And then Vatican II happened. Was Vatican II a cause of the decline, or a sign of underlying rot? Of course never overlook the power of “both”.
Thought for the Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
“they only seem to care about churning and burning immigrants who will apostatize in five years to keep their numbers looking good on paper..”
there’s also: government money, virtue signaling, something to attack republicans on but most of all… gives avoidance to having to take a long hard look in the mirror.
the biggest problem with Vatican 2 is the revolution, it’s on going today… out with sacred tradition -in with the humanist innovation of today (which will differ tomorrow).
I think the liturgical reforms following VII had a greater negative impact than the council itself. Documents have their place and impact, but liturgy is the normal point of contact with the laity, and the week-in-week-out way in which that experience shapes and forms them has a far greater influence (for good or ill), which becomes the actual implementation of whatever promulgated documents say.
I also think there might have been some inevitability to much of the decline, as it wasn’t just a Catholic phenomenon. Rather, that period of time was a massive shift in culture, morals, etc., that swept through all of society, institutions, etc. I think the general pastoral shift that occurred greatly misread the moment, in that stability and foundation were needed, which might have arrested some of the coming decline. Even if VII had gone with the original schema and been super based, it still might not have mattered. Councils and their aftermaths are rarely predictable, except for being unpredictable and often unsuccessful. After the Council of Nicea Arianism grew in influence and power; Florence was successful until it wasn’t; Lateran V was so unsuccessful that Trent was necessary. It might be that Church councils are at least latently a means of divine chastisement.
The hubris of the 20th Century is insane.
After fighting a second world war, barely throwing secular fascist barbarism back in its box – often through methods that made the victors more secular and barbarous – this generation took it upon itself to LET IN THE WORLD to reform the Church ???
After over a decade of fascism and brutality, what could have been so appealing in the world to make it seem the font of wisdom?
It has NEVER made any sense to me as a viable path to anything but revolution and disaster.
Of course I did not live those post war years of smiling happy families on new car ads. Was it at all real? If that reflected reality, maybe the optimism is more understandable. Not wise, but more understandable…
But the coffers are full … A thing’s purpose is what it does
The cause. There’s some underlying rot in any human organization. In the Catholic Church ca. 1955, there was a certain amount of occult homosexuality. You also had a corps of seminarians and clergy very dissatisfied with their lives. For an example, read Andrew Greeley’s 1987 memoirs and compare his reflections on his life up to 1947, his life between 1947 and 1965, and his life after. Read what he writes about priests from his sociological study. If you can discover some issue of Vatican II which addressed these issues, tell us what it is. I’m not seeing anything. Dom Bettinelli had a post some years back about improvements in financial and staffing practices which emerged in the post-Vatican II era, but such improvements did not require an oecumenical council. Formation programs after 1965 were operating in a quite different social and cultural matrix than they were in 1930 and adjustments were advisable, though one might be skeptical they made the right adjustments.
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I grew up in the Episcopal Church, where the self-immolation was just as gratuitous and even more thorough, though expressed differently. You can talk about cultural and social winds, but, ultimately, people in gatekeeper positions have an option to resist them or not.
The one thing the Spirit of Vatican II types on the left and those who blame Vatican II for the problems in the Church today is they never (or almost never) cite the letter of the Council to make their case.
Greg: I think one of the SSPX’s big gripes is with Nostra Aetate. Apparently, outside the Church there’s oodles of salvation now … Sure, you can interpret it in line with previous Church teaching (so said B16), but in practice, this document is cited as an excuse for rupture from the past. Think Pope Francis’ nonsense about God willing a plurality of religions, or fiducia supplicans.
Christopher Ferrara would disagree with you. He suggests you read the documents like a lawyer – with an eye to what they allow the other guy to do to your client. Also…
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https://www.amazon.com/Liturgical-Time-Bombs-Vatican-Destruction/dp/0895557738
CAG (or whatever your real name is) have you actually read Nostra Aetate? It doesn’t deal with the question of salvation outside the Church.
What Pope Francis said in Singapore had absolutely nothing to do with NA. In fact, NA flatly contradicts Pope Francis on that point if you actually read the document.
Actually, SSPX is more ostensibly up in a twist about Dignitatis Humanae and the subject of religious liberty. But Archbishop Lefebvre signed on to all 16 documents of Vatican II. So, you can take anything the Society says on the matter with more than one grain of salt.
I have no idea what NA or Vatican II as a whole has to do with Fiducia Supplicans. But okay.
Chris Ferrara disagrees with me? Gee, I’m devastated! I heard enough of his polemics in the early 2000s and don’t find him, Tom Woods, or Michael Davies persuasive.
Paul VI basically ignored Sancrosanctum Councilium when he implemented the Novus Ordo Missae.
I’m not saying Vatican II is above criticism, but I don’t see how it takes so much of the blame for the problems in the Church. It’s been pretty much dead letter from the get go.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was a tragic figure. A great missionary bishop. He might even be St. Marcel Lefebvre if he hadn’t gone the wrong way with the SSPX. But died an excommunicated schismatic instead.
Yeah, how about that!
It’s not that far of a leap of logic, but I guess you’d have to care to look.
“It’s not that far of a leap of logic, but I guess you’d have to care to look.“
It’s not logical at all. Unless you can demonstrate parallels. I’ll wait.
Nostra Aetate is the “Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions” … You don’t need someone to hand-hold you through seeing how this has been abused in practice. This is all about how the Church deals with people who aren’t practicing Catholics, you know, like Muslims, Buddhists and sodomites.
… But since you waited so long, let me throw some more pearls your way:
Nostra Aetate states “The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth” (Ch. 3)
Lumen Gentium (the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) states ” In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.” (Ch. 16)
Can you see how these are contradictory? The dogmatic one states that the Muslims profess to worship the one true God (… you know, like Lia Thomas professes to be a woman swimmer) and the other one states that muslims and we worship the same God. Hardly equivelent. Let me also remind you that the god of Muhammad told him that Jesus didn’t die on the cross … I’m thinking that guy isn’t the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Nostra Aetate also states “We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God.”, which, you may recall, was Tucho’s justification for not denying unrepentant sodomites blessings in Fiducia Supplicans.
I hope this helps … In any case, to your original point that “those who blame Vatican II for the problems in the Church today is they never (or almost never) cite the letter of the Council to make their case.” is clearly false, many groups (not just the SSPX) quite often cite the specific documents they blame, even when they misinterpret them (mostly due to the deliberate ambiguities present in them). Otherwise, how would you have known that the SSPX also had a problem with Dignitatis Humanae?
Pope St Gregory VII, in a letter to a Muslim king, said Muslims and Christians worship the same God.
“Nostra Aetate also states “We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God.”
Scripture says the same thing. So, are we now going to blame scripture for Fiduca Supplicsns?
Look, Greg … You’d be happier if you actually read the responses instead of quick-scanning to look for an argument. I’m not saying scripture is wrong or even Nostra Aetate is wrong (or Lumen Gentium is wrong when it states that by means unknown to us God can save all, for that matter). Read what I wrote again. Here’s a summary:
Ambiguous documents and statements can be used by bad actors to justify error, like Cardinal Fernandez did in fiducia supplicans. (Or are you telling me that you think blessing actively gay couples is just fine??)
Even though the document can be interpreted with continuity to what came before it (as B16 maintained), bad actors can and do still use the ambiguity promote practices out of line with Magisterial truth. And if you’re denying that then you’re either grotesquely naive or you’re arguing in bad faith.
And if Pope St. Gregory VII said we worship the same god as muslims, I’d have to disagree with him. Here’s a simple proof:
Mohammad said god told him Jesus didn’t die on the cross (Ramadan). That is a lie. Jesus, the Son of God, is the way, the truth and the life. The liar is someone else. (Read the Gospel of John chapter 8 for a clue who). Either (1) the one who told Mohammad that was a liar, and therefore not God, or (2) Mohammad lied, and therefore the muslims worship Mohammad’s made-up god. Either way muslims don’t worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. QED
No, I read your responses. This doesn’t address my original point about the claim ofVatican II, as it is written, being the cause of problems in the Church today. As for ambiguities, as I pointed out, scripture could have been as easily used in the point about FS, as the same ambiguities exist in those passages. So, in that regard, Vatican II is no more to blame than scripture would have been.
I never said or implied that you said the Council was erroneous
I don’t think you understand that other religions can worship and believe in the same God we do, but yet have erroneous understandings, even dangerous ones, of that very same God. That was St. Gregory VII’s point to his letter to the Muslim king. In fact, that letter is footnoted in NA if memory serves.
And I read your posts … this was not your “original point” … No doubt you wish it was. This, however, was your original point:
The one thing the Spirit of Vatican II types on the left and those who blame Vatican II for the problems in the Church today is they never (or almost never) cite the letter of the Council to make their case.
I simply pointed out that many actually do cite the documents (as you yourself attested to by mentioning the SSPX’s problem with Dignitatis Humanae. How did you know if they never cited it?), although most lament on the misinterpretation of the Council documents. In this, it seems, we are actually in agreement … But you’ve been too busy arguing all day to notice.
I never claimed you did.
I take their “prophet at his word.
In my day, 1940-1959 people made the sign of the cross before jumping in the swimming hole. before showering, before meals, passing a Catholic Church. The churches were filled to overflowing for vespers every day during the WWII.
The Greatest Generation raised their children giving them every thing that they could after seeing the horror of concentration camps, the horror and devastation of other children in other countries, and the Korean conflict.
American children were raised to succeed.
The atomic bomb brought science to the fore as master without people knowing that science is the study of creation as God intended.
According to Bella Dodd, the communists inflicted over 1,000 sodomites into the seminaries to destroy the Church.
Carl Rogers emptied the seminaries and convents by 90% by telling them that they were not being fulfilled.
Feminists under Jean Paul Sartre demanded free sex with minor children telling the world that children were being denied their sexual desires. Alfred Kinsey, a sodomite himself, paid fathers upwards of $7,000 to rape their daughters, masturbated babies and worse. See: EWTN/on demand The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.
Mary Calderone
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Mary_Calderone
Calderone left Planned Parenthood in 1964 to establish and serve as the Executive Director of SIECUS (Sex Information and Education Council of the United States.
Calderone advocated teaching kindergarteners how to masturbate and all the other alternative sex (sodomy)
Calderone was fought off by The National Catholic Register.
In the meantime, Vatican II was calling the children of God home to the Church, the Perpetual Virgin Mary, our Mother.
Rosemary Radford Ruether, Hans Kung, Ives Conger and Schielbex (sp) imposed their ignorance on the Church and sucked Catholic into a vortex of the black hole.
Hell will not prevail against the Truth.
In 1953 I was in the seventh grade and I was being taught the Constitution, the Law of the Land.
The Law of the Land is no longer taught in school, grammar, high, college, Law school. People do not know their rights, judges do not know the Law of the Land, The Supreme Court?
Melissa and Aaron Klein paid a $136,000 fine to practice their freedom of religion. Lost their livelihood and closed.
Arlene’s Flowers lawsuit
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › Arlene’s_Flowers_lawsuit
Barronelle Stutzman paid $5,000 to practice her freedom of religion.
Stutzman opted to settle with Ingersoll in November 2021, paying him $5,000, The store permanently closed on March 31, 2025 after…
Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Bake Shop lost 40% of his business baking wedding cakes and had to release two of his workers because he chose to practice his freedom of religion. After seven years the Supreme Court decreed that demanding a gay wedding cake constituted slavery.
Masterpiece Cakeshop and its owner, Jack Phillips, became the center of major legal battles after refusing custom cakes. Key developments include a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court win over a same-sex wedding cake refusal and a later 2024 Colorado Supreme Court dismissal of a separate gender-transition cake lawsuit. Wikipedia
States Civil Rights Commissions are ignorant of our Founding Principles and our Civil Rights. This is our hard earned tax dollars cheating everybody out of our freedom.
The possibility of a Catholic majority in the States, as well as the threat of the Kennedy presidency developing in the late fifties, was a real and serious concern in the mainline protestant clerical and theological circles, as was once confirmed to me personally by Dr. Donald Shriver, then President of Union Theological Seminary in NYC. Of course their cause for concern was much relieved with what they accurately discerned as the abandonment of inherent Catholic principles and praxis at the mid-century council and its subsequent implementation.
Rest assured, ecumenism is very much the one-way street. Contrary to history, all roads do not lead to Rome.
“ The church [Read: Many bishops, but especially the current crop of Cardinals] in the US no longer care/s about evangelizing to the 80% of the population who isn’t Catholic. In fact, they don’t even care about evangelizing the 20% who ARE Catholic. “
“Ho-hum, that ‘evangelizing’ means a lot of self-sacrifice and work. Back to the golf game, the world travel, the vacation retreat dachas…”
“ In the Catholic Church ca. 1955, there was a certain amount of occult homosexuality…” -Art D.
I have heard confidential accounts from several different older gen Jesuit teachers, most now passed away, who confirmed this observation.
After V2, it became more or less the accepted norm.
The Council wasn’t the explosive device; the explosive device was Humanae Vitae after several years of a revolution of rising expectations. I was a kid through the period – very few people hived off to Fr Gommar de Pauw’s chapel a few miles away because of the liturgical changes, but a ton of people simply stopped attending Mass as regularly because of HV, and that was much discussed at the time.