There’s an interesting piece running at the New Liturgical Movement blog entitled, The Danger of Equating Vatican II and the Liturgical Reform, by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski of Wyoming Catholic College.
The title more or less suggests the thesis, and in a literal sense, it has some merit.
After all, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, did not call for much of the nonsense that has come to define the Novus Ordo Missae; e.g., versus populum worship, the near abolition of Latin, the dreadful music, etc.
That said, the article falls short in that it fails to address the unsettling reality that Sacrosanctum Concilium opened the door for the “bringing down to earth” of the Roman Rite to follow, even as, arguably, the majority of Council Fathers never imagined that the end result would be the protestantized product that emerged.
This sacred Council desires … to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church. (SC 1)
Yes, you read that correctly. The Council Fathers, some naively, others deliberately, made ecumenism one of, if not the, driving force behind the liturgical reforms.
So when we read commentary from a Protestant professor saying, “…nothing in the renewed Catholic Mass need really trouble the Evangelical Protestant,” let’s be very clear, it’s not because the reformers simply abandoned Sacrosanctum Concilium; it’s because they were successful in accomplishing its stated desire. (cf M.G. Siegvalt, La Croix, 22 Nov 1969)
Likewise, when we recognize the harm done by liturgists who seem to believe that the Council serves as their personal mandate to ensure that as many people as possible are “doing something” in the liturgy, all in the name of “active participation,” let’s not pretend that they simply took it upon themselves to downplay the primary role interior participation.
“To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence.” (SC 30)
Furthermore, when we lament the degree to which our liturgies have been stripped of sacred mystery, as if every last word and gesture must be plainly understood by all, in spite of the reality of Holy Mass as nothing less than a mystical encounter with the ineffable Lord, let’s be sure to take into account the role that the Constitution played in promoting this process of dumbing-down the Holy Sacrifice:
“In this restoration, both texts and rites should be drawn up so that they express more clearly the holy things which they signify; the Christian people, so far as possible, should be enabled to understand them with ease and to take part in them fully, actively, and as befits a community.” (SC 21)
Unfortunately, flaws such as these, and far worse, are sprinkled throughout the conciliar text, posing as solemn teaching when indeed they are nothing of the sort.
Even though Dr. Kwasniewski plainly acknowledges that there are “problems, difficulties, and ambiguities in the conciliar documents,” still he holds firm to the conviction, “The teaching of the sixteen official documents of Vatican II supports rather than dismantles traditional Catholic theology and piety.”
Every pope from Paul VI onward has said essentially the same thing, and so I can understand why faithful Catholics, many of whom identify as “conservative,” might be predisposed to believing it.
I used to believe it too, but then, by the grace of God, I decided to view the conciliar text in the light of all that preceded it and not just the past 40 or so years, at which point, I was forced to ponder some important questions:
– Is it really true, as the Council suggests, that Christ uses not just the Catholic Church as a means of salvation, but also heretical communities too numerous to number? (Unitatis Redintegratio)
– Are the children of the Church, as the Council suggests, really one in Christ with those who reject Him, deny His sacred divinity, and scoff at His glorious resurrection? (Nostra Aetate)
– Does mankind really have, as the Council suggests, a God-given right to worship idols? (Dignitatis Humanae)
Clearly, the Catholic response to each of these questions is a resounding no! Even so, Dr. Kwasniewski remains entirely committed to the conservative party line.
“But it is still more certain that the final documents … are free from error in faith and morals, being the formal acts of an ecumenical council and solemnly promulgated by the Pope,” he writes.
This raises a critical question: At what point do the “problems, difficulties, and ambiguities in the conciliar documents” rise to the level of error, or at the very least, to the level of that which must be plainly rejected given the great harm they have, and continue, to invite?
The article concludes with a warning, “We must never, as it were, abandon the Council to the modernists; this would only play into the devil’s hands.”
I agree entirely, but sadly, Dr. Kwasniewski doesn’t realize that in clinging to the idea that the Council as a whole “supports rather than dismantles traditional Catholic theology and piety,” he is doing just that.
I tend to think that once the liturgical reform passed into the hands of the liturgical committee all bets were off and what the Council Fathers *really* wanted or what Sacrosanctum Concilium *actually* called for was something of a moot point.
First, the document seems elastic enough to accommodate almost any change to the liturgy as long as it’s done for “pastoral” reasons. Second, who was to tell them they were going too far? Pope Paul VI? I think they essentially had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to the liturgy, and they took full advantage of it.
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Brennan Doherty Dom Alcuin Reid, in reviewing “The Development of Liturgical Reform” which is based on the diary and notes of a Cardinal who was involved in the reform (though not a progressive) and thus knew first hand what was actually going on in the liturgical commission, provides some interesting quotes from the Cardinal:
“I am not enthusiastic about this work. I am unhappy about how much the Commission has changed. It is merely an assembly of people, many of them incompetent, and others of them well advanced on the road to novelty. The discussions are extremely hurried. Discussions are based on impressions and the voting is chaotic. What is most displeasing is that the expositive Promemorias and the relative questions are drawn up in advanced terms and often in a very suggestive form. The direction is weak.”
As the Consilium’s work proceeded, Antonelli’s concerns about its competence, its predilection for innovation and its consuming haste, grew. After some years’ experience of the Consilium he wrote that the liturgical reform was becoming “more chaotic and deviant”, adding:
“That which is sad…however, is a fundamental datum, a mutual attitude, a pre-established position, namely, many of those who have influenced the reform…and others, have no love, and no veneration of that which has been handed down to us. They begin by despising everything that is actually there. This negative mentality is unjust and pernicious, and unfortunately, Paul VI tends a little to this side. They have all the best intentions, but with this mentality they have only been able to demolish and not to restore.”
http://www.amazon.com/…/1934888125/ref=pdp_new_dp_review
Of course, none of this evidence particularly matters to a number of conservatives, who simply must defend the liturgical changes at all costs as if a liturgical committee is infallibly inspired by the Holy Spirit. The only criticisms allowed are those of abuses, and if only we got rid of the abuses we would have just a wonderful liturgy.
Well, thankfully, more work is being done to show that the actual motives of the committee and how they operated had literally nothing in common with the ultimate aims of liturgy, which is to provide a sense of reverence and awe in the worship of God.
I think you mean versus populum (sp?).
Thanks PB. 🙂
Once again, out of the park Mr. V. I am exactly in your shoes….once believed the conservative line, now see with the clear eyes of indisputable fact. The problem is….what do we do…where do we go? Though I GREATLY admire the SSPX, and believe that the Lord has used them as the repository and guardian of Tradition, I simply can’t make that leap yet. I believe they have a BIG role to yet play, and will be used by Providence for the good of the Church; yet we are in a time of Hosea married to a notorious harlot…a living Icon of inscrutable narrative. It is a physical and spiritual PAIN to wake each morning to see and hear what new horror the princes of the Church are promulgating (i.e., Maradiegas’s latest unhinged screed–and he, one of the B of R’s top advisors!.
It is an intense suffering….and I am truly at a loss to see it’s like in all of Church history. Yes, there’ve been bad times and wicked prelates before, but I think there is something uniquely sinister in these current machinations. It is a time of sifting and walking a razor’s edge. Your vision and analysis have helped to keep my clarity. There are many days when your site, Mundabor’s (thanks for adding him to your blogroll!), and Barnhardt’s are my first, or more often ONLY, web reading of the day. Clear, concise…the aroma of truth all about you three. You are doing a great service and work of mercy….don’t ever forget that, and don’t ever stop speaking the Truth.
These are very important points.
At the same time, it is worth remembering that Vatican II also includes statements that ask questions of the current leadership. Take the following, for example, from Gaudium et Spes:
“The word ‘atheism’ is applied to phenomena which are quite distinct from one another. For while God is expressly denied by some, others believe that man can assert absolutely nothing about Him…. Many, unduly transgressing the limits of the positive sciences, contend that everything can be explained by this kind of scientific reasoning alone, or by contrast, they altogether disallow that there is any absolute truth“.
With this in mind, one recalls this well-known but (astonishingly) little-noted comment from Francis:
“I would not speak about ‘absolute’ truths, even for believers….”
Letter to a Non-Believer, Sept. 11, 2013
Dear Mr. Verrecchio,
Thank you for your frank and thoughtful engagement with my article. I welcome this kind of critique.
I think you can see that I am trying to walk a fine line. On the one hand, I recognize and find no difficulty saying that the documents of the Council are full of aspects that make their interpretation vexing and difficult. For example, their are statements in Sacrosanctum Concilium that could easily be manipulated to evil ends. On the other hand, I am equally certain, having studied these documents carefully against the backdrop of the Church Fathers, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the prior Magisterium, that nothing in the documents HAS TO BE TAKEN in a modernist sense. That is, one can always find a way to interpret the text in accordance with the preceding tradition.
Granted, occasionally this may lead to many pages of hermeneutical somersaults (as in Dom Basile Valuet’s enormous treatise on reconciling Dignitatis Humanae with the prior magisterium), and I will plainly admit that this is largely a waste of time and a highly regrettable result of the dismantling of the preparatory schemas. Nevertheless, this is a matter of principle: why do we have to attribute error to a council whose main faults seem to be ambiguity, prolixity, and naive optimism? Error is a serious charge; the others, serious enough in their way, but having to do with expression and mode, not substance.
Of course, one may take refuge in the claim that Vatican II was only meant to be a pastoral council, but I’m afraid that one cannot quite so easily sidestep much of the obviously theological and doctrinal content of its documents (e.g., when Lumen Gentium repeatedly defines the episcopate as the fullness of the priesthood, which had been a disputed theological question up to that point, or when the same document teaches that every Catholic is called to the summit of perfection in charity, which was the thesis of Garrigou-Lagrange but disputed by many others).
In any case, I am sympathetic to your overriding concerns and I trust we have more in common than not.
Ambiguity and confusion are a tools of Modernism. These tools leave the door open to error and when error enters, it’s there to stay. It is not an accident–it is by design.
Thank you for your gracious reply, Dr. Kwasniewski. I’m truly grateful. I do trust that we have more in common than otherwise indeed!
If what we’re dealing with is text that suffers ambiguity, prolixity, and naive optimism, so much so as to require the gymnastics you describe in order to be read within the Church’s tradition, that’s no small matter. Especially since we’re discussing the text of an ecumenical council.
Whether one calls it error or not, such text must be rejected. Why? Because, as the witness of the last four decades aptly demonstrates, it presents a grave danger to the faithful, clergy included.
As you surely know, a diligent censor librorum will reject a text that is misleading or confusing, even if not concretely erroneous. By this standard, I think it’s fair to say that some of the conciliar documents are unworthy of an imprimatur!
Thanks again for taking the time comment. I do appreciate it.
And yet to suggest that there are problems that have ensued post Council gets those who do the suggesting into hot water and into being called names and heretic and schismatic, etc. It is obvious that the fallout has been disastrous and yet so many deny that.
All this leaves even educated faithful to be confused. While desiring to be faithful to the Holy Father and Magisterium, the ideas contrary to the teachings post conciliar are difficult to support. We know the Truth does not change but so many statements and actions, even from the highest places leave so many scratching their heads.
Talking of recommending stuff, this is not from a particularly Traditional POV, but ISTM to be a God-send:
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http://beginningtopray.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/theological-contemplation-theological.html
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“Theological Contemplation – theological and mystical wisdom ” is the title of the article, and is exactly what it’s about. I can’t recommend it enough.
[N]othing in the documents HAS TO BE TAKEN in a modernist sense.
True, but the very fact that they can be, with rather little effort, is the problem. And an even greater problem is that too many in the episcopate seem to interpret it in a modernist sense.
It is perhaps bad form to promote one’s blog on another blog, but my only defense in this case is that the piece I will refer you to was not written by me but merely re-published by me. It was written by the brilliant French intellectual Arnaud de Lassus and it discusses the whole topic of Modernism from its inception. I believe it is essential reading for anyone wishing to know the origins of this malignancy.
It is in three parts, the first of which can be found here: http://theeye-witness.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-century-of-modernism.html
If nothing else it gives an excellent background of the forces at work which found their full flowering in 1962-65.
“I would not speak about ‘absolute’ truths, even for believers….”
Disagree with Pope Francis, point out his errors and call for their correction, and pray for his conversion, but at least quote him accurately:
“To begin with, I would not speak about ‘absolute’ truths, even for believers, in the sense that absolute is that which is disconnected and bereft of all relationship. Truth, according to the Christian faith, is the love of God for us in Jesus Christ. Therefore, truth is a relationship.”
“This sacred Council desires … to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church. (SC 1)
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Yes, you read that correctly. The Council Fathers, some naively, others deliberately, made ecumenism one of, if not the, driving force behind the liturgical reforms.”
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## It can be read in that way – but I’ve always assumed it meant that “all who believe in Christ” should be invited into the Catholic Church, by seeing the excellence of the Tri-Une God Whom the Church adores, and by responding to God’s Will that the Kingdom ruled by God & the Church Of Christ should become “co-extensive with the world”. Where there are human beings, there are subjects of Christ – to be human, is to be subject to Him in fact, whether one realises one is or not. Jesus Christ will be the Judge of all mankind, from Adam to the last of men, because Jesus Christ is King. We must be ever more fully converted from sin to Christ, in every respect, throughout life, as individuals and societies, because He is King. The Church exists for this purpose – to preach the Good News of Jesus, King of Kings, & of His Kingship, His Kingly Power, and the boundless extent of this Kingdom. The Liturgy is one of the means by which the King exerts His rule.
The oikoumene, from which “ecumenical” comes is the entire inhabited earth, and Christ is its rightful King (as per Psalm 72). (Cf. the title “Ecumenical Patriarch”.) In *that* sense, the Church is ecumenical, in origin, vocation, nature, mission, purpose & membership, and so is her worship; it is, in God’s Intention, the praise rendered to God by all creation, and Christ is the High Priest Who is the Unique/Universal Mediator of this adoring & universal praise. By incorporation in Him & living in His Church, man is enabled to approach the Father,”in Christ”, through the Holy Spirit.
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That is my understanding of what SC 1 is “driving at”, and of the theology that motivates SC1 – a ton of V2 documents, and of documents since, *can be* interpreted in that way. The problem is, that although that interpretation, or an interpretation along those lines, is *possible*, it is not made clear that it is the one *intended* – loop-holes remain, that allow others, that are all too man-centred. This lack of precision, and the presence of the indefiniteness that is ambiguity, makes the evil of pan-religionism possible, and others too.
A related problem is the obvious one that Catholics took for granted that the Council meant to be understood in a Catholic sense – and if it meant the traditional stuff in a Catholic sense, it must mean the new stuff to be understood in a Catholic sense.
But, an ambiguity arises: is the reason for understanding Council documents based on Papal approbation, and thus on Papal authority – or, is it based on the meaning of the dovcuments ? Is ecumenism good & Catholic because the Pope’s authority commends & promotes it – or, is it bad & unCatholic, because the Popes have condemned & discouraged it ? Do we take our bearings from the authority – or, from what is authorised ? And what happens when one of the two, but not both, is good and Catholic & orthodox & orthopractic ?
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IMHO, the trouble has the following cause: failure by the Council Fathers to make clear that the documents of a Catholic Council can be accurately interpreted only by being understood in a Catholic sense, and that if they taken in a sense that allows them to be taken in any other, their sense is being mistaken. This failure is – IMHO – is what makes possible “commentary from a Protestant professor saying, “…nothing in the renewed Catholic Mass need really trouble the Evangelical Protestant…”
meaning of the dovcuments ? Is…
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should read:
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= meaning of the documents as they stand ? Is…
“Thus, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics. There is but one way in which the unity of Christians may be fostered, and that is by furthering the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it; for from that one true Church they have in the past fallen away.”……..Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos.
…..from “Why Do You Love Decay? by John Vennari……..
Just consider some of the most famous quotes regarding Vatican II.
Cardinal Giuseppe Siri said, “If the Church were not Divine, the Council would have buried her.”
The liberal Cardinal Joseph Suenens rejoiced, “Vatican II is the French Revolution of the Church.”
Bishop Thomas Morrow, a prelate who participated at Vatican II, said later in life, “I was relieved when we were told that this Council was not aiming at defining or giving final statements on doctrine, because a statement of doctrine has to be very carefully formulated, and I would have regarded the Council documents as tentative and liable to be reformed.”
Liberal Protestant Observer Robert McAffee Brown, writing immediately after the Council, said he despised Pope Pius XI’s and Pope Pius XII’s magisterial pronouncement on Ecumenism (Mortalium Animos and the 1949 Decree on Ecumenism) because both documents insisted on the conversion of non-Catholics to Catholicism as one and only way to true Christian Unity. McAfee Brown went on to say he loved Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism because the Council text NOWHERE mentions the need for non-Catholics to convert to the Catholic Church.
…..The chaos resulting from these documents is well attested by the present ruinous state of the Church throughout the world. The very fact it is commonly held that Vatican II documents can have both a liberal interpretation and a conservative interpretation (the hermeneutic of discontinuity/hermeneutic of continuity dichotomy) testifies to the want of scholastic precision in the documents themselves. No one even pretends the Decrees of Trent or Vatican I can be interpreted in any other manner than the precise language in which they are written……
…..In fact, during the Council preparations, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre noted the want of accuracy in the ‘pastoral language’ of the drafted texts. He proposed the Council produce two sets of documents: one in ‘pastoral,’ easy-to understand language for the average man; and the other in the precision of scholastic language. His proposal was immediately shot down, since the progressivists did not want to exactitude of scholastic language to lock them into a traditional interpretation of the texts……”
Vatican Cardinal Koch said it is ‘unthinkable’ to question Vatican II. Archbishop Muller, went so far as to claim it is ‘heresy’ to say Vatican II constitutes a rupture with the past, even though that rupture is manifest FOR ALL TO SEE.
UNTHINKABLE to question Vatican II?
….Why do our Catholic leaders constantly express such ardor for Vatican II, and insist that traditional Catholics accept the texts without question?
….We may ask our Church leaders: why do you insist on our adhesion to texts that are ‘tentative and liable to be reformed’?
….What is your attraction to documents that contain novelties of which ‘we have to make reservations’?
….Why do you love doctrinally anemic decrees that are applauded by liberal Protestants?
….Why do you love documents that contain ‘compromised formulas’ that have ‘a huge potential for conflict’?
….Why do you love what is inherently flawed? Why do you love a Council of mass destruction? Why do you love decay and death?
….We should ask our Vatican leaders and the world’s bishops as to……WHY THEY LOVE THE SMELL OF ROTTING FLESH; WHY THEY GLORY IN A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS; WHY THEY PREFER VAPIDITY AND PUTREFACTION?
One of the saddest events was the Vatican Radio report of Pope Francis’ statement that “Vatican II is the beautiful work of the Holy Spirit”; his claim that to resist the Council is to ‘resist the Spirit’; and that those are ‘testardi’…..’stubborn hardheads’…..who want to go back from Vatican II.
The Vatican II establishment now collapses under its own decay. It is time for traditional Catholics to close in for the kill, and not merely ask if we may be excused from the worst excesses of their reckless experiment……We must relentlessly ask our Church leaders why they love a blunder of such magnitude that ‘IF THE CHURCH WERE NOT DIVINE, THE COUNCIL WOULD HAVE BURIED HER.”
Is it any wonder that no one takes the Church’s doctrinal or moral claims seriously? With prelates like these, who needs enemies?
May God Bless All Soldiers Of Christ!
Viva Cristo Rey!
Another translation of Mgr. Gherardini’s text is here:
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http://www.centreleonardboyle.com/Tradition-Magisterium.html
And more here – a review of: “The Ecumenical Vatican Council II: A Much Needed Discussion” by Msgr. Brunero Gherardini:
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http://hospitallers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/ecumenical-vatican-council-ii-much.html
Another brilliant post Mr. V.
Reading your post, Bishop Athanasius.Schneider’s suggestion for a syllabus of errors came to mind. First of all, all sides agree that VII defined NO NEW DOGMA. Therefore, it is only logical that any new dogmatic belief that arose after the beginning of the council, and contradict the Magistarium are ERRORS BY DEFINITION. If we can agree on this, then the logical next step, and a very elegant manner in which to “slay the VII error beast” would be to go through all the documents and define the errors line by line. I would also add a glossary section to each identified error, explaining that if someone likes a particular error, the best place for that person would be in the respective sect that promulgates that specific error. (E.g. You like the assembly theology experience with a evangelical twist? Yes? Try the Pentecostals.) At this point, all Catholics would at least know where they stand. It would also eliminate a lot of confusion in the minds of good Catholics who were indoctrinated in the N.O. religion, and are having a hard time dealing with the continuous novelties that are needed to keep this contraption going. And it definitely would bring back a lot of the ones that just gave up on the Church of VII altogether.
There is enough evidence documented by fine scholars around (Amerio, Davies, Gherardini, de Mattei and many more eg. Padre Lanzatta FFI (who has been hushed up as most of these others have until Benedict’s pontificate which was when I discovered them) to show that the Modernists most definitely took over the Council and particular destruction was focussed on the HOLY MASS (I am not sedevacantisr . but Father Cekada’s book is worth reading – all documented – totally shocking – he writes of things like the Consilium wanted to take away Ash Wednesday and Lenten practices completely – just shocking -that the Pope left Holy things into the hands of such devious men … well what can I say ? We have said it all …what are we to do – the ordinary faithful, yes – what now? It’s true we cannot complain on blogs forever – but thank God we have somewhere to complain as practically all other platforms of communication are denied us ….
Unless priests and a couple of bishops at least lead us we won’t be able to to anything – as those in Rome have stopped lisening to us completely now…
…pending Our Lord’s intervention…
Sorry about all my typing errors and bad punctuation – but there is no means to scroll up (as far as I can see) to check the text and make corrections…does anyone else have the same problem …or is it just hapless me?
With respect to the calumny hurled at the SSPX being schismatic, protestant and what not, here is a post from their website:
http://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/catholic-reactions-church-crisis-3152
Classy, as always.
Archbishop Lefebvre, ora pro nobis.
Oh my.
Another simple solution for the problem of VII.
Father Hunwinke thinks it’s time to move on.
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2014/01/fr-hunwicke-on-big-lie-and-moving-on.html#.UuDK5_s1i9I
Money quote:
“No; it is time simply to move on from the 1960s to the mundus hodiernus and the nostra aetas of 2014. When an elderly ball has been kicked around for long enough, sensible schoolboys leave it to settle quietly into the nutrients at the bottom of the ditch, unobserved except by the water voles, and agree to move on together to newer games. Whatever was of permanent value in Vienne … and Vatican II … has merged and disappeared gradually into what one might call the Church’s general background noise (dogmatic decrees and anathemas of dogmatic councils are, of course, a different matter).”
If it was only this simple.
But we are still left with the “dogmatic decrees and anathemas of dogmatic… ahem, I mean pastoral councils…etc…
dear Barbara–no, it’s not you. Very frustrating. I use the up arrow before sending the text to check. Be careful though—-so— I pause, use the up arrow {NOT YOUR MOUSE,}–to review B4 sending.
dear S. Armaticus, thank you for mentioning.
yes, beyond classy.
Have you seen the new doc on the Archbishop’s life, which some have pointed to here? One part so very moving is Lefebvre’s explanation of the definition of holy slavery. Please offer an Ave for my eldest son, who left Switzerland prior to consecrations in late ’80’s to help me raise his younger siblings. He has left the Faith-however his love for the priesthood and Our Lady, instilled in him by the SSPX pious witness, never left him. So I have hope he will return.
dear aged parent,
in this time of emergency, mentioning your own offerings is an act of charity. I’m also so glad you brought this up. I’ve found over the decades that seeing the larger picture {that modernism is not a new thing,} can actually be a consoling factor-not only to Catholics, but to those looking toward the Faith as well.
“Disagree with Pope Francis, point out his errors and call for their correction, and pray for his conversion, but at least quote him accurately”
By all means follow the link that I have provided, and complete the ellipsis that I have indicated, but please also do your own work and logically demonstrate how the whole sentence represents the perennial Catholic teaching on truth any better than the clause highlighted.
Why do our Catholic leaders constantly express such ardor for Vatican II, and insist that traditional Catholics accept the texts without question?
Because many of them were there, and were part of it in one way or another. So it is very much their “baby.” Until this generation passes, an objective assessment of it is unlikely. I think Fr. Hunwicke’s approach will be its eventual outcome – everyone will just fugghetboutit.
Got to agree with DO – the additional language doesn’t help much. It just makes it even more indecipherable gobbledegook.
Some years ago, I used to really enjoy reading articles by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski in “The Latin Mass” magazine. While I don’t subscribe to that magazine anymore, in the past year or so I’ve read articles by him on various websites and blogs and he definitely seems to have a bit of a neo-con bent that he didn’t used to. Or maybe it’s me that’s changed!
The Popes of the Second Vatican council were NOT at all powerless to stop the apostasy of the past 50 years. They led the charge against Catholic Truth and Tradition.
Pope Saint Pius X, did, and was able to keep even liberal bishops and cardinals under control. The V-2 popes chose instead to ALLOW the BRIDE OF CHRIST to be ravaged and beaten down and scores of souls to perish…..
They failed to fulfill their duties of state, to feed and protect the flock that God entrusted to them.
THEY LET COUNTLESS MILLIONS FALL INTO HELL……THEY LET COUNTRY AFTER COUNTRY UNCROWN CHRIST THE KING! THEY LET THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION TAKE THE PLACE OF THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS ON OUR ALTARS. THEY OPENED THE FLOODGATES TO A TORRENT OF HERESIES, BLASPHEMIES AND
SACRILIGES.
THEY THROW TRADITIONAL CATHOLICS A FEW CRUMBS HERE AND THERE, BUT CONTINUE WITH THE MAIN FEAST GOING TO ALL THE GLUTTONOUS VULTURES…..THE JEWS, MASONS, MARXISTS, PROTESTANTS, MODERNISTS…….WHO ONLY WANT TO DESTROY THE CHURCH AND OBLITERATE THE VERY NAME OF JESUS FROM THE WORLD OF MAN.
THESE POPES ARE NO MORE INNOCENT OF THESE CRIMES THAN THE BISHOPS. IN FACT THEY HAVE THE GREATER GUILT BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE GREATER GRACE AND GREATER RESPONSIBILITY AND THEREFORE WILL BE HELD MUCH MORE ACCOUNTABLE THAN THE WORST OF THE BISHOPS……..
……THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS OUR COMPLIANCE WITH CHURCH TEACHING AS EXPOUNDED BY SCRIPTURE, TRADITION AND THE MAGISTERIUM…….
Let us pray for the Pope with all our hearts……..which the sedes sinfully and scandalously refuse to do, but we must not support him which would make us collaborators in the destruction of the faith and damnation of many souls.
“Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world.”……Blessed Pope Pius IX
….. a message I have received from a ‘soldier of Christ’……..thought, it was very worth passing to all.
Although this book has been mentioned before on another thread, I highly recommend that everyone who in concerned about Tradition and tradition, order and read Fr. Chad Ripperger’s book, “The Binding Force of Tradition.” It is available on amazon.com and is reasonably priced.
Christe eleison.
Did you know that the publishing of Msgr. Gherardini’s book by the FFI has been used as a charge against the Order? To even question the fallout form VII brings charges of ‘heretic’ or ‘schismatic’ or ‘sedevacantist’.
I doubt you can get the book from the Academy now but the book refuting the book, the FI and its founders is to be published by one of the dissenters.
Dear Linda,
With respect to prayers for your eldest son, consider it done. My young Armaticii will also get into the act.
With respect your son’s lapsed Faith, just keep on praying. There is an old Polish saying that goes something along the lines of “Nothing bad happens that doesn’t turn our for the best”. And the reason that these old saying persist through the ages is that they withstand the “test of time”. 😉
“We must never, as it were, abandon the Council to the modernists…”
That’s like saying, “we must never abandon the American Revolution to the Continental Congress (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the rest of them.)”
The Revolution was the Congress.
The Council was the Modernist establishment.
And it’s entirely disingenuous to speak of documents being free of error and solemnly promulgated.
Being in no way a doctrinal council, and not pretending at all to be binding in matters of faith and morals, it ultimately doesn’t matter whether there are errors or no.
The mark of Catholic truth is that it is absolute and expressed in clear and unequivocal language as the popes and councils before Vatican II did. Ambiguity and anything that favors heresy or unholiness should be rejected as heresy. “The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative magisterium.” (Satis Cognitum, Pope Leo XIII). As Catholic doctrine teaches, heretics are not Catholics, and so a congress of heretics (non-Catholics) gathering in the Vatican would not be the Church magisterium nor enjoy the charism of the Holy Ghost.
“The teaching of the sixteen official documents of Vatican II supports rather than dismantles traditional Catholic theology and piety.”
Essentially I agree with Prof Kwasniewsky, but I would put it another way.
The Council documents contain traditional Catholic theology and piety. Sadly, they also contain ambiguities, innuendo, disguised falsehoods and even contradiction. This is no accident. These were deliberately inserted by a spread of periti, from liberal Catholics through to downright Modernists, so that they could subsequently use them to bring about a profoundly new misunderstanding of Catholic theology.
Now, I’m not saying that they necessarily sat around a table and planned this – although they may have done. But they certainly were part of a growing and re-emerging liberal/Modernist way of thinking, and as groups or individuals, they seized the opportunity of Vatican II to infiltrate and be part of the document producing process.
The Church Hierarchy was, as it largely remains to this day, apparently blissfully, unaware, or at least in denial of, of the forces at work.
The answer, for we always should suggest a remedy and not just belly-ache, has already been put forward by people such as Msgr. Gherardini and particularly Bishop Athanasius Schneider, and it is “A Syllabus of Errors, or False Interpretations”, of Vatican II. And, of course, another Council!
dear S. Armaticus, thank you for your kind charity.
Dear Linda: It was my pleasure.
Jacobi wrote: “The answer, for we always should suggest a remedy and not just belly-ache, has already been put forward by people such as Msgr. Gherardini and particularly Bishop Athanasius Schneider, and it is “A Syllabus of Errors, or False Interpretations”, of Vatican II. And, of course, another Council!”
May I be the first to propose the “Council of Econe”. 😉
Brilliant idea 🙂
As for the quotation opening the article: “”This secularising Council desires … to foster whatever can promote division among all who believe in Christ; to weaken whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church.””
## That, I suggest, is a much more accurate description of the Judas Council. Mission accomplished – and how !
“….We may ask our Church leaders: why do you insist on our adhesion to texts that are ‘tentative and liable to be reformed’?
….What is your attraction to documents that contain novelties of which ‘we have to make reservations’?
….Why do you love doctrinally anemic decrees that are applauded by liberal Protestants?
….Why do you love documents that contain ‘compromised formulas’ that have ‘a huge potential for conflict’?”
## Because their jobs and titles depend on their not slaughtering the Golden Calf that lays the golden eggs (as it were), is why. They have too much invested, psychologically & theologically, in V2 & its “implementation”, to start denouncing it. That’s a terrible state to be in 🙁