[Land of the Irish]

Ping

[Zviadist]

in so many ways, has not even been implemented yet.

The funny thing is that this is what the Soviets kept saying as their economy kept collapsing: "as soon as we can fully implement communism, this will be the land of milk and honey." We all know what happened there...

The Neo-Caths have been feeding this line almost as long as the Soviets did: "our new system is the absolute best, unfortunately it is not implemented fully, so please disregard all negative evidence all around you. As soon as we fully implement it, the negatives you see around you that the implementation process produced will disappear."

This is kind of like an alcoholic drinking to get sober.

[eastsider]

Last time I checked, Pope John XXIII brought about Vatican II, not the Holy Spirit.

And last time I checked, Constantine brought about Nicea. So what?

[haole]

Michael S Rose's new book as well as his previous excellent work points the "finger" of blame, not at VAT II but at the liberal's use of " in the intent of VAT II " phraseology to ram their mindless new age and pro-secular version of what the Chruch should be.

The recent series on EWTN-" the documents of VATICAN II ", show the huge gulf between what was actually published, and what was done by the liberal clergy to change the Church in their image.

No more 1st Confession before 1st Communion in their churches ( even though it is still required ), "centering prayer meetings", butt-dropping Baptisms instead of water being poured over the head, jokes told by the Priest during Mass- none of this was from VAT II.

The horrific desecration of the church buildings themselves came from the liberals wanting to follow a ART & Architecture book that was never approved by the Church Bishops ( the removal of the Tabernacle from the Sanctuary into a small room, often hidden from sight, the removal of kneelers, etc ) and the singing of "We are god" songs instead of the proper "You are God" hymns.

Sure there is a lot to like about the older Tridentine Mass, but Vat II never meant to CHANGE the MASS itself, onnly the language used in it. Most people realize that the holding hands part is more of a "we are god" new age movement and a large distraction from the most important part of the Mass-the Consecration. But as long as there are "Liturgists" running the ops, and defrocked nuns and former priests in the Church councils running the Parishes-they above all do not want to know the real documents of VAT II.

[Maximilian]

Thanks for the excellent article. This one really lays it on the line. Mario Dirksen is a very young guy who was not even raised in a traditional family. With young people like him, maybe there is hope after all.

[Scupoli]

This is a good article BTW. One thing that I have been considering as of late, what kind of a Council require us to "figure out what it meant", 40 years later no less?

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

It's sad but the intellectual attempt to disentangle Vatican II (as a council)theoretically from the social and cultural upheaval of its actual misapplication in the U.S. since the 1960s always gets muddled in translation. The apt metaphor might be distinguishing Pearl Harbor from Hiroshima and the Bataan death march. Obviously something went very wrong somewhere between the sessions in Rome and what happened in U.S. seminaries afterwards. Where to point the blame is the great debate.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"portraying Vatican II as an attempted reconciliation of Catholicism and modernity is ridiculous..."

Actually, the liberal version of American Catholicism which has dominated the Church here since the 1960s makes Catholicism subordinate to various ideologies and cultural trends of radical modernity. If one were to look at certain peculiar post-Vatican II trends at U.S. seminaries and at places like Georgetown University, for instance, this is not that hard to document.

[marshmallow]

No Catholic is bound to believe (nor may he believe) that whenever a Pope calls a council, it's necessarily a good idea. But the Neo-Catholic is quick to call people who disagree with this "disloyal." They have lost the sense of the True Faith. They have, in effect, started to worship the Pope. Their intentions are noble, no doubt, but intentions don't suffice.

No my friend, we don't worship the Pope. It's you who worship "tradition". All in the name of serving God, of course, but the mentality is similar to that of the Pharisees when they said to Jesus; "We don't need you to teach us, we have Moses and the Prophets."

Just because one is not "bound to believe" that the calling of V-II by the Pope was the work of the Holy Spirit, does not mean that it is a good idea to believe that it is not the work of the Holy Spirit. Similarly, just because the Pope is not speaking ex cathedra, which he does rarely does, does not mean that's it's a good idea to believe he's in error.

Is it really such a large jump from the position expressed in the article that we have a Pope who is actually damaging the Church, to the sedevacantist postion that the See of Peter is occupied by a "false" Pope? It is a very small step in my opinion.

One trend which appears to be evermore pronounced is the fixation of SSPX and other groups with the person of JP II. More and more of their invective is being directed at him and less and less at the true enemies of the Church, which they profess to be fighting. That's not surprising. When one is shattering the unity of the Church, whether from the left or the right, it is always the Pope who is the primary target of attack. Nothing has changed down through the ages. The Rock who is Peter was and always will be the primary focus of Satan's hatred.

[Polycarp]

Thank you for the note. God Bless.

[LadyDoc]

Patrick Buchanan wrote about the decline of Catholicism in the Church since Vatican II, based on statistics collected by Kenneth C. Jones of St. Louis. Among the findings: dramatic decreases in Mass attendance, an incredible loss of faith in the Real Presence, gigantic drops in the number of seminarians, priests, and religious, and a sky-rocketing increase in marriage annulments.

Since when do statistics about the church in the US mean that Catholicism is declining. Last time I looked, there are a billion Catholics, but in the USA there are only 42 million Catholics.

So, according to Buchanan, if you are a Filippino, a South American, or an African, you don't count?

[LadyDoc]

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/10/jenkins.htm

For thirty years Northern liberals have dreamed of a Third Vatican Council to complete the revolution launched by Pope John XXIII—one that would usher in a new age of ecclesiastical democracy and lay empowerment. It would be a bitter irony for the liberals if the council were convened but turned out to be a conservative, Southern-dominated affair that imposed moral and theological litmus tests intolerable to North Americans and Europeans—if, in other words, it tried to implement not a new Reformation but a new Counter-Reformation. (In that sense we would be witnessing not a new Wittenberg but, rather, a new Council of Trent—that is, a strongly traditional gathering that would restate the Church's older ideology and attempt to set it in stone for all future ages.) If a future Southern Pope struggled to impose a new vision of orthodoxy on America's Catholic bishops, universities, and seminaries, the result could well be an actual rather than a de facto schism.

The experience of the world's Anglicans and Episcopalians may foretell the direction of conflicts within the Roman Catholic Church. In the Anglican Communion, which is also torn by a global cultural conflict over issues of gender and sexuality, orthodox Southerners seek to re-evangelize a Euro-American world that they view as coming close to open heresy.

[HumanaeVitae]

I don't care. Ah, and just because we don't think that the endless wrecking of the Holy Mass, the 98% decrease of seminarians, the huge drop in priests and religious, and the humongous decline in belief in essential Church teachings herald a "new springtime," we are "pessimistic."

Look at the Mormons for a second. Mormonism demands all kinds of things from its adherents: 10% tithing of income, strict moral adherence to its principles (no abortion, homosexuality, drinking, dancing, etc.), missions (not an option; a Mormon must go on two missions in his or her life), a large family. It is adamant about its traditions, doctrines and behavior of its members. And guess what: despite the fact that it's apparently based on a completely apocryphal book written in the 19th century, it's the fastest growing religion in America.

You can't have followers unless you lead. People don't know where to stand unless the people who do know where people should stand (the Church) start drawing bright lines and distinctions.

Cheers...

[WriteOn]

The only thing the Holy Spirit did was make sure that nothing at Vatican II would be endowed with the note of infallibility.

Call me stupid, but how does he know this?