Posted on 06/03/2005 9:22:21 PM PDT by GOPmember
What We have Lost
...and the Road to Restoration
A critical look at the changes in the Catholic Church
This video gives you an intimate, up-close look at the destructive and wide-spread changes that have taken place in the two-thousand-year-old Catholic Church since the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965.
Much of what you see will surprise you, maybe even shock you, and -- unfortunately -- will sadden you. "What We Have Lost" not ony exposes the external damage that has been done to the Universal Church, but goes deep behind the scenes to reveal the hidden changes; how and when they were made; and who made them.
This video asks the hard questions: Is the Church still Catholic? Has She lost the true faith? Does the clergy still truly "believe?" Can we count on today's Church to lead us to salvation? The answers found in "What We Have Lost" may bring you to anger -- or to tears. But after you see it, you will never look at the "modern" Church in the same way again.
And "What We Have Lost" is about hope. Hope in Jesus Christ and His one true Church on earth. Plus it's about the restoration of the traditional Latin Mass and the "Faith of our Fathers;" and it documents the groundswell of traditionalism within the Church, and how you can be a part of it...on the "Road to Restoration."
Fortunately as traditionalists we have the 2,000 Tradition of the Church by which to measure whether and where Vatican II and the post-Conciliar Magisterium is deficient or not
*Replace "traditionalists" (sola traditio)with "protestants" (sola scriptura) and I will agree with you. You say you will search Tradition to decide when the Magisterium is deficient while the protestant will search the Bible to decide when the Magisterium is deficient. That makes you no different than the protestant because you both, in essence, makes of yourselves the final authority. And you are both wrong. Jesus established a LIVING TEACHING AUTHORITY.
* Holy Mother Church in her Dogmatic Teachings doesn't convince you, therefore, it doesn't take an omniscent individual to write what I did. However, the compliment is appreciated.
Nah, I'll just inform God that he needs to send a heavenly messenger to you as I'm sure a ping won't cut it.
*No need to ping me. The Heavenly Messenger is Jesus speaking through His Church.
With all due respect, if you sit through a Lutheran service, you'd be hard pressed to distinguish it from a Novus Ordo Mass. If I am a dressed-up protestant, you my friend, are naked.
* Did you think the Lutherans were going to copy the service of the Mormons? Of COURSE their service looks like ours.
Au contraire, YOU are never wrong and neither is the Church. If they still defended slavery, you would blithely say the Church is right.
* New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia
Slavery and Christianity
Primitive Christianity did not attack slavery directly; but it acted as though slavery did not exist. By inspiring the best of its children with this heroic charity, examples of which have been given above, it remotely prepared the way for the abolition of slavery. To reproach the Church of the first ages with not having condemned slavery in principle, and with having tolerated it in fact, is to blame it for not having let loose a frightful revolution, in which, perhaps, all civilization would have perished with Roman society. But to say, with Ciccotti (Il tramonto della schiavitù, Fr. tr., 1910, pp. 18, 20), that primitive Christianity had not even "an embryonic vision" of a society in which there should be no slavery, to say that the Fathers of the Church did not feel "the horror of slavery", is to display either strange ignorance or singular unfairness. In St. Gregory of Nyssa (In Ecclesiastem, hom. iv) the most energetic and absolute reprobation of slavery may be found; and again in numerous passages of St. John Chrysostom's discourse we have the picture of a society without slaves - a society composed only of free workers, an ideal portrait of which he traces with the most eloquent insistence (see the texts cited in Allard, ''Les esclaves chrétiens", p. 416-23).
end of quote
If you can't get the Church and slavery right, perhaps you ought to consider not typing the next time you are tempted to criticize The Popes, the Mass, and the Council.
"Jesus established a LIVING TEACHING AUTHORITY."
Sure He did, but at Vatican II this LIVING TEACHING AUTHORITY told us it could give us DEFICIENT FORMULATIONS OF DOCTRINE. It sounds like this living teaching authority at some point became Protestant to me.
How can we trust a living teaching authority that tells us in its own words that its formulation of doctrine may be deficient?
Or do you not believe in the "infallibility" of this teaching of Vatican II?
Lest there be any misunderstanding, let me add that as far as its contents in concerned (apart from a few criticisms), I am very grateful for the new Missal, for the way it has enriched the treasury of prayers and prefaces, for the new eucharistic prayers and the increased number of texts for use on weekdays, etc., quite apart from the availability of the vernacular. But I do regard it as unfortunate that we have been presented with the idea of a new book rather with that of continuity within a single liturgical history.
In my view, a new edition will need to make it quite clear that the so-called Missal of Paul VI is nothing other than a renewed form of the same Missal to which Pius X, Urban VIII, Pius V and their predecessors have contributed, right from the Church’s earliest history. It is of the very essence of the Church that she should be aware of her unbroken continuity throughout the history of faith, expressed in an ever-present unity of prayer.
"THE MASS IS THE SAME"
Address of Pope Paul VI to a General Audience, November 19, 1969
Our Dear Sons and Daughters:
1. We wish to draw your attention to an event about to occur in the Latin Catholic Church: the introduction of the liturgy of the new rite of the Mass. It will become obligatory in Italian dioceses from the First Sunday of Advent, which this year falls on November 30. The Mass will be celebrated in a rather different manner from that in which we have been accustomed to celebrate it in the last four centuries, from the reign of St. Pius V, after the Council of Trent, down to the present.
2. This change has something astonishing about it, something extraordinary. This is because the Mass is regarded as the traditional and untouchable expression of our religious worship and the authenticity of our faith. We ask ourselves, how could such a change be made? What effect will it have on those who attend Holy Mass? Answers will be given to these questions, and to others like them, arising from this innovation. You will hear the answers in all the Churches. They will be amply repeated there and in all religious publications, in all schools where Christian doctrine is taught. We exhort you to pay attention to them. In that way you will be able to get a clearer and deeper idea of the stupendous and mysterious notion of the Mass.
3. But in this brief and simple discourse We will try only to relieve your minds of the first, spontaneous difficulties which this change arouses. We will do so in relation to the first three questions which immediately occur to mind because of it.
4. How could such a change be made? Answer: It is due to the will expressed by the Ecumenical Council held not long ago. The Council decreed: "The rite of the Mass is to be revised in such a way that the intrinsic nature and purpose of its several parts, as also the connection between them, can be more clearly manifested, and that devout and active participation by the faithful can be more easily accomplished.
5. "For this purpose the rites are to be simplified, while due care is taken to preserve their substance. Elements which, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated, or were added with but little advantage, are now to be discarded. Where opportunity allows or necessity demands, other elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history are now to be restored to the earlier norm of the Holy Fathers" (Sacrosanctum Concilium #50).
6. The reform which is about to be brought into being is therefore a response to an authoritative mandate from the Church. It is an act of obedience. It is an act of coherence of the Church with herself. It is a step forward for her authentic tradition. It is a demonstration of fidelity and vitality, to which we all must give prompt assent.
7. It is not an arbitrary act. It is not a transitory or optional experiment. It is not some dilettante's improvisation. It is a law. It has been thought out by authoritative experts of sacred Liturgy; it has been discussed and meditated upon for a long time. We shall do well to accept it with joyful interest and put it into practice punctually, unanimously and carefully.
8. This reform puts an end to uncertainties, to discussions, to arbitrary abuses. It calls us back to that uniformity of rites and feeling proper to the Catholic Church, the heir and continuation of that first Christian community, which was all "one single heart and a single soul" (Acts 4:32). The choral character of the Church's prayer is one of the strengths of her unity and her catholicity. The change about to be made must not break up that choral character or disturb it. It ought to confirm it and make it resound with a new spirit, the spirit of her youth.
9. The second question is: What exactly are the changes?
10. You will see for yourselves that they consist of many new directions for celebrating the rites. Especially at the beginning, these will call for a certain amount of attention and care. Personal devotion and community sense will make it easy and pleasant to observe these new rules. But keep this clearly in mind: Nothing has been changed of the substance of our traditional Mass. Perhaps some may allow themselves to be carried away by the impression made by some particular ceremony or additional rubric, and thus think that they conceal some alteration or diminution of truths which were acquired by the Catholic faith for ever, and are sanctioned by it. They might come to believe that the equation between the law of prayer, lex orandi and the law of faith, lex credendi, is compromised as a result.
11. It is not so. Absolutely not. Above all, because the rite and the relative rubric are not in themselves a dogmatic definition. Their theological qualification may vary in different degrees according to the liturgical context to which they refer. They are gestures and terms relating to a religious action--experienced and living--of an indescribable mystery of divine presence, not always expressed in a universal way. Only theological criticism can analyze this action and express it in logically satisfying doctrinal formulas. The Mass of the new rite is and remains the same Mass we have always had. If anything, its sameness has been brought out more clearly in some respects.
12. The unity of the Lord's Supper, of the Sacrifice on the cross of the re-presentation and the renewal of both in the Mass, is inviolably affirmed and celebrated in the new rite just as they were in the old. The Mass is and remains the memorial of Christ's Last Supper. At that Supper the Lord changed the bread and wine into His Body and His Blood, and instituted the Sacrifice of the New Testament. He willed that the Sacrifice should be identically renewed by the power of His Priesthood, conferred on the Apostles. Only the manner of offering is different, namely, an unbloody and sacramental manner; and it is offered in perennial memory of Himself, until His final return (cf. De la Taille, Mysterium Fidei, Elucd. IX).
13. In the new rite you will find the relationship between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, strictly so called, brought out more clearly, as if the latter were the practical response to the former (cf. Bonyer). You will find how much the assembly of the faithful is called upon to participate in the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice, and how in the Mass they are and fully feel themselves "the Church." You will also see other marvelous features of our Mass. But do not think that these things are aimed at altering its genuine and traditional essence.
14. Rather try to see how the Church desires to give greater efficacy to her liturgical message through this new and more expansive liturgical language; how she wishes to bring home the message to each of her faithful, and to the whole body of the People of God, in a more direct and pastoral way.
15. In like manner We reply to the third question: What will be the results of this innovation? The results expected, or rather desired, are that the faithful will participate in the liturgical mystery with more understanding, in a more practical, a more enjoyable and a more sanctifying way. That is, they will hear the Word of God, which lives and echoes down the centuries and in our individual souls; and they will likewise share in the mystical reality of Christ's sacramental and propitiatory sacrifice.
16. So do not let us talk about "the new Mass." Let us rather speak of the "new epoch" in the Church's life.
With Our Apostolic Benediction.
end of quote
All Popes from Pope Paul VI to Pope Benedict XVI are in agreement re. the Reformed/Revised Rite.
Traditionalists oppose every single Pope since Pope Paul VI on this fundamental point. This is one of their most egregious errors and they repeat it ceaselessly.
Haven't you read anything that has been posted about this above???
Don't bother with Google, go to the Vatican's site and get it straight from the horse's mouth. Unitatis Redintegratio n.6:
"Thus if, in various times and circumstances, there have been deficiencies in moral conduct or in church discipline, or EVEN IN THE WAY THAT CHURCH TEACHING HAS BEEN FORMULATED..."
The link is here:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19641121_unitatis-redintegratio_en.html
*The word is IF. Because the Council did not address, or footnote, examples, presumably none exist. If they did or do exist, it is only the MAgisterium, not you, who has the authority to clear-up any deficiencies - DEFICIENCES ARE NOT ERRORS as you appear to think
The Living Magisterium said "if" and you rocket to the wrong conclusion going so far as to say you think the Living Magisterium has become protestant, a thing existing only in your Sola Traditio world..
In fact, you appear, to me anyways, to delight in thinking the Living Magisterium errs. To me and my ilk, that is beyond strange for anyone calling himself a traditionalist to say nothing about a mere Catholic.
But, what is the Living Magisterium when compared to a man who searches Tradition to correct the Authority Divinely Established by Jesus?
"*The word is IF. Because the Council did not address, or footnote, examples, presumably none exist."
Then, why would the Council suggest they could exist? They obviously hadn't read the "bornacatholic manual of pseudo-theology" which says they couldn't exist.
"If they did or do exist, it is only the MAgisterium, not you, who has the authority to clear-up any deficiencies"
But if its the same Magisterium which created the deficiencies in the first place, then how could they be relied on to clear them up without any deficiencies?
"DEFICIENCES ARE NOT ERRORS" - Really! So now you're basing your faith in the conciliar Magisterium on the basis of semantics like "If" and whether "deficiency" is or is not "error"? You really are starting to get a little desperate, aren't you?
"In fact, you appear, to me anyways, to delight in thinking the Living Magisterium errs."
Not at all, I am just saying that you are being unfaithful to the conciliar Magisterium by your never-ending protestations that it can never err. You obviously reject the Magisterium, because it says it can err.
In fact the Magisterium has not only said that there is deficient formulation of doctrine in the documents of Vatican II, but the Magisterium has even said that there are heresies like Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism in some of Vatican II's teaching.
But I suppose you know better than the Magisterium because you're more Catholic than the Magisterium, aren't you?
Listen ...when it comes to your soul and the TRUE FACTS that Pius Pope Paul Vl declared himself!" the smoke of Satan enter the Catholic Church" while okaying the whole Altar and crucifixes and stations of the cross RIPPED OUT of the Churches!!! find out WHY! RUN the other way and the Bible tells us we are to stick to Tradition!!!!
Even Saints were sent to the past Popes at times to staighten them out!! and brother this Vatican ll thing has done EXACTLY what this video shows and who is to take the blame??? who is it that wants every soul taken away from Christ??? Why do you think millions of Catholics are lost??? Christ is the SAME yesterday today and Forever...how dare someone change the whole MAss ,turn the Altar out , change the words,BElittle the Catholic Faith to the point it means soooo many things as not so much as it is the only Church Christ ever founded!!! YES< THE VIDEO is allowed to say what it does WATCH it and learn the price is your immortal soul!!! and the Clergy especially should watch this and GO Back to the Mass of our Forefathers!!!!!!!!
He who hears you hears me
As this is going nowhere, you can, as O'Reilly says, have the last word.
"you inhabit a contradictory world in which Tradtion both teaches the Magisterium is infallible and erroneous."
No that isn't the world I inhabit. It was the Fathers of Vatican II who said there could be deficiencies in the formulation of doctrine, not me!
But if you won't take the word of the Council on this, maybe you will take the word of the Pope. In this commentary on Gaudium et Spes n.17, the then Cardinal Ratzinger (who is now the Pope BTW) not only accuses the Council of ripping Scripture out of context (deficiency), he also accuses it of teaching Semi-Pelagianism (heresy):
"The section on freedom [in Gaudium et Spes] … is one of the least satisfactory in the whole document. The entire New Testament doctrine of freedom was completely excluded after Text 5, and as a result the standpoint adopted is, for the Christian, quite simply an unreal one.
The omission of Christology from the doctrine of the image and likeness of God, with which the idea of freedom is linked here, once again imposes its consequences. The attempt to lead up to the Christian doctrine of man from outside, and thus to render what faith affirms about Christ gradually accessible, has led to the mistaken decision to leave aside for the present what essentially belongs to the Christian faith, as being supposedly less susceptible to dialogue.
[The interpretation of the texts used, Ecclus 15.14 and 2 Cor 5.10] transfers the text from the perspective of faith to that of natural theology, which is also that of the Sirach passage. Through the latter, recourse had been had to that trend in late Jewish wisdom theology ..marked by ethical optimism. It developed something resembling a theologia naturalis, or, even more, an ethical naturalis. This …must be read in the light of the critical wisdom theology of Job and Ecclesiastes, which both …criticize the optimistic wisdom doctrine. … It is impossible to prescind from the fact that the promised life ultimately came not from freedom in fulfilling the law but from the death of him who allowed himself in accordance with the Law to hang on the tree as a transgressor of the Law (Gal 3.12) ff.). To tear Ecclus 15.14 from these contexts in the history of revelation and to use it in support of a colourless philosophical doctrine of freedom, represents not only an unhistorical reading of Scripture, but an unhistorical and therefore unreal view of man. The general doctrine of freedom developed in the conciliar text cannot therefore stand up either to theological or to philosophical criticism.
Philosophically speaking, it by-passes the whole modern discussion on freedom. It simply takes no account of that overshadowing of freedom of which psychology and sociology at the present time inform us in such a disturbing way. Consequently it shuts itself off from the factual situation of man whose freedom only comes into effect through a lattice of determining factors.
Theologically speaking, it leaves aside the whole complex of problems which Luther, with polemical onesideness, comprised in the term ‘servum arbitrium’. The whole text gives scarcely a hint of the discord which runs through man and which is described so dramatically in Rom 7.13-25. It even falls into downright Pelagian terminology when it speaks of man as ‘seese ab omni passionum captivatate liberans finem suum persequitur et apta subsidia … procurat.’ That is not balanced by the following sentence ….which speaks of a wound inflicted by sin but regards grace only as a help to make the will once more ‘plene actuosam.’ …the formula ‘plene actuousus’ means that an at all events semi-Pelagian representational pattern has been retained.”
[The will to optimism has led to] “anodyne formulas …. If optimisms in John XXIII’s sense means readiness for today and tomorrow …. it does not in any way impose the platitudes of an ethics modelled on that of the Stoa. Here it would have been possible to learn from Marxism about the extent of human alienation and decadence.” [All it does is disguise from man] “the gravity of his situation.”
Cardinal Ratzinger, Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II: Volume V. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler, pp. 138-139
So you see, bornacatholic, I and other traditionalists simply inhabit the same world as Pope Benedict, which is commonly known as the Catholic Church. There is room in here for you too if you want to join us.
As an Orthodox Christian, I am free to ignore Paul VI's self-serving justification. He also was speaking without any benefit whatsoever of seeing the fruit of his works. Maybe the guy really believed all of that "infallibility of the ordinary Magisterium" stuff, and truly believed that it all had to turn out alright.
As Tantumergo points out (and I am not implying that he, as a faithful Catholic, would agree with my above paragraph), the documents of Vat II neither intended the nonsense that we see today, and they specifically say that the formulations of Catholic teaching can be incorrect.
Ratzinger, writing in 1986, was relatively new to the Grand Inquisitor job, and it was his job to defend the order and discipline of the Church. This would of course include the N.O., which JPII most obviously supported without reservation. Even so, Ratzinger's other words in the same section from which you quote are hardly those of a fan:
"Yet, with all its advantages, the new Missal was published as if it were a book put together by professors, not a phase in a continual grown process. Such a thing has never happened before. It is absolutely contrary to the laws of liturgical growth, and it has resulted in the nonsensical notion that Trent and Pius V had "produced" a Missal four hundred years ago. The Catholic liturgy was thus reduced to the level of a mere product of modern times. This loss of perspective is really disturbing."
Allow me to translate: the revisionists basically claimed that Trent had made a liturgy for their time, and now they, in the wake of Vat II, were making a liturgy for the modern era. They claimed that they were doing the same thing that the folks at Trent had done. Ratzinger correctly fingered this as complete nonsense. If one examines the various Western liturgies in use prior to Trent, the close continuity is obvious. On a scale of 1 to 10, the changes at Trent were a 1, and the changes between what was experience in 1950 compared to what was experienced in 1980 are a 10.
Ratzinger has repeatedly articulated the strong belief that this is quite simply wrong. He has repeatedly articulated the belief that the Pope does not have the right to just do what he wants with the Liturgy.
Consider the quotes from Ratzinger's book review that was quoted earlier in this thread. He has, if anything, waxed stronger in his beliefs that liturgical changes should be organic, slow, and with obvious continuity -- and that the post Vat II liturgical changes have been anything but.
Another section that you didn't quote is the following:
"Although very few of those who express their uneasiness have a clear picture of these interrelated factors, there is an instinctive grasp of the fact that liturgy cannot be the result of Church regulations, let alone professional erudition, but, to be true to itself, must be the fruit of the Church’s life and vitality."
Allow me again to translate: The traditionalists are wrong in their insistence that the Tridentine order cannot ever change. Liturgy must be able to change and grow. He cites several examples of things he is grateful for in the new Missal: the vernacular, new eucharist prayers, and an enrichment of prayers and prefaces. Note that he does not praise everything in the N.O. -- only that there are elements that are praiseworthy. BUT, he hones in on the fact that they have an "instinctive grasp" that something is very wrong -- that it isn't enough just to follow the official church "regulations," and that the academic approach to concocting a liturgy is not the right one.
He carefully words his overt criticisms to emphasize the way that the N.O. was presented, but I find it interesting that he speaks of a new edition being needed. Could he merely be talking about introductory material explaining what it is "really" about? It hardly seems likely that a new edition would be needed for that. I would imagine that he has in mind a revision that will emphasize those aspects of the N.O. missal that are in continuity with the liturgical tradition, and that will quietly drop the wilder flights of fancy.
I think that perhaps more to the point is the fact that the N.O was quite intentionally presented as a new thing -- allowing all sorts of things to enter under the guise of "the new mass." Could he have in mind new rubrics -- such as those specifically turning the priest around to face the right direction -- the direction of all liturgical Christian prayer until very recent times? Could he have in mind moving the crucifix/cross to its traditional place in the center, rather than off to the side?
I don't know. I'm merely speculating. But what I do know is that as someone who is deeply involved in the liturgical life of the Orthodox church, I am happy to have someone like B16 around, who seems to understand better than any of his predecessors of recent memory what Liturgy is about.
No Catholic can legitimately ask (as if doubting) "Is the Church still Catholic? Has She lost the true faith? ... Can we count on today's Church to lead us to salvation?" All Catholics believe that the Church is one, holy, Catholic and apostolic, the pillar and foundation of truth, and the divinely-ordained universal and indispensible means of salvation. We assert that "outside the Church there is no salvation" precisely because it is only and always within the Church (for where Peter is, there is the Church, and where the Church is, there is no death, but everlasting life - St. Ambrose) that the authentic practice of the true faith and the Christian Sacraments are to be found. This can never change or we would have to confess Christ as failing in his promises. Did He Himself not say "I am with you for all days, even unto the consummation of the world" and "Upon this rock, I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it" and "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you to sift you like wheat. I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren"? For it is written in the book of the prophet Daniel, "the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth ... in the days of those kingdoms, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never by destroyed, and his kingdom shall not be delivered up to another people: and it shall break in pieces, and shall consume all these kingdoms: and itself shall stand for ever".
My friend, the Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Our Lord. Never can she lose the faith, never can she fail in Catholicity (for this is a note of the church), never can she fail to lead her children to salvation.
Certainly the loving Mother is spotless in the Sacraments by which she gives birth to and nourishes her children; in the faith which she has always preserved inviolate; in her sacred laws imposed on all; in the evangelical counsels which she recommends; in those heavenly gifts and extraordinary grace through which with inexhaustible fecundity, she generates hosts of martyrs, virgins and confessors. (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, §66)
“In spite of a friendly atmosphere, I strongly felt my Orthodox alienation from all the debates, from their very spirit. Orthodoxy is often imprisoned by evil and sin. The Christian West is imprisoned by heresies—not one of them, in the long run, goes unpunished.”
“I firmly believe,” he writes, “that Orthodoxy is Truth and Salvation and I shudder when I see what is being offered under the guise of Orthodoxy, what people seem to like in it, what they live for, what the most orthodox, the best people among them, see in Orthodoxy.”
“Since the Orthodox world was and is inevitably and even radically changing, we have to recognize, as the first symptom of the crisis, a deep schizophrenia which has slowly penetrated the Orthodox mentality: life in an unreal, nonexisting world, firmly affirmed as real and existing. Orthodox consciousness did not notice the fall of Byzantium, Peter the Great’s reforms, the Revolution; it did not notice the revolution of the mind, of science, of lifestyles, forms of life. . . . In brief, it did not notice history.”
“Once more, I am convinced that I am quite alienated from Byzantium, and even hostile to it. In the Bible, there is space and air; in Byzantium the air is always stuffy. All is heavy, static, petrified. . . . Byzantium’s complete indifference to the world is astounding. The drama of Orthodoxy: we did not have a Renaissance, sinful but liberating from the sacred. So we live in nonexistent worlds: in Byzantium, in Russia, wherever, but not in our own time.”
“Orthodoxy refuses to recognize the fact of the collapse and the breakup of the Orthodox world; it has decided to live in its illusion; it has turned the Church into that illusion it made the Church into a nonexistent world. I feel more and more strongly that I must devote the rest of my life to trying to dispel this illusion.”
“The function of a quarrel is in allowing people to feel principled, to serve the cause, i.e., to feel alive. . . . And free time can be filled with a quarrel. The law of émigré life: those who don’t like to quarrel organize balls and can also keep busy—endlessly—reconciling those who quarrel. And those who enjoy quarrels quarrel! But the function of both is the same.”
“I mainly feel like a stranger in the midst of the typically Russian ‘cozy’ atmosphere of the Church: Russian piety, complete self–assurance, the absence of any anxiety, any doubt, any questioning. They serve well, sing well—but they serve and sing anything well, as long as it was ‘traditional’! One word missing and all would collapse. Russians accept as slaves, or deny as slaves—blindly and stubbornly.”
“To change the atmosphere of Orthodoxy, one has to learn to look at oneself in perspective, to repent, and if needed, to accept change, conversion. In historic Orthodoxy, there is a total absence of criteria for self–criticism. Orthodoxy defined itself: against heresies, against the West, the East, the Turks, etc. Orthodoxy became woven with complexes of self–affirmation, an exaggerated triumphalism: to acknowledge errors is to destroy the foundations of true faith.”
“My point of view is that a good half of our students are dangerous for the Church—their psychology, their tendencies, a sort of constant obsession with something. Orthodoxy takes on a different, ugly aspect, something important is missing, and the Orthodoxy that these students consciously or subconsciously favor is distorted, narrow, emotional—in the end, pseudo–Orthodoxy. Not only at the seminary, but everywhere, I acutely sense the spread of a strange Orthodoxy.”
“What used to be an organic, natural style became stylization, spiritually weak, harmful. The main problem of Orthodoxy is the constraint due to style, and its inability to revise it; a prevalent absence of self–criticism, of checking the tradition of the elders by Tradition, by love of Truth. A growing idolatry.” Seminarians and clergy wear their cassocks and beards as an armor against life and thought. A pseudo–Orthodoxy. A strange Orthodoxy. A growing idolatry.
"I feel myself a radical ‘challenger,’ but among challengers I feel myself a conservative and traditionalist.”
“I cannot identify with any complete system with an integral view of the world or an ideology. It seems to me that anything finished, complete, and not open to another dimension is heavy and self–destructive. I see the error of any dialectics that proceed with thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, removing possible contradictions. I think that openness must always remain; it is faith, in it God is found, who is not a ‘synthesis’ but life and fullness.”
“According to human reasoning, the whole of our Orthodoxy hasn’t got a chance. If the Pope cannot cope, what about us? So, to worry about the Church that so obviously does not want to be saved by my recipes, by our recipes, is sinful in the final analysis: it comes from pride. For God has chosen what is totally meaningless and worthless” (1 Corinthians 1:26ff.).
“I become filled with disgust for the role I have been playing for decades. I have fear and apprehension at having to immerse myself in the affairs of the seminary and the Church. I feel that everybody around me knows what to do and how and what for, but I only pretend to know. In fact, I don’t know anything; I am not sure of anything; I am deceiving myself and others. Only when I serve the Liturgy am I not deceitful. And I will say it again: all of life flows out of—and is connected with—the Liturgy! I feel a collapse of any energy—especially spiritual. I would like to leave!”
“I don’t know how to evaluate these roles, what they are. Maybe simply laziness, maybe something deeper. To be honest, I don’t know. I only know that this alienation does not make me unhappy. I am essentially quite content with my fate and would not want any other. In a way, I like each of these roles, each of these worlds, and would probably be bored if I was deprived of them. But I cannot identify with them. I think roughly this way: I have an inner life, but my spiritual one is kept down. Yes, I have faith, but with a total absence of a personal maximalism, so obviously required by the gospel.”
The greatest anachronism, on a natural level, was to be found in the Catholic Church. Catholicism was possible only while one was able to deny and limit the freedom of the person, the basic dogma of the new times. While trying to change its course, to merge with freedom, Catholicism simply collapsed, and I do not see how its revival could be possible (unless fascism can get hold of the human race and deny the explosive synthesis of freedom and the person).”
“It would be useful to teach a course entitled ‘Great Western Errors,’ following approximately this plan: Rousseau and ‘Nature,’ with a capital N; The Enlightenment and ‘Reason,’ capital R; Hegel and ‘History,’ capital H; Marx and ‘Revolution,’ capital R; and finally, Freud and ‘Sex,’ capital S—realizing that the main error of each is precisely the capital letter, which transforms these words into an idol, into a tragic pars pro toto.”
“So at the end of the twentieth century, here is the power of religion! What else could mobilize so many millions of people; provoke such expectation, such enthusiasm? The power, and, at the same time, the ambiguity of the Ayatollah; not one word about love, peace, the transcendence in God of all petty divisions. And the threat of a holy war. The Pope, in a sense, speaks only about love. Frightening face of Islam . . . hence, this Khomeini in the end will give nothing to his people (who are so happy with him) except grief, hate, and suffering. Whereas from the Pope’s visit, only joy, only hope—even if nothing comes of it.”
“But at that time, the great majority of theologians were ultramontane and the schism was hardly noticed. Whereas now, it is not just a majority but theology as a whole, the whole thought in Catholicism that is against the monolith, against the papacy as it is now. After only a week of the unheard of triumph of the Pope and the papacy these Jesuits and nuns look and behave as if ‘nothing was the matter,’ as if all of it had nothing to do with them. They are not even angry, or sad, or hopeless.”
The Sources of His Thought
In the afterword to the journals, Fr. John Meyendorff, Fr. Alexander’s successor as dean of St. Vladimir’s, writes that Fr. Alexander’s theological worldview was essentially shaped during the Paris years, and under the influence of Catholic thinkers such as Jean Danielou and Louis Bouyer. “It is from that existing milieu,” writes Fr. Meyendorff, “that Father Schmemann really learned ‘liturgical theology,’ a ‘philosophy of time,’ and the true meaning of the ‘paschal mystery.’ If the legacy [of these French Catholics] was somewhat lost within the turmoil of postconciliar Roman Catholicism, their ideas produced much fruit in the organically liturgical and ecclesiologically consistent world of Orthodoxy through the brilliant and always effective witness of Fr. Schmemann.” The journals leave no doubt that Fr. Alexander was not nearly so confident of the effectiveness of his witness, and certainly had no illusions about his vision flourishing in Orthodoxy.
end of quotes from Fr. Neuhaus, "First Things" article.
Each of our Churches have brilliant theologians whose personal opinions can cause each of us to sit-up and take notice.
I have no problem with your personal opinions about Liturgy, brother. I do have a problem with you casting as self-justification an offical explanation by the Pope. It would be like me asserting all your opinions are advanced to justify your Orthodox Ideology.< P>Vatican Two does NOT say formulations can be incorrect. That is what Tantumergo alleges. It clearly says there can be deficiencies in they way they are written etc. Deficiencies are not errors.
I have a problem with your dismissive approach to Card Ratzinger's words I posted. You think they are dissolved by what you quoted. They aren't. The fact remains the MAgisterium DOES have authority over the Liturgy < Mediator Dei and if it doesn't then who the heck has made the dramatic changes in the Liturgy, including our Canon and your original Liturgy of St. James?
Those objections aside, I too am grateful for Pope Benedict. Prior to the conclave, and during it, his elevation to the Papacy was part of my dialy rosary intentions. However, let's step back just a bit.
The personal opinions of any theologian are just that - opinions. Until they are "baptized" or accepted as part of the Magisterium they are theological speculations. The Pope and the Bishops in union with him are Teachers. Theologians are not Teachers. Remember that even the great Aquinas could't figure out how to explain the Immaculate Conception and it took the, still unknown, William of Ware (I am doing this from memory, I hope I am right) to fix the theological justification.
So, let us wait to see what Cardinal Ratzinger does in his ofical, not speculative, acts. I have every confidence in him.
Catherine of Sienna referred to the Pope as "our sweet Jesus on Earth."
That is the way I think of Pope Benedict.
* Brother, you cite the, unofficial, theologizing of Cardinal Ratzinger as Doctrine. It ain't. Even a man as great as he has no authority as a Teacher. In the Catholic Church the Pope and the Bishops in union with him are Teachers.
As to your assertion I ain't Catholic I can only respond with laughter. Hearty laughter. My disagreeing with your personal opinions and spin does not make me a heretic.
Now, take a breath and wait to see whether or not Pope Benedict speaks as Pope the way he wrote privately as a theologian.
Sheesh. I can't believe what I read from you guys.
Ah, but what general physically leads an army in the secular world? Only in the Church can you find that sort of general. It seems these "generals" in the Church are fewer than used to be but they are there and are younger than in years past. And what general in the secular world has the ability to use beautiful vestments that can remind us of what we are being led to? Our pastor has aquired over the past 12 years some of the most gorgeous vestments. Since the weather here in Detroit has gotten pretty hot he has started to wear some of the "fiddle back" vestments. But, as you said the analogy isn't perfect. Its a good analogy because it demonstrates there is a war going on and that there have been some generals who did lead armies into battle.
The beauty in our parish is a constant reminder of God. Why do Catholics believe they must embrace the look of the modern world? Do they really think bare walls and lounge music; or worse rock music, will lead us to heaven?
12. The holy people of God shares also in Christ's prophetic office; it spreads abroad a living witness to Him, especially by means of a life of faith and charity and by offering to God a sacrifice of praise, the tribute of lips which give praise to His name.(110) The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One,(111) cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples' supernatural discernment in matters of faith when "from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful" (8*) they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. That discernment in matters of faith is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth. It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience to which the people of God accepts that which is not just the word of men but truly the word of God.(112) Through it, the people of God adheres unwaveringly to the faith given once and for all to the saints,(113) penetrates it more deeply with right thinking, and applies it more fully in its life.
end of quote
The Magisterium, the Magisterum Teaches, can't err.
I think those of us who would like to see congregations being offered this sort of beauty understand it isn't a cure all, but it is most definately a part of Catholic heritage and the culture of western faith. And, over time it calls the soul forward especially if you have a teaching pastor who is willing to educate his congregation.
Personally, I think laziness drives a lot of "progressive" priests. They do not offer their congregation an education about their faith so the congregation does not even know the need for the sacraments. They do not offer the culture and tradition of the Church because its a lot of work.
Given by His Holiness St. Pius X September 1, 1910. To be sworn to by all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries.
I . . . . firmly embrace and accept each and every definition that has been set forth and declared by the unerring teaching authority of the Church...
*Tantumergo. Your "tradionalism" is tainted by Modernism...
And the errors of Luther condemned by Pope Leo X in 1520
28. 28. If the pope with a great part of the Church thought so and so, he would not err; still it is not a sin or heresy to think the contrary, especially in a matter not necessary for salvation, until one alternative is condemned and another approved by a general Council. 29. A way has been made for us for weakening the authority of councils, and for freely contradicting their actions, and judging their decrees, and boldly confessing whatever seems true, whether it has been approved or disapproved by any council whatsoever
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