Vatican II eye-witness speaks out

ROMAN CLIQUES,NOW & THEN....... Thanks, Tom. Since John XXIII's death in 1963, the Roman clique has constantly used, and still uses, all its weapons to undo the positive reforms Good Pope John bravely sought to initiate. For 300 years early Christians operated consensually. Constantine then tragically gave the bishops coercive power and for 1,700 years many bishops have been addicted to it. Since 1870 when the pope lost his political power in the Papal States, the Roman clique has used every trick to maintain power, including the mystical smokescreen of "infallibility". Often, this power has been and still is used to advance the privilege and personal wealth of bishops. The deceitful and manipulative way Paul VI and the Roman clique undermined the pope's own Birth Control Commission's approval of contraception is described by clicking on to http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/new-birth-control-commission-papers-re.... Perhaps John Allen is right in seeing as a "blessing in disguise" the prosecution of the Roman clique by the International Criminal Court. See the comment to John Allen's recent column entitled "POPE IN HANDCUFFS?" accessible by clicking on to http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/blessing-vatican-really-d...

Doesn't John O'Malley, S.J., make similar observations about Paul VI's role?

If what the Abbott states is accurate, then there is finally an explanation for the church's obsessions with authority and sex as well as the poor quality of the bishops.
Under the circumstances, another church council might well be very destructive.
The people involved seem to be unable to recognize the church's problems, far less to be able to heal them.
Sometime in the future, perhaps a wonderful "fluke" like Pope John XXIII will come forth. Until then,the current unhappy condition will likely continue.

"vested interests" says it all.

Yup, typical curial malfeasance to "bind" the Holy Spirit for political reasons and to protect their power and vested interests. Is anyone surprised?

The father of a Benedictine house is an 'abbot' not an 'abbott'. It is surprising that a Catholic paper would make such a basic mistake.

There was improvement in attitudes toward social justice and world peace that resulted from Vatican II and survived, but liturgy is the main life activity of the vast majority of lay Catholics, and it could and should have been through preaching in liturgical settings, the only places where the so-called teachers and continuing "learners" got together, and from which the valuable meaning of everything else emanated that Vatican II education should have taken place. It could and should have been reflected in the good, thawed, continuing liturgical changes. Unfortunately, instead of promoting such changes, instead of taking advantage of making liturgy meaningful and worthwhile, instead of thawing it into sensible activity, John Paul II and now Benedict are proving themselves to be only retrogrades in the equivalent of blabbing a dead language, destroying, not just losing, the opportunities to let meaningful liturgy be the yeasting center of Catholic religious life. As a consequence, Benedict is following John Paul II in presiding over a dying church. That church has lost touch with Jesus and continues to be mired in meaningless, rigid forms, the only way that Benedict sees as a means of keeping everything unchanging and rigidly royal--according to his personal notions.

The only gerrymandering I have witnessed in the past 50 years since V-II has come from those who use the documents of the Council to destroy the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

After reading this story, I felt sad that a significant chapter in my life and that of the Church has not only ended, but was aborted before it could be birthed. What was presented as the winds of the Spirit blowing through open windows is shown, as Mr. Roberts indicated, as 'rough and tumble politics.' How much of the Catholic Church is really charade or fascade? Who can we trust? What can we trust? It seems we are continually fed from the tree of knowledge of good and evil only to taste a bitter fruit.

in fall '74, as a grad student in theology at st john's university, collegeville, mn i was mining the basement of the library, when i stumbled upon the acts of vatican ii from the ante-preparatory to its completion. it had to measure several yards long. i paged quickly through one hefty volume afer another until i happened upon the oral interventions on the laity during the debate on 'de ecclesia.' whoa!
as it turned out, i limited myself to just 90 oral interventions. my objective? simply to show "this is what they said."
oh yeah, and to ask if they had any idea of the implications of what they said.
during that same semester, cardinal suenens visited sju, and we grad students had the opportunity to engage him in casual and candid conversation.
i asked him he ever imagined that his intervention about the gifts of the spirit reflected what was already happening in northern europe and north america.
cardinal speak.
so, do we take the bishops of vatican ii at what they said?
or, do we say they had no idea what they were saying?
the acta don't lie.
they record every clearing of the throat.

Residual AXE-GRINDING notwithstanding (Paul VI suspended Franzoni from his OSB abbacy in 1973 and de-frocked him in 1976 after he joined the Communist party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Franzoni ), one of Franzoni's most important insights about Vatican II in this paper remains extremely valid and valuable:

"But, precisely because of THE OPPOSITION OF THE TWO ECCLESIOLOGIES that runs through the documents of Vatican II, while some found strength in some assertions, others, that is, the Roman Curia and conservative bishops, fortify themselves in others, and as a consequence THE TENSION BEGAN, that has lasted to our time, between some and others, all bolstering their choices with the words of the Council."
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Nowhere is this CONCILIAR BI-POLARITY (SCHIZOPHRENIA?) more evident than the continuing hot-button topic of LITURGICAL LANGUAGE which began with the promulgation of Sacrosanctum Concilium #36:

36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.

2. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters.

3. These norms being observed, it is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, to decide whether, and to what extent, the vernacular language is to be used; their decrees are to be approved, that is, confirmed, by the Apostolic See. And, whenever it seems to be called for, this authority is to consult with bishops of neighboring regions which have the same language.

4. Translations from the Latin text into the mother tongue intended for use in the liturgy must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned above.

From the get-go the linguistic battle lines were drawn and shall apparently endure PER OMNIA SAECULA SAECULORUM:
http://www.cantemusdomino.net/2008/06/23/sacrosanctum-concilium-36-a-res...

I wouldn't judge so harshly.

Just a question: without Paul VI, and after the death of John XXI (The Great!), Vatican II would be possible? Can you imagine it under JPII? Just a comparison: in Paul VI's time, Father Arrupe, the great Jesuit General, had free access to the Pope. While during JPII time he was usually kept hours waiting and was subjected to all kinds of humiliations. Sometimes, a small "anedocte" tells a lot.

Yawn.....Pope Paul IV's Humanae Vitae ring a bell. Somebody should read "The Rhine Flows into the Tiber", A History of Vatican II By: Rev. Fr. Ralph Wiltgen which exposes duplicitous efforts by cabal of European bishops to hijack the power of the papacy amongst other things.

If the Abbott's recollections are accurate, the unfortunate state of the church is easier to understand. The Vatican apparently has three obsessions: authority, sex, and money. The poor quality of the bishops is no accident. They are nothing more than sycophants of whatever clique of the Vatican can advance their careers."Humanae Vitae" isn't accepted by the laity. The Vatican uses it as a kind of "litmus" test to see if a bishop tows its'line. To the laity, the bishops look foolish by propounding it.
The disgusting priest pedophile scandal adds sex crimes and cover ups directly to the bishops and their masters in the Vatican.
Then, of course, there is the Vatican's love of money as manifested by its' bank scandal, the Marciel affair, Sedano's conduct in office, etc.
The bishops contribute with their love of money before their concern for the safety of children, their expensive lawyers to protect their attempts to evade the law, their love of "bling" (which makes them appear ridiculous), their "gifts" to Vatican officials to advance their careers, etc.
Sometime in the future, perhaps a wonderful "fluke" like Pope John XXIII will come along. Until then, it will be a long winter.