[patent]

Well, I checked out that link, and what's still left unexplained is how all this could go on under the noses of the Old Guard. I just don't understand how they couldn't have completely stopped it in its tracks.

It is my opinion (and take it as no more then that-an opinion) that large portions of the heirarchy in this country were corrupted long before Vatican II. Many of the most powerful Cardinals in this country empraced the theories that led straight into cafeteria catholicism, and promoted like minded priests into numerous chanceries all over the country. Their dissent became a lot more open in the decades after V2 as society and the Church reeled from the changes.

patent

[inquest]

If that were true, it still couldn't have happened in a vacuum. It's one thing for Church officials to be "corrupted" - I think of corruption as things like taking bribes and kickbacks, stuff like that - and another thing altogether for officials to be actively promoting things that are so contrary to everything that the Church was erected to stand for. There would have to have been some outside force that has been very dedicated to a certain goal. I've heard rumblings from various sources about a certain Antonio Gramsci, who's said to have laid the groundwork for a deliberate "long march through the institutions" by certain subversive forces, but I don't know how credible those types of stories are. But I don't know what else to conclude, because this is just not a normal type of degeneration.

[history_matters]

It is my opinion (and take it as no more then that-an opinion) that large portions of the heirarchy in this country were corrupted long before Vatican II. Many of the most powerful Cardinals in this country embraced the theories that led straight into cafeteria catholicism, and promoted like minded priests into numerous chanceries all over the country. Their dissent became a lot more open in the decades after V2 as society and the Church reeled from the changes.

Ditto -- my opinion as well.