Vatican II Turns Fifty – Part II: Catholics and Culture Collide

From Fr. Gordon J. MacRae at These Stone Walls:

Even today, after “Marking Thirty Years of Priesthood,” I am able to look back on that story and see many subtle ways in which my defiance of the authority of dissenters attempting to impose their open rebellion against Tradition came back to haunt my priesthood. I was branded “an angry conservative.”

It was ironic, and could not possibly have been further from the truth at that time in my life. I grew up as a liberal Boston Irish Democrat in a family leaning so far to the left I thought they might topple. Even today, I am the only member of my family who does not dismiss the Catholic Church as a quaint anachronism in modern culture, a throwback to the Middle Ages that the world is slowly shedding to pave the way for true social progress. We were “Kennedy Catholics,” which today I know meant that being Catholic was something we wore around our necks, but penetrated no deeper.

When I entered religious life in 1974, my family thought I had gone insane. By the time I commenced graduate studies in theology, I was sold almost completely on the whole movement of the left, and the basic premise that the Church cannot move the modern world without fully accommodating the modern world.

I remember the round of enthusiastic applause from much (but not all) of the seminary student body when I described in 1979 – to the nodding approval of faculty – that Humanae Vitae might be one of the last gasps of a Church in the throes of death, clinging to an era long past while ignoring the needs of human nature. “Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego coqnosco: et peccatum meum contra me est semper.” (Psalm 51: 3).

That was my own dark wood of error, and those woods were dark indeed. My wake-up call was the incident involving Pope John Paul II and our seminary rector and faculty that I described in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” What I learned about myself from that sordid story is that to be a good Catholic dissenter of the elitist left required that I also be a good follower, that I cease to think for myself and draw my own conclusions, that I accept without question an agenda of rebellion against authority imposed by others who would do my thinking for me. That agenda required me to commit to a version of Church and priesthood in which the Magisterium is a supremely obscene word to which I must never again refer or defer.

I could not be such a follower, and still can’t. In those days, our sponsoring dioceses assigned us to a seminary to which we had no choice but to attend. Academically, I excelled and that seemed all that mattered – that, and whether I would continue to toe the liberal line, falling into place with an intellectual refutation of Tradition when called upon.

I parted ways with that set of expectations when I witnessed a small group of seminarians from the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska being taunted by some of my East Coast leftist peers one evening as they gathered to pray the rosary together in the seminary chapel. Such open displays of spiritual tradition were simply not done at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in the 1970s.

The next day, they and their traditionalism were placed on trial in a class in fundamental theology. It was to be a sort of lynching, but light finally dawned on Marblehead (at least, on my own marble head). I wasn’t having it, and came to their defense. I was branded a dissenter from the left, a traitor to the liberal cause... (continued)

Read More at These Stone Walls

Link:

• Vatican II Turns Fifty – Part II: Catholics and Culture Collide

Related:

• Vatican II Turns Fifty – Part I: Catholic in an Age of Discontent

Bishop Anthony Taylor's Claims About the Pre-Vatican II Church not Being "What Jesus Taught" - Michael Voris Responds

By Michael Voris

Hello everyone and welcome to The Vortex where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed. I’m Michael Voris.

With this week’s onset of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.. many Catholics around the world have been holding their breaths.. fearing that a round of tradition bashing would be unleashed.

It appears that has begun. The lead-off hitter appears to be Little Rock Arkansas Bishop Anthony Taylor.

He has just released an audio version of his take on Vatican II. We have attached a link for you to hear.. if you can stomach it.

Now let’s be clear right from the outset.. this is not a challenge to the bishop’s authority or anything of the kind.

Bishop Anthony Taylor

But it is a focus on a mindset that has permeated much of the Church in the west.. including many bishops.. and consequently their priests and seminary rectors and staffs at the chancery and so forth. This mindset is so pervasive.. that many may not even realize that it is the very air they breath.

It is the mindset that most of what went on before the Second Vatican Council was bad or insufficient or deficient or somehow not correct and that practically everything that happened after the council was good and better and some coming of age fulfillment of a “BETTER” church.

So with that in mind.. we are exploring Bishop Taylor’s assessment of the Church before Vatican II and after.

It begins about 4 minutes in on his audio. His point of reference is his own childhood memories of how terrible things were then and how blessedly blissful they are now.

"I was in 8th grade when Mass began to be celebrated in English.  I had been an altar boy in Latin since 4th grade.  So I remember vividly the before, during and after of Vatican II." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

If that is his base of authority on which to speak.. that he lived before during and after the Council.. then we think that His Excellency needs to be reminded that there are MANY MANY people who have the same base of lived experience who would disagree full throatedly with his points and conclusions.

First.. he has a self-admittedly four year experience with the Pre-Vatican II days.. from when he was 10-14 years old.. not a particularly mature platform that.. your middle school years.. to be making vast sweeping judgments about the world.

He first mentions a “ghetto” experience of the Church.

"It's really hard for young people today to have any concept of the ghetto mentality that pervaded the Church 50 years ago." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

Really? A Catholic GHETTO?

Let’s look at those pre-council days and consider the utter absurdity of that observation.

Does anyone remember Bishop Sheen? NATIONAL television figure?

And how about Loretta Young who, on her NATIONAL television series over several years, played Sister Ann, head of nursing at a Catholic hospital who was seen IN FOUR EPISODES making visits to the Blessed Sacrament, blessing herself with holy water, blatantly showing her trust in God etc.

And there was the series special "Road to Lourdes" about, well, Lourdes. And speaking of Lourdes.. how about the 1943 FOUR time Oscar winning movie The Song of Bernadette?

And what about "Dial O for O'Malley," Bing Crosby in "Going My Way" and "The Bells of St. Mary's" who, while obviously an idealized portrayal of a Catholic priest, was close enough to NORMAL experience of Catholic priests that he could inspire you rather than make you laugh at the absurdity of the idealization.

And how about Pat O'Brien and Spencer Tracy as Fr. Duffy and Fr. Flanagan respectively with Tracy taking home the best acting Oscar.

The Amazing thing about this supposed Catholic Ghetto was its ability to inspire a PROTESTANT.. quite often anti-Catholic culture to accept its message. This “Catholic ghetto” inspired a world with its proclamation of its ideals.

Catholics of the day had no shared anything to speak of except their faith. We didn’t dress alike .. have the same ethnic backgrounds.. eat the same foods.. do the same work.. live in the same places.

Heck.. in many cases.. depending on the ethnic background the original different groups of immigrants .. we didn’t even have the same devotions. Of course there were shared experiences.. but those experiences were rooted in the faith .. our beliefs .. what is called our Catholic identity.

Incidentally.. it is that same Catholic identity that many bishops in the US has stated quite openly we need to discover again. How prey tell can we re-discover and live our Catholic identity without fear of returning to the ghetto? There appear to be contradictions even among the bishops on this point.

His Excellency seems to have bought into a revisionist history of a time largely before he was born.

Now here was another humdinger.. that Catholics were discouraged from reading the bible for fear of misinterpreting it.

"I remember well what it was like to be discouraged from reading the bible out of fear of misinterpreting it..." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

Well, given the MASSIVE misinterpretations that have resulted from individual reading of Sacred Scripture all the way back to Martin Luther and the 500 years since, it seems that' s a pretty legitimate concern.

And those misinterpretations have resulted in a world full of woe.

Even today.. all over the western world.. Catholics gather for “Bible Studies” that are nothing more than “tell me how that passage makes you FEEL sessions.” That’s not bible study and it most certainly is not learning about the scriptures with the mind and heart of the Church.

That Catholics don’t KNOW the Bible is a Protestant canard. Sure many may not know book.. chapter and verse .. as if that’s really all that important anyway.. but faithful Catholics absolutely do know those scriptural truths.. whether they could cite the book or not.

Then he goes on to say how Catholics were discouraged from interacting with Protestants in formal worship settings.

"...and to be forbidden to attend practically anything except funerals in a non-Catholic church out of fear of contagion." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

Yep. From the point of view of our eternal lives.. what is to be gained from formally associating with people who subscribe to a heresy.

That isn’t to say shun them and be rude to them and un-Christian and uncharitable and don't invite them to barbeques. But it is to say that to mingle truth with heresy in a form that appears to be condoning of error will bode nothing but bad.

“Sharing” our faith traditions with each other gives the impression that all of them are equally valid.. and they are not.

Unless your goal is to evangelize and convert them.. what’s the point. It’s like dating a girl you aren’t gonna marry. Sure you might have some laughs or fun times along the way.. but in the end.. what’s the point? The Catholic life has a very definite end.. and it is salvation and bringing others to it.

His Excellency.. in a not so veiled slam.. implies that all that went before Vatican II was not really what Jesus taught.

"The Council Fathers realized that this is not what Jesus taught, and that it was time for us to lay aside our fear of the outside world." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

THANK GOD for 1962 when the Church FINALLY came into existence. Most of those previous 1900 years were not REALLY what Jesus taught.

In a broad and dismissive statement.. totally unbecoming of his role as a successor of the Apostles.. he says that today’s young people who are – notice the language here – GRIPPED – by a nostalgia for a time they never knew.. they just don’t realize what “those” days were really like.

"Many of those, who today seem so gripped with nostalgia for the time before Vatican II, have no actual lived experience of what those days were really like." - Bishop Anthony Taylor

Yep Your Excellency.. it must have been horrible to have packed churches.. vocations by the millions.. faithful catechism being taught in a thriving Catholic school system.. two hour long lines for confession.. Catholics attending Mass.. believing in sin.. believing in Hell.. not shacking up.. not aborting their children.. not using birth control.. not supporting same-sex marriage.. not divorcing and re-marrying like the rest of the world.. actually believing that Jesus was present in the Eucharist.. having their children baptized into families that actually believed and understood what that baptism meant.. honoring the Mother of God .. and on and on.

Oh the horror of what the Church must have been like in “those days”.

Imagine.. balanced books in parishes .. Catholic educational institutions popping up everywhere.. converts coming to the Faith by the hundreds of thousands.. award winning movies.. number-one ranked TV programs.. best-selling books.. so many vocations that we could actually export religious to the missions.. instead of now importing priests to shrinking parishes.

Bishop Taylor goes on to say more and imply even much more in the next section of his audio and we are going to pick up with that tomorrow.

And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he takes direct aim at the Traditional Latin Mass.. a Mass he comes close to portraying as a kind of meaningless waste of time for the laity that had no real connection to anything.

Excuse me Your Excellency.. but that MASS was what brought my father into the Faith in the late 1950’s.. a Faith that he passed on to me. And his experience was certainly not singular.. millions of people came into the Church because of the solemnity and mystery of that Mass.. unlike the abuse ridden current Mass .. which while absolutely valid.. has resulted in a near collapse of the Faith in the west.

That’s why the Pope and many others in the Church are taking a long hard look at what’s gone wrong and trying in fits and starts to fix it. It’s why we have a new translation for Mass each Sunday.. to be faithful to the original Latin.

To paint pre-Vatican II types as either nostalgic children too stupid to understand what things were “really” like.. as if YOU or others are the sole expert.. or a bunch of old doddering dementia victims is an approach that should elicit an apology.

The Church before Vatican II knew who she was.. she produced countless saints and the greatest minds the world has ever known.. brought untold millions of converts to the Church established by Our Blessed Lord as his ONLY one true Church.

What do we have now? Look around Your Excellency, look around. A near bankrupt bureaucracy that needs to run one fundraising campaign after another to fleece the flock to make up for billions paid out in legal costs for homosexual predator priests.. and shrinking congregations.. nuns who hop on a bus and travel the nation’s highways whipping up support for a child murdering president.. 2000 parishes closed in twenty years.

With all due respect Your Excellency.. you need to drop the revisionist history and get out more. More on this tomorrow.

GOD Love you,

I’m Michael Voris 

Links:

• ChurchMilitant.TV
• Bishop Anthony Taylor's Take on Vatican II (.mp3)  

Related:

• Vatican II Turns Fifty – Part I: Catholic in an Age of Discontent
• Cardinal Schonborn Cuts 75% of Parishes  

Vatican II Turns Fifty – Part I: Catholic in an Age of Discontent

By Fr. Gordon J. MacRae at These Stone Walls

...Readers seemed to agree that the unrelenting hostility toward the Church and priests in some corners of our culture has roots in the 1960s and 1970s, and especially in the implementation of the decrees and documents of Vatican II.

Note the word “implementation.” Despite the dissent of extreme views, the problem has never been the Council itself but rather what happened in its wake. Like the rest of the Western world, Catholics became polarized between the views of the left and the views of the right. In politics, what was once a national divide has become a national abyss the likes of which have not been seen since the Civil War. What happened in the Church after Vatican II is a reflection of what happened at the very same time throughout our culture....

It was at the start of that very same decade of immense social change that Blessed Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council. The goal of the Council was not doctrinal, but pastoral. Its goal was “aggiornamento,” the renewal of pastoral practice that Pope John XXIII envisioned would help evangelize a world approaching the 21st Century. So far, much of the opposite has occurred in response, but the Holy Spirit hasn’t finished yet. The point I want to make is that Vatican II remains a work in progress. It now requires a counter-reform to respond to dissent with fidelity.

The problem for Catholics is not the legitimacy of Vatican II. Of course it was legitimate. As the late Notre Dame philosophy professor, Ralph McInerny described in What Went Wrong with Vatican II (Sophia Institute Press, 1998):

“That which makes Vatican II valid is what made Vatican I, the Council of Trent, and every other council valid. To accept one Council is to accept them all. To reject one Council is to reject them all. We cannot have pick and choose conciliarism . . . I take it as a necessary premise the fact that we are bound by the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.” (p. 15).

Dissenting views from both extremes of an ideological divide really seem to be a challenge not for the implementation of Vatican Council II, but for Vatican Council I and its definitions of authority in our Church – definitions of authority that were upheld clearly in the Documents of Vatican II. It comes down to whether our ideologies have become goals in and of themselves, and therefore obstacles to our acceptance of the authority of the Pope and Magisterium. If so, they are obstacles to grace... (continued)

Read More at These Stone Walls

Link:

• Vatican II Turns Fifty – Part I: Catholic in an Age of Discontent

Pope Paul Sets Tone of Unity as Council Resumes

(St. Petersburg Times) Vatican City - Pope Paul VI assured the non-Catholic Christian world yesterday that it is his purpose to clear away every obstacle blocking Christian unity.  He called upon his own bishops to spell out for him their share in the church's supreme authority, a move that could ease the task of unity.

Opening the third and perhaps decisive session of the Vatican Ecumenical Council, the pontiff made a point of speaking directly to non-Catholic observers present.

"We wish to assure you once more of our purpose and hope to be able to one day to remove every obstacle, every misunderstanding, every hesitancy that still prevents us from feeling fully 'of one heart and one soul' in Christ, in His church (Acts. 4,32)," the Pope said.

- AP Wirephoto Paul VI Drinks Wine As He Takes Communion

"FOR OUR PART, we shall do all that the possibilities allow to this end."

The Pope's address set the tone for the meeting of 2,500 Catholic prelates from around the world.

Christian unity and the sharing of the church government with the bishops appeared interlocking. Non-Catholic Christians balk at the supreme authority placed in the Pope.

The upshot of the deliberations of the prelates may be some kind of group to advise the Pope.  Speaking to his bishops, the Pope said:

"THE HOUR HAS sounded in history when the church... must say of herself what Christ intended and willed her to be, and what the age-long meditation of the fathers, pontiffs and doctors  in their wisdom has explored with piety.  The church must give a definition of herself and bring out from her true conciousness the doctrine which the Holy Spirit teaches her."

He called the sharing of papal-episcopal authority "the weightiest and most delicate" of the problems facing the council.

The Pope made it plain that shared authority would not lessen papal primacy.

He said centralization of authority in the Vatican is a necessity for unity of the church but he added that centralization "will surely be always tempered and balanced by an alert and timely delegation both of authority and facilities for local pastors."

HE SAID popes as possessors of full power over the church have the duty of heading the episcopate.

"Nevertheless," he added, "our position in no way defrauds you, our brother bishops, of your due authority.  On the contrary, we are among the first to respect that sacred authority."

The council session in St. Peter's Basilica got under way with a Mass of Concelebration - a rarity that symbolized shared authority.

The Pope participated in this ceremony with 24 bishops, all of whom prayed together at the consecration of the host - the heart of the Mass - and partook of the same consecrated wafer and wine.

THE MEETING opened under a hot glare of television arc lights and in the heat James Francis Cardinal McIntyre of Los Angeles collapsed.

He was taken by ambulance to a Rome hospital where doctors said the 78-year-old American cardinal showed no heart difficulty and needed a few days of rest and medical testing.  Cardinal McIntyre flew to Rome Sunday night.  The doctors said too little sleep and too much heat felled him.

The Rev. Oscar Cullman, Protestant theologian of Paris and Basle, also fainted and was treated at the Basilica first aid station.  He resumed his place later among more than 60 Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox observers invited to witness the council.

     - September 15, 1964

Review: "The Ecumenical Vatican Council II: A Much Needed Discussion" by Msgr. Brunero Gherardini

From Hospitallers:

This is a remarkable book, not necessarily because it espouses especially new propositions, theories, or analysis on Vatican II, but because it espouses ideas the Fraternal Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX) espoused for years, and was termed "heretical" or "schismatic" for espousing, AND this book was written (and, this is the important distinction) by a Vatican theologian, and published by a Vatican-based publisher. This would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago. So, let's poke our noses into this book, and I am going to let Msgr. Gherardini speak for himself, hopefully not rendering his words out-of-context [page numbers and occasional comments will be in brackets.] ....

"In all truth Modernism hid itself under the cloak of Vatican II's hermeneutic...The new rite of Holy Mass practically silenced the nature of sacrifice making of it an occasion for gathering together the people of God...the eucharistic gathering was given the mere sense of sharing a meal together...After having said all of this about Vatican II, if someone were to ask me if, in the final analysis, the modernist corruption had hidden itself within the Council documents themselves, and if the Fathers themselves were more or less infected, I would have to respond both yes and no...But yes as well, because not a few pages of the conciliar documents reek of the writings and ideas of Modernism--this can be seen above all in GS." [92--boldface mine]...

"Anyone who, in quoting it [VII], puts it on a par with Trent or Vatican I, and accredits to it a normative and binding force which it does not possess in itself, commits a crime and, in the final analysis, does not respect the Council itself." [30]...

This volume is available from the "Academy of the Immaculate," 124 North Forke, Advance, NC 27006. Ph. 1-888-906-2742.

Read more

"The Ecumenical Vatican Council II: A Much Needed Discussion" Msgr. Brunero Gherardini

And So It Begins

Formal theological discussions about Vatican II will begin later this month, it was announced today. Why is Benedict XVI allowing this new debate on the most vexed questions of the Second Vatican Council?

By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome

====================================

"The first real task of the Council was to overcome the indolent, euphoric feeling that all was well with the Church, and to bring into the open the problems smoldering within." —Father Joseph Ratzinger, in a talk on the Second Vatican Council delivered in October 1964, while the Council was still in session (he was then 37 years old and a peritus or "expert" at the Council; see http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=935)

"What has happened since the Second Vatican Council can, according to Cardinal Ratzinger, be described as a cultural revolution, considering the false zeal with which the churches were emptied of their traditional furnishings, and the way that clergy and religious orders put on a new face. That 'rashness' is already regretted by many, the cardinal contends. There was, he believes, a 'widening gulf' between the Council Fathers, who wanted aggiornamento, updating, and 'those who saw reform in terms of discarding ballast, a more diluted faith rather than a more radical one...'" —The London Tablet, April 19, 1997, reviewing the book Salt of the Earth, a book-length interview with German writer Peter Seewald (conducted when Ratzinger was in his late 60s)

"After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the Pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an Ecumenical Council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the Pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The Pope's authority is bound to the Tradition of faith..." —Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000 (published when Ratzinger was 73 years old)

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Pope Benedict XVI has just made a dramatic choice, one which will certainly be numbered among the major decisions of his pontificate.

He has decided, in effect, to reopen formal debate on the Second Vatican Council and its teaching.

The new dialogue, which will take place in Rome between the leaders of the Fraternity of St. Pius X (the followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre) and Vatican experts will take place on October 26 at the Vatican, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said today.

(Here is a link to a full report on the announcement: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0904605.htm.)

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For the Pope's critics, the decision is unwise, as it seems likely to open a large can of worms.

These critics have argued that the lid on this can should be kept tightly closed. In essence, they have advised the Pope not to "dignify" the Society's objections to certain conciliar teachings -- or to the interpretations of those teachings -- by granting such a formal dialogue.

But Benedict has decided to let the dialogue begin.

For the Pope's supporters, the decision is an occasion for praise.

Why?

Because the Pope, almost five years into his pontificate, has finally decided to face head on and "bring into the open" the doctrinal problems "smoldering" (to cite his own words of 45 years ago) just beneath the surface of Church life throughout the entire post-conciliar period (1965 to the present, or 44 years).

So, with this decision to engage in a dialogue about the Council, a very significant phase of Benedict's pontificate begins.

Because this dialogue will inevitably come to grips, more than a generation after the close of the Council, with profoundly important doctrinal issues -- issues which seriously divided the Council Fathers at the time of the Council, and which eventually, and tragically, led:

(1) to a formal schism in the Church between those whom we may call "traditionalists" and "progressives" (though the two terms are woefully inadequate) when in 1988 the bishops of the Society of St. Pius X (the Lefebvrists) were excommunicated, and

(2) to widespread confusion among the Catholic faithful, to many exaggerated and erroneous interpretations of Christian and Catholic identity, and even to the formal or de facto abandonment of the Catholic faith by many.

With Benedict's decision, the Second Vatican Council is, in a certain sense, as it were, being called in "for further questioning" -- for an new examination and cross-examination, like a witness in a trial, to determine what the Council actually said, and intended.

And this means that theology, the strong point of this "theologian-Pope" (his career before he was consecrated a bishop was as a professor of theology in Germany), is about to take center stage in Benedict's pontificate.

And the goal in all this will be to arrive at clarity and a common understanding of the faith which will allow the reunion of the Lefbevrists with Rome, and so end of the only formal schism since Vatican II.

==============================

But we will not be able to observe this crucial theological debate.

It it will take place behind closed doors.

==============================

The Announcement

Here is the official Vatican communique on the matter:

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2009

DECLARATION OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE
HOLY SEE PRESS OFFICE, FR. FEDERICO LOMBARDI, S.I.

The first meeting of the foreseen discussions with the Fraternity of Saint Pius X will take place on Monday, October 26, in the morning.

Those who will participate [in the meeting] will be, from the part of the Commission Ecclesia Dei, other than the Secretary of said Commission, Mons. Guido Pozzo, the Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, H.E. Archbisop Luis F. Ladaria Ferrer, S.I., and the already named experts: Fr. Charles Morerod, O.P., Secretary of the International Theological Commission, consultant of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Rev. Mons. Fernando Ocáriz, Vicar General of Opus Dei, consultant of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; the Rev. Fr. Karl Josef Becker, S.I., consultant of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

The meeting will take place at the Palace of the Holy Office. The contents of the conversations, which regard open doctrinal questions, will remain strictly reserved.

At the end of the meeting, a communiqué will be released.

=========================================

The Response

And here is the reposnse of the Fraternity:

COMMUNIQUÉ OF THE PRIESTLY FRATERNITY OF SAINT PIUS X

Bishop Bernard Fellay has named as representatives of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X for the theological discussions with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, director of the Seminary Nuestra Señora Corredentora de La Reja (Argentina), Father Benoît de Jorna, director of the Séminaire International Saint-Pie X of Ecône (Switzerland), Father Jean-Michel Gleize, professor of Ecclesiology at the seminary of Ecône, and Father Patrick de La Rocque, prior of the Priory of Saint Louis in Nantes (France).

Bishop de Galarreta had already been the president of the commission which was in charge of the preparation of these discussions withon the Fraternity, after the month of April 2009.

The works will start in the second half of the month of October and will require the discretion needed for a serene exchange on difficult doctrinal questions.

Menzingen, October 15, 2009

====================================

Some Additional Background

In a recent interview granted to a Society magazine in South Africa and picked up by Reuters, Bishop Fellay spelled out his view of the issues to be raised during the upcoming dialogue.

“The solution to the crisis is a return to the past,” Fellay said.

He said Pope Benedict agrees with the SSPX on the need to maintain the Church’s links to the past, but still wants to keep some reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

“This is one of the most sensitive problems,” he said. “We hope the discussions will allow us to dispel the grave ambiguities that have spread through the Catholic Church since (the Council), as John Paul II himself recognised.”

Here is a fuller report on the interview, with some interesting comments attached: http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2009/10/13/return-to-past-is-sspx-motto-for-doctrinal-talks-with-vatican

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One Issue: The "Subsistit" Clause

(Note: I draw most of the following material, which I condense and edit here, from an article by Anthony Grafton published in The New Yorker, July 25, 2005, which may be found here: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-134469260/reading-ratzinger-cardinal-joseph.html. The point Grafton focuses on below will certainly be among the points discussed in the upcoming dialogue.)

In May, 1984, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger summoned the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff to Rome.

At the time, Ratzinger was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

When Boff arrived, Ratzinger questioned him on relations between the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations.

Boff replied by citing Chapter 1, No. 8 of Lumen Gentium ("Light of the Nations"), one of the key documents of Vatican II, which sets forth the Church's understanding of her own nature.

Lumen Gentium in one well-known passage of considerable importance for ecumenical dialogue with Protestant Christians, teaches that the true Church "subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him. Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines."

Boff -- like many others before him and after him -- interpreted this passage as teaching that the traditional teaching that the Catholic Church is the "one true Church" founded by Jesus Christ had been qualified by the Council and so, in effect, slightly altered.

Did those who drafted the document have this view? That is a vexed question.

For the first two years of the Council, the draft document stated simply and directly that the mystical body of Christ "is" the Catholic Church.

But in the fall of 1964 the word "subsists" ("subsistit" in Latin) was added, along with the passage about elements of truth being present outside the Church.

The official commentary explained that the change was meant to make the text "more harmonious with the affirmation of ecclesial elements which are elsewhere."

The Dominican theologian Yves Congar seemed to interpret the passage the same way Boff did: "Vatican II acknowledges, in sum, that non-Catholic Christians are members of the mystical body."

Yet Cardinal Ratzinger read this text in a different way.

To understand the chapter, he said, one must bear in mind a noun -- substantia -- closely related to subsistit, the verb that the Council Fathers had used.

Substantia, meaning "substance," refers to the essence of a thing (as in "transubstantiation").

According to Ratzinger, when the Council used the verb "subsists," it was stating that the true Church "both is, and can only be, fully present" in the Roman Church, with all its hierarchies.

After Boff returned to Brazil, the Congregation published a formal critique of his work stating that Boff had drawn from Lumen Gentium "a thesis which is exactly the contrary to the authentic meaning of the Council text."

Considering this incident, it seems clear that the upcoming dialogue of Vatican officials with the representaives of the Lefebvrists, occurring in almost exactly the same spot as Boff's encounter with Ratzinger, may have considerable importance for the future of ecumenism, that is, of efforts to reunite all Christians in one visible Church.

But we should keep in mind that a clarification of the actual intent of the Council Fathers when they drew up and approved the documents of Vatican II cannot in any case do harm to ecumenical dialogue: clarification of the truth of the Church's teaching must always be viewed as positive and freeing, and as helping to lead, in the long run, to authentic progrtess toward that Church unity desired and prayed for by Christ himself on the night before he died.

And that is why Benedict is allowing this dialogue: because he wants to clarify the true teaching of the Council, in the face of many erroneous claims, and after decades of real hope, yet hope marred by real confusion.

On October 16, this process of clarification will formally begin.

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“He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright.” —Blaise Pascal (French mathematician, philosopher, physicist and writer, 1623-1662)
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What Notre Dame Taught

by Tom Piatak on May 17, 2009

Notre Dame taught a clear lesson today, in its decision to have President Obama as a commencement speaker and to award him an honorary degree. That lesson is this: American politicians can freely embrace abortion and face no negative consequences at all. Any pro-abortion politician who climbs to the top of Benjamin Disraeli’s “greasy pole” will get nothing but applause and praise from those who now run Notre Dame.

The Second Vatican Council defines abortion as an “unspeakable crime.” Not so Notre Dame. Father Jenkins’ effusive introduction of Obama never hinted that abortion is an “unspeakable crime.” According to Father Jenkins, nothing is “unspeakable” because what matters is that we have a “dialogue,” even though “Difference must be acknowledged, and in some cases even cherished.” Amazingly, he praised Obama’s supposed courage in coming to a place that showered him with applause, that vigorously arrested all pro-life demonstrators coming onto campus, and that provided him with a photo opportunity more effective than millions of dollars spent on campaign ads in demonstrating to Catholics that they need not worry about a candidate’s support for abortion in deciding how to vote: “Most of the debate has centered on Notre Dame’s decision to invite and honor the President. Less attention has been focused on the President’s decision to accept. President Obama has come to Notre Dame, though he knows full well that we are fully supportive of Church teaching on the sancity of human life, and we oppose his policies on abortion and embryonic stem cell research.” How Notre Dame opposed Obama’s policies was not described. In fact, it is not at all clear from Notre Dame’s own statements that it does oppose Obama’s policies on abortion and stem cell research. Notre Dame’s official press release on the commencement noted that Obama’s “stance on abortion was likely unacceptable to some” at Notre Dame. And Father Jenkins could not even bring himself to say that the policies Obama supports are wrong, much less evil. Describing things as they are would apparently interfere with the “dialogue” Father Jenkins is so excited about.

Any politician watching today’s spectacle would have to conclude that the worst risk he runs from such as Notre Dame in supporting abortion is that he will be given an honorary degree, applauded, and told that it is important to “dialogue.” This lesson is especially harmful to the dwindling band of pro-life Democrats. Given the national Democratic party’s ironclad support for abortion, pro-life Democrats take a stance that prevents them from aspiring to their party’s presidential nomination. And, if such politicians take a pro-life stance for fear of Catholic opposition, Notre Dame sent a powerful signal today that they limit their ambitions for no good reason.

Obama has not been reticent in voicing his support for the “unspeakable crime” of abortion. Obama does not even claim to be “personally opposed” to abortion. Instead, he said during the campaign that he would not want his daughters “punished” with a baby if they engaged in premarital sex. His unstinting advocacy for abortion is a matter of public record, and he did not retreat from it at all at Notre Dame. Instead, he indicated in his speech that he has already learned that he has nothing to fear from Catholic prelates eager for “dialogue.” His praise for the late Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago obscured the salient point that nothing Bernardin said or did caused Obama to modify in any way his support for abortion. Even some of the Obama lines that drew applause at Notre Dame at least hinted at his opposition to Catholic teaching. Obama drew applause when he called for “reducing unintended pregnancies”—a likely reference to the federal funding for artificial contraception that Obama supports—and when he called for “health care policies” with “respect for the quality of life”—the same terminology used by those advocating for euthanasia.

It should not have been like this at a Catholic university, particularly at a Catholic university as inextricably intertwined with the American Catholic idenity as Notre Dame. As John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, “But today, in many people’s consciences, the perception of [abortion’s] gravity has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behaviour and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception.” By awarding Obama an honorary degree and showering him with applause and praise, Notre Dame has assisted mightily in obscuring the gravity of abortion. And, when Obama appoints the next pro-abortion justice to the Supreme Court, signs a law providing for the federal funding of abortion, or signs the Freedom of Choice Act—all things he is committed to doing—he will be able to say, with some justice, that he is doing so with the imprimatur of Fr. Jenkins and the nihil obstat of the Notre Dame Board of Trustees.

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Cardinal: Christian Teachings Do Not Change with the Times

Rome, Nov 26, 2008 (CNA).- Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, the retired Archbishop of Bologna, has written a new book which stresses the primacy of conversion in Christian life and argues against the refashioning of Christianity to appeal to current ways of thinking.

The cardinal commented on his book, titled “Sheep and Shepherds,” in comments reproduced by Vatican analyst Sandro Magister.

Explaining his title, the cardinal said:

“Everyone in the Church is, before anything else, a member of the flock of Christ. Everyone, from the pope to the most recently baptized, bears the true nature of his greatness not so much in being entrusted with this or that role in the Christian community, as in being part of the 'little flock.' There is, therefore, substantial equality among all believers, as long as they truly believe: only by believing does one enter among Christ's sheep.”

And yet, some people seem to measure the truth of the faith by modern society’s standards. As Cardinal Biffi writes: “Sometimes, in some areas of the Catholic world, people even come to the point of thinking that divine Revelation must adapt itself to the current mentality in order to be credible, instead of the current mentality converting in the light that comes to us from on high. And yet one must reflect on the fact that it is 'conversion,' and not 'adaptation,' that is the evangelical term.”

The drive to adapt Christian faith to current thought can even obscure the divinity of Jesus, echoing the Arian heresy which denied His divinity.

“As paradoxical as this statement may seem, the Arian question is always the order of the day in ecclesial life,” Cardinal Biffi said, according to Magister. “The pretexts can be many: from the desire to feel that Christ is closer and is more one of us, to the proposal of making it easier to understand him by exalting almost exclusively his social and humanitarian aspects. In the end, the result is always that of stripping the Redeemer of man of his radical uniqueness, and classifying him as someone who can be managed and domesticated.”

In this respect, the cardinal said, the ancient Council of Nicea which condemned Arianism is “much more relevant today” than the Second Vatican Council.

One chapter of “Sheep and Shepherds” defends chastity by referencing the words of Jesus in the Gospels, the letters of St. Paul, and other parts of Scripture. The chapter was published on the internet by Magister.

Noting that the Church’s witness of chastity has been perceived by the world to be “something burdensome and repulsive” since the beginning, Biffi noted how the Christian emphasis on chastity continues to challenge the world.

In its first encounter with the Greco-Roman world, the cardinal writes in his book, “Christianity had to come to terms with a culture marked by a conception of eroticism, by a practice of sexuality, by a system of marriage that was immediately perceived as foreign to the character of the Gospel, and even as contrary to the new humanity… .”

Christian chastity is not based in “mistrust of what is material and corporal” but “is fostered and expresses itself with respect toward the body, which in the Christian perspective is held to be a sacred reality and an instrument of sanctification.”

The Christian approach to modern-day homosexuality, Cardinal Biffi said, must distinguish between the respect due to persons and the “necessary repudiation of any exalted ideology of homosexuality.” He also described St. Paul’s theological interpretation of “the rampant ideological and cultural aberration in this area,” adding that this “aberration” is “at the same time the proof and the result of the exclusion of God from collective attention and social life, and of the refusal to give him due praise.”

Excluding God from western culture “has had the consequence, almost as an inevitable punishment, of the spread of an aberrant sexual ideology, with an arrogance unknown to previous times.”

According to the cardinal, Christ touched on sexual matters “only a few times and always in a sober manner, although at the same time unmistakable and resolute.” Rejecting not only pagan habits but also some widespread Hebrew ones, the cardinal explained, “Jesus does not hesitate to include violations against chastity among the behaviors that threaten the dignity of man and his interior purity.”

The corruption of the “heart” is the source of the responsibility and the guilt of the actions committed.

Cardinal Biffi also decried the “sort of pansexualism” of society now ubiquitous in entertainment and advertising, saying Christian teaching on chastity is “a challenge that still keeps its relevance intact today. In a certain respect, it has even become more necessary and more urgent.”

“We sometimes get the impression that we have been influenced and taken in by a mysterious cabal of maniacs who are imposing their own degenerate mentality on everyone else. They are the same ones who never fail to call bigots and prudes those who are not convinced by their lofty arguments.”

The cardinal’s book chapter closed with an exhortation to an “evangelical realism” which recognizes that chastity is not a virtue which can be acquired on one’s own. Rather, the virtue must be found “in the context of a comprehensive following of Christ, everything becomes possible, easy, joyous: ‘I can do all things in him who gives me strength’ (Philippians 4:13).”

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