And the authoritarian clericalists of the post-Vatican II Church who imposed their edicts upon rank and file Catholics in the most pre-Vatican II authoritarian way to triumphalistically bring about on their own merits the “new springtime” for the Church really thought and think this is the way.
We all know doing the same thing over and over again and thinking there will be a different and better result is madness or insanity, what the Church has experienced in the last 55 years and continues to experience in a renewed springtime today:
Before, old, greasy, grimy and black moldy:
After new and improved:
INCREDIBLE HUBRIS AND ICONOCLASM!
7 comments:
Father McDonald,
If you want to bring yourself some cheer, please look at the website for Sacred Heart Parish in Grand Rapids Michigan which recently re-established its grade and high school along a classical model. Father Sirico of the Acton Institute ran the parish until his retirement this summer. It shows what can be done if you don’t have a lefty bishop
ain't it funny in the old pic the priest almost disappears into the surroundings, the after he is "look at me" prominent
and they didn't get rid of the TREES
There was a small parish church in my hometown--not really THAT small, but let's say a "regular" parish church, one among many, that was built in the 1920's. It had stunning reredos and beautiful statues. At least it did until the late 70's when the parish actually PAID a liturgical consultant to "update" the church with the "requirements" of Vatican II. The church was emptied of ALL art, except a spare-looking crucifix behind the table-ish altar and the stained glass windows. The tabernacle was removed to a side "adoration room", hence not visible to anyone at Mass or anyone who would walk into the church. It was so depressing, I began to understand why the drop in Mass attendance continued at such a steep rate. I can remember one Saturday afternoon vigil Mass, where the priest gave this "it's all up to you" type sermon in a laconic tone, complaining about a lack of vocations and making dire predictions about the future of the Church if more young men didn't come forward. All I could think was, "who would want to step forward to manage THIS?"
When you take a beautiful sanctuary and strip it into a bare-looking prayer room, it is disheartening. It is depressing. It is discouraging. And when people come who never saw what the church used to look like, they remain unimpressed and uninspired. We already have lots of Protestant churches. I can only hope and pray that this architectural debacle is over with once and for all--but given the direction of our current leadership, I doubt it.
Thomas,
The key word is paid. A complete sham. Bring an "expert" in whose job could be done by a blindfolded child. Imagine paying someone to empty out a Church and describe it as something that required one minute of thought. My father was able to keep this kind of malfeasance at bay until he was incapacitated in a nursing home by threatening a lawsuit.
That was the entire point of Vatican II. Destroy what was holy and make the new church into just another Protestant church. The revolutions of the sixties were not only secular.
Good help us all of the Great Reset doesn’t kill us first.
If the EF Mass becomes the norm again, and it won't, it would have to have a vernacular version as most Mass going Catholics appreciate the vernacular and most in the Ordinary Form would love and accept its reverence and piety if properly catechized about it. They would need to also understand ad orientem properly, but there is no prohibition in the EF Mass prior to the Council and sense, facing the people as the altars in the great Basilicas in Rome always have.
I don't believe in the most liberal of theologians and popes wanted to destroy the Church with Vatican II. I think most thought it would bring about a new springtime which it has not and the Church is now so weakened by a number of things, the scandals one of the biggest, that the Church can't have an authoritative voice in a world going crazy.
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