Is this how the Vatican II Church responded or the FrancisChurch responds today? If not, why not? I think it is the Modernist thinking that has infested the Church and has now manifested itself as The New Way as a welcome departure from the Faith which was known for good reason as The Way.
In so many documents from Vatican II and the post Vatican II documents we see instructions given which are usually followed up with a list of exceptions. It is like saying you cannot do this or you must do that followed by a sentence or paragraph starting with words such as, ‘however’, ‘under these specific conditions’ or ‘but’ Nothing, it seems is simply yes or no. It is always a maybe. And Amoris Laetitia has its footnotes which add the ‘maybe’ dimension to any Truth that we may have commonly understood (incorrectly, no doubt).
Contrast these things with the simple yes (I believe) of the Credo or the simple no (Thou shalt not) of the 10 Commandments. Even these, along with the other Objective Truths taught by the Catholic Faith, have now come under attack. The answer seems to be ‘maybe’ if that is what our conscience tells us. Of course, this comes after suitable ‘discernment’ and ‘accompaniment’ has exhausted all other answers. You are free to act as God and/or Church in prescribing your own set of laws as there are no objective laws so rigid that they can be applied to all of humanity for all time. The serpent, it seems was right; you will become as gods and you are free to interpret the law as you please or exempt yourself from it. Gods have that freedom, of course, and now you do as well.
Everything can be ’tweaked’ today to fit the person or the situation (situation ethics?). If we don’t like the answer of the Church we can find another theologian or pastor to explain how it is alright to come up with a meaning that is exactly opposite to the literal meaning of the Objective Laws of the Church. You can exonerate yourself of all shame or guilt if you try hard enough. You can find good reasons to abort your child, euthanize your parents, commit adultery, live a homosexual lifestyle, change your gender, receive Communion (in the hand standing, of course) without confessing your sins; for you are without sin if you have discerned that that is the case. Besides, Fr. Billy Bob has told you that it is OK to use contraception if you like, live in adultery, or fornicate outside of marriage. All other sins follow suit. Simply decide that any given sin is not sinful for you and does not apply to your specific (therefore, special) situation and you are good to go.
Gone are the days when the voice of the Church was heard from the mouth of every bishop and priest and especially the Pope. Even if they did not live the Truth at least they taught it in concert with one voice. Gone are the days when our practice reflected our theological Truths. Now the practices not only differ from country to country, diocese to diocese but parish to parish as well.
Professor Taylor Marshall reported today that he had a vision last night about the state of the Church which can be found here.
Whether or not one accepts this as true is insignificant in what meaning was ascribed to it by Prof. Marshall. My response to his vision was a bit more critical and specific than the explanation given by him:
“I have no reason to dispute Taylor Marshall or his visionary experience. What always comes into question in these things is the ‘interpretation’ of said visions. My own thoughts as he was reiterating the vision was that Mother Church is writhing in pain due to the fact that something has made her sick, or bed-ridden, unable to go to Her children. Her love for Her children is being frustrated by the works of satan and His lies. And what could that be other than the willful action of leaders, educators, priests, bishops and theologians, that have poisoned our minds to think of ourselves as our own God as we go about our lives . . . living outside the Traditional Teachings of the Church and trusting our own consciences? We deny the Real Presence, the teachings on contraception, the teachings on adultery, on sodomy, same sex marriage and recently, abortion and euthanasia for the old and suffering. We have a Pope who claims all go to heaven or in the worst case our souls are annihilated . . . so no fear of hell at all. Confession is rarely used and Our Mass is a closed in circle which makes the Mass about us though Mother Church always had us face the Lord; not ourselves. We treat the Blessed Sacrament as a symbol instead of a supernatural Grace of receiving God into our hearts and have no problem receiving this ‘mere symbol’ in an objective state of mortal sin. Her objective Truths and Sacraments remain though they are not taught but rather shunned. In their place we have been given the equivalent of baby formula rather than the Living Milk of the Church: a man-made, liturgy, with novel man-made practices that seem to make of the Timeless Truths simply one of many passing customs, completely obsolete and not fit for the modern world. We have become as Gods and we make decisions based on that rather than going to Mother Church and drinking from Her Fount of Truth which still wants to feed us. Who are those who are trying to keep Her bed-ridden, who are depriving us of the nourishment She wants to give us? I think we know and I think these diabolical narcissists who have infested the Church need to be expunged and driven off. They are the nanny’s that give us poison rather than food. Get them out of the way and Mother Church will supply us with all our needs. Indeed His conclusion that there is nothing wrong with Christ’s Church is true. It’s just that we are being led further and further away from Her and pointed to a Church without Christ and with symbolic sacraments rather than the vital means for our salvation.”
I only bring this up because Mother Church is ‘sick’ and ‘bed-ridden’ by any objective standard. When we accept nuanced explanations for truth and exonerate ourselves as we please and thereby cut ourselves off from the Traditional and Constant Teachings of Mother Church we have effectively locked Her in a room and kept Her from tending to Her Children. Perhaps, when we get rid of the indecisive obscurantists who lead the Church of God and replace them with those whose yes means yes and no means no then we will once again find ourselves on the road to recovery and Christ’s Church might once again be the light on the hill that beckons us all to come to Her, partake of Her Salvific Grace and Save our Souls.
All Along the Watchtower 
I’m not qualified to comment on your specific situation, since I am not a Catholic, but in thinking about the interpretation of Scripture more generally, I would say that one of the problems for the 20th and 21st centuries has been an incorrect application of the principle of historical context. It seems to me there have been influential cases of “they did this then because of their culture, but we don’t so it doesn’t apply to us”. I would submit that there are cases where this reasoning is essentially correct, but there are also cases where it is not, and I think we do a disservice to lay people when we force them to take a modern position on something against their conscience. This is antithetical to Paul’s teaching on respecting the conscience of other believers, and this is what I dislike about the forcefulness of changes from the top which large swathes of the laity do not want. Whether or not the Latin mass is a good thing is not a question for me to answer, but when it was taken away, that was unfair on the parts of the laity who wanted it.
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I suppose in things that are not Yes or No’s of one’s belief then it should be left to the conscience (however good or poorly formed) where we are free to choose. But my point is that if your theological teachings are one thing and your practice seems to contradict the teaching then what is the laity to make of it? Will they ever have their consciences formed by the belief? They will, but it will be whichever personal preference they like. That is not how we view our Credo or the Ten Commandments and it is not how development of Biblical Moral Theology should be taught . . . though it is a good way to unteach the Faith and make of the Commandments nothing other than ‘suggestions’.
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In regards to the mass, I puzzle most Catholics by stating both the vernacular and the Latin masses should be supported. I’m not as pessimistic of Vatican II as Scoop, I’m not against the vernacular being used or lecturing, as I am a lector myself. I think the ordinary form of the mass fits the historical mass spoken St. Justin Martyr’s First Apology. However, I do find it rather silly of the Pope calling those who want the TLM mass rigid.
I find that the Bishop politic much like any other political organization in the world. In many ways, they divide the laity as much as any other politician and that’s sad. I find myself more and more at peace the less I concern myself with what goes on in Rome. I cannot influence directly what happens there, but I can influence my own community, so there should be my most pressing concerns.
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I know you like Benedict XVI very much. Here’s a quote from him when he was a simple Cardinal:
“Not surprisingly, people try to reduce this newly created role by assigning all kinds of liturgical functions to different individuals and entrusting the “creative” planning of the Liturgy to groups of people who like to, and are supposed to, “make a contribution of their own”. Less and less is God in the picture. More and more important is what is done by the human beings who meet here and do not like to subject themselves to a “pre-determined pattern”.” (Spirit of Liturgy, ch. 3)
For more quotes of his on the new liturgy you can go here: http://www.newsforcatholics.info/quotations-on-the-novus-ordo/
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Which of course can be true and many roles still function within parishes in my opinion. When I read, for example, it helps me focus more deeply on the particular passage, I pray to the Holy Spirit to allow my words to do its will, I pray to allow me to be humbled by these words. All in all, these I believe are a good in serving and worshiping God. But it may be true that we need to teach this type of reverence to these roles.
Is the solution for me to simply stop functioning in these roles if they still available to be laity? I don’t think so because someone else with less reverence will simply replace me.
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And if nobody responded then what? If we don’t receive from the Extraordinary Ministers then they will disappear as quickly as they appeared out of nowhere.
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You won’t find much disagreement with me on Eucharistic ministers, as I am speaking of the good of Lectors, greeters, lay Catechist etc. However, I also do not object to the Eucharist in the hand. I think Cardinal Sarah’s recent remarks of the practice to be more or less silly. In fact, the idea that Christ instituted a material form to receive him within the mystical Body of Christ and then instruct his church then to not allow us to touch him is in my mind falling into Gnosticism. Naturally, the idea of some type of secret knowledge resigned to the priesthood falls into it as well with its form of clericalism.
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Then you disagree with a long line of Popes (Benedict XVI & Pope St. JPII included) and Aquinas and a number of Church Councils to boot. Here are a few quotes to ponder:
Pope St. Sixtus I (c. AD 115) “The Sacred Vessels are not to be handled by others than those consecrated to the Lord.”
– Pope St. Eutychian (275-283) Forbade the faithful from taking the Sacred Host in their hand.
– St. Basil the Great, Doctor of the Church (330-379) “The right to receive Holy Communion in the hand is permitted only in times of persecution.” St. Basil considered Communion in the hand so irregular that he did not hesitate to consider it a grave fault.
– The Council of Saragossa (380) Excommunicated anyone who dared continue receiving Holy Communion by hand. This was confirmed by the Synod of Toledo.
– Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461) Energetically defended and required faithful obedience to the practice of administering Holy Communion on the tongue of the faithful.
– The Synod of Rouen (650) “Do not put the Eucharist in the hands of any layman or laywomen, but ONLY in their mouths.” Condemned Communion in the hand to halt widespread abuses that occurred from this practice, and as a safeguard against sacrilege.
– The Sixth Ecumenical Council, at Constantinople (680-681) Forbade the faithful to take the Sacred Host in their hand, threatening transgressors with excommunication.
– St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) “Out of reverence towards this sacrament [the Holy Eucharist], nothing touches it, but what is consecrated; hence the corporal and the chalice are consecrated, and likewise the priest’s hands, for touching this sacrament.” (Summa Theologica, Part III, Q. 82, Art. 3, Rep. Obj. 8)
– The Council of Trent (1545-1565) “The fact that only the priest gives Holy Communion with his consecrated hands is an Apostolic Tradition.”
– Pope John Paul II, Inaestimabile Donum, April 17, 1980, sec. 9 “It is not permitted that the faithful should themselves pick up the consecrated bread and the sacred chalice, still less that they should hand them from one to another.”
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Have they decreed such as infallible Doctrine? If not, I have no problem with disagreement on theological matters.
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Fine. But their credentials are far beyond those who disagree with them.
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But isn’t that an argument for authority rather than reason? If I could make my statement about Gnosticism to John Paul II or BXVI, what would be their reply to such a statement? Would they consider it? Would they reject it fully? I think it’s something having read both men would consider deeply.
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Then the faith of our fathers was a lie and we were all Gnostics until now. Hardly. If I believed that I would not be Catholic.
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But Latin use to be the vernacular during a period, so it wouldn’t make it a lie and wouldn’t make the Church Father’s Gnostics.
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As was ancient Greek and Hebrew. There is a timelessness associated with a dead language that is not changing its meanings with each new generation and therefore more suitable to liturgy than the common tongues spoken. That said, as time goes on new translations will be needed as the meanings change . . . it is why the Editio Typica is always in Latin.
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Makes sense to me, at least.
One: I’m not overfond of hierarchies, they tend to lead to pride in the officeholders, often despite their best intentions.
Two: I like the historic liturgies that fulfill the necessities of worship, I see a lot in Scoop’s quote there, but, I knew a lot of Catholics before VII, and frankly most of them had no idea what was going on in Mass, between it being in Latin and mumbling priests. Well, the vernacular helps considerably in that, even Luther said so! 🙂 And technology can help with the mumbling if used correctly.
And there is something to be said for changing thing up a bit, just so that people pay attention. I can remember when my home church started using the Nicene Creed in service, instead of only the Apostle’s Creed, lots of complaining, but people actually had to read it (and perchance think about what they were reading) instead of rote recitation. And the same thing now when we use the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday. Of course, partially, at least, that is also why most of the churches went with the three-year lectionary, instead of our old one year one.
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Along the lines of how people in the old Mass did not pay attention or did not ‘participate’ as the new bishops and defenders of the new Mass love to repeat. I find this interesting as I have read many a defender scowl at the little old ladies who were saying a rosary at Mass. My only reply would be this, from our Holy Father Pope Pius XII:
“So varied and diverse are men’s talents and characters that it is impossible for all to be moved and attracted to the same extent by community prayers, hymns and liturgical services. Moreover, the needs and inclinations of all are not the same, nor are they always constant in the same individual. Who, then, would say, on account of such a prejudice, that all these Christians cannot participate in the Mass nor share its fruits? On the contrary, they can adopt some other method which proves easier for certain people; for instance, they can lovingly meditate on the mysteries of Jesus Christ or perform other exercises of piety or recite prayers which, though they differ from the sacred rites, are still essentially in harmony with them.“ (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei)
I really couldn’t agree with him more!
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In all honesty, I do not think going back strictly to the Latin mass in the answer to all of our ills. I don’t think the vernacular mass has caused all the problems that many traditional liturgist claim. It doesn’t follow logic; it falls into the fallacy of correlation does not imply causation.
My mother and her siblings share the same sentiment as described by Neo. In fact, I took her to a Latin mass within the last year and when she was in the church, I had to shush her, she said, “ Well I still hate it.” My Mom is bit rough around he edges, but in true Chestertonian fashion I have to disagree with Pius XII. Catholicism is not an either:or faith but a both;and.
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So Ratzinger and nearly 2000 years of Tradition were foolish then. The Jews all faced Jerusalem and the Catholics all faced the Lord. The Protestants hated mystery and exclusivity of the mark of Priesthood and derided the consecration of the vessels, linens and the priest’s hand which were done so in order that they might come in contact with the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.
The vernacular would have been fine as an educational tool and a simple translation of the Roman Rite which already existed. But as such, Benedict XVI was right: it was designed by committee, something that had never before happened in the Catholic Faith. But to throw out our Liturgical language while the Jews have retained their Hebrew to this day is foolish . . . the Greek Churches in Communion with Rome have not abandoned their liturgical language either. Rome has lost its savor and our Roman culture has all but been trampled completely underfoot.
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There is much truth to your statements. I can not deny it. In fact, I wouldn’t even oppose a flip of the Liturgies with Latin being more predominant than the vernacular, which is how the Vatican II document SC reads by the way.
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Absolutely. Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Council Fathers were far from what these reformers have allowed to become of our Liturgy.
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