The Logical Flaw in the Agenda of the Post-Conciliar Church

Commentary by Robert Sungenis: The Logical Flaw in the Agenda of the Post-Conciliar Church
Commentary for December 5, 2003

Today, one of the main battle cries of the post-conciliar Church, as exemplified in the massive amount of formal “apologies” John Paul II has issued for a whole host of former Catholic saints, doctors, popes and councils, is that the Catholicism of history was ignorant and mistaken on many issues.

The church of the past is castigated as a close-minded, authoritarian, exclusive and self-righteous entity. Conversely, the church of today promotes itself as an open-minded, egalitarian, utilitarian and self-deprecating entity.

The church of yesterday said salvation was only in the Catholic Church, while the church of today says that salvation can come to anyone, Protestant or pagan, without seeking membership in the Catholic Church.

The Church of yesterday said that many of the world’s people, due to their own choice, would not be saved, whereas the church of today teaches that most people will be saved and hell indeed may be empty.

The church of the past refused to allow Catholics to associate with other religions or mesh with any of their beliefs or practices, whereas today’s church encourages it.

The church of the past was strong on the distinctives of Catholic doctrine, the church of today spends most of its time looking for common beliefs among all the world’s religions.

The church of yesterday saw Muslims and Jews as Christ-haters who should be admonished and exhorted to convert to the Catholic faith, while the church of today considers both religions on the path to salvation through their own covenants with God.

The church of the past had such a high view of Mary, while the church of today tries its best to keep her off her traditional pedestal, and a non-candidate for any additional dogmas.

The church of yesterday believed that God created the world instantaneously and set the earth in a special place among the stars, while the church of today is enamored with the mere theories of science and uses them to embarrass former popes and councils.

The church of the past held the highest esteem for Scripture and Tradition, whereas the church of today says both are full of mistakes, as well as examples of “anti-semitism.”

The church of the past considered the papacy a strong bulwark against evil both inside and outside the church, whereas today the church seeks to dilute the papacy into collegiality, while the papacy itself fails to discipline its most egregious heretics and immoral clerics.

The church of tradition canonized only the best Catholics as saints, while the church of today has canonized more saints than all pervious centuries combined, and even talks of canonizing non-Catholics.

The church of the past excoriated and excommunicated heretics such as Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, but today's church gives them praises and adulation on par with past Catholic saints.

The church of the past had a most sacred liturgy, the most sacred hymns, and barred only but the most holy people from receiving the Eucharist, while today’s church has a Protestantized liturgy and hymns, and finds occasions to give even non-Catholics its sacred food.

The church of the past protected women from the battles of society and encouraged them to be mothers of children, whereas today’s church encourages women to be leaders outside the home and places them on the altar to mimic priests.

The church of the past considered praying with voodoo witch doctors an abomination of the highest order, while today’s church considers it a doorway to world peace and an answer to Christ’s prayer for unity.

(NB: For the most astonishing report on post-conciliar ecumenism mixing with pagan voodooism, see the shocking article by Craig Heimbichner in Catholic Family News titled: “Dancing With the Devil: The New Evangelization of Africa.” See excerpts of the article at www.catholicintl.com/epologetics/voodoosim.asp)

The contrasts couldn’t be greater. It is almost as if we have two different churches and two different concepts of what a church should be. If we could transport one of the saints of yesteryear, say, a St. Augustine, a St. Ignatius, a St. Francis to the present day, I dare say that even the post-conciliar promoters would admit that these saints would be shocked beyond belief at what they would see today.

The old church survived intact for 1965 years, to be exact. This is not to say that the church of yesteryear did not have its problems, but only to say that in the above categories of contrast, the church of the past held tenaciously to each one of them. They considered themselves the only game in town, and rightly so.

But now we are told that we have a “new and improved way” of bringing Catholicism to the world. For the last 40 years we have been told that this new way is the express design of the Holy Spirit, and the Catholic Church of the past was not only wrong on many issues, but it will never rise again. It is finished, terminated, buried with the post-conciliar consensus whose funeral was presided over by our last four popes (John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, and John Paul II).

Unfortunately for them, the stench of death has not come from the post-mortem body of historical Catholicism, but from the evil spirit that rose from the grave when it was killed. I’m sure you’ve all seen the recent statistics showing the utter spiritual devastation occurring in the Catholic Church since Vatican 2. If you haven’t, take a gander at these.

Not only are we in the midst of a worldwide homosexual and pedophile scandal that has been brewing precisely for the last forty years, but since the end of Vatican II, the number of priests has declined by 30%, and nearly half of the priests today are over 65 years of age. In 1965, the Church in the U.S. ordained 1,575 new priests. In 2002, a pitiful 450 were ordained. The number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 in 1965 to an astounding 4,700 in 2002. Nearly 400 of the 600 seminaries open in 1965 have closed. In 1965, there were 180,000 Catholic nuns, 104,000 of them as teaching nuns. Today there are 75,000 nuns, and only 8,200 of them teach, but most of the 75,000 are over 70 years of age. In 1965, there were 912 Christian Brother seminarians. In 2000, there were 7 left. The Franciscans decreased from 3,379 in 1965 to 84 in 2000. The Jesuits from over 3,500 in 1965 to 389 in 2000. Half of all Catholic schools have closed since 1965, and the student population has fallen from 700,000 to 386,000. For parochial schools, it has fallen from 4.5 million to below 2 million. In 1958, 75% of Catholics attended Mass on Sunday. In 2002, only 25% attended. Marriage annulments in 1965 were 338. In 2002 they were over 50,000. Only 10% of lay religious teachers accept the Church’s teaching on contraception, and most openly teach against it. 53% of Catholics believe that a Catholic can have an abortion. 65% believe Catholics can divorce and remarry. 77% believe one does not have to attend Mass to be a good Catholic. A New York Times poll revealed that 70% of Catholics between 18-44 believe the Eucharist is merely a “symbolic reminder” of Jesus.

Yet in the face of all this, the post-conciliar clerics and apologists want us to believe that we are in the “springtime” of the church, or at least heading in that direction. Human nature is amazing. It is amazing how post-conciliarists can watch these aberrations and abominations happening before their very own eyes yet convince themselves that they are seeing just the opposite.

Not only do today’s post-conciliar Catholics avoid admitting the obvious, they arrive at their position by a distorted logic, and by this they destroy their legitimacy. Here’s how:

If it is true, as the post-conciliar advocates try to convince us, that the church has found a “better way” for Catholicism and that the old way was wrong, this means they must also admit the church can err. That is a logical fact that cannot be denied.

But here is the rub: If the church of the past was wrong, then the church of the present can be wrong, too. There cannot be one without the other. If the church can err, it can err at ANY TIME. In other words, in saying that the church of the past needed to be corrected, the post-conciliar church has just cut its own throat, since it opens itself up to being judged as wrong, either now or by the future church. There is no escape from this logic.

Therefore, if those of us on the Traditional side of the fence choose to accuse the modern church of being wrong, there is nothing they can say against us, for they have already opened Pandora’s box by claiming that the Traditional church was wrong. If the Traditional church can be wrong, then the post-conciliar church can be wrong, and we are at a stand-off.

Hence, there are only two positions in the dilemma they have created: (1) both the Traditional church and the post-conciliar church can be wrong, or (2) the Traditional church was right, and any deviation from it is wrong. There are no other possibilities, that is, if one desires to be consistent in his logic.

In short, we must remember that Catholicism is an all-or-nothing game, and it has always been that way. Either the Church is right in every point it claims as truth, or it is wrong on everything. There is no in-between state. That is precisely why the other religions have hated us so much. They abhor the fact that we believe we are the only true religion in the world, and the only one whose doctrines are without error.

As it stands, the post-conciliar church is based on a false foundation, and because of that, it will eventually fall. After that, either Christ will come again, or if He tarries, the Traditional church of old will be built anew on the ashes of today.

It is interesting to notice what the post conciliar movement has done to Anglicanism. Most of the notions you complain about were imported into the Anglican Church in the last 40 years. The Church of England, ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada by and large embraced these notions. While traditional evanglical minded Anglicans were working in Africa and Asia, their home provinces were being eroded out from under them. Now we are faced with the fact that the African and Asian provinces are in the process of expelling ECUSA, Canada and maybe even England.

...she is the same Church now as she was prior to Vatican II.

Au contraire. (A little conciliatory French lingo there to show our brethern from Gaul that I'm not mad at them.)

This American Catholic Church, which our bishops believe is a flexible franchise granted them from the Vatican, has twisted and changed the mass and sacrements into something unrecognizable from what is taking place in other countries.

I believe the Roman Catholic Church has been invaded by disciples of satan who have sold their souls and are the ones who have been wielding the wrecking ball to Christ's Church.

Mortals, being so foolish, don't seem to realize that The Trinity is being angered mightily by what is transpiring here on earth. In mortal due time there will come a reckoning because God only puts up with so much mischief before punishing the miscreants. We, in the Church, are guilty of sitting back while this cauldron boils and bubbles. We've watched the church become inundated with homosexual perverts, the tabernacle being moved into the rectory garage, everybody running up to receive communion in their hand by a lay distributor in an act that has become as mechanical as the moving of one's bowels.

Confession? What is that? Some "catholic" churches don't even schedule regular confession. Extreme Unction? Few understand what that meant in the pre-Vatican II years.

There are, without doubt, a few popes that owe our Lord an accounting as to why they would preside over such sacrilege as has been ongoing for over forty years.

I have great respect for the papacy and have found some things to admire in the current one. However, that being said, the traveling about and the conciliatory moves to pagans and other non-Christians has tried my patience and I can only wonder about what God thinks about Peter's successor watching pagans dancing bare-breasted apparently for his entertainment. You see, it's still true that the only way to God is through the Son!

I don't think you are correct here.

I know they are termed differently in the American Catholic Church. I think it optional in regards to how we can refer to them. The Church to which I belong still calls it confession.

The point I was attempting to make is that the mass is different in every parish. Traveling about the country and the world used to mean that regardless of the nation in which you were attending mass you always knew what prayers were being said as Latin was the language and the ritual was always the same everywhere.

Changing the names of the sacraments is like changing from "Holy Ghost" to Holy Spirit almost as though the word Ghost was scary.

Unfortunately, US, you have misunderstood me to the extent that you are suggesting that I am not a practical, practicing Catholic.

I believe, unequivocally, that I can state that empty-headed secularists (probably not all are satanists) have invaded the Roman Catholic Church and are turning it into a haven for secular agnostics. The homosexuals jumped on board because it was convenient and the very vehicle from which to expand their agenda.

Fortunately their victims ratted on them and, in my opinion, these deviants were never priests in the eyes of God because their true murky agenda was already fixed in their minds.

Changing the names of the sacraments is like changing from "Holy Ghost" to Holy Spirit almost as though the word Ghost was scary.

That's something I've wondered about. If the Latin is spiritu, why isn't spirit equally acceptable? My 1959 Latin Missal translates spiritu as spirit.

"Ghost" is from the German "Geist". "Spirit" is from the Latin "Spiritu". "Spiritu" translated into German is "Geist". The words are identical. Its like quibbling over calling the treelot behind your hosue a "wood" (from the German "wald") or a "forest" (from the French "foret").

Hence in German, "Et cum spiritu tuo" is "Und mit deinem geist".

I fail to understand the complaints of Solange Hertz and Co. about "Ghost" vs. "Spirit". It just doesn't matter.

The Catechism calls "Confession" both "Penance", "Reconciliation" and "Confession". The primary name used is "Sacrament of Penance" as can be seen readily be reading the section on it.

As to "Annointing of the Sick", the new name has been adopted to try to finally kill off the notion long spread abroad that it was only for reception when one is at death's door. "Annointing" however, is the same as "Unction". What is changed is "extremis" to "infirmorum". This is not a "real" change.

Now, this sacred annointing of the sick was instituted by Christ our Lord, as truly and properly a sacrament of the new law, insinuated indeed in Mark, but recommended and promulgated to the faithful by James the Apostle, and brother of the Lord.

Vatican II or Council of Trent???

Council of Trent, Session 14!

The Council of Trent also notes: "It is also declared, that this unction is to be applied to the sick, but to those especially who lie in such danger as to seem to be about to depart this life". The sacrament is for the "sick" ("infirmorum" = "infirm"), but is especially to be given to those about to die. It would be wrong to turn this around and say it is only for those about to die, and not for the sick, which is what it frequently became in practice.

This really is not different from what Vatican II says, that Anointing of the Sick "is not a sacrament for those only who are at the point of death. Hence, as soon as anyone of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age, the fitting time for him to receive this sacrament has certainly already arrived." (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 73)

Really, where's the change? And what are you objecting to?

"If it is true, as the post-conciliar advocates try to convince us, that the church has found a “better way” for Catholicism and that the old way was wrong, this means they must also admit the church can err. That is a logical fact that cannot be denied."

Why stop there...go one further...this means not only that they must admit the church can err, they admit it has erred..and yet continue to insist they are correct right now even though they are building on error.

It is obvious they are in error more from the current infiltration of evil than from the rich heritage of the Saints.

Really, where's the change? And what are you objecting to?

The rite of every single sacrament was changed, and even the names were changed for goodness sake. I'm objecting to the idea that everything is the same although everything is different. The Church does not require us to accept such nonsense. Very often it is just change for change's sake. Why would someone promote such change for its own sake? Because it is all part of the revolutionary dialectical process by which continuous transformation occurs.

Same with the issue of the "Holy Ghost." The translation "Holy Spirit" is not invalid. But why make the change? Why change every single item of the faith? Catholics can't even pray together anymore since there are now so many different versions of even the most basic prayers.

Catholics can't even pray together anymore since there are now so many different versions of even the most basic prayers.

Tell me about it! This is one major reason why I like saying the Rosary by myself (others include people not keeping up the pace with everyone else, I like to take my time, etc.). It also gives me time to meditate on the fruit of each mystery. I use a book of quotes by Saint Francis de Sales that is organized according to the 15 fruits associated with the 15 traditional mysteries of the Rosary (plus other topics such as the Eucharist). Check it out. It's a great resource (and Francis is one of my favorite saints - he is the patron saint of the diocese I grew up in, and the patron saint of the high school I went to).
SERMON IN A SENTENCE, VOL. 2: ST. FRANCIS DE SALES - John P. McClernon, Ed.

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