Edward Pentin has an article on the big plans of Cardinal Fernandez to figure out why the Church is declining in so many places in the world. Press the title for the story and then below the title is my most humble summary of the true problem which doesn’t take a Church genius to figure out:
Cardinal Fernández Shares More Details on Upcoming ‘Transmission of the Faith’ Document
I have written on the blog time and again, that the decline in participation in the Church, at least in the USA, must be attributed to the “spirit of Vatican II’ and spirit of rupture, chaos and division and the methodology used to shove this spirit down the throats of Catholics, some who willingly swallowed and enjoyed it and others who choked and threw up in disgust.
Apart from the 1960’s cultural upheaval that was secular in nature but bled into the Church too, because of the spirit of Vatican II and revolutionaries in the culture bringing that revolution to Vatican II through a rupture hermeneutic, we have seen as a result of that and its trickle down effect to this day, that having nearly 90% of Catholic attend Mass on Sunday in 1965 is now down to about 5% to 20% of Catholics doing so today.
And of that percentage, a high percentage are sporactic in attending Mass, don’t believe in Transubstantiation, advocate for women priests, same sex or whatever marriages and free love. They want divorced enshrined also.
What the spirit of Vatican II did to the Church beginning in 1965 with the laity, is a direct result of a mistaken belief that if some things in the Church can change, any and everything else can change!
I would venture to guess that the 90% of Catholics attending Mass prior to the Council believed that everything in the Church was set in concrete and nothing could change in the Church as it concerned her discipline, sacraments, faith and morals. NOTHING!
Very shortly after the Mass began to change, habits disappeared, priests and nuns leaving their vocations to marry each other or whoever, Catholics thought that everything should change. Allow nuns to marry and remain nuns. Let priests marry and stay priests.
And then in 1968, after the laity thought they could have sex without procreation by being allowed to use the pill, after all, everything else was changing, why not that, Pope Paul VI said no with Humanae Vitae!
And in 1968 you had angry young Catholics of marriage and childbearing age infuriated by that and so were priests and nuns. Many laity left the Church over that which meant so did their families, their children.
Trace the real decline in Catholicism and the transmission of the true faith to 1968 and accelerating after than for more than three generations now.
This, in our own day, has led to a flimsy Catholicism, that no religion or any religion is okay.
This has led to a contempt for Church law and its requirements.
This has led to once storied Catholic families known for their commitment to the Church no longer committed to the Church. Children brought up in the post-Vatican II Church of this generation, no longer practice, aren’t getting married in the Church and aren’t having their children baptized. And they aren’t giving their parents Catholic funerals! And many of these Catholics, were brought up in post-Vatican II practicing Catholic families, who went to Catholic schools and Catholic universities are the ones totally disengaged from the institutional Church altogether!
And the sex abuse scandal, truly on steroids in the early aftermath of Vatican II and precisely around 1974 less than 10 years after Vatican II, has caused infinite damage to the psyche of lay Catholics and their love of the Church.
And now there is the Synod that is so compromised from an academic and intellectual perspective making all things equal for the sake of making everyone and every sin welcomed into the Church, one wonders if those in the institutional Church and the synod and in the highest places of the Church don’t have a death wish for the Roman Catholic Church!
I don’t condone the intransigence of the FSSPX as it concerns certain aspects of Vatican II. And if they ordain bishops without papal approval, the pope, according to current canon law, should excommunicate them. But, what they are like today is basically what the Church and parishes were like prior to the Council. Most Ordinary Form parishes are far, far, far, from the unity of Catholic Faith that we once had and the unity in the way we worshipped and Catholic spirituality and faith and morals. For the most part, and apart from the macro issues the pope has with the FSSPX, their parishes are what our parishes were like on the eve of Vatican II—strong, committed and secure in their Catholic modesty, identity and unity—-that is gone for the most part in most parishes as nearly 95% of Catholics in a geographical area don’t even bother to attend Mass, get married in the Church or have their children baptized. They are cooked in secular politics and the ways of the world, flesh and devil.
As it concerns our parishes, I have had to put bulletin announcements reminding Catholics that Daisy Duke shorts, tank tops and bare midriffs are not allowed at Mass. Nor are t-shirts with any slogans, especially obscene slogans or political propaganda. Do you think FSSPX parishes have to put that into their bulletins????
Need I write more?
14 comments:
Uproariously funny. But also saddening and dangerous, because such incredibly unserious people are empowered to make decisions with serious effects. Every day Cardinal Besa-me is head of the Holy Office it becomes harder to trust Leo's prudential judgments.
Nick
LOL - all he would have to do is sit down with folks over 70 who are still practicing their Faith. In order words, don't speak to anyone at the Vatican or USCCB!
When I was a teenager (around 1974, I think) in my very rural parish, a couple of deracinated religious sisters were in charge of my Sunday CCD class. They had me read Herman Hesse's Siddhartha for my spiritual betterment. I can recall thinking, "Why am I reading this (end product of digestion)? Don't we have any Catholic books?" I have no doubt that those poor women joined their religious Order when it had "order." But in the chaos of the post-Vatican II ("two," not "eleven") Church, they lost their religious garb and their Catholic sensibility.
Father McDonald said..."I don’t condone the intransigence of the FSSPX...But what they are like today is basically what the Church and parishes were like prior to the Council."
That is why the SSPX would have us believe that Pope Leo XIV would not feel at home at an SSPX chapel.
The SSPX has portrayed Pope Leo XIV as another Vatican II Era Novus Ordo, Ecumenical Movement, Interfaith, Newchurch, New Rome Pontiff.
That is why the SSPX would have us believe that we must seek the safety of an SSPX chapel — where Pope Leo XIV's supposed Newchurch destructive teachings are rejected.
Father Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X:
"With the legacy left to us by Pope Francis, the fundamental reasons that justified the consecrations of 1988 still exist and, in many respects, impel us with renewed urgency.
"The Second Vatican Council remains more than ever the compass guiding today’s churchmen..."
"Furthermore, the major orientations already taking shape in this new pontificate — particularly through the most recent consistory — only confirm this.
"An explicit determination to preserve the line of Pope Francis as an irreversible trajectory for the entire Church is discernible."
Pax.
Mark Thomas
In 1958 A.D., Father Joseph Ratzinger portrayed in bleak terms the condition of the pre-Vatican II Church.
Parish life in 1958 A.D. was horrific, if we accept the following from Joseph Ratzinger.
Therefore, there is not any wonder, based upon his dreadful view of pre-Vatican II Church life, why even to the end of his earthly life, that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had declared that Vatican II was “not only meaningful, but necessary."
Father Joseph Ratzinger, 1958 A.D:
-- The New Pagans and the Church
"The outward shape of the modern Church is determined essentially by the fact that, in a totally new way, she has become the Church of pagans, and is constantly becoming even more so.
"She is no longer, as she once was, a Church composed of pagans who have become Christians, but a Church of pagans, who still call themselves Christians, but actually have become pagans.
"Paganism resides today in the Church herself, and precisely that is the characteristic of the Church of our day, and that of the new paganism, so that it is a matter of a paganism in the Church, and of a Church in whose heart paganism is living."
Pax.
Mark Thomas
If the Church was in such bad in 1958 why did 80% of American of American Catholics attend Sunday Mass then compared to 15% now? Compared to 1958 the Church is in terminal condition
MT,
Continuing the mirth Father instigated by his post, you add to it with the hilarious implication that Vatican II lessened the phenomenon of the Church on Earth being composed "of pagans, who still call themselves Christians" and characterized as containing "new paganism" living in the heart of the Church.
Fr. Ratzinger pointed problems of an increasingly-hollow cultural Christianity and reception of the sacraments disconnected with a belief in their power. How many now even bother to maintain cultural Catholicism and present themselves for Sacraments as a matter of social form?
Again, very funny, MT.
Nick
Psalm 115:5-7
They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:
They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:
They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.
Father Joseph Ratzinger's bleak assessment of the Church's pre-Vatican II days corresponded to the bleak assessments that such trads as Father Leonard Feeney S.J. had issued prior to the Council.
In line with Father Ratzinger, Father Feeney S.J. had insisted that widespread immorality, ignorance of the Faith/Mass, outright rejection of Church teaching existed throughout the (Latin) Church.
However, the manner in which to rebuild the collapsed pre-Vatican II Catholic Church differed greatly among liberals/progressives (Father Joseph Ratzinger) and conservatives/trads (Father Leonard Feeney S.J.).
Father Ratzinger insisted upon the pre-Vatican II Church's continued liberal direction. Father Leonard Feeney S.J. had insisted upon the opposite.
=======
From: AI Overview:
"...the diaries of the traditionalist theologian Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton.
"In an entry from October 1962, he expressed deep frustration with the pre-Vatican II popes, claiming they had appointed weak bishops who flooded the hierarchy with unworthy and incompetent men."
Monsignor Fenton, October 19, 1962 A.D:
"Since the death of [Pope] St. Pius X the Church has been directed by weak and liberal popes, who have flooded the hierarchy with unworthy and stupid men."
Pax.
Mark Thomas
Were pre-Vatican II Catholic parishes akin to SSPX chapels?
That is, had determination to rebel against the Church that marks the SSPX/SSPX chapels existed as prominently in pre-Vatican II parishes?
One could conclude that such had been the case based upon claims issued by Father Joseph Ratzinger, as well as such prominent trads as Father Leonard Feeney SJ.
The question is whether their bleak assessments of Vatican II Church life were valid.
There are folks here and elsewhere who have insisted that said claims by Fathers Ratzinger and Feeney SJ — that the pre-Vatican II Church was in liturgical and spiritual shambles — were nonsense.
However, Popes Venerable Pius XII, and Saint John XXIII, as well as a tremendous amount of bishops who would serve as Council Fathers, agreed that the Church, just prior to Vatican II, required major reforms.
Pax.
Mark Thomas
Mark Thomas, as usual, dodges actually supporting his (mealy-mouthed, again as usual) assertion that Vatican II did something to at least ameliorate the problems diagnosed by Fr. Ratzinger.
Fun fact: Fr. Feeney was reconciled to the Church without renouncing his extreme view of EENS.
Nick
However, Popes Venerable Pius XII, and Saint John XXIII, as well as a tremendous amount of bishops who would serve as Council Fathers, agreed that the Church, just prior to Vatican II, required major reforms.
LOL! Why would St. John XXIII issue Veterum Sapientia on the eve of the Council if his plan was to jettison Latin in the Mass and the other sacraments?
MT Suit it is time for you to stop dodging historical facts and logic and answer this simple straightforward question I posed.
Have you read Veterum Sapientia? Do you even know that St. John XXIII relished the pomp and circumstance of the venerable Latin Liturgy and was not happy at all with the "reforms" of the Easter Week liturgies fostered by Bugnini of Novus Bogus fame? The audience you are reaching here are not the simpletons you encounter at the National Anti-Catholic Reporter. Either put up or shut up. Finita est!
For those interested in an insider's view of Father Leonard Feeney:
"Harvard to Harvard: The Story of Saint Benedict Center’s Becoming Saint Benedict Abbey" is a book by Abbot Gabriel Gibbs, O.S.B. (requiescat in pace), documented Father Leonard Feeney's story.
I had read said book years ago.
Decades earlier, Abbot Gabriel had been "one of the early members of Saint Benedict Center and the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary."
One might dismiss his book in question as having been too favorable to Father Leonard Feeney.
But I had been blessed to have enjoyed conversations with Father Richard Shmaruk, who had executed the lifting of Father Feeney's excommunication.
Father Shmaruk had confirmed to me various positive claims that Abbot Gabriel Gibbs, O.S.B. had issued in regard to Father Leonard Feeney.
Father Shmaruk, confirmed that Father Feeney had not been required to have recanted his (Father Feeney's) supposed "unorthodox" views.
Among the more interesting parts of the book authored by Abbot Gabriel Gibbs, O.S.B: The role that Cardinal Ottaviani had played in regard to Father Feeney's "persecution."
Pope Saint Paul VI, via favorable reports in regard to Father Feeney SJ, delivered by then-Boston Archbishop Humberto Medeiros, had taken a favorable view of Father Feeney SJ.
Father Shmaruk was among the numerous Churchmen who had insisted that Father Leonard Feeney SJ had long been a theologian of monumental stature.
Athough they differed greatly in numerous ways, Fathers Leonard Feeney, as well as Joseph Ratzinger, had agreed that the pre-Vatican II (Latin) Church had collapsed liturgically, as well as spiritually.
Prior to Vatican II, the Church had collapsed into shambles...was in dire need of radical reformation...according Fathers Feeney and Ratzinger.
To judge in positive fashion the spiritual condition of the pre-Vatican II Latin Church based upon Sunday Mass attendance percentage would be preposterous, should we believe Fathers Leonard Feeney, as well as Joseph Ratzinger.
Pax.
Mark Thomas
The Cardinal is not commissioning a study, he is constructing a psyop. The goal is to discover some explanation that shows what happened is not bad at all, just a new way of being Church - led by the Holy Spirit and those who don't get on board are the real problem. It is the old Soviet model.
Post a Comment