Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Crisis in the Church => Topic started by: LaramieHirsch on March 21, 2023, 01:02:03 PM
-
Wasn’t Vatican II supposed to be an actual, good collaboration of priests and bishops who had real solid solutions to modernism? Isn’t it the story that much was being brought to the table, but it was all shelved? Steamrolled over?
I cannot find any sources this afternoon on what V2 was SUPPOSED to be.
-
No. It was never supposed to be that. Some tried to spin it that way, but the intent was to destroy the Church right out of the gate.
-
No. It was never supposed to be that. Some tried to spin it that way, but the intent was to destroy the Church right out of the gate.
I may disagree, Ladislaus. I just found the original agenda of Vatican II:
https://catholicebooks.wordpress.com/2017/10/11/online-texts-the-original-schemas-drafts-of-vatican-ii/
-
But then again, who CALLED the Second Vatican Council?
-
Ladislaus can speak for himself, but I believe he meant that John XXIII never had any intention of the prepared orthodox texts seeing the light of day in the council.
-
Even if it was supposed to be orthodox, what does it matter now?
-
Ladislaus can speak for himself, but I believe he meant that John XXIII never had any intention of the prepared orthodox texts seeing the light of day in the council.
Right. I recall some pretty solid evidence that John XXIII was very much in favor of pitching the preparatory texts. But I go farther. I believe that Roncalli was an agent, an infiltrator, who was consciously intent upon destroying the Church.
-
I may disagree, Ladislaus. I just found the original agenda of Vatican II:
https://catholicebooks.wordpress.com/2017/10/11/online-texts-the-original-schemas-drafts-of-vatican-ii/
I'm aware that these existed, but I don't believe that Roncalli XXIII ever had the intention of going with these. I believe they were a smoke screen for the real more nefarious agenda. Had they published their radical nonsense prior to the Council, it would have allowed the remaining Traditional / conservative bishops to prepare more and to think through their implications. This tactic was not unlike when a US Budget Committee dumps a 3,000 page budget on all the Congressmen and then insist that a vote be held 2 hours after distributing it to them. There's no time to study it or think through it at all.
-
Roncalli called for preparatory texts so that he and the Modernists could see what the orthodox Cardinals wanted the council to say. That gave the Modernists time to prepare "alternative" versions with "quasi-heretical" changes/deletions. When the council votes happened, the orthodox texts were voted upon but with "updates" added by the Modernists. Such things happened so fast (because the Modernists were prepared) that the orthodox Cardinals would ask for time to "read the new texts". They were often given a few hours (not enough time to digest the ambiguous/crafty language). Those that hesitated to approve, were pressured and finally the final texts were passed.
The Modernists had a game plan and followed it much like our politicians run the legislative circus to get bills passed when they want to.
This tactic was not unlike when a US Budget Committee dumps a 3,000 page budget on all the Congressmen and then insist that a vote be held 2 hours after distributing it to them. There's no time to study it or think through it at all.
Exactly.
-
Laramie, read the book "The Rhine flows into the Tiber". It was written by a famous journalist (American?) who covered V2. He explained how the Conservatives were not ready for the organization, political tactics, and lies that the liberals used to get V2 docuмents approved. It's fascinating (on a natural level) even while it's shocking/depressing (on a spiritual level).
-
Laramie, read the book "The Rhine flows into the Tiber". It was written by a famous journalist (American?) who covered V2. He explained how the Conservatives were not ready for the organization, political tactics, and lies that the liberals used to get V2 docuмents approved. It's fascinating (on a natural level) even while it's shocking/depressing (on a spiritual level).
Yes, Tisserant, Liernart, and Frings were the leading rogues who on the first day set up pitching out the preparatory schemas. It's ironic that Lienart had ordained and consecrated Archbishop Lefebvre, the greatest future adversary of their Modernist agenda. I'm pretty sure that in the book, it becamse clear Roncalli backed the Rhine group regarding throwing out the schemas and I vaguely recall some of his statements to that effect ... but it's been many years.
Yes, the author was American priest Father Ralph Wiltgen.
-
Even those docuмents teach collegiality.
-
Even those docuмents teach collegiality.
Never took the plunge and bought the docuмents myself. I remember seeing them available for purchase online in English for quite a price.
Anyone read them and able/willing to summarize?
-
Even if it was supposed to be orthodox, what does it matter now?
The axioms of recent history.
I suppose it's important to know some of the basic, on-the-ground data, for conversing with folks who have inquiring minds. Or just to retain one's bearings in casual conversation.
I'm having to currently revisit and re-establish how I came to this point in my life for various reasons.
-
"Laramie, read the book "The Rhine flows into the Tiber". It was written by a famous journalist (American?) who covered V2. He explained how the Conservatives were not ready for the organization, political tactics, and lies that the liberals used to get V2 docuмents approved. It's fascinating (on a natural level) even while it's shocking/depressing (on a spiritual level)."
As one savvy historian wrote later, "It wasn't so much the Rhine as the Potomac"
-
I posted an excerpt of one of the schema here before, the one on the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church:
https://www.cathinfo.com/crisis-in-the-church/the-vatican-ii-schema-excerpt-from-the-dogmatic-constitution-of-the-church/msg871881/#msg871881
It's interesting to read these "orthodox" schema, which show that the pre-V2 mindset of the "conservatives" who prepared them shared tendencies that flowered into the more liberal docuмents that ultimately resulted from V2. One can understand, I think, why there were so many less "no" votes to the ultimate docuмents, which are so criticized in Trad circles today.
For example, on EEENS, we have this:
Just as no one can be saved except by receiving baptism--by which anyone who does not pose some obstacle to incorporation3 becomes a member of the Church--or at least by desire for baptism,4 so also no one can attain salvation unless he is a member of the Church or at least is ordered towards the Church by desire. But for anyone to attain to salvation, it is not enough that he be really a member of the Church or be by desire ordered towards it; it is also required that he die in the state of grace, joined to God by faith, hope, and charity. 5
Footnote 5 is to the Holy Office Letter of 1949, with its censure of "Feeneyism."
Here's more:
As for those ordered by desire towards the Church, these include not only catechumens,12 who, moved by the Spirit, consciously and explicitly desire to enter the Church, but also those who, even if not knowing that the Catholic Church is the true and sole Church of Christ, still, by God's grace, implicitly and unknowingly desire the equivalent,13 either because they sincerely will what Christ himself wills or because, though ignorant of Christ, they sincerely desire to fulfil the will of God their Creator. The gifts of heavenly grace will never be wanting to those who sincerely desire and ask to be renewed by the divine light.14
Of course, almost all Feeneyites recognize that the problems pre-date V2, and you can see that in the schema. Unlike most if not all Sedes - certainly about all the Sede bishops and priests - they don't have an almost mythic regard of "golden days" for the pre-V2 Church.
-
Thank you for sharing the excerpt, Decem
-
I posted an excerpt of one of the schema here before, the one on the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church:
https://www.cathinfo.com/crisis-in-the-church/the-vatican-ii-schema-excerpt-from-the-dogmatic-constitution-of-the-church/msg871881/#msg871881
It's interesting to read these "orthodox" schema, which show that the pre-V2 mindset of the "conservatives" who prepared them shared tendencies that flowered into the more liberal docuмents that ultimately resulted from V2. One can understand, I think, why there were so many less "no" votes to the ultimate docuмents, which are so criticized in Trad circles today.
For example, on EEENS, we have this:
Footnote 5 is to the Holy Office Letter of 1949, with its censure of "Feeneyism."
Here's more:
Of course, almost all Feeneyites recognize that the problems pre-date V2, and you can see that in the schema. Unlike most if not all Sedes - certainly about all the Sede bishops and priests - they don't have an almost mythic regard of "golden days" for the pre-V2 Church.
Indeed, the contagion of full-blown EENS-denial was absolutely rampant. Regardless of what one thinks of Father Feeney, if you read the one treatment the Dimonds have of Father Feeney, the statements made by Father Feeney's fellow Jesuits make your hair stand on end. Not only is Cardinal Cushing on record as having stated, "No salvation outside the Church? Nonsense! Nobody's gonna tell me that Christ came to die for any select group." but Father's fellow Jesuits were even worse. When Father Feeney was excommunicated, the newspaper headlines (and I'm sure they consulted with the Church first) read, "Vatican says that there is salvation outside the Church."
This is why Archbishop Lefebvre believed in "Anonymous Catholics," where people could be in the Church without even knowing it, but are saved BY the Church (that's precisely Rahner's "Anonymous Christian" position as well).
Why did he believe this? It was because he was taught this by teachers whom he considered otherwise orthodox and conservative and reliable at seminary. This stuff was everywhere.
So, when Father Feeney sensed that there was something very wrong in the Church, and went in search of what that was, he was entirely alone. Everyone else thought that the Church was flourishing. Buildings were going up left and right, and people were converting in droves, so that the estimates were that by 2020 the US would be a majority Catholic country. Seminaries and convents were full, to the point that the US had to send priests on missions and turn away religious vocations ... because they didn't have room for them all.
So Father alone sensed that there was something rotten in Denmark, so to speak. And he rightly realized that it had to do with EENS. And it wasn't just EENS, but the ecclesiology that comes from EENS-deninal.
MAJOR: There's no salvation outside the Church (dogma).
MINOR: Non-Catholics, including infidels, can be saved. (widespread belief).
CONCLUSION: Non-Catholics, including infidels, can somehow be IN the Church.
This is V2 ecclesiology in a nutshell, where the Catholic Church has a subsistent "core" composed of actual Catholics, but also includes all manner of heretics, and even infidels. Indeed, these are our separated brethren, separated because they're not actual Catholics, but brethren because they're really in the Church. There are then different degrees of material separation from the Church, even if these types are all formall united to (the soul of) the Church.
Karl Rahner rightly held that the biggest revolution at V2 was with regard to EENS and Catholic ecclesiology, but was stunned that the "conservative Fathers" didn't make a peep about it. Here was the most revolutionary thing about V2 and it went by unnoticed even by the conservative group, individuals like Archbishop Lefebvre, who was one of the group's leaders.
-
Karl Rahner rightly held that the biggest revolution at V2 was with regard to EENS and Catholic ecclesiology, but was stunned that the "conservative Fathers" didn't make a peep about it. Here was the most revolutionary thing about V2 and it went by unnoticed even by the conservative group, individuals like Archbishop Lefebvre, who was one of the group's leaders.
And this trend continues, so that 90% of Trad Catholics (my personal swag at a number) have this loosey-goosey view of EENS, but I find this incredibly ironic, as I see (agreeing with Rahner) that the core/root issue or error with Vatican II is rooted in the same view of EENS and the same ecclesiology as that of Vatican II.
Bishop Sanborn, when asked in debates about what the core heresy of V2 is, always begins with V2 ecclesiology. But then he says that non-Catholics can be saved. But this necessarily (as per the above syllogism) means that non-Catholics can be inside the Church. Thus ... Vatican II ecclesiology in a nutshell. Dr. Fastiggi exploited this contradiction and therefore won the debate against Bishop Sanborn.
If someone were to convince me of the prevailing view of EENS among Trads, that heretics, schismatics, and even infidels (Hindus in Tibet) can be saved, then I would be compelled to drop all theologial opposition to Vatican II (and the NOM would be a separate issue). Really, all that would remain would be Religious Liberty, but I can make a compelling case for that from this new ecclesiology as well.
MAJOR: People have a God-given right to save their souls.
MINOR: People save their souls by doing what (they believe to be) God's will (even if it isn't).
CONCLUSION: People have a God-given right to do what (they believe to be) God's will (even if it isn't).
This is the foundation of the "subjectivism" that Bishop Williamson rightly holds to be the fundamental error of Vatican II.
So you start with doctrinal subjectivism (with Wojtyla's religious indifferentism) and the next step is moral subjectivism (which is where we are with Bergoglio today) ... and all of Vatican II is clearly explained.
But people for some reason fail to see that EENS-denial is the "Rosetta Stone" to interpreting and unlocking all of Vatican II.
Some, such as Bishop Sanborn and the SVs, who are the most hostile to Father Feeney, have this mindset because they have overreacted to the R&R underselling of the Church's infallibility, by exaggerating and overselling it. To them, a long rambling speculative (in his own language) allocution (aka speech) by Pius XII to a group of midwives might as well have been a dogmatic bull or solemn dogmatic definition issued with the full weight of papal authority to the Universal Church. To them, Suprema Haec, which per Canon Law isn't even merely authentic Magisterium, as it never appeared in AAS, is on a par with the Council of Florence. I've even heard SVs claim that any book with an imprimatur on it must be regarded as free of error, and therefore effectively infallible. Of course, nearly all of them also reject the Pius XII Holy Week Rites as tainted with Modernism. So they're rather selective about applying their principles. To these SVs, "Feeneyites" are just as much as the V2 Modernists, and Father Feeney a heretic just as bad as a Hans Kung. So they ironically cling to the same ecclesiology that they condemn as the chief heresy of Vatican II. I find this utterly inexplicable. And Karl Rahner was also at a loss to explain it, that those who opposed Vatican II failed to see the most revolutionary aspect of it.
Oh, the SVs have also extended infallibility to the Church's "theologians" per what I call "Cekadism". Theologians have never been regarded as infallible, and are not part of the teaching Church. At best, they can be considered a reflection of the "Believing Church". For 700 years, they all got it wrong in following unanimously the erroneous opinion of St. Augustine regarding the fate of infants who die without the Sacrament of Baptismm. And what of the fact that all the Church's theologians all got behind Vatican II (with the exception of one or two who can rightly be called "theologians", such as +Guerard des Lauriers). What's a "theologian" anyway? What criterial define a theologian? At any rate, they nearly-unanimously backed Vatican II, and continued to do so until the present day. So what happened to the infallibility of theologians suddenly? Did they all suddenly defect from the Church one Tuesday morning in 1963 at 9:35 AM? But just a few years prior, their works were effectively infallible? When they were condemning Father Feeney they were infallible, but then when they embraced the theology of Vatican II they were not infallible, and not Catholic theologians anymore? This is mind-boggling nonsense. BTW, Msgr. Fenton, one of these pre-V2 theologians, explicitly rejects Cekadism in passages that I have cited before.
-
Indeed, the contagion of full-blown EENS-denial was absolutely rampant. Regardless of what one thinks of Father Feeney, if you read the one treatment the Dimonds have of Father Feeney, the statements made by Father Feeney's fellow Jesuits make your hair stand on end. Not only is Cardinal Cushing on record as having stated, "No salvation outside the Church? Nonsense! Nobody's gonna tell me that Christ came to die for any select group." but Father's fellow Jesuits were even worse. When Father Feeney was excommunicated, the newspaper headlines (and I'm sure they consulted with the Church first) read, "Vatican says that there is salvation outside the Church."
This is why Archbishop Lefebvre believed in "Anonymous Catholics," where people could be in the Church without even knowing it, but are saved BY the Church (that's precisely Rahner's "Anonymous Christian" position as well).
Why did he believe this? It was because he was taught this by teachers whom he considered otherwise orthodox and conservative and reliable at seminary. This stuff was everywhere.
So, when Father Feeney sensed that there was something very wrong in the Church, and went in search of what that was, he was entirely alone. Everyone else thought that the Church was flourishing. Buildings were going up left and right, and people were converting in droves, so that the estimates were that by 2020 the US would be a majority Catholic country. Seminaries and convents were full, to the point that the US had to send priests on missions and turn away religious vocations ... because they didn't have room for them all.
So Father alone sensed that there was something rotten in Denmark, so to speak. And he rightly realized that it had to do with EENS. And it wasn't just EENS, but the ecclesiology that comes from EENS-deninal.
MAJOR: There's no salvation outside the Church (dogma).
MINOR: Non-Catholics, including infidels, can be saved. (widespread belief).
CONCLUSION: Non-Catholics, including infidels, can somehow be IN the Church.
This is V2 ecclesiology in a nutshell, where the Catholic Church has a subsistent "core" composed of actual Catholics, but also includes all manner of heretics, and even infidels. Indeed, these are our separated brethren, separated because they're not actual Catholics, but brethren because they're really in the Church. There are then different degrees of material separation from the Church, even if these types are all formall united to (the soul of) the Church.
Karl Rahner rightly held that the biggest revolution at V2 was with regard to EENS and Catholic ecclesiology, but was stunned that the "conservative Fathers" didn't make a peep about it. Here was the most revolutionary thing about V2 and it went by unnoticed even by the conservative group, individuals like Archbishop Lefebvre, who was one of the group's leaders.
We do agree on something.
-
If someone were to convince me of the prevailing view of EENS among Trads, that heretics, schismatics, and even infidels (Hindus in Tibet) can be saved, then I would be compelled to drop all theologial opposition to Vatican II (and the NOM would be a separate issue). Really, all that would remain would be Religious Liberty, but I can make a compelling case for that from this new ecclesiology as well.
MAJOR: People have a God-given right to save their souls.
MINOR: People save their souls by doing what (they believe to be) God's will (even if it isn't).
CONCLUSION: People have a God-given right to do what (they believe to be) God's will (even if it isn't).
This is the foundation of the "subjectivism" that Bishop Williamson rightly holds to be the fundamental error of Vatican II.
So you start with doctrinal subjectivism (with Wojtyla's religious indifferentism) and the next step is moral subjectivism (which is where we are with Bergoglio today) ... and all of Vatican II is clearly explained.
But people for some reason fail to see that EENS-denial is the "Rosetta Stone" to interpreting and unlocking all of Vatican II.
Some, such as Bishop Sanborn and the SVs, who are the most hostile to Father Feeney, have this mindset because they have overreacted to the R&R underselling of the Church's infallibility, by exaggerating and overselling it. To them, a long rambling speculative (in his own language) allocution (aka speech) by Pius XII to a group of midwives might as well have been a dogmatic bull or solemn dogmatic definition issued with the full weight of papal authority to the Universal Church. To them, Suprema Haec, which per Canon Law isn't even merely authentic Magisterium, as it never appeared in AAS, is on a par with the Council of Florence. I've even heard SVs claim that any book with an imprimatur on it must be regarded as free of error, and therefore effectively infallible. Of course, nearly all of them also reject the Pius XII Holy Week Rites as tainted with Modernism. So they're rather selective about applying their principles. To these SVs, "Feeneyites" are just as much as the V2 Modernists, and Father Feeney a heretic just as bad as a Hans Kung. So they ironically cling to the same ecclesiology that they condemn as the chief heresy of Vatican II. I find this utterly inexplicable. And Karl Rahner was also at a loss to explain it, that those who opposed Vatican II failed to see the most revolutionary aspect of it.
Oh, the SVs have also extended infallibility to the Church's "theologians" per what I call "Cekadism". Theologians have never been regarded as infallible, and are not part of the teaching Church. At best, they can be considered a reflection of the "Believing Church". For 700 years, they all got it wrong in following unanimously the erroneous opinion of St. Augustine regarding the fate of infants who die without the Sacrament of Baptismm. And what of the fact that all the Church's theologians all got behind Vatican II (with the exception of one or two who can rightly be called "theologians", such as +Guerard des Lauriers). What's a "theologian" anyway? What criterial define a theologian? At any rate, they nearly-unanimously backed Vatican II, and continued to do so until the present day. So what happened to the infallibility of theologians suddenly? Did they all suddenly defect from the Church one Tuesday morning in 1963 at 9:35 AM? But just a few years prior, their works were effectively infallible? When they were condemning Father Feeney they were infallible, but then when they embraced the theology of Vatican II they were not infallible, and not Catholic theologians anymore? This is mind-boggling nonsense. BTW, Msgr. Fenton, one of these pre-V2 theologians, explicitly rejects Cekadism in passages that I have cited before.
Great post, on which I comment on parts individually.
-
This is the foundation of the "subjectivism" that Bishop Williamson rightly holds to be the fundamental error of Vatican II.
So you start with doctrinal subjectivism (with Wojtyla's religious indifferentism) and the next step is moral subjectivism (which is where we are with Bergoglio today) ... and all of Vatican II is clearly explained.
But people for some reason fail to see that EENS-denial is the "Rosetta Stone" to interpreting and unlocking all of Vatican II.
Interesting thought on the connection between the doctrinal error and moral subjectivism. Very much worth reflecting deeper upon.
I see the "Rosetta Stone" as to the depression of the God factor in the determination of who is saved, and the elevation of the human factor, man's consent and cooperation in salvation. After all, if all human beings have a free choice of salvation, it's just not "fair" that non-Catholics (who "believe" in Christ even), and then non-Christians (some of whom, e.g., Jєωs, Muslims, even "believe" in "God") have no shot at salvation - so goes the thinking.
And that way of thinking makes some sense if, in fact, all men have a shot at salvation, since all men are not Catholic.
So I back this up to a failure to hold to a traditional Catholic idea of predestination: whether you like it or not - and yes, the elect have free will and consent freely to grace and salvation - it is purely God's determination, divorced from any human action or deserving, that makes the difference between a saved man and a damned.
Bishop Sanborn gave a great sermon on this, the "Catholic doctrine of Predestination." He used the example of God walking through a ward of terminal patients, and stopping randomly at a bed saying, "this one," and going on down the ward and then saying, "that one," etc., and that, God's gratuitous and free choice, being the determiner of salvation.
EENS is a dogma reflecting how and where God's choice resides: in Catholics, or more properly, in certain of those "inside" the Catholic Church. So EENS is related to Predestination.
In light of Sanborn being right on Predestination, his liberality on EENS is even more confounding.
We like being in control, and this makes us extremely uneasy. It's a dogma that is readily rejected using our human, imperfect sense of justice.
I have a whole thread on this, with quotations from St. Augustine, St. Thomas, the annotations of the Haydock Bible, etc. :
https://www.cathinfo.com/the-sacred-catholic-liturgy-chant-prayers/god's-salvific-will-to-save-'all-men'-and-the-death-of-unbaptized-infants/msg733125/#msg733125
-
Read the book "Prometheus" if possible. It does a very good to excellent job showing the foundations of the ecclesial revolution that was V2.
-
Of course, St. Thomas, who held to the Catholic dogma of Predestination I mentioned above, also believed that all men - who reached the age of reason (but that's a separate and deep issue) - had a shot at salvation by their free will, and resolved the fact that not all men are Catholic or Christian by believing that, if the non-Christian truly sought God with a sincere heart, God would reveal the essentials of the Christian faith to him internally (for lack of a better word), or a priest or evangelist would reach him and instruct him on the faith.
That is the Thomistic solution preserving both EENS and the chance for all men to be saved.
Of course, the case of infants puts his solution to a severe test, since a baby born in non-Christian lands, who dies in infancy, is incapable of what Pius XII called an "act of love" for God.
-
I find that pointing out all the corruption surrounding Vatican II only seems to have the effect of pointing to smoke, but no fire.
What of Roncalli/Pope Leo 23? What can be said of that man? His profile?