Posted on 12/09/2008 5:52:09 AM PST by TexConfederate1861
“None of them had an evil intention”
You are kidding, right?
What about the Borgia Popes, or the Medici Popes?
These were about the most unrepentant reprobates to ever sit on the Throne of Peter!
Definitely. A Patriarch is more than just the first guy in the que. Noting happens without him. No one can bypass him. But he cannot bypass his brethren either.
It also seems to imply the denial of a specific Petrine office distinct from the office of patriarch
Sure. That's what the ongoing dialogue is all about. Most Orthodox hierarchs do not accept the Biblical distinction. Rather, they appeal to the Councils which expressly state that the Roman episcopal primacy is related to the imperial dignity of (elder) Rome.
Again, this is not to be taken lightly. It means that the Bishop of Rome is not your ordinary bishop. It's just that Peter is not a lord or ruler over other Apostles.
>> I have seen priests holding cookies instead of hosts. <<
I call BS. Given the way images of liturgical abuses get traded around like baseball cards, there’s no way on Earth that wouldn’t become instant legend.
I could imagine there’s a picture of a priest holding a cookie. Who doesn’t eat cookies. I could imagine there’s even one being held as if it were a host: sometimes a priest might demonstrate deliberately with something that couldn’t possible be confused with the real thing, no matter how ignorant Americans are. But I call BS on the claim that a cookie was ever used in a mass.
>> I have seen Catholic videos which call it a chip. <<
That’s quite a backpedal, going from “potato chip” to “chip.” “Chip” is describing its physical properties, noting that it need not be whole. “Potato chip” specifically makes an explicit denotation of a thoroughly profane substance (using profane in the classic sense), with connotations of slovenliness, gluttony, etc.
And that video is beneath contempt, mixing actual outrages which wild, unfounded assertions. If that’s where you are getting your information, forget it.
We are not worried about the Church failing, we are worried about being taken on a journey a la another Vatican II that may take a centuries to heal, if ever. I would not want to put my Church in the hands of one man. Some guarantees must precede any reunion.
You also exaggerate the negative role of the past popes. None of them had an evil intention; most abuse occurred by the faithless clergy against the backdrop of rising neo-paganism
No, I am sure they didn't but I don't believe the outcome of the Vatican II was an undesired accident, or else they were deceived. The Vatican II obviously has "holes" that allows a wide range of interpretation. Was that deliberate or accidental?
Bishop Mahoney in LA, for example is still a bishop there because he is not doing anything that is uncanonical. Otherwise I am sure he could be removed. This means the "holes" are big enough to accommodate practices seen in his church, which is just about "anything goes." Right?
Obviously the popes were not interested in annulling the Vatican II. Somehow, everyone claims the Vatican II was (a) necessary and (b) good for the Church and (c) no one wants to to go back to the old "bad" ways, but judging from the reform of the liturgical reform it is beginning to look more and more like the old ways.
Behold second picture from above.
From the same source you reference approvingly:
John Paul II preached Antichrist: that every man is God 1of9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls-X5BEKTSw&feature=related
This video starts with images of inverted crucifices in context of the Pope, suggesting that the Pope is the anti-Christ. Of course, I presume you know that inverted cross is a symbol of St. Peter.
Review the Catholic links I postedhere
It identified the "host" as a "Dorito chip." Again, the source is Catholic.
You will just have to work that out with your Catholic brothers.
“Perhaps this could be spelled out more completely. To the Western ear Primus inter pares gives the impression of nothing more than precedence in protocol, somewhat like how the Archbishop of Baltimore would be treated among the American bishops. It also seems to imply the denial of a specific Petrine office distinct from the office of patriarch.”
Oh, its far more than that, P. The influence which the primate holds is extraordinary. In an ecclesiastical synodal system, it is argued, the primus must have sufficient power and authority to make that primacy meanigful, make it something beyond who gets served first at a church supper! Our hierarchs and yours have been discussing this very issue at Belgrade and Ravenna over the past couple of years. Here is a discussion of this point by Met. John Of Pergamum who is one of the leading Orthodox theologians today and a member of the Holy Synod at Constantinople.
http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=9204
I understand your outrage, but you have not offered a single argument to the contrary. They quote from documents and show evidence to back up their claims. They specify which prayers have been removed. All you do is offer outrage!
You are just going to have to do more than just say "forget it" if you want to be credible. I repeat: that source is Catholic.
>> They quote from documents and show evidence to back up their claims. <<
No, they bait and switch, showing one thing as if it were another. The film claims that there are nude masses, and show young girls wearing full clothing except (gasp!) bare arms. And I did see that the film claims that they used cookies in mass, but what the priest is holding up is a loaf of leavened, pita bread. Illicit in the West, of course, but hardly anthing that should horrify an Eastern Christian.
And that source is NOT Catholic. The same writer calls Pope John II the anti-Christ.
Let's see..
Here are some excerpts
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html
General norms
22. 1. Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the bishop.
2. In virtue of power conceded by the law, the regulation of the liturgy within certain defined limits belongs also to various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops legitimately established.
3.Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.
In some places and circumstances, however, an even more radical adaptation of the liturgy is needed, and this entails greater difficulties. Wherefore:
1) The competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, must, in this matter, carefully and prudently consider which elements from the traditions and culture of individual peoples might appropriately be admitted into divine worship. Adaptations which are judged to be useful or necessary should when be submitted to the Apostolic See, by whose consent they may be introduced.
2) To ensure that adaptations may be made with all the circumspection which they demand, the Apostolic See will grant power to this same territorial ecclesiastical authority to permit and to direct, as the case requires, the necessary preliminary experiments over a determined period of time among certain groups suited for the purpose.
3) Because liturgical laws often involve special difficulties with respect to adaptation, particularly in mission lands, men who are experts in these matters must be employed to formulate them.
On Music
“”114. The treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care. Choirs must be diligently promoted, especially in cathedral churches; but bishops and other pastors of souls must be at pains to ensure that, whenever the sacred action is to be celebrated with song, the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that active participation which is rightly theirs, as laid down in Art. 28 and 30.””
On New Churches..
“”And when churches are to be built, let great care be taken that they be suitable for the celebration of liturgical services and for the active participation of the faithful.””
On Art
125. The practice of placing sacred images in churches so that they may be venerated by the faithful is to be maintained. Nevertheless their number should be moderate and their relative positions should reflect right order. For otherwise they may create confusion among the Christian people and foster devotion of doubtful orthodoxy.
It seems the only loopholes were created by the holes in the heads of those who ignored what Vatican II actually said
I do believe Pope Benedict XVI is serious about fixing things.
Here is some excerpts from him over the years...
“[W]e have a liturgy which has degenerated so that it has become a show which, with momentary success for the group of liturgical fabricators, strives to render religion interesting in the wake of the frivolities of fashion and seductive moral maxims. Consequently, the trend is the increasingly marked retreat of those who do not look to the liturgy for a spiritual show-master but for the encounter with the living God in whose presence all the ‘doing’ becomes insignificant since only this encounter is able to guarantee us access to the true richness of being.”Cardinal Ratzinger 1992
Comments on turning around alters
“I would say that, in a certain way, the priest has become too important,” he said. “Those attending Mass must always be looking at him. In reality, he is not nearly that important.” Cardinal Ratzinger 1993
From Spirit of the Liturgy (Ratzinger, 2000)
“For fostering a true consciousness in liturgical matters, it is also important that the proscription against the form of liturgy in valid use up to 1970 should be lifted. Anyone who nowadays advocates the continuing existence of this liturgy or takes part in it is treated like a leper; all tolerance ends here. There has never been anything like this in history; in doing this we are despising and proscribing the Church's whole past. How can one trust her at present if things are that way?” 2000
The two reasons which are most often heard, are: lack of obedience to the Council which wanted the liturgical books reformed, and the break in unity which must necessarily follow if different liturgical forms are left in use. It is relatively simple to refute these two arguments on the theoretical level. The Council did not itself reform the liturgical books, but it ordered their revision, and to this end, it established certain fundamental rules. Before anything else, the Council gave a definition of what liturgy is, and this definition gives a valuable yardstick for every liturgical celebration. Were one to shun these essential rules and put to one side the normae generales which one finds in numbers 34-36 of the Constitution De Sacra Liturgia (SL), in that case one would indeed be guilty of disobedience to the Council! It is in the light of these criteria that liturgical celebrations must be evaluated, whether they be according to the old books or the new. It is good to recall here what Cardinal Newman observed, that the Church, throughout her history, has never abolished nor forbidden orthodox liturgical forms, which would be quite alien to the Spirit of the Church. An orthodox liturgy, that is to say, one which express the true faith, is never a compilation made according to the pragmatic criteria of different ceremonies, handled in a positivist and arbitrary way, one way today and another way tomorrow. The orthodox forms of a rite are living realities, born out of the dialogue of love between the Church and her Lord. They are expressions of the life of the Church, in which are distilled the faith, the prayer and the very life of whole generations, and which make incarnate in specific forms both the action of God and the response of man. Such rites can die, if those who have used them in a particular era should disappear, or if the life-situation of those same people should change. The authority of the Church has the power to define and limit the use of such rites in different historical situations, but she never just purely and simply forbids them! Thus the Council ordered a reform of the liturgical books, but it did not prohibit the former books. The criterion which the Council established is both much larger and more demanding; it invites us all to self-criticism! -Cardinal Ratzinger 1998
You have mail. There were nude dancers at Mass. I will not post absolute abomination, which did take place in your Church.
And I did see that the film claims that they used cookies in mass, but what the priest is holding up is a loaf of leavened, pita bread. Illicit in the West, of course, but hardly anything that should horrify an Eastern Christian
I am not sure it is a pita bread, either. Who knows. It's not ordinary flower. What difference does it make as far as your Rite is concerned if it is a pita or a cookie? It's illicit as you said, but you also said that no one ever used a cookie in a Mass. Well, you are wrong.
And that source is NOT Catholic. The same writer calls Pope John II the anti-Christ
Oh? They think they are Catholic and you are not. Nevertheless, it's a domestic dispute. I am just reporting what the other side has to say about your NO Mass and the Vatican II.
You will have to resolve that with you your brothers on the other side of the divide. A least they are not sheep who just follow and take whatever is dished out to them.
Let me just say that I think many of you can only wish to have a 1,700 year old unbroken liturgical tradition and the faith of the Church that canonized the Bible because then none of your circus I have been showing you (and there are much worse examples that I will never show) would have never allowed it, and your sheepish laity would have never followed.
Religious pride is indeed a dangerous thing...
Sorry that I have offended you. I hope you can find it in your heart to forive me - although you seem to enjoy rubbing our faces in the fact that there have been liturgical abuses in the West. I can assure you I had nothing to do with that, so why must you keep showing us that?
Regards
The context here is the liturgy abuses of late 20c. in the wake of Vatican II. Yes, we also had bad popes, but they left no teachings.
For the future development of dialogue on this issue, it is of crucial importance that the Orthodox accept that primacy is part of the essence of the Church and not a matter of organization. They must also accept that there must be a Primacy on a universal level. This is difficult at the moment, but it would become easier if we thought more deeply about the nature of the Church. The Church cannot be local without being universal and cannot be universal if is not local.If this be true, without prejudicing the final clarification of the nature of this primacy, then there must be the desire among the Orthodox to restore what is of the nature of the Church. Unfortunately, from what I find here on the internet, I get the strong impression from the Orthodox that they have no need or desire for this universal primacy.
What I am positing is what has gone on, even in my own parish, with Copts and Armenians. What we see there in intercommunion is purely based in religion.
You don't share any cultural affinity with Copts or Armenians? I am not sure I follow - please forgive my ignorance on this matter.
Jo, all niceties aside, with the exception of some Lutherans and some C.S. Lewis style Anglicans, Protestantism is heresy. The fruit of the weed of heresy is always the same. All we have to do is look around to see it.
LOL! I am not arguing that. I deal with them daily, my friend. I am aware of our differences on key matters. The point I was making is that they DO stand by US (you as well) on a number of cultural and political issues, such as abortion, religious freedom, rights for the poor and down-trodden, immigrants, etc. We had a "40 day" thing in town recently to protest against "Roe v Wade". Some Protestants joined us as we, together, stood outside a "Planned Parent" location with billboards and offered prayers together.
I have found that when you work together and share a common goal, sometimes the other theological stuff takes a more secondary role. I'm thinking that Christ will judge us on whether we fed the poor and clothed the naked. Not that heresy is unimportant. But culturally speaking, in Evangelizing to the pagan Americans, we Christians should provide a more united front - American secularism is united, so to most effectively counter it, we must unite at some place. Though we differ, we share some common goals, primarily to bring Christ to people. One takes on a different attitude towards these "heretics" when you actually work with them and see they love God as well...
It is easy to hate or fear what we do not know or are familiar with.
The problem is that The Western Church failed to curb Modernism and the East has a somewhat inflated concept of the power of Rome.
Yes, failed. That is fair. While it may appear, when looking at the development of the Papacy, that the Church is more centralized, in reality, the Pope has very little real power outside of Rome. Look at our Liturgy! Ask Kosta for the pictures! IF Rome was so "in control" and Catholicism was so centralized, the Pope would command this crap to stop. But the mindset is different here. However, we view our church a little differently than a corporation. It's more like a family. It's time for "Dad" to get the belt, I think, though!
Your allies in the culture wars!
Yes...Like the Saxons for Napoleon. Or the Italians for the Germans and Hitler... But we go with what God has given us.
The canons and the Fathers aren’t. You see, here’s an example of what we find objectionable in the Western Church. You are flexible about something which is nearly as disgraceful, liturgically, to us (and would have been to you 50 years ago) as the clown masses and vestal virgins are. Can you imagine what the reaction to Eucharettes would be in an Orthodox temple?
Oh, you misunderstand me. I am flexible on what HAS BEEN allowed before. There were no clown masses or vestal virgins or dancing girls at mass before. There APPEARS to have been females delivering the Eucharist. I think that is unfair to categorize them in the same way. The former is an abomination, the later is a legitimate development that is not theologicaly unacceptable.
Please remember that the Liturgy is one of those things that expresses our differences in culture. We should be allowed to correct ABUSES, things that Vatican 2 NEVER allowed in the first place. You do realize that Vatican 2 did not do away with Latin or statues. Some INTERPRETED Vatican 2 incorrectly and ransacked our lovely Churches. What is sad is that the Traditionalists of the time did pretty much nothing but stand by helplessly. Now they complain.
Anyway, we are flexible in what is allowed - not flexible in everyone's personal opinion. For example, I would like to see the priest have the OPTION of turning to the people (as the NO) OR turning towards the tabernacle during the Eucharistic prayer. BOTH have legitimate symbolic meanings, since the Eucharist is a sacrifice offered to the Father AND it is the Paschal Banquet which we ALL share in. This is what I am talking about when I say being flexible. The rubics themselves are opporunities to teadch the faithful. Some variance in rubics, accepted by Rome, to me is tolerable. Not dancing women during the Eucharist. WHO IN GOD'S NAME is going to get the idea that the Eucharist is SACRED seeing such crap?
Lex orendi, lex credendi...
Regards
To wit: "Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the bishop."
Obviously, as painful as it may seem to some, Pope John Paul II allowed the abuses (including nude dancers in the church) to go unpunished. This all happened with his knowledge and often before his very eyes.
This a gaping loophole. There is nothing specific about what "special" means, what "adaptation" limits are. Leaving it up to experts means leaving it up to men. You open a Pandora's Box of endless "exemptions" handled by various "experts" with predictable results.
This kind of mumbo-jumbo Church, along with the abuses it brings, was the very reason the Council of Trent met: to establish one Mass of the Roman Rite for all Roman Rite Churches across the globe. That means the same Mass in the Philippines, the US, Brazil, or Rome, and the same language understood by all Catholics.
That means you could understand the Mass, burials and baptisms all over the world. Truly Catholic in the very meaning of the word.
To say that different parts of the world and different cultures require different Mass is ridiculous. Being Latin Catholic is no more incompatible for Papua natives that it was for pagan Romans. If a culture for some reason is not suitable for Latin Mass, that's why there are other Rites.
When you start accommodating every Tom, Dick and Harry with "special" taste for Mass, you get what you guys have, an Anglican-like "anything goes" mishmash communion of various groups that go from traditional to unrecognizable, with every Tom, Dick and Harry, making his own "mass" in his parish.
If I were Catholic, I would give the Vatican II a big "F" for failure. Not only is it a failure, but an outright disaster which has next to zero chance of being fixed anytime soon, if ever. Citing that the intentions were good does not make it any less of a failure. The plan was not carried out properly whether for lack of resolve to control it or whether out of sheer incomptenance of the hierarchs who bit more than they could chew. Or, possibly, even for sinister reasons.
I have yet to get a clear and concise justifiable answer what urgent matter brought Vatican II to convene, and why. Was the Church broken? If not, why fix it?
Statistics show that nearly 50% of Catholics attended Mass every Sunday before Vatican II. Today it less than one half of that. The number of nuns has dropped tremendously, the number of priests has nearly halved while the Catholic population nearly doubled since 1963. The Church has been stained with abominations of unbelievable kind, yet it is unwilling to admit that the whole Vatican II experiment was a colossal mistake.
Unfortunately, after 44 years of this failed experiment, the Church cannot go back to her pre-Vatican II life but must create an amalgam of the old and the new in hopes of recouping some of the lost credibility and face, if not sanctity.
Can you, given the above, blame the East for being reluctant to embrace Rome's calls for reunion which still lack any concrete conditions and offers, and guarantees.
Again, I agree that the Orthodox Church should become comfortable with the Latins’ ability to heal and straighten themselves and that the comfort level today is low. When you talk of guarantees, that is a legal term. The Latin bishops in Florence thought they had guarantees, too, when the Easter bishops signed the papers. Obviously, a reunion is impossible without a council or a series of councils producing definitive binding documents, but your real concern should be with the internal disposition of the Latin Church, and I share that concern.
Vatican II is a complex phenomenon. If you study it from caricatures that some who disagree with it make it out to be, you are making the same mistake as when some Orthodox listen to Protestant caricatures of anything Catholic. Serious study takes time. It is a flawed council in that it produced several vague documents — most likely, deliberately vague — which can be read as if to justify modernism. But in its defense:
1. It is a pastoral council: it did not define any dogmas. It had to be convened to respond to the changes in the sociopolitical realities post WWII.
2. The resurgence of informed traditionally minded laity, — such as your Catholic friends here at FR, — is also a fruit of Vatican II. It had an effect of shaking up the Church and not all that came out of it was negative.
3. The abuses, theological and liturgical, took the wrong cue from the Vatican II, but the Vatican II itself is at worst vague, but never encouraged any abuse.
What happened, in short, was that there was a modernizing itch in the Church and Vatican II gave an excuse for these people to scratch the itch. At this point, the momentum is with the orthodoxy, not with the modernizers. The horrific social consequences of the 60’s are now plain to see, and alongside them we see liberal theologies crash and burn, or go Episcopalian. The traditionalist — yet loyal to Rome — wing of the Latin Church won. What remains is the mop-up operation: waiting for certain bishops to retire, certain orders to lose membership, etc. Vatican II will be remembered as the council which transformed the Catholic Church from a collection of ethno-cultural Churches that Western Catholicism was following the Reformation, into a smaller but more vibrant Church of people who chose to be Catholic and want to remain Catholic, because they understand and like Catholicism. The era of abuses is largely over. The patient is still weak, but conscious, and asked for chicken soup. Give us time.
repsonding to a sly remark is religious pride? Why? Because truth hurts? I have nothing to do with your painful truth. I merely showed some exmaples and only when challenged with denials and more rleigious pride.
Sorry that I have offended you. I hope you can find it in your heart to forive me - although you seem to enjoy rubbing our faces in the fact that there have been liturgical abuses in the West. I can assure you I had nothing to do with that, so why must you keep showing us that?
I don't hold grudges. I hope and wish my Cathoic brothers all the best in patching up their House. I take no joy at being forced with denials and religious pride to post facts about what was done to your Church and the fact that the vast majority of your laity simply went along using the lame excuse "we didn't know it was wrong."
All of the pre Vatican II generation knew it was wrong, they just went along like sheep, because in your Church you can't challenege clergy. I am sorry, that makes us two very different, and muutually incmpatible Churches. The post-Vatican II generation doesn't know what is right and what is wrong because they were raised in an "anything goes" church.
I can assure you I had nothing to do with that, so why must you keep showing us that?
I believe you. What are you doing about it now?
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