If you were to look at things a little more closely you would date many of the problems farther back then that. Most of the things we face today were starting well before the Council. Speaking from experience (I have done this far to often) blaming the Council is a simplistic argument that many traditionalists like to use, but like most simplistic things it is at best partially true. Life is messier then that.And you say that Vatican II was a mistake!!!I can date many of the Church's current problems from Vatican II, yes. The loss of institutional identity; the abandonment of norms; the obscuring of clarity of mission; and all the problems flowing from that, from declining Mass attendance to chronic vocational shortages. You can defend the Council simply on the grounds that the Holy Spirit will not err; but I reply that whatever the Spirit's intentions, the subsequent human application of them has been disastrous.
It is true that the liberals have hung their hats on the Council and distorted it to great gain, something they would not have been able to do in the absence of the Council, but in order for this to be true there had to be liberals in the first place, they had to be in positions of power, and they had to be organized and already working on things.
The Council gave them an opportunity, and likely made things easier for them, but they were already moving. As hard as things are today, we are already moving back - as often happens after a Council.
No, it didn’t. From the Catechism:The Church has NEVER taught that one can enter heaven other than through Jesus Christ....The Church did, I believe, disavow the slogan "No salvation outside the Church."
"Outside the Church there is no salvation"In response to Fr. Feeney the Church explicitly clarified the saying (previous Popes had implicitly clarified it) and excommunicated him for his refusal to stop preaching his stilted reading of the doctrine. Note: this all occurred well before Vatican II.846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? 335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it. 336
Dominus Vobiscum
patent +AMDG
Well, exactly. The preexistence of the liberals is neither here nor there, really. The fact remains, as you pointed out, that there is this Church Council that validates them. And that's tragic. For your argument to work, you essentially have to downplay the import of that Council, and play up the import of this faction. I think that's getting it backwards.
As for the Catechism statements, I appreciate your posting them, and I'm glad to read them. However, my point about the Church's institutional timorousness on this point still stands.
Well, exactly. The preexistence of the liberals is neither here nor there, really. The fact remains, as you pointed out, that there is this Church Council that validates them. And that's tragic. For your argument to work, you essentially have to downplay the import of that Council, and play up the import of this faction. I think that's getting it backwards.
As for the Catechism statements, I appreciate your posting them, and I'm glad to read them. However, my point about the Church's institutional timorousness on this point still stands.