"I Would Not Want To See People Turn Their Backs On Vatican II" ~ Bishop Paul Zipfel, Bismarck, ND
Who says a whole new religion wasn't started?
In interesting article from the Bismark Tribune. It turns out that the local Ordinary there doesn't want the Faithful to "turn their backs on V2". Gosh... wasn't there a Catholic Church before 1962? I could have sworn there was.
Going one step further... I've read the V2 documents. I don't recall reading anywhere The Council stating that everything prior to is to be considered null and void. In fact, there's very, very little in The Second Vatican Council that binding upon pain of sin (dogma). Allow me to make this crystal clear.... ONLY Lumen Gentium (The Dogmatic Constitution of The Church) is binding upon pain of sin, period. And in my 1,014 page 1992 New Revised Edition of the Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, Lumen Gentium is a whopping 76 pages.
Lemme see... that means that less than 8% of what the Council actually released is a "must" for us Catholics, right? But hooooooooold on there, Cowboy. All Lumen Gentium did was to reinforce almost 2,000 years of Catholic Teaching. Now that I think about it, there never was a new dogma ever declared by V2, was there? No, there wasn't.
So what in the world does Bishop Zipfel mean by "turning our backs on V2"? Here's this Council that's over 92% (for lack of a better phrase) totally up for discussion, change, or even nullification. But we are exhorted not to turn our backs on it? I'm sorry, but that simply defies all common sense. I get the distinct impression that the good bishop doesn't want us to turn our backs on the "Spirit" of Vatican II.
Should we seriously and prayerfully consider ALL the documents of Vatican II? Of course. But when members of our own hierarchy give the distinct, albeit subtly nuanced, impression that we must adhere to the Council in it's totality, you know what? That's just wrong.
And I must also confess, with regard to how His Excellency described The Traditional Latin Mass, I'm somewhat taken aback by his comment that "everything was done with (the priest's) back to the people and in quiet. People didn't know what was being done". Now I'm sure that Bishop Zipfel is an intelligent man, but as someone who was ordained just a year before V2, I'm sure that he understands that the priest doesn't have his "back to the people". In actuality, the priest is joining with the people in facing God in the Tabernacle.
And I must admit, I found his "People didn't know what was being done" comment to be rather condescending. When I first started to attend the Latin Mass, I understood from Day One what was being done. As did my parents, grand parents, great-grand parents, great-great-grand parents, etc. It really wasn't all that hard. Bishop Zipfel, we're not stupid.
Is everything suppose to be spoon-fed to us? Over-simplified? Dumbed-down? God forbid that we actually utilize our gray matter. Is it any wonder that the majority of Catholics who were raised in the Mass of Paul VI look upon the Traditional Latin Mass as something freakish and to be avoided at all costs?
Why is it that so many Catholic clerics look upon Vatican II as if it was THE Council, and not just A Council? I think we all know the answer to that.
Who says a whole new religion wasn't started?
In interesting article from the Bismark Tribune. It turns out that the local Ordinary there doesn't want the Faithful to "turn their backs on V2". Gosh... wasn't there a Catholic Church before 1962? I could have sworn there was.
Going one step further... I've read the V2 documents. I don't recall reading anywhere The Council stating that everything prior to is to be considered null and void. In fact, there's very, very little in The Second Vatican Council that binding upon pain of sin (dogma). Allow me to make this crystal clear.... ONLY Lumen Gentium (The Dogmatic Constitution of The Church) is binding upon pain of sin, period. And in my 1,014 page 1992 New Revised Edition of the Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, Lumen Gentium is a whopping 76 pages.
Lemme see... that means that less than 8% of what the Council actually released is a "must" for us Catholics, right? But hooooooooold on there, Cowboy. All Lumen Gentium did was to reinforce almost 2,000 years of Catholic Teaching. Now that I think about it, there never was a new dogma ever declared by V2, was there? No, there wasn't.
So what in the world does Bishop Zipfel mean by "turning our backs on V2"? Here's this Council that's over 92% (for lack of a better phrase) totally up for discussion, change, or even nullification. But we are exhorted not to turn our backs on it? I'm sorry, but that simply defies all common sense. I get the distinct impression that the good bishop doesn't want us to turn our backs on the "Spirit" of Vatican II.
Should we seriously and prayerfully consider ALL the documents of Vatican II? Of course. But when members of our own hierarchy give the distinct, albeit subtly nuanced, impression that we must adhere to the Council in it's totality, you know what? That's just wrong.
And I must also confess, with regard to how His Excellency described The Traditional Latin Mass, I'm somewhat taken aback by his comment that "everything was done with (the priest's) back to the people and in quiet. People didn't know what was being done". Now I'm sure that Bishop Zipfel is an intelligent man, but as someone who was ordained just a year before V2, I'm sure that he understands that the priest doesn't have his "back to the people". In actuality, the priest is joining with the people in facing God in the Tabernacle.
And I must admit, I found his "People didn't know what was being done" comment to be rather condescending. When I first started to attend the Latin Mass, I understood from Day One what was being done. As did my parents, grand parents, great-grand parents, great-great-grand parents, etc. It really wasn't all that hard. Bishop Zipfel, we're not stupid.
Is everything suppose to be spoon-fed to us? Over-simplified? Dumbed-down? God forbid that we actually utilize our gray matter. Is it any wonder that the majority of Catholics who were raised in the Mass of Paul VI look upon the Traditional Latin Mass as something freakish and to be avoided at all costs?
Why is it that so many Catholic clerics look upon Vatican II as if it was THE Council, and not just A Council? I think we all know the answer to that.
posted by Kevin Whiteman at
8:15 AM
14 Comments:
Vir,
Great post. Keep it up, Bioshop, and start worrying that our Lord will turn His back on you and shake your heifer dust from His sandals.
(Being from North Dakota, I'm sure his excellency knows heifer dust is the way cowmen, in polite company, say "bull shit.")
Vir,
The people calling for us not to "Turn our backs" on VII never even implemented the documents of the Council the way the councils fathers had intended...instead it seems the "throw the baby out with the bathwater" school of reform was used and VII became a cover for every weird novelty going. Most of Vatican II shouldn't have changed things as much as they did. Support for most of the shenanigans (including the new mass) just isn't in the various documents.
What burns me up is...having to live through all the cruddy changes and then finding out that it was all based on nothing, and we blew two millenium worth of tradition to boot. The biggest crime here is that the Spirit of Vatican II(tm) crowd refuses to admit that we are in worse shape now than 40 years ago. We're paying for it now with empty pews and rapidly declining amounts of priests. Its time to go back and reconnect with our past before it's too late.
Maybe the Latin Mass is too difficult to say when one has a pronounced lisp?
I see a lot of priests/Bishops that were in seminary and/or ordained before 1965 that just plain bought into the 60s mindset of rebellion. It is sad, I have talked to quite a few about the good old days and they know it was better, they are brainwashed in a big way.
The good Bishop confuses the work of Mgr. "Bugsy" Bugnini (the principal author of the New Rite within the Consilium--and principal 'spirit' behind all the wacky descendants of the Consilium's work) and the work of VatII.
And he hopes that you, too, are confused.
It's up to you to determine what kind of 'spirit' Mgr. Bugnini had. Take into consideration that he double-crossed Paul VI TWICE--with the second drawing an exile from Rome. The Bp. became the nuncio to Iraq, or some other such garden spot.
Vir...
"In actuality, the priest is joining with the people in facing God in the Tabernacle."
Father Erik, my priest, gave the Mass in Latin today. He faced, "symbolic East" He joined with the people in facing God in the Tabernacle. This is a good thing. After the Mass, he said he was more focused in prayer--not being distracted with the people in the congregation.
Perhaps the Bishop is caught up in the false attacks that are blasted against the TLM.
After all, people who don't know better must justify the "reform" of the liturgy.
In a simple perspective the NO is a reform, so therefore that means the TLM was lacking in some way. “Why reform something that didn’t need it? The liturgical reforms were fully Church approved even by the Pope so it must be good and a reform must have been necessary and besides there as been restrictions on the TLM for years. That says a lot too” is what the general thinking must be.
So the simple reaction is to take any criticism of the Traditional Latin Mass as truth.
A well uninformed person can come to the same conclusions.
Unless he is a liberal.
But I'm just trying to be nice today and theorizing that comments like these are done in ignorance.
It always makes me laugh when you hear the comment, "The priest has his back towards us". Well then I guess the way I see it is that if I have my back towards the ones behind me isn't this essentially the same thing? Go Figure, maybe I should turn around so the person behind me can look at me too! Hey! isn't that what it is all about in the "Spirit of Vatican II", let's all participate.
Well, I wonder if that would just annoy the hell out of the person behind me, if I turned and faced them. Probably would, eh? Maybe I should go and sit in front of the next person who says that to me again, and see if they like it if I turn around and face them. Gee, HMMM I really have to work on that sarcasm?? NOT!
Maybe we should point out to the good Bishop Zipfel that we aren't turning our backs on Vatican II but turning with Vatican II to face God in union with 2000 years of Tradition.
It truly astounds me that a member of clergy, who went to seminary, could ever think that the priest is "turning his back to the people." That one ordained prior to Vatican II would say such things is even more astounding--he must know that statement is pure shite. I would imagine that, in the seminary, he was taught the reason the priest faces East, with the people, and it may have even been mentioned that heretics invented the notion of facing the people.
No, the priest never had his back turned to the people; but sadly, today, he has his back turned to God, as he "dialogues" with the people.
Lord, have mercy.
The priest faced the altar (or more usually an "altar") before. The priest still faces the altar now (except it's more likely to be an actual altar, rather than a pretend ledge on the back wall "altar".
Any priest who is facing the congregation, or the back wall, instead of facing the altar, is facing in a totally wrong direction!
And, nobody should ever abandon an Ecumenical Council of the Church, which shares in the Lord's protective gift of infallibility --- even the latest one which issued only one anathema.
I'm really glad that St. Francis and St. Dominic and St. Caterina Benincasa embraced Lateran IV rather than abandoned it.
Karen,
Who said anything about facing "an altar"? I believe the key word used was "Tabernacle". Big difference. For almost 2,000 years, it was Catholics who faced Jesus physically present in the Tablernacle. And it was the Protestants who (due to their disbelief in The Real Presence) placed their emphasis on their pretend "altar".
Also, who said anything about "abandoning" any given Council? You're the only one who brought that up.
By the way, didn't I make it fairly clear that very, very little in V2 is bonding upon pain of sin (infallible dogma)? Yep, I sure did.
How can something that is over 92% "let's talk about this", be considered infallible?
I'm not trying to be rude, but KM, did you even read the posting?
I returned to my boyhood parish last Christmas (it's lost its priest, and the impression was that the Archdiocese wasn't sending another). The old altar wasn't some little pretend ledge. It was a solid block of stone, waist high, about three feet by eight, with symbolically significant bas-relief carvings all over the front, where the congregation could see them.
The new altar looks like it came out of House of Denmark. Nothing in its appearance or construction much suggested the sacred.
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