Burn of the Day

“The influences of Vatican II can be seen in every aspect of the modern Church…”

Yes, Your Excellencies, that much is true. But anyone with a pair of eyes can tell you that’s not been the wonderful thing you keep insisting it is. Every single demographic marker one can think of— baptisms, marriages, vocations, Mass attendance— is in steep, steep decline.

The only subset of the Church where demographics and praxis are on the increase are amongst so-called Trads, and that subset is being ruthlessly segregated from regular parish life and driven to ghettos, ignored in the hopes they’ll just eventually disappear.

The Church’s oncoming demographic implosion might be lessened if our bishops stopped making such an idol of the so-called “Spirit of Vatican II”, and admit the obvious fact that V2’s documents were grievously flawed and the Council’s implementation of them even worse. But instead we just get gaslit about how wonderful things are.

Just because The Almighty promised us the gates of hell won’t prevail against His Church doesn’t mean He promised it cannot disappear from some places. Northern Africa was Catholic at one time, as was Scandinavia. The difference nowadays is that the Church isn’t being dismantled by Muslim hordes nor Protestant ‘reformers’, but by Her own decadent, feckless shepherds.

The failure of V2 is masked when it’s believed there was no Church before “The Council”.

“Again, my personal opinion, but I see a return to a more conservative Catholic faith in the generations to come as evil, and the choice between satan and Jesus becomes ever more obvious.”

So the Church which practiced that “more conservative Catholic faith” for nearly 2000 years was fomenting evil? I hope that’s not what you meant to suggest. And I believe you are exceedingly naive if you really believe V2 was either necessary or positive in its impact. There is a strong argument that the effects of V2 were as much a cause of the turmoil of the Sixties as they were a result thereof, which latter is one of the points often used to try to deflect from, or defend, V2’s catastrophic outcomes.

You are entitled to your view, of course, but I would urge a deeper study of the century or so of Church history prior to 1965, especially the prophetic encyclical of Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis. The Council™️ was the culmination of many years of deterioration of the Faith handed down from the Apostles. It was not the beginning.

https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html

“The defense of Vat II revolves around two arguments. 1) It would have been worse otherwise. Which, of course, is an unprovable leap of logic.”

The mainstream Protestant denominations suffered a bigger contraction in the same era, so there is at least some argument to be made. I’m not fully persuaded, but it’s there.

 If it didn’t (this is my personal opinion, take it for what it’s worth, nothing!) the drop-off of the practice of the Catholic faith would have been worse. 
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The Mars Hill Audio Journal included an interview some years back with a sociologist of religion. He offered the view that in his observation the most organizationally enervating thing he’d seen religious bodies do was muck around with the order of worship. The Church in the occidental countries had occult problems prior to 1962 (homosexuality in the clergy being one, subterranean discontent among clergy and religious being another). It has been pointed out by Kenneth Jones among others that 1965 was a hinge year; all of a sudden, every observable issue got dramatically worse.
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If you don’t mind a personal note. I’m a refugee from Anglicanism. The Episcopal Church made some modification to its prayer books in 1973 and 1979. It was a top down affair and people grumbled. However, it has never been a matter of controversy outside of the church-o-cracy in the intervening years in part because it was obscured by other issues and in part because palpable qualities of ‘Holy Communion’ in Episcopal congregations did not change. (The Morning Prayer service disappeared, although it is still on the books). You didn’t have Episcopal choirmasters playing music which sounded like leftover Hallmark Channel scores. Episcopal clergymen in 1970 were generally wretched preachers; they didn’t get any worse. What was demoralizing on a palpable level was people showing up in Saturday clothing at worship (that started around 1987) and on a more abstract level was the clergy and activist laity revealing themselves to be indifferent to the body’s historic teachings and propagators of au courant attitudes among a certain sort of professional-managerial bourgeois. Catholic clergy, IMO, split 1/3 and 2/3 on this issue. One-third do not wish to behave this way and the other 2/3 are (for the most part) to embarrassed to do so. You see it among the higher clergy because they deal with each other and not with pewsittlers.
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The mainstream Protestant denominations suffered a bigger contraction in the same era, so there is at least some argument to be made.
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No there isn’t. The mainline bodies have been over-run with lady clergy, flamers, and bourgeois twits indifferent to church teaching. In one of his more lucid moments, Leon Podles diagnosed these types: they want to be den mothers on salary.

Pinky:

“I was trying to say that as the culture in the world comes more under the domination of sin and evil, the Catholic Church will be the one place to go, as it has since day one, after all, it is the only harbor of salvation possible.”

My apoligies for the confusion of this sentence, it was never meant to be a reflection on the Catholic Church, but rather on our society.

The V2 influences on these has been mostly negative.

In our understanding of divine revelation: V2 allowed for the historical critical exegesis of scripture … a method which focuses on the historical/cultural environment of the human author of scripture, while all but ignoring the intent of the divine Author. Even Henri de Lubac (certainly not a rigid conservative) decried the rise of Immanentism directly resulting from V2

It is clear that the Church is facing a grave crisis. Under the name of “the new Church,” “the post-Conciliar Church,” a different Church from that of Jesus Christ is now trying to establish itself: an anthropocentric society threatened with immanentist apostasy which is allowing itself to be swept along in a movement of general abdication under the pretext of renewal, ecumenism, or adaptation.

~ Henri de Lubac, S.J.

Look, if Council Father de Lubac had no problem pointing out the failures of V2, why should we?

The universal call to holiness: Pope Francis scolded an altar boy for folding his hands in prayer. Holiness is not encouraged, and those who seek it are disparaged as rigid.

The sacred liturgy: Again, by their fruits we shall know them. Of course, a truly reverent liturgy is allowed today, but is it encouraged? Latin? Forbidden. Kneeling? Forbidden. Altar rails? Removed … I used to be of the opinion that (at least) the expanded Liturgy of the Word was an improvement, and in theory I still believe so. But if you look at the scripture which has been removed, you begin to realize that Hillary’s goal of changing our deeply held religious beliefs preceded her. (And don’t get me started on the NABRE or the new Divine Office!)

Religious freedom: Appears to be freedom to be a heretic, freedom for catholics to deny divinely revealed doctrines of the faith … certainly not the freedom hear Latin at Mass. Error now has rights and privileges.

Ecumenical dialogue: For what purpose? Certainly not for the purpose of fulfilling the great commission. Dialogue for the sake of dialogue, as if dialogue was the goal, not conversion.

Participation of the laity in the ‘life’ of the Church: … What participation? Synodalism? Uber-dramatic lectors? The opportunity to reply to another meaningless parish questionnaire?

Ran across this Pic today.. that just about sums things up.