but my understanding is that there have been changes, tweaks, reforms of the Church, based on the decisions of men who claimed to be learned and scholars of the Church, ecumenical councils since the early days of the church, the Church today is not the Church of 200 AD, nor the Church of 1000 AD or the Church of 1500 AD etc
so are all those reforms and changes open to question?
married priests were banned in 1139 AD, was that wrong? this was after several centuries of discussion and debate
do you go back to post Vatican II or do you go back right to the Nicene Creed of 300 ADish
the reality is religions are not static nor will they ever be....there will be certain core principles but there will always be discussion and debate on more procedural notions and perhaps even doctrinial notions because even doctrine is based on scriptures which can be open to interpretation
the finding of the Dead Sea scrolls was quite a revelation, I'm reading a book now, called The Bible as History, which is charting all the major archaoelogy finds that relate to the Bible, either as confirming parts of the Bible like they have excavated the Tower of Babel which was/is as tall as the Statue of Liberty apparently]or providing more details to certain sections of the Bible, I don't know if there are any tidbits that might disagree with the Bible however - who is to say some document or artifact might not pop up whose authenticity can be verified, aye there's the rub, but something like the Dead Sea scrolls which might shake up a portion of the church's doctrine
now Pope Benedict might be right, maybe the changes to the liturgy have taken the mystery, the fun if you will out of the liturgy, but my understanding is that the reasoning behind most of the Vatican II councils was to reach out to a broader audience and not exclude people by virtue of the Latin mass etc, I am presuming that is what the Pope is referring to in the liturgy having lost its magic....... given the Catholic Church has exploded in other areas of the world, was not Vatican II right in their decision, the reasons the Church has failed in North America has less to do with Latin masses but as we've all discussed, the Me generation wants a Me church and the church, even under Vatican II, cannot provide that or it ceases to be, however as someone else on the forum noted, Catholics are so ingrained with a sense they will go to hell if they leave the Church, almost as effective as Islam's hold on its adherents, that this is why we have all these Catholics wanting the church to liberalize, they still want to stay within the Church and not feel guilty
if you are Protestant, it's no big whoop, you can find the Protestant denomination that meets your needs and can still feel comfortable about your salvation.....and in fact most Protestants believe when you get right down to it, you don't need an intermediary, if you pray to God and believe in Jesus as your saviour you have a relationship with God wherever you pray.....you ask God directly for forgiveness and guidance....
I don't think that is the issue of concern here. It's not that there are tweaks, additions and reforms, it's that an entirely brand new liturgy has been created to replace the old.
One can probably argue at length to what degree this thing is substitution, or that thing evolution, but the complaint I hear from outside (I'm Anglican, not RC) is that Vatican II was the former.
From my Anglican perspective, I saw first-hand the substitution of the 1979 liturgy for the 1928. I didn't know it for that at the time; I accepted that they were updating the language because some folks didn't understand the "Thees and Thous" -- even though I heard my father's complaint that they were changing the theology. (The kind of statement that most PKs quickly learn not to have explained.)
And even when I saw firsthand the trouble in ECUSA and left, abandoning 1979 BCP and all, a couple decades back (and discovering the majesty of the 1928 BCP in the process), I still didn't put it all together.
The first point came with Robinson's consecration. When I looked it up I discovered that he could be consecrated per the '79 but not the '28!
There've been other points, which I have not recorded anywhere -- but I just remembered that at a former parishioner's memorial a week ago (in an ECUSA church), we recited one of the creeds that was on some point quite different from the 1928 (which hewed to its predecessors).
My experience now is that any and all changes need to be carefully evaluated, though no doubt some will be good and even needed, but a liturgy de novo should be considered extremely suspect.
Modernize the English? I'll go along (but I will complain *\;-).
Translate it into the local language? Absolutely (thereby nullifying my complaint *\;-).
Submit your theology to the culture? (In order to "survive" as the size of the church you are?) Sheer death! What would become of a church that adapted to, accomodated, even embraced the local popular culture a few decades back best known by the acronym of its predominant party affiliation: Nazi?
If the culture walks away from the church, so be it: there is much work to be done. But if the church runs after the culture seeking acceptance, we'll all know who's really in charge. Of the church.
Catholics are so ingrained with a sense they will go to hell if they leave the Church, almost as effective as Islam's hold on its adherents, that this is why we have all these Catholics wanting the church to liberalize
Interesting; I had not known this. The desire of Anglicans to remain in the worldwide Anglican Communion is, by my observation, almost (though not quite) as strong. We are not committed to hell by leaving, though it may feel that way for a while.
Its the difference between renovating, remodeling or adding a wing on to an old house on the one hand and bulldozing the whole thing down and building high rise concrete urban redevelopment housing.