A brief snip from a 1980s Fr. Wathen interview will hopefully help clarify a little in regards to the Second Vatican Council.............


 


....There has never been a general council until the Second Vatican Council which did not have the purpose of gathering in order to deliberate on doctrinal matters.

The Second Vatican Council was unique in that, from the very onset, Pope John XXIII said that this would be a different kind of council. He coined an altogether new expression, he said "this is a Pastoral Council" (Pope Paul VI on Jan 12, 1966 said the same thing).

People need to understand that anything that this council pronounced that is a part of Catholic tradition and belief, is no less true and no less binding. They also need to understand that in calling itself a "Pastoral Council", the Council was telling the Catholic faithful that; "our deliberations will not be mainly on the subject of what is Catholic doctrines, our deliberations will be mainly regarding how the Church will approach the people", and the council said that "we are going to begin to approach the people in a different style".

We have to say that rather remarkably, the Second Vatican Council was rather unconcerned about the sanctification of the people, the Second Vatican Council  was mainly concerned with it's image, with how the people saw, or see the Church.

The second aspect of this matter is that the Church was going to present a new image to the non-Catholic world. It was going to make a totally different approach to the non-Catholics, the non-believers. No matter whether they were Protestants or Jєωs or Mohammedans, to non-believers the Church was going to present itself, not as an infallible body, but as an equal and the Church was going to present itself as being like them, searching for the truth.
This is a horrendous aspect and very often, since then, ecclesiastics, including the pope, have suggested that we Catholics are searching for the truth.

We're not searching for the truth at all - God has given us the truth, God has imposed the truth on us. And those who do not possess it, are bound under the pain of damnation to find it and to accept it.

We are in a totally different situation from those outside the Church. We have access to the truth, we know where it is, and we're bound by it - and any Catholic who does not know the truth should find someone who does know it and listen to him. And if there's any priest that doesn't know it, that priest should leave the priesthood. He has no business pretending himself as a priest if he does not know his Catholic theology.

The Church, since the Council, has been willing to discard everything that is recognizably Catholic, in order to fulfill this new preoccupation of presenting itself in a different fashion to the Catholic laypeople and to the non-Catholic world and for the sake of having a different image to the non-Catholic world, it has shown itself indifferent to the faith of the people so that the people are beside themselves with confusion. They no longer find anything recognizably Catholic, they don't know what to do in reaction. It is as if they simply no longer recognize their mother.

She has taken on a totally new makeup and garb and way of speaking, they don't recognize her, and in their heart of hearts they know this is a false image, and they are scandalized by it, but all those to whom they look for explanation assure them that they're not to be dismayed, that they're not to take scandal, not to take umbridge. It is the role of the traditionalists to say, don't listen to them, they are liars and deceivers, you have every reason to be scandalized by this new approach.....

....In order to present this totally new image to it's people and to the world, the conciliarists have been willing to discard everything - and that is not a careless statement.  There is absolutely nothing they will not concede to fulfill this image, to carry it out. There is absolutely nothing, not a single doctrine will they not compromise, they will discard not only the Mass, they will discard any appearance, any external, and any morality in order not to be inconsistent with this self imposed obligation of being a true ecuмenical. Of being all things to all men, there is nothing that they will not discard, there is no damage they will not do, there is no fixture they will not destroy, there is nothing holy they will not trample, even the Body of Christ, there is nothing, absolutely nothing that they will not do in order to fulfill this self imposed image.

And they have said in order to give weight to their resolve that the Holy Spirit has guided them to it, this is false. The Holy Spirit has guided them to nothing of it, we have every reason to know what spirit it is that has guided them to this.........

I remember my first class on Vatican 2 in 1965.   The Instructor started
out by saying Forget what those good Nuns told you in Catechism and
Religion Class. We are starting out all over again. I latter interpreted
that it was a new religion.
After reading the Abbot Edition of the Decrees of Vatican 2 I found
there is no spiritual consolation and increase in a spiritual life. Just a
new religion called ecuмenism in the importance of uniting all religions
into a super church that is diffinitely non Catholic.

From my understanding, Vatican I was not finished.  Vatican I was able to see Papal Infallibility passed and then war broke out.  Thank You Cardinal Manning and those who had writings to offer proof.

My grandmother, born about 1900, was known for saying, "There goes the Church", when so-called vat. II was announced.  She was well informed thanks to her husbands Uncle, Fr. Rudolph Stoltz of the Confraternity of the Precious Blood.

Yes, Vatican I was never closed. It was postponed for a later time when it would be continued.  

I asked Msgr. Perez about an idea, and his answer was "Yes."  I asked him if it could be possible to avoid the controversy of dealing with abrogation of Vatican II, since it contains no dogmatic definition, by simply re-convening Vatican I and picking up where it left off, as if Vatican II had never happened.

People need to understand that anything that this council pronounced that is a part of Catholic tradition and belief, is no less true and no less binding. They also need to understand that in calling itself a "Pastoral Council", the Council was telling the Catholic faithful that; "our deliberations will not be mainly on the subject of what is Catholic doctrines, our deliberations will be mainly regarding how the Church will approach the people", and the council said that "we are going to begin to approach the people in a different style".

I believe the OP is an accurate explanation of what happened at V2.

It's surprising to me that 51 years after V2, this is the first clear explanation that I have heard of what that "Pastoral Council" even was. It gives a little better insight about what might have been going on at that council and at least some type of reasoning about how we got into this crisis.


 

 

Sure Vat. II was different!  Only suggestions.  Ratzinger, one of the 5, of the minority.  Very well planned to have a minority take over a "meeting".

I don't have the definition of a "Council" in front of me.  BUT Councils came together to "fix" and to bring on new dogmas and with it they had to have definitions to prove.  I say definition(s) because more than one, of course, would all have in writing their thoughts to prove and  to define, of course using scripture and etc.

Besides, why was Vatican I overlooked? It was not finished.  Why did they not just pick up where they left off?  My thoughts are, Mary is co-redemptorix.  

That makes lots of sense.  Our Blessed Mother would be in the way of ecuмenism as the Marxist define ecuмenism.

There was nothing wrong with Vatican II changing the Mass from Latin to the vernacular. Mass in the vernacular is more laity friendly because it allows the laity to have more response time.
 :ready-to-eat:

There was nothing wrong with Vatican II changing the Mass from Latin to the vernacular. Mass in the vernacular is more laity friendly because it allows the laity to have more response time.
 :ready-to-eat:

1) Vatican II didn't actually change the Mass form Latin to vernacular.

2) Which language is used has nothing to do with "response time".

Are you just trolling here?

I have been to a Latin Mass a couple of times and the response time the laity had was not even half of what the response time is for the laity in the vernacular Mass.

Again, that has nothing to do with the language per se.  If you were to attend a "Dialogue" Latin Mass, the "response time" of the laity is probably greater than that of most Novus Ordo Masses.  It's not the language but the form.

Is that so that Vatican II did not actually change the Mass from Latin to vernacular? Well that is funny because 50 years ago all Catholic Churches changed from Latin to the vernacular for Mass.

Vatican II merely ALLOWED some wider use of the vernacular ... to be determined by various Church authorities.  It did not actively change anything.  And the Novus Ordo Rite published by Paul VI was in Latin.

36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.

2. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters.

3. These norms being observed, it is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, to decide whether, and to what extent, the vernacular language is to be used; their decrees are to be approved, that is, confirmed, by the Apostolic See. And, whenever it seems to be called for, this authority is to consult with bishops of neighboring regions which have the same language.