nazard wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:20 pm
I agree that some traditionalist web sites do seem to be trying to undo what Vatican 2 brought about, but most seem to be trying to undo things which happened after the council, but were not mandated by it.
But surely, if things are happening after Vatican 2 that were not mandated by Vatican 2 - then surely it would be wise and helpful to guide people to Vatican 2. It would not seem wise and helpful to set up your own little website for your own followers of this kind and that kind. People can always find arguments for doing exactly what they like.
I don't read traditionalist websites but it would seem there are a range of these, some being deny and defy, and some being just undoers. There's a range? How odd.
What are these things that are not mandated. I really want to know. We can't mention them in case it gets tweeted and people misread the tweet and think, hey, that an interesting idea.
So many of those sites are hate-filled in their discourse.
All in the name of the God of love.
I avoid like the plague.
The church is Catholic, it has a broad roof and many rooms. People can find the style of worship that suits them whether it is "happy-clappy" family Masses or "smells and bells" Tridentine Masses.
That is good.
What is un-Catholic to my mind is sowing division and setting oneself apart from the rest over what is essentially matters of taste hunting around for self-justification.
I will start by saying that I do not endorse any particular website or point of view, and that I largely disagree with the New Liturgical Movement.
It seems to me that many "catholic " websites actually seek to innovate. They have an idea, which presumably they think will benefit the church. Frequently, they seek to popularise their idea by calling it either "traditional" or "Vatican 2", whichever they think is most appropriate, or most likely to appeal to the faithful, whom the writers seem to assume read their pages.
These attempts to seek support from either of these two arguments are often very vague and lack detail or written authoritative references.
Things which happened since the council but were not mandated by it are commonly said to include:
Mass entirely in the vernacular
Guitars in church music
Female altar servers
Communion in the hand
and more, as writers imagination wanders. Here, the logical fallacy is to assume that the council is the source of all good, and that anything originating outside the council is bad. Surely the work of the Holy Spirit is to push people to try to improve everything?
I would prefer writers to drop both the "traditional" and the "Vatican 2" arguments as simplistic overviews.
The web is a very free place for expression, and book and periodical publishing nearly as free. The consequence of that is that a great deal of what is written is not completely correct, and some is downright wrong. In view of this, I think the society is unwise to draw attention to websites not written by themselves unless they are official church sites. After all, even if a site has been helpful in the past, it may not remain so into the future.
nazard refers to things that Vatican II did not mandate. He or she is not alone in that view.
I would make two points:
Firstly, Vatican II was not the end of the story. The Church is a iiving, dynamic organism. Anyone who thinks that we can say "OK, we did all the post-VII reforms. Now let's just sit back and live happily ever after" is, I'm afraid, living in a dream world. The Church is constantly growing, developing, on the move. As long as it consists of real people, it will never stand still. There will always be further change. The artificial period of comparative stagnation for 400 or so years after the Reformation was precisely that — artificial. Up to the Reformation, the Church had constantly grown and developed and changed (the myth of the unchanging Church never reflected reality). Now it is doing so again.
Secondly, while it is true that the bishops at Vatican II did not specifically ask for every single one of the changes that subsequently happened, what is true is that those same bishops, in the first years following VII, saw the pastoral benefit of the changes that were taking place and not only asked for far more things than they have ever realised were desirable or even possible, they asked for them to happen quickly. (In retrospect, it might have been better if the changes had been more gradual.) A simple example would be the use of the vernacular. Once the bishops discovered that even a small amount of the vernacular was bringing great pastoral benefits, they asked for more and more of of it, until we arrived at the situation we have now. The same is true of many other changes that were not specifically requested by the Fathers of VII. Documentary evidence for all this will be found in Piero Marini's splendid book A Challenging Reform, in which he not only gives chapter and verse for all those subsequent changes but also shows how the traditionalist elements in the Roman Curia tried to scupper any reforms at all, even the ones that the Council Fathers had mandated. This book should be required reading for everyone, traditionalists and progressives alike. Archbishop Marini was Bugnini's assistant during this initial postconciliar period, and thus the book is an insider's report on how the reforms actually happened.
Southern Comfort has, as always, given a very apt argument that Catholicism has always had a certain amount of dynamism. In fact I would argue that there were significant changes in teaching between the Reformation and Vatican 2. These include the acceptance the the earth revolves around the sun, the acceptance that Slavery is an evil, definitive statements on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, acceptance that Evolution, to a certain extent, is an acceptable theory, the centralising of Papal Authority through the Doctrine of Infallibility and through the requirement that all bishops must be appointed by Rome, Rerum Novarum & Catholic Social Teaching I'm sure I've missed a few as well!
Gwyn wrote: Sun Feb 25, 2018 3:14 pm
Didn't Bugnini get himself slung out? Or was that a different Bugnini?
Yes, that's him. The traditionalist elements in the Roman Curia saw him as the figurehead for the reforms that they hated, so they plotted against him, and he was exiled to be Apostolic Nuncio in Tehran, where he died, some say of a broken heart. There were lots of conspiracy theories — for example, that he was a secret Freemason — all of them total bunk. All he did was serve the Church, serve the liturgists and bishops who called the shots.
...Documentary evidence for all this will be found in Piero Marini's splendid book A Challenging Reform...
The trouble with that, and Bugnini's book, is that they are accounts by the people involved. The people who are satisfied with the new mass tend to look on them as if they were audit reports that confirmed that the views of the council members had been systematically consulted and that they were all satisfied with the results. On the other hand, those who feel betrayed by the new mass find these accounts to be evidence of a plot to take advice from selected elements in the church and to hammer the changes through against the collective view of the curia who were trying to protect the legacy of the council.
I think that fifty years on these lines of argument are never going to be resolved and are best abandoned.
...Documentary evidence for all this will be found in Piero Marini's splendid book A Challenging Reform...
The trouble with that, and Bugnini's book, is that they are accounts by the people involved. The people who are satisfied with the new mass tend to look on them as if they were audit reports that confirmed that the views of the council members had been systematically consulted and that they were all satisfied with the results. On the other hand, those who feel betrayed by the new mass find these accounts to be evidence of a plot to take advice from selected elements in the church and to hammer the changes through against the collective view of the curia who were trying to protect the legacy of the council.
I think that fifty years on these lines of argument are never going to be resolved and are best abandoned.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to dispute the evidence that many of the bishops' conference around the world did ask for many more reforms than were specifically mentioned in Sacrosanctum Concilium. The idea that the Council Fathers were betrayed by excessive implementation of reforms they had not asked for is untenable: it was the same bishops who asked for them who had been at the Council.
Did the council fathers think that a full stop was put on the process of liturgical change (a process that started in the 1950s) when the council closed?
Southern Comfort wrote: Mon Mar 05, 2018 5:08 am
... The idea that the Council Fathers were betrayed by excessive implementation of reforms they had not asked for is untenable: it was the same bishops who asked for them who had been at the Council.
The question is not whether the same bishops were asked: it is whether all the bishops were asked by means of an authorised and auditable process and whether the final decision was taken in a manner consistent with the decision making procedures of the council.
The issue is rather irrelevant: the pope was entitled to approve the new mass if he felt that was the appropriate thing to do. Because the new mass has proved to upset people, its supporters and detractors have set out to try to justify their positions. All this is a distraction from the real issue, which is how to teach all peoples.
Southern Comfort wrote: Mon Mar 05, 2018 5:08 am
... The idea that the Council Fathers were betrayed by excessive implementation of reforms they had not asked for is untenable: it was the same bishops who asked for them who had been at the Council.
The question is not whether the same bishops were asked: it is whether all the bishops were asked by means of an authorised and auditable process and whether the final decision was taken in a manner consistent with the decision making procedures of the council.
The bishops were not asked: they did the asking. The various episcopal conferences petitioned the Consilium (the Vatican body charged by the Pope with implementing the liturgical reform) with the reforms that they wanted, and the Consilium duly carried them out. The Pope signed off on them. All very well documented. Nothing to do with an authorised or audited process or anything like that, since none was necessary.
There is a lot of nonsense out there on the internet — conspiracy theories and suchlike. I'm afraid that some read this stuff and believe it, instead of reading up on the history of the thing.
Southern Comfort wrote: Mon Mar 05, 2018 2:24 pm
... Nothing to do with an authorised or audited process or anything like that, since none was necessary.
None was used, but it was necessary if people were to believe in the validity of the process.
You have explained the fons et origo of the plot theories very well.
