CATHOLIC DISSENT BORN OF THE LATE 1960'S AND PERSONAL CHOICE AND TO HELL WITH SCRIPTURE, TRADITION, FAITH, MORALS, HOLY OBEDIENCE & MASS ATTENDANCE

Cafeteria Catholicism and their understanding of the Mass:

I can remember the late 1950's and early 1960's Catholicism. My father was firmly rooted in it having been born into a very strong Catholic family and Catholic farming culture in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

The foundation of the Church in the USA of that time was:

1. Holy Obedience to the faith and morals of the Church and to her Magisterium in this regard.

2. Fear of God and an ever greater fear of damnation

3. Love of God and neighbor, obligations to God and neighbor and to one's promises and vows made before God and neighbor

4. Mass on Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation

5. Penance especially on Fridays

7. Marian devotions, the Holy Rosary, other devotions and veneration of the saints

8. Praying the faithful departed, visiting them frequently at the cemetery and burying the dead with a Christian burial.

9. Strong catechesis in the Baltimore Catechism and a desire to memorize as much of it as possible as the foundation of a future adult faith

10. Strictness in Catholic schools, at Church and a disciplined Catholic life in the world striving to avoid scandal at all costs

Of course there was much more than just these ten things.

The Spirit of Vatican II appealed to Catholic teenagers and those in their 20's and 30's who had developed serious "authority" issues with the more dogmatic and "black and white" approach to authority that existed not only in the Church but within Catholic families, fathers in particular who had to have a strong Catholic identity in terms of fatherhood and as head of the family and thus the disciplinarian.

To those who did not like being told what to do, how to think and how to behave, the spirit of Vatican II liberated them from:


1. Holy Obedience to the faith and morals of the Church and to her Magisterium in this regard.

2. Fear of God and an ever greater fear of damnation

3. Love of God and neighbor, obligations to God and neighbor and to one's promises and vows made before God and neighbor

4. Mass on Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation

5. Penance especially on Fridays

7. Marian devotions, the Holy Rosary, other devotions and veneration of the saints

8. Praying the faithful departed, visiting them frequently at the cemetery and burying the dead with a Christian burial.

9. Strong catechesis in the Baltimore Catechism and a desire to memorize as much of it as possible as the foundation of a future adult faith

10. Strictness in Catholic schools, at Church and a disciplined Catholic life in the world striving to avoid scandal at all costs

Just think of Humanae Vitae and the "straw man" it became to encourage Catholics to reject the papacy's authority and thus the authority of the Magisterium. Think of those who took leadership roles in promoting the theology of dissent that Humanae Vitae provoked: Rev. Charles Curran, the Berrigan Brothers, Rev. Hans Kung, Rev. Richard McBrien and a whole hosts of lesser want to be's.

This led to cafeteria Catholicism, where even orthodox Catholics wondered if all they had believed prior to Vatican II was false, not just areas concerning Church disciple and the manner in which the sacraments were celebrated, but also basic non-negotiable teachings of the Church such as transubstantiation, the resurrection, virgin birth, Immaculate Conception and the Church's moral teachings on everything pertain to sex, adultery, fornication and sex with minors, just to name a few.

If you start questioning everything about your faith (and dissenting theologians, priests and nuns, especially those in Catholic High Schools and colleges dogmatically taught Catholic young and older people of that period to do so) then is it any wonder that the most staunch of Catholics and Catholic families prior to the Second Vatican Council succumbed to the most dogmatic drivel of the late 1960's. Is it any wonder they left the practice of the faith for Cafeteria Catholicism and now do not even attend Mass or care to refer to themselves as Catholics? To those of my generation and slightly older 55 and above and to "our" children and then their children, we've lost almost three generation of Catholics to this insipid way of thinking and the great legacy of Catholicism's true meaning.

From about 90% of Catholics attending Mass on Sunday prior to the disruption of the spirit of Vatican II in the early 1960's, today we have about 19% to 25% of Catholics actually attend Mass every Sunday. Of those there is a great variety of attitudes toward the Faith, Morals and Discipline of the Church and her hierarchy.

Of those who do not attend Mass, their personal conscience is so malformed by dissent and apathy that it has made them practical agnostics. This is the fruit of the spirit of Vatican II. Don't eat of it, it is poison and death dealing.

Today, dissenting theologians, other clergy and some religious are still trying to get rank and file Catholics to hate authority and what many now are calling "monarchical Catholicism" . Some of the straw men they are using in addition to Humanae Vitae are the corrected English translation of the Mass, the authority of the Church that "bullied" it into being, women priests, married priests, gay marriage, pro-choice acceptance and on and on it goes. But thank goodness for real Catholic blogs that promote the truth. We don't have to follow the monarchy of dissenting theologians and the drivel they spew. We don't have to be caught up in perpetual adolescence as it regards legitimate authority! We don't have to succumb to the secular forces of government and society that has so afflicted and diminished the Truths of God in Protestant denominations.