[RobbyS]

You chronology is off. Roe v. Wade is the major benchmark in the history of social change in the USA. At first, the Catholic bishops were the only loud voice against the new law promulgated by the Supreme Court and supported not only by the Democrats but by the Nixon and Ford Administrations. The Evangelicals. who had gone along with birth control, finally saw the handwriting on the wall and men like Jerry Falwell persuaded that Evangelicals would have to get into politics or watch the country go down the drain. Falwell was vilified, of course, because of his association with segregation, but to his great credit, he saw the future. But you are right in this respect, modernism has been a force for destruction in the Catholic Church as well as the Protestant Churches for a long while. Pius IX warned about this in the 1860s’ and one reason he called the First Vatican Council was to unite the Church in opposition to it. In 1910, Pius X issued an encyclical against modernism, and not long afterwards, Protestant fundamentalists came out with a statement of principles that rejected it. Stick your head up in a war, however, and you are going to be shot at.

[Pope Pius XII]

The Second Vatican Council spoke about the holiness of the Church in chapter 5 of the Constitution on the Church, “Lumen Gentium,” which is at

http://ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V2CHURCH.HTM

You will have to scroll a bit to get to Chapter 5..