In light of the developments of this week, it occurs to me that it’s important to keep the pressure on, and to create verifiable evidence of our resistance to the attack on marriage that is spreading with breathtaking rapidity throughout the Church.
In light of that, there are two efforts that I had previously not given much attention to for the simple reason that I have a general distaste for signing things directed at the Holy See. The Church is not a democracy. I don’t like the idea that we — especially those of us in the United States where such efforts are so common — are beginning to think of bishops or popes as akin to elected representatives who should be subject to the will of the people.
But in times like these, it matters to go on the record. To show support. To make it clear that although they dismiss our concerns, the concerns nevertheless exist. It’s not about numbers, or even about whether they care. It’s about taking a stand.
The first such effort is a petition to Pope Francis in support of the Four Cardinals’ dubia. It is short and to the point, associated with LifeSiteNews, and perhaps best of all, allows you the option (for a nominal fee to cover printing and postage) to send a postcard to the pope with your message. I was willing to pay for that service. Mail is harder to ignore than a document with electronic signatures. You can sign this petition here.
The other effort is the much more detailed “Declaration of Fidelity to the Church’s Unchangeable Teaching on Marriage and to Her Uninterrupted Discipline“.
This is a declaration that Bishop Schneider has personally been promoting as he travels the world speaking about the crisis in the Church. It is a reaffirmation of what the Church believes in the face of so much confusion and error. He considers it very important for Catholics to put their names on this document. You can sign it at the link above, but I will share with you an email I received about the effort below. I hope you’ll consider both of these efforts, if you haven’t already.
On the eve of the Ordinary Synod on the Family held in Rome in October 2015, we delivered to the Holy See a “Filial Petition to His Holiness on the Future of the Family” signed by 879,451 persons, including eight cardinals and 203 archbishops and bishops, asking for a word of clarification to dispel the confusion that had spread facing the possible access to the Holy Eucharist by divorced and civilly “remarried” Catholics.
With or without reason, formulations in both documents, namely the Synod’s Final Report and the Post-Synodal Exhortation Amoris Laetitia have been interpreted as enabling that access after a “case by case” discernment. Authoritative ecclesiastical pronouncements revealed that these documents have often given rise to contradictions and conflicting opinions, even among shepherds. This helped create further confusion among the faithful regarding the teaching of the Church on the indissolubility of marriage and on the conditions required to receive the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist.
In a public statement, his Excellency Most Rev. Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, has suggested that, while respectfully waiting for that clarification, all Catholics who still take their baptismal vows seriously should make a declaration of fidelity in unison, specifically and clearly stating all the Catholic truths that have been weakened or ambiguously distorted since Cardinal Walter Kasper proposed that the Church change her discipline (February 2014).
Inspired by Bishop Schneider’s invitation, the Filial Petition organizers have prepared Declaration of Fidelity to the Church’s Unchangeable Teaching on Marriage and to her Uninterrupted Discipline.
In an interview with Dr. Maike Hickson of OnePeterFive, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, the retired archbishop of Bologna, founder and first president of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family, one of the greatest moralists of the Church, went so far as to state that:
In Amoris Laetitia [308] the Holy Father Francis writes: “I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion.” I infer from these words that His Holiness realizes that the teachings of the Exhortation could give rise to confusion in the Church. Personally, I wish – and that is how so many of my brothers in Christ (cardinals, bishops, and the lay faithful alike) also think – that the confusion should be removed, but not because I prefer a more rigorous pastoral care, but because, rather, I simply prefer a clearer and less ambiguous pastoral care.
After reaffirming 27 fundamental moral truths to be held not only as still valid but unchangeable, the Declaration concludes that “while our neo-pagan world wages a general attack against the divine institution of marriage, and the plagues of divorce and sexual depravity spread everywhere, even within the life of the Church, we, the undersigned bishops, priests and Catholic faithful, consider it our duty and privilege to declare, with one voice, our fidelity to the Church’s unchangeable teachings on marriage and to Her uninterrupted discipline, as received from the Apostles. Indeed, only the clarity of truth will set people free (John 8: 32) and enable them to find the true joy of love, by living a life in accordance with the wise and saving will of God, in other words, avoiding sin, as maternally requested by Our Lady in Fatima, in 1917.”
Initially, the Declaration received the adhesion of 81 Catholic personalities, including three cardinals, three bishops and a large number of academics and representatives of both the ecclesiastical and civil spheres. To this list were rapidly added more than 17,000 signatories, many of whom are bishops, priests, professors of Catholic theology and religion, catechists, seminary rectors and Catholic teachers.
If you still have not done so, we invite you to sign the Declaration. We do so with the awareness that you already had kindly signed the Filial Appeal addressed to the Holy Father between the two Synods on the Family.
We count on your support for this new initiative so that the Catholic Church may continue to be seen by our contemporaries as the firm stronghold of marriage and the family amidst a hedonistic and relativistic world.
In Christo Domino,
Kenneth J. Drake
For Filial Appeal
Steve Skojec is the Founding Publisher of OnePeterFive.com. He received his BA in Communications and Theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2001. His commentary has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Crisis Magazine, EWTN, Huffington Post Live, The Fox News Channel, Foreign Policy, and the BBC. Steve and his wife Jamie have eight children. You can find more of his writing at his Substack, The Skojec File.
“The attack on marriage that is spreading with breathtaking rapidity throughout the Church.”
It’s REally important to remember that there is a very sound reason for this. The schism that is currently cracking the Church in two, has existed in the Church since the 1960s launched the sexual revolution both inside and outside the Church. What we are seeing now is just precisely the same opposition to the Faith that we saw at the time of Humanae Vitae. It is spreading so fast because it was already deeply entrenched. All it was waiting for was a pope who was willing to legitimize and approve it. This is what the election of Jorge Bergoglio was all about. The poison of Vatican II had already been aerosolized, but we were all able to pretend that it wasn’t “official”. Francis’ task, quite clearly, has been to make it official, to bring it into the mainstream and enforce it, and purge anyone who would resist.
The schism that we are watching unfold right in front of our eyes in the last few weeks, has existed in the Church for 50 years. The good news is that having brought it out into the open, and demonstrating that it is TOTALLY incompatible with the Catholic Faith, Pope Francis the Great Clarifier, has ended the time of uncertainty. The war is open, and now everyone is able to choose a side and know for certain which side is which.
Agreed. It’s all of a piece. As I wrote on March 28, 2014:
Waugh, in the first pages of Sword of Honour: ‘But now, splendidly, everything had become clear. The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms.’
“The Truth will set you free.”
Thank you Hilary White.
Hilary,
You are absolutely correct in saying that the current situation is not at all a new development (not that Steve was saying that, but in case anyone was thinking it). You are absolutely correct in saying that the open war we are now seeing is not between two armies that have suddenly appeared post-2013, but two armies that have been locked in Cold War for 50+ years.
What I take issue with (as often before on this site) is the claim, tossed in casually, that this war (first cold, now open/hot) is the direct result of “the poison of Vatican II.” Everything that follows is written from one Catholic to another with the sincere desire to be on the same page as Catholics. I am not trying to pick a fight with you; I respond to your comment at length, because you are not just a visitor here but a contributor.
I know you will grant me this much: The question of whether or not V2 is poison is among the most vitally important issues for every Catholic now living on earth. You say it is poison; I say that the texts are okay and in some cases good, even while the post-conciliar execution has been devastatingly bad. But I’m not trolling you. If you are correct in your claim, it’s extremely important for “JP2” Catholics like myself to hear and listen to your message, because it would be imperative for us to act on it. If I am correct about V2, it’s important that Traditionalists hear from people (myself as just one example) who are ready to offer a defense of the Council and of the post-conciliar popes, even while they/we are ready to fight against the errors contained in Amoris laetitia, and to fight for the ‘reform of the reform’ of the liturgy, as without such reform the post-conciliar train wreck will just keep going on and on. I would cite Cardinal Sarah as an example of the kind of person I mean.
As you admit, the Sexual Revolution occurred both inside and outside the Church. But it started outside — that is, it was not first launched in the Church, then gradually affecting the world, but first launched in the world, and has been gradually affecting the Church.
(I would add, not as a disagreement with you, but just because I think it’s relevant to our discussion, that although the Sexual Revolution became mainstream for the first time in the 60s, it did not start then. It was already present in the writings of Engels, co-author of the Communist Manifesto, himself building on authors reaching back into the Enlightenment era. The Revolution picked up significant steam after the Great War, and was evident during the Roaring 20s. The principles of the Revolution had already been clearly articulated by Wilhelm Reich and like-mined allies as early as the 30s. So the 60s saw the Revolution grow exponentially in cultural influence, but the Revolution as such predates the 60s by quite a bit).
You link Amoris and the current war to “the poison of Vatican II.” But I ask in reply: why does Francis feel the need to openly contradict the entire papal magisterium of John Paul II — who himself participated personally in the Council, and who cites from its documents very often in his papal writings, thus very much a ‘Vatican II Pope’ — as he brings us this new message of ‘mercy’? Why did Francis feel the need to replace the leadership of the Institute named for John Paul II, which has spent 30 years articulating a profound theological response to the Sexual Revolution, drawing on all the resources of Scripture and Tradition, and to personally appear at the opening of the new academic year of the Institute to remind faculty and administration that Amoris laetitia must be included now in their work?
Why did John Paul II write the entire Theology of the Body for the purpose of helping people to understand why Paul VI in Humanae vitae had rejected the majority report and re-affirmed in no uncertain terms the Church’s unchanging and unchangeable teaching on contraception, and the inseparability of procreation and the marital act? (I say ‘expressly’ because this is not my own supposition. John Paul says towards the end of Theology of the Body that the whole book — it was originally written in Polish as a book, before he decided to turn it into a series of Weds audiences — was written to clarify the Church’s teaching on the evil of contraception and the meaning of sexual union).
For that matter, why did Paul VI (the ultimate Pope of the Council, even more than John XXIII) take the stand he did on contraception in Humanae vitae, warning the world that to embrace contraception would lead directly to a series of other evils, which is exactly what has happened? In short, why are the Popes most directly responsible for leading the Council and implementing it in the immediate post-conciliar decades also the popes who Francis is most obviously contradicting in Amoris laetitia? Why is it that the Four Cardinals cite so much from the writings of John Paul II (esp. Familiaris consortio and Veritatis splendor) in the dubia they sent to Francis, in order to highlight the clear, unchanged teaching of the Church in JPII and its contrast with the text of Amoris?
The Sexual Revolution has been a major part of the endgame of Modernism from the start (it is not by accident that Engels is already talking about it back in the 19th century). So if V2 is simply Modernism having its way with the Church, corrupting her doctrine to accomplish its own goals, we should have every expectation that the Pope who led the Council for the longest time (Paul), and the Pope who devoted much of his pontificate to commenting on the Council through his writings (John Paul), would ‘get with the program.’ In other words, that they would gradually plant the seeds that would lead to something like Amoris (and then worse things after Amoris).
Yet instead we find that Paul upholds the Church’s teaching against powerful forces of opposition in Humanae vitae; we find that John Paul doubles down on Humanae vitae by writing Theology of the Body to further explain HV and show why contraception (and thus any attempt to separate procreation from union) is evil and harmful to the human being, contrary to both marriage and the true yearning of the human heart for love. We find Benedict XVI, John Paul’s right hand man on doctrine for decades, also upholding all of this very explicitly as head of the CDF and as Pope.
There is no way for anyone to distance Paul VI from Vatican II. He was personally, directly responsible for it (along with John XXIII). There is no way to distance John Paul II from the Council, either. He participated in it as a bishop, and he constantly cites from the conciliar documents in his papal writings. Neither can Benedict XVI be distanced from the Council, as he participated in it as a theologian. So these popes are, without doubt, popes of the Council. But it is these popes of the Council who we find continuing to uphold and defend — and even more clearly articulate — the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage and sexual morality. Meanwhile Francis attacks this same perennial teaching in Amoris.
Paul in HV drew on Gaudium et spes 47-52, which in turn drew on Casti connubii and prior magisterial statements (and Scripture and Tradition broadly). John Paul builds Theology of the Body on the starting point of HV and the inseparability of procreation and the marital act. If there is a direct line leading from Vatican II to Francis and Amoris, this direct line would have to pass through Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, all of whom were very directly involved with the Council, and all of whom uphold clearly the Church’s teaching on marriage (not to mention the Church’s teaching on the objective content of human moral action, upheld emphatically in Veritatis splendor and denied in Amoris).
So the line is not direct. Rather, there is in fact a direct line from GS 47-52 to Humanae vitae, to Theology of the Body and Familiaris consortio, all of these very clearly directed against the arguments made by the Sexual Revolution (which is itself a huge element of Modernism). The teaching of the Council on sex, re-articulated and clarified by Paul VI in Humanae vitae and by John Paul II in TOB and other writings, is not on the side of Amoris. Instead, in order to accomplish its goals, Amoris has to flagrantly contradict John Paul II repeatedly, and it also misquotes Gaudium et spes in a way noticed by many commentators.
It would make no sense to suggest that Paul VI and John Paul II fought strenuously against the Sexual Revolution for decades as some kind of long-term game, in order to somehow set the stage for Francis by playing bait and switch. That just defies plausibility. If Paul VI were on board with the Sexual Revolution, he would have taken the golden opportunity to side with the majority report (which the whole world knew about) and allow contraception. If John Paul II were on board, he would not have doubled down on HV with Theology of the Body. The simple fact is that these two popes, who were both very much tied into the Council, saw the Council as supporting the Church’s teaching on the inseparability of procreation and marriage, and fought to protect that teaching. These two guys are probably more directly responsible than anyone else for giving the Church its current secular reputation as being ‘obsessed’ with sexual morality, because they are so well-known for defending Church teaching in this area.
Again, you are right to say that a 50+ year schism only recently became a true war. The same group that finally got what it wanted in Amoris (though of course there are more things that it wants, and soon) has been present in the Church since before the Council, always pushing the Sexual Revolution and a cocktail of various other poisons. My contention is that Vatican II itself has a complex role to play in this whole era of schism, now become war. It is not the root cause of the schism, as you yourself grant (you would say the root cause is Modernism, holding that the Council brought Modernism into the Church). Yet both sides in the fight over the Sexual Revolution have claimed the Council as their own. Both those who fought for the Sexual Revolution (i.e., the bishops, priests, nuns, theologians who embraced every element of the Revolution, who dissented so vocally to HV, who despised JPII, who now rejoice over Amoris) and those who fought against it (Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict, and those who draw on their teaching in the fight) are claiming to speak for the Council. You would likely say that this is because the Council is so deliberately ambiguous as to allow multiple factions to emerge; I would counter that the conciliar teaching on marriage, principally found in GS, is not ambiguous but straightforward, and that Paul VI and John Paul II have the much stronger claim to truly speak for the Council.
I can’t wait to read Miss White’s response, if she writes one. (If I wanted to joke, I’d say *let’s all back slowly out of the room.*) But I believe you to be a sincere and intelligent participant here, and so won’t leave it with a jest. I mentally wrote a rather long essay as I read the above but you addressed this to someone else, and I hope to read her reply. However, Hilary White has written extensively about your very questions, at least for the several years I’ve been aware of her writings, and many others have, also.
“Hilary White has written extensively about your very questions.”
That’s exactly why I wrote such a long comment directed at her.
Hi Jordan, I am very much engaged by your post. You make a very strong defence of Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI–with which I heartily agree. But Vatican II is another story: while it contains some wonderful statements of some aspects of the Faith, it also contains certain errors, serious omissions, and certain ambiguities (which you’ve mentioned). See Roberto de Mattei’s excellent work ‘The Second Vatican Council’.
See this summary of it here: http://www.unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/79-history/370-ambiguity-and-vatican-ii.html
In 1969 Pope Paul VI complained: “In many areas the Council has not yet put us at peace; it has rather stirred up trouble and difficulties which are useless for reinforcing the Kingdom of God in the Church and in souls.”
On 24th December 1984 l’Osservatore Romano published the following statement by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger: “Certainly, the results [of Vatican II] seem cruelly opposed to the expectations of everyone, beginning with those of Pope John XXIII and then of Pope Paul VI: expected was a new Catholic unity and instead we have been exposed to dissension which—to use the words of Paul VI—seems to have gone from self-criticism to self-destruction. Expected was a new enthusiasm, and many wound up discouraged and bored. Expected was a great step forward, and instead we find ourselves faced with a progressive process of decadence which has developed for the most part precisely under the sign of calling back to the Council, and has therefore contributed to discrediting for many. The net result therefore seems negative. I am repeating here what I said ten years after the conclusion of the work: it is incontrovertible that this period has definitely been unfavorable for the Catholic Church.”
John Paul II had a more careful approach to the 2nd Vatican Council. While he emphasised the positive elements of Vatican II, he fought strongly against the errors of modernism. Eg, his great encyclicals The Splendour of Truth, Faith and Reason, and others. I suppose it would be fair to say that John Paul II wanted to “contain” the hidden schism without sounding the alarm, while at the same time he evangelised the Church so that souls who wanted the Faith and loved the Faith would be strengthened and spiritually formed in a way that would restore the Church. While we might say this was a circumspect approach to the crisis in the Church, some have been critical of JPII’s “silence” on the hidden schism. I say that his influence has been to strengthen his brethren in the Faith so much that he has mitigated, to some extent, the crisis and suffering of the Church in our day. Witness the many strong defenders of the Faith today who are resisting and will continue to resist the errors of modernism so widespread in the Church. Without John Paul II these faithful witnesses would not exist.
With regard to the ambiguities of Vatican II: ambiguity has the power to divide people against one another because, while ambiguous statements are consonant with diverse interpretations, they do nothing to resolve the conflict between them. Opposing interpretations will continue to claim the ambiguous proposition for their authority, and never the twain shall meet, and the resulting divisions and arguments over the meaning of the original propositions will continue ad infinitum. What we probably need is for a Pope to come along and rid us of Vatican II once and for all, for it is the source of unending error and division and confusion, or at least to give us a “syllabus of errors” with regards to the Council documents so that the Church can finally put such errors in the bin where they belong.
Leba, thanks for your reply.
In brief, since I am unable today to write any response of length: I deny that the documents contain error, in the sense of openly false teaching.
If the Council clearly taught error, it would be an anti-Council (i.e., not a Council at all, but a satanic charade), in which case all the subsequent popes would be liars complicit in a massive evil for promoting it and calling it, falsely, a good and valid Council (John Paul II, for example, continually cites from the conciliar documents in his encyclical letters). In that case, to call either John XXIII or John Paul II ‘saint’ is a further lie and error. This, as I understand it, is Hilary White’s position. If I have misunderstood her position, I stand ready to be corrected.
I acknowledge that there are various places in the documents where the Council fails to point out serious potential misinterpretations. For example, while Nostra aetate is right to acknowledge that there are some elements of truth in Hinduism (e.g., many Hindus, contrary to popular belief in the US, worship one God, and recognize this one God as the creator of the whole universe). But Nostra aetate fails to clearly point out that there are enormous elements of falsehood and extremely dangerous errors in Hinduism also. So the net effect is to give the impression that Hinduism is mostly true, even while the documents also clearly states that Jesus is the only Truth, that he is God, that all graces flow from his cross alone.
Hi Jordan, thanks for your reply too.
In this impressive account of the background and workings of the Second Vatican Council, Roberto de Mattei shows how the Council documents contain ambiguities and textual “time bombs”:
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/07/exclusive-for-rorate-michael-davies.html
He also shows, among other things, that the documents of Vatican II were not only open to misinterpretation but were actually misinterpreted.
See also this for more detail on the problems of the Council documents: http://www.unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/79-history/370-ambiguity-and-vatican-ii.html
Leba,
The issue is that there are two distinct positions being mixed together here.
Position #1 is that V2 actually teaches false doctrine. Hilary White clearly sees V2 as teaching error, and the post-V2 popes as actively complicit in promoting and furthering this error. You said in your initial post that V2 “contains certain errors.” Unless I misread you, this sounds to me like position #1.
Position #2 is that V2 has a lot of dangerous omission and/or reckless lack of clarity, but does not directly teach error. The link you gave to USC seems to take this position, by highlighting serious concerns raised both during and after V2 by men who were Council fathers, actively involved in the sessions.
I take position #2, and I don’t see how anyone could look honestly at the evidence and dismiss position #2 out of hand. Position #1, however, would mean something utterly different. It would mean that the Council is not an authentic part of the ordinary Magisterium, and that — by defending and promoting the Council — Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI are all actively, deliberately complicit in spreading doctrinal errors which they themselves helped to bring about by direct participation in the Council. This would also mean that John Paul II is hardly a saint, and in fact an agent of destruction. I reject position #1, and I don’t see how one can maintain position #1 and not understand this as the gates of hell prevailing. There is no precedent to appeal to in Church history of a false ecumenical Council defended and upheld by 6 successive popes.
I am holding that there is not a direct line from V2 to Francis through Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI (each post-V2 pope building on the one before, all building on V2), but that Francis is attempting to undo major elements of John Paul II’s magisterium (ultimately the unchanging ordinary magisterium of the Church) because these elements stand in the way of his goals.
I would further argue that Amoris laetitia is unlike the Council documents in that it directly teaches error, especially in regard to the objective content of human moral action. AL is not ‘merely’ dangerously ambiguous. For this reason, opposition to AL is different from the Traditionalist response to V2 (which response is not illegitimate, and in fact a needed corrective to the aforementioned problems). It is very noteworthy that many/most critics of AL are not Traditionalists, but people who hold JPII in high regard (e.g., Caffarra, original head of the JPII Institute), even if they also love and defend the Latin Mass. The current alliance between Traditionalists and ‘JPII’ types indicates something important.
V2 added nothing of value to the Church, but took away much. It’s entire purpose was obfuscation and destruction, which was openly admitted (with a twinkle in his eye, no doubt), by Kasper. The documents, in their entirety, should be burned. The only good statements in them were already in previous Church teaching, and were there to lend legitimacy to the poison. All the popes since then have either been complicit, unknowingly affected, or weak. The end.
Hi Jordan, I don’t take either of the two positions that you defined but I do agree with you that “Francis is attempting to undo major elements of John Paul II’s magisterium”.
I realise that there is still much debate as to whether or not Vatican II taught error (especially with regard to collegiality, religious liberty, and ecumenism). You have to consider, on the one hand, that because Vatican II did not make any infallible declarations the Council documents are, strictly speaking, subject to error.
On the other hand, even if Vatican II did not make any explicit doctrinal errors it nonetheless adopted a basic orientation that is deeply flawed—the belief that you can be friends with the spirit of the world and still maintain the purity and integrity of the Faith. Is this not a grave error of approach that infected the Church right at the inception of the Council, after the original preparatory schemas had been rejected?
Moreover, Roberto de Mattei notes that in Gaudium et Spes the “eternal enmity between the Augustinian City of God and the City of Man appears to be extinct” (Lecture by Roberto de Mattei, 10 July 2015, “From the Second Vatican Council to the Synod”):
“While there are statements in GS which insist that the heavenly kingdom is still the primary goal of the Church, it is beyond dispute that the document displays a pervasive and obsessive preoccupation with the earthly Kingdom. If the amount of print devoted to the former and the latter is compared, the contrast is both startling and depressing. It is replete with the spirit of Integral Humanism and Sillonism.” (Pope John’s Council by Michael Davies, page 186).
Vatican II also adopted an ecumenism of sorts that weakened the expression of the Catholic Faith-and this may be rightly called an error of omission:
“Monsignor Luigi Carli, Bishop of Segni, ended up complaining, that in order to avoid damaging ecumenism, you couldn’t talk anymore about the Blessed Virgin, nobody could be called a heretic anymore, the expression – the Church Militant – couldn’t be used anymore and the powers of the Catholic Church couldn’t be referred to anymore.” (Roberto de Mattei Lecture, 10 July 2015, “From the Second Vatican Council to the Synod”)
More examples of errors or sources-of-errors in the Council documents (taken from http://www.unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/79-history/370-ambiguity-and-vatican-ii.html):
“Amazingly, Paul VI himself noted in a letter back to Cardinal Larraona, dated October 18, 1964, that Chapter 3 of what would become Lumen Gentium did in fact contain “fundamentally contradictory statements”, and said that these “objections [are] supported in Our personal opinion.” These concerns would later cause Paul VI, not to amend Lumen Gentium, but to add an explanatory note to the document.”
On Dignitatis Humanae: “Speaking on the same schema on September 23, Cardinal Heenan of Westminster thought the document so ambiguous that it could even be taken in a sense repugnant to Catholic teaching: “Is it truly possible that an ecumenical council should say that every heretic has the right to alienate the faithful from Christ, the Chief Shepherd, and to carry them to pasture in his poisonous fields?”
“None other than Archbishop karol Wojtyla of Cracow objected to the document on the grounds that its teaching was not sufficiently clear that the only real freedom is found in adherence to the truth. Yes, John Paul II believed Dignitatis Humanae was ambiguous.”
“On March 20, 1965, Cardinal Ruffini said of Gaudium et Spes: “There are things that are said wrongly or at least that I do not understand” and that the implication that human nature arose as a result of gradual processes “is contrary to the Church’s doctrine.””
“Archbishop Wojtyla also criticized the document [Gaudium et Spes] strongly for not relating human fulfillment to Christ in strong enough terms; in other words, the document’s statements on human happiness were too vague.”
“Even Cardinal Lercaro, a moderate liberal, called the whole document into question and said it was riddled with “defects and ambiguities” and criticized the document’s “naturalistic optimism.” This is not too dissimilar from the critique Benedict XVI would make years later.”
“Cardinal Frings, one of the major liberals of the Council, also asked for the text to be completely redone because of the “dangerous confusion” it caused in confounding human progress with supernatural salvation.”
This should be sufficient to illustrate that, even if you deny any doctrinal error in Vatican II, you cannot deny that there are errors of approach, false philosophical principles, errors of omission, contradictory statements, and other defects.
But perhaps, in the final analysis, the greatest error of Vatican II is that it could not stem the tide of errors that flowed and continue to flow from its many equivocations, contradictions, ambiguities and omissions. Is it any wonder that Bishop Athanasius Schneider has called for a “syllabus of errors” in reference to Vatican II? What resulted is a couple of generations of Catholics who are mostly not formed in the Faith and in many cases cannot distinguish heresy from heterodoxy from orthodoxy. Which opens up the way for further abuses, errors, and false teachings to be disseminated.
Is this the nature of the “diabolical disorientation” which Sister Lucia warned against?
Dear Jordan, You have set the problem in exactly the terms that the enemies of the Church want. You have adopted the common presentation of the possibilities as dilemma that prohibits an accurate appraisal of V2. The diabolical brilliance of V2 was that it relayed enough Catholic truth to be acceptable, and while avoiding the direct teaching of error, it systematically set a plethora of opportunities for error to be taught.
The Church has no right to set traps for the faithful by writing its teaching in such ambiguous terms as to facilitate widespread misunderstanding. Previous councils did not do this. The ‘reckless lack of clarity’ you mention in #2 is in fact a real, though indirect, error that does, and has, taught the faithful to lose their faith. Hence it is as grievous and evil as what is inferred in #1.
Also, the merit of V2 cannot be concluded merely on the basis of its acceptance by JPII and BXVI. The circumstances of that acceptance is far too complex to use as validation and avoids the facts of the council itself.
This is a very interesting post. I need to add a comment.
Many Catholics link the current collapse of teaching on sexual morals to V2 as we know, but as Jordan Miller says, there are definitely more factors involved.
For example, as a recent convert, I frequently reflect on the fact that what is going on in the Church today with Francis is simply old news in the various mainline Protestant sects and they were not impacted by Vatican 2. The church today is copying in many respects the Protestants in their decline. As an ex-Lutheran, I see more Lutheranism in the Catholic Church than Catholicism…
Further, I do not think Catholics, especially Traditionalist Catholics of which I am one, give enough “credit” to the destruction of civilization and morality that occurred as a result of the devastating wars and social upheavals of the 20th Century. Putting it bluntly, we tend to see the ills of the Church in terms of the failures of prelates. We tend to have a “ghetto mentality” about our travails and tend to almost think as if the heterodox prelates “started something” when in fact they merely reflected what their “constituents” so-to-speak were already living and promoting.
Indeed, Benedict XV was correct in describing World War 1 as “The Suicide of Europe”. “Suicide of Europe” MEANS something. War ALWAYS causes a breakdown in personal morality and in the case of the vast bloodletting and immense cultural, social and economic upheavals of the World Wars and Communist expansion, the strain and trauma was already applied to CATHOLICS including the clergy who then went on to express capitulation to immorality in so many varied ways during the Council and after. Add the threats to global annihilation inherent in the Nuclear Age and we see the evolution of modern “Pacifist Catholicism” so presented by Pope Francis {when he isn’t celebrating Argentine invasion of the Falklands…}. But the seeds were sown already in European culture even before the wars. Note the LONG series of papal encyclicals condemning Freemasonry.
No, Vatican 2 did NOT introduce moral breakdown and the Sexual Revolution to the Church. The Council merely expressed in ambiguous ways the weakness, the effeminacy and the moral chaos that existing in Catholicism AMONG THE FAITHFUL FROM WHICH PRIEST AND BISHOP ALIKE hailed prior to the Council and largely accelerated by the Wars.
Vatican 2 reflected the Catholicism of the day, it did not create the Catholicism of today.
Catholics, especially we Traditionalists, tend to place blame on the prelates when in fact, CATHOLICS have reflected a sinking of morals for many generations and certainly this time frame precedes Vatican 2. In the same way we cannot expect prelates to get us out of this mess.
We must live holy lives without regard for what the prelates do. For prelates…if you study the history of the Church, never seem to be reliable representative of holiness on the whole!
On the contrary, it was not the prevailing culture which weakened the Church but the Church’s capitulation to modernist language and ambiguities at Vatican II that enabled the prevailing culture to infect the Church.
See, for example, this: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/07/exclusive-for-rorate-michael-davies.html
Or this: http://www.unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/79-history/370-ambiguity-and-vatican-ii.html
There is no doubt that, as you say, the 20th century witnessed much social upheaval and cultural transformation. But as long as the Church has the Doctrine of the Faith to stand on then she can confront and evangelise the prevailing culture. After all, this is how the Apostles of Christ transformed the world (which, by the way, was marked by much moral decadence like our own time or possibly worse) and how the Church has always been a leaven in the world (Matt 13:33) and the light of the world (Matt 5:14).
But take away the purity and integrity of the Doctrine of the Faith and what do you get? The collapse of vocations, the loss of the Church’s missionary character, moral decadence, ignorance of the Faith, a watered down Liturgy, the closing of Catholic schools and parishes, and so on, and so forth.
Uh….
Read my post again.
CATHOLICS caved before the prelates did.
Sorry, but the Protestant world saw it and it was common knowledge.
And those liberal and communist and Freemason and socialist and progrssive prelates weren’t run out of town on a {communion} rail.
They were celebrated.
Priests and bishops didn’t take sledge and crowbar to the communion rails and build wooden boxes to replace marble altars.
CATHOLICS did. Capitulation was in their blood before Vatican 2.
When Church prelates capitulate to the errors of some of the Church’s constituent members is when the Church begins to engage in self-destruction–the kind that Pope Paul VI warned against in 1968.
I am not at all exonerating the prelates. But to somehow lay the blame for the condition of the Church today entirely at the feet of them is to ignore the manifest sins of the “faithful” and their choices to slip into spiritual sloth.
That Catholics do err is one thing. The Church has always stood in need of correcting her children. But when the Church herself compromises the purity and integrity of the Catholic Faith, we have a much greater problem on our hands. The Second Vatican Council signalled a HUGE turning point for the Church.
See Steve Skojec’s article here which puts this into context: https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/losing-the-labels-lets-be-catholic-again/
See also my most recent post-response to Jordan Miller on this page.
I think you miss the culture of obedience that dominated the laity leading up to the Council. The seminaries had been subverted well before the Council. The forces you mention were certainly involved in that project. Parishes were led by their priests to assault the material beauty of their churches. The laity would never have succeeded without their priests’ leadership.
The teaching orders had also been subverted, leading to the rapid corruption of the children, but that was largely under the noses of sound Catholic parents who trusted their priests and bishops.
I was at school through that period and through my parents I knew far too many sound and solid parents who could not understand the apostasy of their children and considered it unCatholic to even contemplate the possibility that the teaching brothers and sisters could have been teaching heresy. My father went to his death refusing to be critical of his parish priest, even though he could not bring himself to go to confession to him and drove miles to be heard by a real Catholic priest.
You are right that this crisis in the Church was adopted quickly by the parishes, but that is not the same as it being led by them. You are also right that those who have accepted the new apostasy must accept blame.
There is much that is unique about this event of widespread apostasy in the Church. One thing that stands out for me is that it is the first time that even the apparent defenders of the faith are not calling the heresy what it is. When St. Athanasius opposed the Arians, or St. Dominic
argued with the Albigensians they did not call them progressives. When we use that language it is an acceptance of the poison of the Council’s false ecumenism and its underlying modernism. It is toxic. To the extent that many of the conservatives in the Church have adopted that framework, they have essentially sided with the enemy. We cannot compromise with heretics, we must convert them.
We are saying the same thing. I am condemning that “obedience” as it was false obedience. They should have been obedient to God rather than man.
As for ecumenism, right on and the rest of your post is right on!
My father was a Methodist minister and he was always going to ecumenical meetings and I can tell you that ecumenism to Protestants is all about getting the Catholics to come around to the way the Protestants see things. Don’t ever let a Pope or prelate tell you differently.
And to be truthful, it hasn’t taken much convincing. Catholics have been trying their level best to be Protestant for 50 years.
Why didn’t the Catholic priests try to convert my precious father?
Well, neither did any Catholics, either. In fact, just the opposite. Our churches were full of ex-Catholics.
Exactly, which is what many of us have been desperately trying to point out for decades only to be looked at as if we had two heads and no brains.
May God wake up as many sleepers as possible so that they can enter the battle, may he get the fence sitters to fall off the fence to whatever side they are listing. Amen.
It’s difficult to make a case, either implicitly or explicitly, associating Amoris Laetitia with opposition to Humanae Vitae when in the former Pope Francis unequivocally doubles down on the latter. See in and around paragraph 80.
While certainly not defending either the problematic parts of chapter 8 or Humanae Vitae in general, there is a problem with Amoris Laetitia that seems to have escaped attention – paragraph 156. Weasels such as this allow changing with the times when convenient, and undercut the most durable basis for defending traditional marriage. There are certain realities that do not change, and difference between the correct roles of men and women is one of these.
One doesn’t have to be a Christian to realize this, but Biblical guidance is unequivocal. It’s not just St. Paul to the Ephesians. Wifely submission and a husband’s leadership responsibility are explicitly instructed by different authors at least five times in the New Testament alone, not even counting the many corollaries. Enough that the unique natures of husbands/wives men/women is one of the major Biblical teaching themes. The consequences of many churches’ (not just Catholic) cowardice on this are all around us.
There is a huge difference. Previous popes were on the side of true doctrine. Now the bishop of Rome is the leader of the schismatics.
Miss White is correct, I think. Better to have the clarity. In that respect we should be grateful.
Sadly, it seems the readership of LifeSiteNews is more concerned about who is starring on a television program on the Home and Garden channel than about the integrity of the Eucharist or Church teaching.
“…I have a general distaste for signing things directed at the Holy See. The Church is not a democracy.”
I share your distaste for such activity, but there is good precedent for it in the life of the Church when matters of doctrine need to be settled. Bl. Pius IX inquired into the belief of all the faithful before defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. This was delivered to him in large part by the presentation of petitions from all around the world. This is reflected upon by Bl J H Newman in his essay “On consulting the faithful in matters of doctrine.”:
“At length, in 1854, the definition took place, and the Pope’s Bull containing it made its appearance. In it the Holy Father speaks as he had spoken in his Encyclical, viz. that although he already knew the sentiments of the Bishops, still he had wished to know the sentiments of the people also: “Quamvis nobis ex receptis postulationibus de definiendâ tandem aliquando Immaculatâ Virginis conceptione perspectus esset plurimorum sociorum Antistitum sensus, tamen Encyclicas literas, &c. ad omnes Ven. FF. totius Catholici orbis sacrorum Antistites misimus, ut, adhibitis ad Deum precibus, nobis scripto etiam significarent, quæ esset suorum fidelium erga Immaculatam Deiparæ Conceptionem pietas et devotio,” &c. And when, before the formal definition, he enumerates the various witnesses to the apostolicity of the doctrine, he sets down “divina eloquia, veneranda traditio, perpetuus Ecclesiæ sensus, singularis catholicorum Antistitum ac fidelium conspiratio.” Conspiratio, the two, the Church teaching and the Church taught, are put together, as one twofold testimony, illustrating each other, and never to be divided.”
At this point in the life of the Church we are surely in need, more than ever, of the pious faithful making known their belief in the true doctrine of Christ.
Perhaps, a combined Prayer of the Faithful recited at all weekend masses all over the world would help us to appreciate the significance of life and marriage. I offer a sample.
Almighty and ever loving God,
We thank you for the gift of life
And for the marriage that forever sustains it
Continue, we beseech you, to protect and strengthen them.
Grant us the grace to appreciate these gifts,
to faithfully honor them in our lives
And to effectively counter all attempts to trivialize them.
We make this prayer in the Name of Jesus, Amen