Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: markomalley

There were definitely people awaiting their opportunity. Modernism was a reality, and the efforts to deal with it hadn’t really solved the problem. They tried to suppress it, but this wasn’t successful because it just drove it underground.

I think, actually, that many of the good theologians and bishops saw Vatican II as a possible way of restating and re-proclaiming orthodoxy and putting an end to modernist tendencies once and for all (or until the next time heresy bubbled up). They thought they’d be cutting away all of the bureaucratic accretions that prevented a clear expression of orthodox Faith.

But the Modernists had already installed themselves, quietly and secretly, during their time of theoretical suppression, and as soon as they saw this opening, they seized it. The good bishops were blindsided (this was particularly true in the case of the liturgical reforms) and had never expected this destruction and rejection of legitimate authority and even of the concept of truth.

I think they also didn’t realize how far Marxism had extended itself into the social thinking of the Church; the only people who seemed to take this seriously were some rather cranky and sometimes rather wacky elderly bishops, and people ignored them - even though they were obviously correct in their warnings.

This, of course, occurred in the context of what the Europeans call the “Revolution of ‘68,” referring to the student demonstrations and the whole current of destructive leftist thought, combined with the “sexual revolution,” that swept both Europe and the US. It was in the air.

Another thing that I think has never been examined (except perhaps by Malachi Martin) is the huge influence exercised by the US Church, whose many leftists and shallow thinkers were relentless in their Protestantizing and neutering of the Church, wanting to convert it into a bland, harmless social appurtenance of the welfare state.

So, yes, there’s a lot to be examined. I just wish somebody other than a radical fringe (that would probably be us!) would be willing to be honest about it. Instead, on the 50th anniversary, we’re supposed to ignore the wreckage and praise Vatican II for how wonderful it was.


7 posted on 01/20/2014 5:37:44 AM PST by livius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies ]


To: livius; markomalley

Mark said: “Having said that, I really think that there must have been deep, underlying problems (like “Modernism” and “indifferentism” and “Americanism” — a la “Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae”, that is) for a number of years prior to Vatican II.”

Livius is near squarely on point. I can’t write well today, but last year I conducted quite a bit of research to see if I could identify precisely what the problem was. The result of that research was to identify the Transcendental movement as the core of the problem and oddly, it was a problem never successfully addressed by the Church. Pope Pius, I believe, (working from memory here) did address it and its spawn, “secular humanism”, but never effectively.

I could probably write a book on this subject but very few if any would be interested. Bishop Fulton Sheen “got it” and wrote concerning Pope Pius 1907 encyclical, (a synthesis of all heresies called Modernism by Pope Pius in his 1907 encyclical “Pascendi Dominici Gregis);

“Modern philosophy has seen the birth of a new nation of God...It is God in evolution. God ‘is’ not. He ‘becomes.’ In the beginning was not the Lord, but in the beginning was ‘Movement.’ From this movement God is born by successive creations. As the world progresses, He progresses; as the world acquires perfection, He acquires perfection. (Moreover) man is a necessary step in the evolution of God. Just as man came from the beast, God will come from man...”

I could go on but the clear problem is the embrace of Darwinian evolution and its “fit” into the human centric philosophies.

Unless and until the Church squarely addresses this problem, matters will only worsen. And part of the progress of that descent is found in recent articles wherein authors discuss a fact newly found to them, i.e., that a majority of “Americans” don’t believe in anything.

Think about that for a moment and the examples of the effects of profound disbelief in anything other than the importance of constant consumerism and you will find such things as people being shot and killed...........for their Nike tennis shoes.

Without God at the Center of all existence, human kind descends into Paganism, or worse, Nihilism.


15 posted on 01/20/2014 8:11:33 AM PST by Rich21IE
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson