Mary Magdalene in Penitence
Guercino
Oil on canvas, 121 x 102 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Posted on 12/09/2008 5:52:09 AM PST by TexConfederate1861
“Where there are ghettos - where most everyone is “X” - of course OTHER religious groups are not going to infilitrate as easily.”
Jo, trust me, my home town indeed even my neighborhood was not and is not an Orthodox ghetto. My home town was overwhelmingly French Catholic, with Irish, Polish, Italian and Lithuanians thrown in. Then came the Greeks and the Jews. There were a few, a very few, Protestants. Our parish today is larger than it was when I was a kid, I think, but its no longer majority Greek, though the largest single group is made up of Greeks, then converts, Arabs and then various other Orthodox.
Your ghetto theory simply won’t work at least with my experience.
It's more a reflection of some sectarian Christian deviations. The Orhtodox East was never concerned or infected with such "fine" details and pagan influences in the Christian West. Of course, it all peaked around 14-15th century (like the telling statue), crowned by such exemplary figures of Catholic immorality as the 15th century Pope Alexander VI.
It gives Luther's protestations of Catholic abuses a whole new meaning, doesn't it? And it certainly explains the flavor of the Council of Trent.
Your suggestion that this might be something that the Church always approved is as wrong as saying that the Church approved glass chalices and clown Masses. These are dark moments in the history of the Catholic Church, and not the norm.
No, because the current Catholic Church has nothing to offer us that we could be posibly interested in, that we might need, miss or desire.
and the Ecumenical Patriarch is a knowledgeable man
I doubt the EP would be willing to bend over backwards like he is if he were not a Turkish prisoner who is insulted daily, on the verge of being expelled and his See closed.
The Turkish authorities have already made it clear that the next Patriarch, if there is such a thing, must be not only a Turkish citizen, but an ethnic Turk. The EP is a Turkish citizen by birth, but all previous EPs, inlcuding him, have been ethnic Greeks.
That comment was intended as a question. I left out the question mark and I apologize for for my omission.
Very well, you are forgiven.
Regards
Perhaps it is not so encompassing and universal! It seems to make sense to me.
However, to the point, I don't feel the correct "RITE" is responsible for either the East's perceived superiority of itself or the West's faltering in catechesis and knowledge of the Divine. I think there are a lot of other very powerful forces at work besides the words (and language) said at Mass or whether we bow or kneel, or whether a girl is an altar server or not.
Regards
The Church didn't share your opinion for centuries, especially after Trent. There was one Catholic Church, one Catholic morality, one Catholic language, and one Catholic culture. Anything secular was subjected to the higher ecclesial standards, regardless of culture, ethnicity or language.
You are simply broadcasting what would have been considered heretical in your own Church no more than 50 years ago.
Thus, there was no violation of the infallible Tridentine Council
With the exception of Galician and its derivative Mozarabic Rites (for reasons unknown to me), the Council of Trent made the TLM the only Rite in the Latin Church and prohibited any other, and any changes to or replacement of the same. It did not authorize creation of new Rites or new Missals, or new prayers, etc.
A rite that is "people-centric" emphasizes the Community of God
And a God-centered rite emphases God. Now, if we have to choose between the Community of God and God, which are we going to choose here...tough decision, right?/s/ Your statement tells me where the priorities of your reformed Catholic Church are.
Perhaps you are unaware of the repercussions of the Age of Enlightenment in the West?
We don't live in that age any more, jo. Constantly pointing fingers and making excuses for the past mistakes is not a way to fix anything. This goes along with the whole "victim" mentality that began to floursih in the 1960's and has been an excuse for doing nothing to fix things ever since. Nothing stops the Catholics from embracing orthodoxy if they so desired.
No one forced post the WWII Jews to revive their dead Hebrew language that has not been spoken for more than 2,500 years. They did it because they wanted to. They had plenty of excuses not to.
ALL Churches are "subject" to society since the Church must be made practical in the lives of those OF society. If the Church is seen as unnecessary in the lives of society, it will quickly die
Which Mass you celebrate is not a matter of practicality. You are creating a straw man. The Church causes very little disturbance, if any, in our daily live.
Nothing of infallible nature changed with Vatican 2. The opening statements of Vatican 2 by John 23 stated that it was a pastoral council - you do realize what the intent of a pastoral council is?
Yeah, it means "moving around sheep." History shows that when Pope Pius XII died in 1958, the Church was happy. The Mass attendance was good, the people had no difficulties finding room for, and obeying the teachings of the Church. No particular or specific "pastoral" problems existed. Five years later, pastoral issues were at the forefront! Something is wrong with this picture.
And for a Council that has no infallible dogma proclaimed, no anathemas, it has accomplished what no other Council did: it scrapped the whole Latin Catholic liturgical tradition and the life of Church as it was known, and decreed by various infallible Councils for centuries, and turned it into "anything goes" church which seems to be in some kind of perpetual "reform."
If we accept her Bible as pure and infallible selection of the infallible Church, then her faith had to be pure and infallible too, and was expressed in her prayers (liturgy) which remains unchanged in our Church. We have no other standard.
Frankly, I don't really care what your Church or other so-called "churches" believe nowadays. That is between you and your God. The only thing that smacks of superiority is for the Catholic Church to hope for and indeed ask for us to re-unite with something that is, frankly, in many instances unreocngiznable as a Church.
The only “sectarian deviation” here is vaguely Jansenist fear of nudity, and Jansenism was condemned by the Church as a calvinistic heresy.
Could you please be more specific, rather than just telling me something without evidence? Quo Primum, the reform of the Missal that followed Trent, often cited by Catholic Traditionalists, has within it own pages the allowance for other Missals and rites. The simple fact is that "catholic" means universal - and so many rites are acceptable if they fall within accepted norms.
Yes, it is true that secular thought is subject to the Church. However, the Church does not ignore the world, either. To make the Gospel clear to the WORLD, it must speak the Gospel in the langauge of the world. In other words, symbols are subject to change.
With the exception of Galician and its derivative Mozarabic Rites (for reasons unknown to me), the Council of Trent made the TLM the only Rite in the Latin Church and prohibited any other, and any changes to or replacement of the same. It did not authorize creation of new Rites or new Missals, or new prayers, etc.
The exceptions are enough to the thinking man to state that the TLM is not the only rite acceptable to Rome. The intent of Quo Primum was to prevent new ones from springing up at a priest or bishop's whim.
And a God-centered rite emphases God. Now, if we have to choose between the Community of God and God...
Perhaps you have forgotten the teaching of the Mystical Body of Christ? Christ HIMSELF dwells within the Church, the People of God, as does His Spirit. Now, unless you intend on dividing the Blessed Trinity into parts, (and it wouldn't be surprising, given the subordinationist tendencies of the East and Origen) your complaint has no warrant. We understand both aspects of Divine Liturgy and it is not necessary to place one over the other.
We don't live in that age any more, jo.
LOL! We live within the context of the outcome of that Age. Faith vs. reason STILL remain part and parcel a major issue between Modernists and Catholics. Modernism is the result of the Enlightenment. I am not making "excuses", that is just a fact of life of the tensions in society.
History shows that when Pope Pius XII died in 1958, the Church was happy.
"History"??? According to you? Please. If the Catholic Church was so "happy", then why, in less than 10 years, did the Church become so utterly "unhappy"? The problems were already deep-rooted. The Church already WAS unhappy and NEEDED reform. Desperately. It is my contention that God inspired men to bring about Vatican 2, inspired theologians to provide furtile grounds for subject matter on such things as "what is the Church" and "how can we make the Church more pertinent in the lives of the people of the world?" The Spirit of God doesn't need to reform a "happy" church. I think you are reading too much Traditionalist propaganda. You know, the type that claims the problems of the world can be blamed on the NO Mass?
The Mass attendance was good, the people had no difficulties finding room for, and obeying the teachings of the Church...
Perhaps you are also unaware of the distrust of authority in the US during this time frame? Perhaps you are unaware of the sexual revolution in the US during this time frame? Perhaps unaware of other social revolutionary action going on with women and blacks???
People try to set up a false coorelation between the vernacular language Mass and the falling away of attendance, etc. It is a pitiful correlation that doesn't take into account the MUCH STRONGER forces rocking the culture that the Church existed within. Society ITSELF was changing. If the Church did not have a Vatican 2, we'd be worse off than before. Honestly, people were leaving Church for many other reasons than moving to English!
No particular or specific "pastoral" problems existed.
Wrong. NO Council is brought together without reason! The Church sensed there were serious problems, and the rapidity in the falling of the dominoes made it clear that the problems existed, albeit hidden to your eyes. Sure, attendance was higher in 1958 than 1968 - but is counting pew warmers a true testimony to the strength of the love of disciples of God? Blank and mindless prayers said because "that's the way it was done in 1259"? People praying rosaries because they don't understand the Mass is not indicative of pariticipating in the Divine Liturgy. Reciting the Baltimore Catechism without being able to EXPLAIN anything? Pitiful knowledge of Scriptures? Please. The Church was in dire trouble. It is sad that many people will not admit it.
And for a Council that has no infallible dogma proclaimed, no anathemas, it has accomplished what no other Council did: it scrapped the whole Latin Catholic liturgical tradition and the life of Church as it was known...
More mindless babble. Please cite the actual documents themselves that state ANYTHING being scrapped.
Any Church that is not in reform is not worthy of being called Church, since we ALL are in need of reforming to Christ in humility. Not even the EO are "there" yet, as "pure" as you think it is...
Regards
LOL!!! The attitude is clearly there in every one of your posts.
We know we have the faith of the Church that canonized the Bible because we still pray and teach how she prayed and taught when she did.
The East canonized the bible??? So when was the Book of Revelation, part of the Western Canon, accepted as the Word of God and preached during the Divine Liturgy in the East??? Which Eastern Counciliar definition has provided us an infallible list of the Table of Contents of Scriptures??? And IF they believe this is the Word of God, why is NOT the entire Word of God proclaimed?
Secondly, you don't LITERALLY pray the same way that was prayed and taught by the earliest Church, since there were no Bascilicas the first 300 years of Christianity. EVERY rite that followed was an "innovation" from 300 years of celebrating the "Breaking of the Bread". Your arguments fall as hollow as those who cried about continuing to conform to the "rites" of 150 AD... Clearly, you are being anachronistic and conveniently ignore the fact that the East ALSO utilizes a rite that is not original with Christianity's roots.
If we accept her Bible as pure and infallible selection of the infallible Church, then her faith had to be pure and infallible too, and was expressed in her prayers (liturgy) which remains unchanged in our Church. We have no other standard.
The Apostle's Creed is not the exact same Creed as the Nicean Creed. The very FACT of a Council's existence proves your logic faulty. The Church grows in her understanding of herself. This includes how she prays to God in public worship. Why would that be different, while Councils convene to discuss what we believe intellectually?
Frankly, I don't really care what your Church or other so-called "churches" believe nowadays.
Yes, that is why you must post about the Catholic Church over and over again. You don't care...
The only thing that smacks of superiority is for the Catholic Church to hope for and indeed ask for us to re-unite with something that is, frankly, in many instances unreocngiznable as a Church.
Your definition of "church" and what makes a "church" is Pharisaical... "Unless I wash bowls in a precise way, unless I bow to the East three times at sunrise, unless I wear a red fez on my head, etc..., I am not a true follower of God". "Pure" Christianity does things "this" way, and unless people conform to that, they aren't "pure". Baloney. Religious pride. That's all it is.
Asking for looking into the possibility of reunion is not a move of "superiority". Not sure I follow that logic...
As I said before from the very beginning, there will be no reunion as long as the Eastern laity continues their prejudicial and myopic attitude, which fails to take into account that people can worship the One True God in ways other than Eastern ways. Even IF enlightened Eastern bishops were AGAIN able to see that Western theology was not contradictory to Eastern, it would be declared null and void by the millions of "theological experts" throughout Russia and Serbia and so forth. :]
Regards
Exactly. Good post, Jo. I would particularly stress the "what is the Church" part. The much maligned by the extreme traditionalists "subsistet in" language is what created the possibility of reunification with the East.
I seeeeee. Well, thank you for this piece of information. I will refer to your authority next time the subject comes up, such as the recent Playboy front page of a naked Madonna. Only the Calvinists will be outraged.
"The fruits of the Spirit are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory. The tradition of the Church lists twelve of them: 'charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity.'" [Gal 5:22-23, C.C.C. # 1832)
"Baptism confers on its recipient the grace of purification from all sins. But the baptized must continue to struggle against concupiscence of the flesh and disordered desires. With God's grace he will prevail." (C.C.C. # 2520)
"Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love. It encourages moderation in loving relationships;... Modesty is decency. It inspires one's choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet." (C.C.C. # 2522)
"There is a modesty of the feelings as well as of the body. It protests, for example, against the voyeuristic explorations of the human body ... Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies." (C.C.C. # 2523)
"The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another. Everywhere, however, modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man. " (C.C.C. # 2524)
Your own Church disagrees with you.
Indeed God doesn't want us nude. It doesn;t get much more basic than that. FWIW, "And the Lord God made garments of skin for the man and for his wife, and clothed them." [Gen. 3:21]
Most of the nudity in "sacred" art is aprt of the Rennaisance's 1tth and 16th century abominations that inspired Luther's protest, The same "glorious"peirod of the Ctahoic Church that produced Pope Alexander VI and sale of indulgenses.
Obviously God must be a Calvinist! To claim nudity is allowed in the Catholic Church only testifies to the degree to which the Catholic culture has become pagan and unrecognizable, and how much the laity are disassociated form the Church foundations.
Thank you Alex. I have heard and seen enough. Thank God we will never be united under these conditions. I am certain of that more than ever. Only when the Catholic Church gets rid of its Golden Calves.
Amen. “Better the turban of the Sultan, than the tiara of the Pope”.........
First you cite no sources, just some opinions of yours. You claim the Church would have been much worse off without the Vatican II. Prove it! Sounds like you have a crystal ball.
And guess what: despite all the pagan and abominal changes allowed to happen under the last Pope, the number of people who stopped coming to the the Church didn't stop, but increased!
How could the Church be better off with the Vatican II as you seem to suggest then without it if the shortage of priests and nuns continues and the parishes continue to close?
Shooting from the hip, jo.
The Church sensed there were serious problems, and the rapidity in the falling of the dominoes made it clear that the problems existed, albeit hidden to your eyes. Sure, attendance was higher in 1958 than 1968 - but is counting pew warmers a true testimony to the strength of the love of disciples of God? Blank and mindless prayers said because "that's the way it was done in 1259"? People praying rosaries because they don't understand the Mass is not indicative of participating in the Divine Liturgy
Where are you getting this from? What dominoes were falling? Your statistics are wrong. You are making things up, or someone is lying to you.
Based on the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA)
| U.S. Data | 1965 | 1975 | 1985 | 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2008 |
| Total priests | 58,632 | 58,909 | 57,317 | 49,054 | 45,699 | 42,839 | 40,580 |
there was no significant drop in the number of priests between 1965 and 1985. The change is drastic between 1985 and 1995 and the from 1995 to 2005 given that the American Catholic population (numbers wise) has increase by over 20 million (although percent wise it hasn't changed at all), mirroring the world Catholic population of approximately 17%.
Likewise, according to the same source
| World Data | 1970 | 1975 | 1980 | 1985 | 1990 | 1995 | 2000 | 2005 |
| Total priests |
419,728
|
404,783
|
413,600
|
403,480
|
403,173
|
404,750
|
405,178
|
406,411 |
The number of priests in the world did not experience a statistically significant change from 1985 to 2005 as is evident in the U.S. Clearly the phenomenon is a strictly an American issue. Americans have problems with the Catholic Church because they like trendiness and hate authority.
I don't see anyone falling away. The percent of Catholics in the world remains stable. Catholicism is neither growing nor expanding despite Vatican II culture and willingness to accommodate various subcultures and languages.
Moreover, it is clear that the number of Catholic attending the Church at least once a year started to seriously drop after the end of the Vatican II and ever since.
So, in short, you are telling me fairytales that are removed form historical and social and political and geographial relaities.
Well, that's funny coming from someone who never posts any evidence.
The Church had one language and one catechism and one morality. I know that this is difficult to image for a NO Catholic who is probably a post-Vatican II member, but that's how it was.
The pre-Vatican II Church was not multi cultural. It was catholic because it transcended all human cultures and races and languages.
You can take my word for it, or you can do the research yourself.
To make the Gospel clear to the WORLD, it must speak the Gospel in the language of the world. In other words, symbols are subject to change
You are only helping my case, jo, as I fear the majority of Catholics think like you do, or at least that's my impression.
The Gospels were taught in native tongues but not in the liturgy. Pre-Vatican II Catholics learned the Latin of the Holy Mass in their lifetime in Church. And that was the same language in Japan as it was in South Africa and America. Even the hymns. Polish hymns came later along with the NO changes.
I wouldn't expect that answer form a learned Catholic like you. The exceptions were made because they were a) older and b) because the words of consecration were changed to those of the Roman Rite.
Well, Vatican-II sure took care of that "problem" didn't it!?!
Perhaps you have forgotten the teaching of the Mystical Body of Christ? Christ HIMSELF dwells within the Church, the People of God, as does His Spirit.
I think you are taking the Greek words for "to dwell" or "live in" a little too literally. It really means more like "taking possession of" or "influencing" the way it is use din the New Testament when it comes to spirits; not literally.
Now, unless you intend on dividing the Blessed Trinity into parts, (and it wouldn't be surprising, given the subordinationist tendencies of the East and Origen) your complaint has no warrant
We are a Church of the Seven Councils, jo, and we do not subscribe to suboridnationalist tendencies, various individual theologians and Ecumenical Patriarchs notwithstanding.
Kolo, do you know if we, as a Church, have ever subscribed to such Christological heresies? That's news to me. I do know that Pope Honorius I tolerated Christological heresy in Constantinople and was condemned as a heretic for that, but the Cathoic Church back tracked on that condemnation and exhonorated Honorius (no pun intended) so they could promote Vatican I papal infallibility myth.
Besides,Origen was condemned for his Gnostic teaching of the pre-existence of souls, as far as I remember and not on Cristoogical heresies.
I think you are just shooting form the hip, jo.
In 1958? I don't think so. The real stuff started with the John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, followed by the Martin Luther King's assassination five years later, and then Ted Kennedy's assassination, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, and the radicalization of the America's blacks as a result of Martin Luther's death. This is way past the Vatican II and has nothing whatsoever to do with the Catholic Church! The women's movement and bra-burning protests didn't happen until the early 1970's, along with the Watergate scandal and the "love" culture that took over in that decade following our demise in Vietnam.
There was no culture of change in the US in the 1960's until the very end of the decade and even then that change was baby food compared what was to come; the best proof of the fact that America was not radically changed is the fact that Nixon won solidly the first time and by a landslide the second time. I remember those days very well, but you must have been reading or heard about it from some haggy old flower child, or else you wouldn't be spouting such revisionist nonsense.
LOL! You have no idea what you are talking about! The change didn't come from the US, but from the Vatican. Europe was experiencing none of the issues you mention above with blacks and women and an unpopular war (which really didn't become unpopular until the 1968 Tet Offensive when we were losing 500 service members a week and the number of dead reached nearly 50,000, and that was way past the Vatican II!).
Those were American issues. Europe was experiencing unprecedented economic prosperity, political and social stability and peace.
The only places where there was any serious problem was the Middle East following the 1967 Israel Seven Day Blitz and Vietnam. Europe was solidly against the war in Vietnam so this did not cause any domestic problems there. I have no clue what problem and desperately needed reforms you are talking about. I really don't.
The Church had a few whacky liberal theologians, but other than that no one was clammoring for any kind of monumental change that happened in the Vatican. I have a feeling there was more behind-the-curtains stuff going on then what the public knows. And I am not sure it was all for the good of the Church. It looks like it was more to put en end to the Catholic Church and make it just one of the many "true" religious organizations.
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