Even after studying and writing and speaking about the conciliar text for more than a decade, I still manage to find in them previously unrecognized subtleties that serve to undermine the Faith in remarkably profound ways; in the present case, in the Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae.
One of the distinguishing features of this document that I’ve noted in the past is the degree to which the Council’s focus has shifted away from man’s spiritual end toward what appears to be an overriding concern for matters merely temporal. Needless to say, the former is the Church’s primary concern, and her view of matters temporal is always cast in that light.
Keeping man’s spiritual ends in plain sight is necessary for defining the “common good.” The only good that is truly common to all is the destiny for which all were created; to live with God forever in eternity. Temporal affairs must be regulated in such way as to further, or at the very least not impede, man’s journey to that ultimate end and fulfillment.
In Dignitatis Humanae, the Council employs the phrase “common good” while subtly divorcing it from concern for man’s spiritual end.
Finally, government is to see to it that equality of citizens before the law, which is itself an element of the common good, is never violated, whether openly or covertly, for religious reasons. Nor is there to be discrimination among citizens. DH 6
To urge concern for the “common good,” while also directing the State to remove “religious reasons” from consideration in its regulation of public affairs, is an egregious contradiction that is utterly incompatible with authentic Catholic thought as expressed so very clearly by the pre-conciliar popes. It is tantamount to redefining the common good.
This redefinition of the common good forms one of the building blocks upon which the Council constructed its unsustainable case for a so-called “right to religious freedom” regardless of one’s relationship to truth.
And we wonder why atheists, humanists and assorted other enemies of the Church so often invoke it this way…
How can DH 6 be reconciled with tradition? I have heard it has been done with this document, but this quote seems impossible to reconcile with tradition.
Cardinal Kasper, in a moment of true clarity, stated that the documents were worded this way on purpose. They, the modernists, were planning for just this result post council. Our heritage was hijacked and it is time to retrieve it. And it is time to educate all Catholics as too what has been stolen from them. Hold fast Louie.
Aquinas writes of the common good as follows (emphasis added):
“For if the intention of the lawgiver is fixed on true good, which is the common good regulated according to Divine justice, it follows that the effect of the law is to make men good simply.”
(ST, II-I, Q.92, Art. 1)
DH 6 leaves it open to argue that there should be equality before the law for those who reject God’s justice. But if God’s justice is rejected, there is no foundation for law at all.
Who is the inventor of Modernism? Of course. The Father of Lies. He sowed the seeds and they flowered in and through the so called experts and writers of the Vatican ll documents. Which in turn inspired the diabolical “spirit” which has blown through the Church with the well known horrible results.
So from where I sit, it seems to me a total waste of time to even try and figure out where, perhaps, these documents show a firm link with past teachings of REAL councils. If there are such few links here and there, they are contradicted immediately with the “however, where for pastoral reasons etc.,etc.” and with “on the other hand etc.,etc.”
I ignore the whole thing as a waste of time and as a disaster imposed onto the Church. It’s “fruits” have been and still are pure poison and no white washing is going to make it otherwise. Pax et bonum!
Another example of the satanism of this Judas Council.
The common good is the salvation of as many immortal souls as possible. But then from looking at neo-catholic and protestant perspectives it seems few christians beleive even this anymore.
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Ah, the wizardry of redefinition. That’s what ‘renewal’ is; it is merely an excuse to redefine the Word Incarnate according to the temporal, passing moment of modernist word wizards.
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“the attack against the heart of the Church came when the Catholic kingdoms, ramparts of the Church, had been overwhelmed. First she was attacked externally in her temporal sovereignty to leave her at the whim of the political powers hostile to her. This brought her back to her beginnings, suffering the persecutions and interferences of the civil power. Once the Church was under siege by a hostile world, pressure was brought upon her through her elite, the clergy. Such was (and is) the work of Modernism, the ever-increasing desire for an accommodation with the modern world, which has led to the aggiornamento of Vatican II and the present secularization of the Faith.” – from ‘Reflections on the Kingship of Christ’: Angelus Press.
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This is what Frankie and his cohorts are currently up to. Returning the Church the hostility of the first centuries, wiping out millenia of building, sweat, blood and tears to protect and grow the Heart of the Church. Modernism, as the quoted book states, is a part of the Mystery of Iniquity.
This from Michael Davies:
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“A fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos—By their fruits you
shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of
thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit;
and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot
bring forth evil fruit; neither can an evil tree bring forth
good fruit” (Mt. 7:16-19). No rational person can deny that
up to the present Vatican II has produced no good fruits. The
reforms enacted in its name, according to Archbishop Marcel
Lefebvre, “have contributed and are still contributing to
the demolition of the Church, the ruin of the priesthood, the
destruction of the Sacrifice and the sacraments, the disap-
pearance of religious life, as well as to the emergence of a
naturalist and Teilhardian doctrine in universities, seminaries,
the religious education of children—a teaching born of
Liberalism and Protestantism, and condemned many times
by the Solemn Magisterium of the Church”.
http://angeluspress.org/blog/pope-johns-council-by-michael-davies/
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I think Frankie is one of the fruits. nufff said.
Every statement made in Dignitatis Humanae (DH) has to be read in the context which the document itself sets out in its opening paragraph:
“First, the council professes its belief that God Himself has made known to mankind the way in which men are to serve Him, and thus be saved in Christ and come to blessedness. We believe that this one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus committed the duty of spreading it abroad among all men. […] On their part, all men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and His Church, and to embrace the truth they come to know, and to hold fast to it. This Vatican Council likewise professes its belief that it is upon the human conscience that these obligations fall and exert their binding force. The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power. Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”
I invite interested readers to take a look at Fr. Brian W. Harrison’s treatment of DH entitled “Pius IX, Vatican II and Religious Liberty”: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8768
The “Enlightenment” men Hobbes and Locke redefined the “common good” long before Dignitatis Humanee. The “American Founders” who worshipped them created a state unlike any previous upon this notion; and the poison has spread throughout the world even into the Church. Also preceding DH, the apostolic letter “Testem Benevolentiae” of Pope Leo XIII condemning the so-called phantom heresy of “Americanism” indicates already as early as 1899 prelates disguising Catholic practices in order to advance a misguided notion of the “common good”.
Have you read every word in DH ‘in context’; and furthermore the VII gamut ‘in context’?
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my point being that, I’m ooolld – I had a catholic parent, had to convert ’cause I was brought up athiest/protestant/newage/jewishislamsecular, say it how it pleases, but had the ‘misfortune’ of actually being a ‘seeker’ and finding the One Church, even though by then, the One Church’s representatives had no interest in finding/saving ANYONE. But GOD will out. So I would wonder how you would catechise me as a ‘seeker’; Lord help me, it won’t have anything to do with the approach of the current bish of rome.
Matthew, you have forgotten at least 2 things: one, the technique of the Modernists to swing back and forth between heresy and orthodoxy, and two, your quote is already completely tainted by the word “subsists.” Read Abp. Lefebvre on this disgraceful document: “Religious Liberty Questioned.”
I have read Fr. Harrison, and Michael Davies and John Salza have, at least, IMHO, refuted him completely. Even if for the sake of argument, he’s right, the Social Kingship of Christ is, as he even admitted, ignored in the document. But Michael Davies’ book and Salza’s various articles have demolished the good Father’s arguments.
I trust that God will sort out this mess. And while I can’t presume to know how and when, I suspect that he’s not going take kindly to those who have defected or led others to defect from His Church – regardless of their reasons and irrespective of which side of the debate they are on. If you’re of the opinion that the Church has defected or failed, there’s precious little I or anyone else can do to change your mind unless you want to have it changed.
for ‘oldies’ — when catholic truth was still somewhat appealling:
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http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x41e2_omd-joan-of-arc_music
I’ve read some of the material from John Salza and Michael Davies. I’ve also seen the exchanges between Salza and Fr. Harrison, and I’ve read Fr. Harrison’s response to Davies’ monograph “The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty”. Beyond that, Thomas Pink’s treatment in “What is the Catholic doctrine of religious liberty?” is particularly worthy of mention. And while I think Pink’s treatment will, as the discussion on DH moves forward, prove to be a turning point, the issue raised by Brian M. McCall in his critique – echoed here by GreatPretender51 above – remains valid, i.e.:
“One of the tools of the Progressives and Neo-Modernists is to change doctrine by stating half truths. Discussing one aspect of a doctrine while remaining silent about the other. The result at the time is that they defend their statement against reproach by claiming they simply did not address this other side of the topic. As time goes by they then limit analysis and debate to the half in the original statement and through neglect effectively suppress the other half de facto. Thus, even if some of the statements of Digitatis Humani could be reconciled with a Traditional doctrine when made in the context of a discussion about the origin of the power to coerce, they loose that ability when used repeatedly for decades out of that context.”
Fair enough. But that should, in my opinion, encourage traditionally-minded Catholics. If certain individuals would use half the energy they spend denouncing Vatican II reconciling it with tradition, we’d be far better off today. Yes, I know we shouldn’t have to spend any energy interpreting a council of the Church. But while great minds are busy detecting heresy, mediocre minds are busy cementing their modernist liberal interpretation in the eyes of the laity – to the detriment of all.
if onlly ‘liberal minds’ were up to what you suggest. My litmusssss test is – does anyONE, pewpeepps, priest,, and in betweens, evince any sense, intelligence or submission to the ‘way, truth, life’ of Our Lord Jesus Christ? my uninformed and dismissablle POV is that, well, who cares what the founder of the salvatory sacramentall priesthood established – these days, luther and (honestlly those pandering, Luther would have considered hell-damned heretics) all ‘protestors’ will get the papal red carpet , whatever.
Given the state of the Church in Ireland, this situation with the singing priest is not surprising. Michael Voris interviewed two young Irish Catholic brothers two months ago, in which the young men described the sad situation in Ireland:
http://www.churchmilitant.tv/platform/index.php?vidID=vort-2014-02-12-a
Oops, I posted my above comment in the wrong section – it should have been posted in the ‘Fr. Ray Kelly Singing Priest’ section. I’ll repost it there.
Good discussion.
Thomas Pink’s argument is creative, but ultimately suffers from the same error that effected John Courtney Murray’s line of thought; namely, the American idea of a State that is not considered a “person” but rather an “action.” The result of this is to negate what the Church had always considered the obligation of the State with respect to the natural law and the one true faith.
So… when DH says that it “leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ,” the loophole is that the State is no longer considered duty bound as are men. This was a wholesale innovation.
Pink, for his part, maintains that the power to restrain the public activities of the false religions was never the State’s but was given by the Church and taken back at VII.
Nonsense. The State has real authority that comes from God, and rulers of State are therefore duty bound to serve Him and the common good in all things, even in matters religious such as they are treated in public policy.
This would be a good topic to kick off on the Forum if anyone wishes.
Louie,
Unless I missed something, Pink is saying that the state in and of itself has the right to restrain the public practice of false religions, but only insofar as those practices run contrary to natural law (polygamy being an example). The state cannot rightfully extend its power over the public practice of religion beyond this unless it is given that power by the Church – for the simple reason that the (non-Catholic) state does not derive its authority directly from God. While the state does have true authority, that authority is only proportional to its adherence to God-given natural law. Rulers of state – unless they are Catholic, of course – are not bound to uphold anything beyond the dictates of natural law. At the same time, however, they are not permitted to prevent the free exercise of religion unless it contradicts that law. This, of course, exempts the Catholic Faith in its entirety. A good question, however, is whether any other religion could pass that test unscathed.
Agreed, this could be a good forum topic. Set up a thread with a title of your choice, and let’s see how it goes.
Regardless of how we think DH ought to be interpreted, we find DH always forcefully implemented in Catholic countries under the name of the Pope (especially Paul VI), while non-Catholic countries ignored (and continue to ignore) DH. The earlier schema, as I noted earlier, was a better statement of Catholic teaching, and dealt with all situations.
I think, Matthew, you should question whether a non-Catholic state would even care what we think about the rules of god-given natural law. You need to think about how a person, as a ruler with absolutely no faith and only concern for self-preservation, might address DH. The opinion of your random Catholic might well be irrelevant.