Ever since President Obama came into office he has been taking advantage of what "spirit" of Vatican II Catholics have done to the Church; he has exploited their desire to divide and conquer the true Catholic faith. Therefore he chooses men and women for his administration who profess to be Catholic but are nothing more than shrills for Planned Parenthood and the liberal wing of the democrat party.
Then he befriends Sister Carol Keenan, DC, the president of the Catholic Medical Association and with sweet rhetoric, which he is good at, seduces her, not once but twice.
Then he accepts an invitation to speak at the University of Notre Dame and sweet talks its priest-president, Father David Jenkins and he too gets all mushy and teary eyed and is seduced too.
Then President Obama with the help of his cronies burns the faith and morals of the Catholic Church right in front of these cronies' eyes and to them the smoke of it is like sweet smelling incense, prayer rising before their so-called Vatican II god to appease him/her unto eternity.
There is absolutely no apology to faithful Catholics who respect their Church, respect the Magisterium and respect Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, Natural and Divine Law not to mention the faith, morals and canon laws of the Church! There is no apology for those who actually accept the authority of Vatican II and not some cynical perversion of it!
But worse yet for each and every American, with the help of dissident "spirit" of Vatican II Catholics, President Obama has burned the First Amendment rights of each and every one of us and he does so with a smile on his face and those who worship him are absolutely appalled that anyone would suggest that he has done such a thing. Hold your breath for an apology unless of course the polls suggest that he's going down the tubes politically. Only faithful Catholics and Protestant Evangelicals can help that to happen as well as atheists and agnostics who appreciate First Amendment rights!
The false god and true demagogue, President Obama, is worshiped by Catholics who prefer this type of Mass:
Speaking of "dividing and conquering" read this and weep by pressing these sentences. And where are the bishops in condemning these so-called women religious in no uncertain terms and revoking their status as women religious? I mean, really, it is only a handful of them left, but waiting for nature to take its course with all the new medicines that keep us going almost to 100 isn't the solution.
17 comments:
Montanism is alive and well and living in the NO.
Yes, and then there is THIS!:
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=13453
The "smoke of Satan" lives, multiplies and wishes to conquer within Holy Mother Church...
And, I think, this will resonate with you as well, particularly the last line:
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/02/clerical-narcissism-and-lent
In many ways, he may doing us a huge favour.
rcg
Without the advent of the Novus Ordo Mass of Paul VI, many of these people would be Episcopalians by now. The Protestantized Mass leads to Protestantized Catholics. Sure, you can spruce up the Novus Ordo as much as you like now (and you, Father McDonald are on track in that regard), but most of the damage has been done. The very fact that you (or any individual priest) can change this or that to make it "low" or "high" is part of the problem. In the minds of many that equates to their being able to change the Faith to make it "low" or "high" to suit their needs and pre-existing beliefs.
The Novus Ordo isn't the entire problem, but turning away from it (at least the way it is celebrated in most places - not St. Joseph) is the whole answer.
Marc, in pre-Vatican II times (1950's) there was a quiet, but brewing anger amongst Catholics who were getting better educated about the "authoritarianism" they experienced in Catholic parishes and schools. Keep in mind, my parents generation (my mother is 92 and my father would be 102) usually did not even finish high school let alone college. I was the first to graduate from college in my family.
But there was a horrible paternalism mixed with clericalism that made many Catholics angry. Vatican II was a breath of fresh air for educated laity. Unfortunately Vatican II occurred in the midst of a cultural world wide revolution toward authority, toward sex and toward drugs. We had the hippie movement and the drop out movement and the peace niks and Watergate and police being called pigs and a general hatred for law and order. The Church tried to combat the more anarchist of attitudes by promoting peace and love and letting people be themselves. This may well have saved the Church of that period. Flexibility was the key word. This applied to authority and the Mass and its renewal.
I'm not saying that major mistakes weren't made in the implementation of Pope Paul's revision of the Mass and that the Holy Father could have been more forceful, but what happened in 1968 with Humanae Vitae--because of the sexual revolution, scientific development of the pill, etc, there was outright rebellion against the pope's authority--the hierarchy did not act as dictators from Communist Russia or Germany, but allowed for dissent to keep dissenters in.
It is not just the revised Mass that caused a certain generation that is my age and older (like Pelosi, Biden and Sebelious) to be like they are, but authority issues, worshiping now false gods of secularism and their children not having been catechized properly--that's our failure.
It's not the Mass entirely, but there are some things that need to be tightened up. My opinion is the following:
1. stricter guidelines concerning art, architecture and the orientation of the sanctuary, as well as for music.
2. The Benedictine altar arrangement or ad orientem, either one or both
3. Better catechesis
4. Communion kneeling and by intinction, thus lessening the need of Extraoridnary Ministes of Holy Communion who should only be installed acolytes.
But we must also recognize the need for community that we should not swing the pendulum so far back to the vertical that we forget the horizontal--not everyone is a introvert in the Church and many need community and a friendly experience at Mass.
Father, huge mistakes were made, and despite the new Missal, we continue to be burdened with willful ad libs from priests who seem to believe they know better than Rome.
Certainly I can offer it up, but I must say, it is wearing on me to have always to exercise charity toward those who persist in not fully supporting the Church which ordained them.
Today, with an "interim administrator" in place (our Pastor is at the Mayo) and "presiding", we were treated to numerous ad libs in the Eucharistic Prayer I for Masses of Reconciliation. I'm sure the SoV2 folks were delighted.
Fr, you are right, of course, about the resentment in the Pre-VII days. It is interesting how the say class of people are leading the counter reformation. To some degree it may be a Catholic form of antidisestablishmentarianism, or the simple contrariness of human nature. But in many ways I do feel an educated, catechised, laity are invaluable to the Church. I must confess that I was content to allow the clergy to lead where they will for many years. Perhaps my faith in the class was inappropriate when I could have, or even should have, asked questions. But there is an advantage in this unhappy position that our vision of our goal is more clear, and not lost in proximity.
If I have a dream of what I would want for the Catholic community it is of an identifiable group who happily enhance each other's gifts without resentment and reap the windfalls. This would be one form of proof the world desires to see proof of the gifts of a loving God. In reading up on Montanism I noticed they had an almost perverted desire for martyrdom. This is evident in many of the spirit of VII people with their misunderstanding, maybe even misidentification, of poverty. It is a cheap way to heaven, the indulgence. As with the false hope of contraception, it does not address the root of the problem and in fact supports it.
rcg
Thanks RCG for your comments. I really want people to know that it was not perfect prior to Vatican II and that the seeds of sexual abuse, clericalism in the priesthood and most especially amongst bishops, meaning no accountability except to their own little club, contributed to much of the dissent we saw after Vatican II and to the sexual abuse crisis that could only have gone on the way it did prior to being brought to light through the secrecy of the clerical club of priests and bishops accountable to no one. Now there is accountability to the press and the law, and to the laity and that is good.
The only reason why I would like to see the mass celebrated ad orientem and with less emphasis on the priest and the community is that a new clericalism has arisen with all the flexibility and this too is fashioned on the cult of the personality of either the priest of the worshiping community. I think that the current missal ad orientem and with the priest and laity saying the black and doing the red would go a long way in bringing about mature obedience to authority and good order in the Church and unity.
After reading the article in the St. Louis Review, I shall not weep. Truly, I expect no better from the LCWR. On the other hand, I am greatly encouraged by the article, and the letter about which it was written.
Father, I have read enough about the experimentation in this country in the 1950s and even before to be sure your comments are correct. However, what was done was certainly a rupture, if not a rape, of tradition.
Mass today, celebrated by our interim administrator, was disturbing for the presence of many ad libs. To be fair, the priest is retired, and is with us only until our pastor recovers from the maladies which have put him at the Mayo. Even so, and with all the charity I can muster, I think this priest exemplifies many of the worst results of the post-Conciliar attitudes.
There is a new and insidious form of clericalism after Vatican II which you, William have made clear by this weekend's Mass--these things need to be stopped. I agree.
Father, it is precisely that form of clericalism about which I would weep. it is a disservice to the faithful, and to the Church.
Even worse, however, is the continuing damage done by the liturgists, theologians, and directors of religious education who fail to teach the Catechism, and who promote the notion that Church teachings could be swayed by the laity.
...lately, it occurred to me that I could indulge in my own form of dissidence: giving away to new RCIA students copies of the Catechism (at today's price on Amazon, $7.99 each in hardcover.)
The DRE would be livid, but if I were to offer them outside her classroom, what could she say? Of course, it would be even better if I could persuade one of our priests to accompany me and offer them inside the classroom. ;)
Father; Enjoy your blog. Question about the high altar in your church. It appears that there are two empty niches on either side of the retable with yellow cloth as a backdrop. What gives? I was dumbfounded when I saw the outside of your church. What a beauty. Any other outside pictures?
The photo is from the Easter season with decorative cloth on it, but there are two empty niches on the reredos which I presume are for candelabra which were placed there in the past but the soot from the candles terribly blackens the marble directly above so we no longer place any there and these look odd with the six candlesticks. You can google St. Joseph Macon for images and you should get a few from the outside.
Re: liturgies that leave much to be desired.... A holy priest, a missionary I once knew told me that whenever the homily or rite left much to be desired, I ought to focus on consoling the Sacred heart of Jesus more than on my own outrage or upset over a lack of decorum or dissent. It helps put our minds back on who is important. Not to then do nothing, but to make sure what I do is done from a place of sincere worship of Jesus, from a place of hurt disciple who simply wants to keep faith with the saints and martys of all time rather than from a place of pique or argument about taste or opinion.
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