, for an ordained deacon teaching here on this Forum in the name of the bishop of Fort Worth.
This, of course, is where moral theologians disagree. Indeed, the majority report of the Theological Commission on the Regulation of Births, issued in 1965, said that the conjugal act itself must be viewed not as an isolated reality, but in the larger context of human love, family life, education, etc. IOW, the principle of totality must come into play. "The morality of sexual acts between married people does not depend upon the direct fecundity of each and every particular act...In a word, the morality of sexual actions is thus to be judged by the true exigencies of the nature of human sexuality, whose meaning is maintained and promoted especially by conjugal chastity."
Paul VI rejected the principal of totality, and instead continued to insist that each and every act must be open to conception. IOW, the argument of HV rests on the physiological structure of the act, rather than on the total person, and the context in which a husband and wife act in a marriage.
Prescribing celibacy to a couple in their early forties, with four children, and several problem pregnancies, is a very difficult thing to do, even if they listen.
Perhaps you forgot "with GRAVE reason" for doing so, Sink.
BTW, I also noticed your little slip-up on "method is secondary."
Chemical/mechanical contraception is intrinsically evil. Per se, utilization is a grave sin.
As a Deacon of the Church, you ought to have known that.
So what?
Luciani assented to the teaching, recognized it as irreformable, and went on.
Motives? Nothing but the act itself must be considered, according to Humanae Vitae. Isn't that right, gbcdoj?
If motives are a factor (i.e. context), then all bets are off.
NFP is, in itself, a good thing, since it always leaves the marital act open to conception.
...had no moral or magisterial authority whatsoever, and in effect represents a majority report at odds with the entirety of Christian teaching for 2000 years, since the Apostles themselves, in the Didache, condemned contraception.
Paul VI rejected the principal of totality, and instead continued to insist that each and every act must be open to conception. IOW...
IOW, Paul VI ignored the heterodox document of this committee, and maintained orthodoxy.
Prescribing celibacy to a couple in their early forties
This is a bald faced lie. The Church does not prescribe celibacy to any couple, even when for grave reasons they must make recourse to NFP.
Nobody is fooled by these hysterical and ridiculous statements of yours.
Where does Humanae Vitae specify that "grave reason" militates against the use of NFP?
Oh, it's SO difficult. So difficult indeed.
If the woman has irregular periods, celibacy is the only answer versus NFP.
Not according to Roman Catholicism, "deacon."
According to Roman Catholicism, NFP is neither good nor evil; it is morally neutral, as you well know, while contraception by its nature is inherently evil.
NFP CAN be used with sinful intent, but NFP itself is neither a good thing nor a bad thing.
That is why Humanae Vitae makes clear that NFP may only be used for grave reasons.
How can you debate a document you obviously have not read?
Some means are intrinsically evil.
Some means are not.
Correct. It is true that the practice of NFP can be sinful, but that's not a consideration bearing on the morality of each conjugal act. Rather, a prolonged rejection (~5 years) of one's duty in social justice to perpetuate society by 3-5 children (depending on times, places, and conditions) is sinful. But this is a sin against social justice, not against the nature of the conjugal act as in the sin of contraception. Therefore there's only one sin, not a sin for each use of the act. See the documentation posted here.
Another complete fabrication.
As a doctor who has taught NFP, I can tell you unequivocally that you are wrong, and that NFP works well, even with women with irregular periods.
No ordained deacon could possibly make as many ridiculous statements on such a grave moral issue as contraception, as you have over the last day or two. Does your bishop realize how poor your diaconal formation must have been?
I'd be happy to give you orthodox training on this subject, from a well trained physician and NFP insatructor, offline, at your convenience. I'll even come down to Texas to do so, if you like.
Well, now, gbcdoj, we seem to have a disagreement here between you and Tetzel. Since regulation of births is a determination to be made by a married couple, how is NFP a bad thing?
Remember, "intent" is the very thing you guys are beating me over the head with. We simply cannot factor "intent" into the equation.
To wander back up to my original example, it may be the "intent" of a couple with three children to avoid having additional children, and they use NFP; it may be the "intent" of a couple with six children to avoid additional children, but they choose a barrier method.
The couple with six children have obviously utilized the conjugal act to the benefit of one of the ends of marriage more fruitfully than the couple with three kids. So, the NFP-using couple "intends" to have fewer children; the barrier-method couple has six children already.
But it is the couple with six children who come under condemnation by the Church, and not the couple with three children.
You guys resolve this and get back to me.
No, actually, he rejected the principle of proportionalism--also rejected, emphatically, by JPII (see Faith and Reason, e.g.)
No, see my #185: "You're too fixated on the intention issue here. It is simply irrelevant".
It is perfectly fine for a couple to intend not to have children, according to HV. In fact, according to HV, that intent is "for acceptable reasons" even when it is put into practice through immoral and sinful means: "It cannot be denied that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result" (HV 16).
A sin involved in NFP would be a sin against social justice, due to a culpable failure to raise enough children to propagate society. The practice of NFP is never sinful in the same way as contraception, that is, due to an assault upon the end of the marital act.
It will be objected that such an abstention is impossible, that such a heroism is asking too much. You will hear this objection raised; you will read it everywhere. Even those who should be in a position to judge very differently, either by reason of their duties or qualifications, are ever ready to bring forward the following argument: "No one is obliged to do what is impossible, and it may be presumed that no reasonable legislator can will his law to oblige to the point of impossibility. But for husbands and wives long periods of abstention are impossible. Therefore they are not obliged to abstain; divine law cannot have this meaning."In such a manner, from partially true premises, one arrives at a false conclusion. To convince oneself of this it suffices to invert the terms of the argument: "God does not oblige anyone to do what is impossible. But God obliges husband and wife to abstinence if their union cannot be completed according to the laws of nature. Therefore in this case abstinence is possible." To confirm this argument, there can be brought forward the doctrine of the Council of Trent, which, in the chapter on the observance necessary and possible of referring to a passage of St. Augustine, teaches: "God does not command the impossible but while He commands, He warns you to do what you can and to ask for the grace for what you cannot do and He helps you so that you may be able".
Do not be disturbed, therefore, in the practice of your profession and apostolate, by this great talk of impossibility. Do not be disturbed in your internal judgment nor in your external conduct. Never lend yourselves to anything which is contrary to the law of God and to your Christian conscience! It would be a wrong towards men and women of our age to judge them incapable of continuous heroism. Nowadays, for many a reason,—perhaps constrained by dire necessity or even at times oppressed by injustice—heroism is exercised to a degree and to an extent that in the past would have been thought impossible. Why, then, if circumstances truly demand it, should this heroism stop at the limits prescribed by the passions and the inclinations of nature? It is clear: he who does not want to master himself is not able to do so, and he who wishes to master himself relying only upon his own powers, without sincerely and perseveringly seeking divine help, will be miserably deceived.
Prescribing martyrdom to a Christian, perhaps a parent with children, instead of simply throwing a pinch of incense, is perhaps also a very difficult thing to do. Yet, would you deny that there can be such cases in which there is no other option than heroic self-denial?
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