Weigel must be insane to have written that now in this time of almost total collapse of the Church throughout the entire west, he inhabits fairy tale land with all of the other everything is great with the Church and Vatican II crowd. For them is that we haven't been Vatican II'd enough! The council still needs to be implemented...they are simply delusional or demented.

Ugh.

It’s like listening to a broken record on Tourette’s syndrome:

Not implemented correctly, not implemented correctly, hijacked, implementation, blah blah...
Paul VI prophetic, Paul VI prophetic, Paul VI prophetic… so prophetic, much perditiction...
No Pope is perfect, no Pope is perfect…
John Paul the Greatest man and Papacy in the history of forever…
New evangelization, new evangelization, newest Evangelization II the Reckoning Reloaded…
It takes X amount of time to implement a council, (X = current time + 40 more years)…

Ad nauseam, infinity, etc. et al.

Agreed. I stopped believing the mythology some time ago. The disaster which is Pope Francis has only confirmed it for me.

Have to say you touched on something I have grown really really tired of. Perhaps even numb. The words used by these great thinkers doers, know it alls. Those in positions of power. You know, listen to me and my interpretations of everything and all will be wonderful and you will be saved. Other words/phrases I can’t take any longer. We need to........ dialogue, investigate, form a committee, remain firm in this or that.....let us not accuse falsely, I didn’t know about it. Yet not one word of The Sorrow of Christ and Holy Mother Mary. The commandments, scripture nothing. You see where I am going with this. How many words can be used to twist and corrupt and deflect anything and everything ad nauseum. We Catholics have been accused of not knowing scripture. Though no one better accuse us of stupidity or being push overs. While I myself cannot quote word for word the scriptures most of us do a decent job of the use of and interpretation of scripture as we believe it should be used. Read with humility and faith. When I hear a quote from scripture I don’t usually forget it. Those who quote and often use scripture as a means of clarifying their thoughts and prayers renew and reinforce our trust in them and what they are trying to get across. Where is your knowledge of scripture is a question all these prelates could be asked. Sorry to make this so long. Let us Pray Our Mother Marys Rosaries For One Another.....p.j.

V2 was laying the foundation foundation for the heretical dictator pope. EVERY document from V2 contains errors. The basic rule of Truth is that a thing that is true contains nothing false. A mixture of truth and falseness/errors, as with the documents of V2, makes the whole thing false. Thus, the entirety of each document, regardless if the truth it may contain, is rendered false by a sungle fakse statenent or clause. And, since all tge dicuments are fakse, the council is false. Which makes its interoretation and implementation irrelevant.

It's Bishop Fellay's old analogy of soup with a drop of poison in it. "If you admit that it's a soup, why won't you drink it?" "Because it has poison in it!"

Hear, Hear! Well said!

No, Father. It is (and this is the actual argument I keep having spit back to me in a nutshell) that the Council was inherently good, but Paul VI just didn't do what Sacrosanctum and the other documents called for; all the bad stuff that came after was due to his judgments independent of the Council (even though he is going to be a "saint"), but since he signed off on Humanae vitae, he gets a pass.

Of course, when I point out that as pope, Paul VI was the supreme interpreter of the Council and even specifically referred to his decisions as "fulfilling the will of the Council", they ignore that. And then, when I point out that JP2 could have overturned Paul's decisions and given us what the Council "REALLY meant" but didn't, that is when their heads tend to explode and they evade the point.

The reality that most "conservatives" don't want to accept is that THERE IS NO "ORTHODOX" INTERPRETATION OF V2 THAT HAS YET TO BE IMPLEMENTED! What we received is what the Fathers wanted. To argue otherwise is to claim by implication that every single bishop who went home and began making changes was too stupid or incompetent to properly implement the documents they themselves voted on. It is madness, utter madness. But this is the mindset of the "conservative" and, I contend, it is unbreakable until some crisis forces them to wake up (as happened with me).

Isn't it interesting that these are the same sorts of comments we see from sympathizers of Communism and socialism--"yeah Communism is great and Marx is great but it's just that nobody has been able to do it right and they end up killing people. It's just never been implemented" That's exactly the same situation they say with Vatican 2. Hogwash to both! Draw whatever conclusions you will from this strange parallel.

Spot on, RC, spot on!

RC

Communism/socialism isn't actually bad, it's actually really good, but the people who tried it before were bad people or weren't smart enough to implement it properly. Now that we've become so smart and caring and compassionate, and we have such great technology, we can finally properly implement it, if we just vote for the right people.....right?

This is exactly right. There are millions of people with NO knowledge of what communism and socialism really are because they know nothing of the past - they think just what you said - if only WE put these -isms into force it will all be different.

Yes, and if only Hitler hadn't been so nuts and made some bad decisions so he lost the war....

Yep. In my fair burg our incumbent Republican representative managed a razor-thin margin of victory in the primary last night over one of these "really smart", "very compassionate" borderline socialists....who is actually rumored to have gone to Nicaragua in her early adulthood to help the Sandinistas as a trauma nurse....you know why they say about the road to hell & good intentions!

Andrew. I do believe our not so beloved mayor here in nyc might have done the same thing. He has changed his name to de blah blah from Wilhelm. Nice when your mayor hides his name. Shhhhuuushhh. Rumor has it he and the family love the Ganga at the mansion. THAT WE ARE PAYING FOR. Sorry for the shouting.....lol..p.j.

Solzhenitsyn, that man of rich experience and great clarity, cut through the crap and got straight to the point: communist Russia and secular Europe/America were BOTH doomed to fail so long as they put materialism over God.

Nowadays, post-communist Russia is at odds with a secular West that seems hell-bent on destroying Russia and the people within it attempting to renew their own culture.

Not coincidentally, Solzhenitsyn's star has largely waned in the West, including among "conservatives." But I digress....

I hope you are kidding!

It's an attempt at sarcasm/irony. 😊

Haha you noticed the parallel independently of me too!

The site Victims of Communism contains talks delivered at past Conferences and they are adamant that well-connected well-funded opportunistic elites use Marxism as a set of promises, just to get themselves elected then behave as emperors. And yes, I can see parallels with the promise to make the Church more democratic through synodality, destroying its model of Christ's Kingdom.

Modernism and Communism have in common the ancient Lie of Satan: “You shall be as gods...” Empty promises.

If you've seen the Frankfurt school's list of tactics to
turn the West into a Communist state, you know that
they have already "gotten us there." Here's the list
and link at the end.

1. The creation of racism offences.

2. Continual change to create confusion

3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children

4. The undermining of schools' and teachers' authority

5. Huge immigration to destroy identity.

6. The promotion of excessive drinking

7. Emptying of churches

8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime

9. Creating dependency on the state or state benefits

10. Control and dumbing down of media

11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family

One of the main ideas of the Frankfurt School was to exploit Freud's idea of 'pansexualism' - the search for pleasure, the exploitation of the differences between the sexes, the overthrowing of traditional relationships between men and women. To further their aims they would:

• attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and wrest away from families their rights as primary educators of their children.

• abolish differences in the education of boys and girls

• abolish all forms of male dominance - hence the presence of women in the armed forces

• declare women to be an 'oppressed class' and men as 'oppressors'

https://www.henrymakow.com/...

Yes, they are on track. Our consolation is the many Scriptural references to God frustrating the plans of the nations. Also helpful to.keep in mind that when we are truly in touch with our shortcomings and vulnerability before the world's powers, we live under the power of God or we cant work at all.

A lot of people are not familiar with the Frankfurt school. Its been a well kept dark secret

Hello STHA, while we Catholic traditionalists wouldn't agree with everything Dr Makow writes, he seems very close. I think that he's (understandably) scandalised by the present Church hierarchy, including its promotion of people and policies he exposes, like Paul Ehrlich or the sudden wave of immigration forced on Europe (giving cover to the evacuation of a temporarily defeated ISIS).

I've added him to my rosary petitions, that he may receive the grace that will allow him to see past the scandals.

"I've added him to my rosary petitions, that he may receive the grace that will allow him to see past the scandals."

Excellent idea! I haven't honestly read that much of what he writes, so I wasn't necessarily "recommending" HIM persay,
just the information. I had read something about the Frankfurt school in, I think Catholic Family News (pretty long ago), and since I didn't know much about it, I went looking for some info. Makow's site seemed to have the most cohesive explanation, so I usually
"quote" that one article. I've read a few other things there, but
I'm not a frequent visitor, and from the little I read I can say I
wasn't totally shocked or appalled by any of his writings. :)
And my "traddie" sense wasn't alarming, but like I said,
I haven't read that much of him. Thanks for your comment!

"Excessive drinking" - - they've gone well beyond that now with legalized marijuana, etc.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why you start your comment with: No, Father? Then go on agree with me? Didn't you see where I said that they think the problem is that we haven't been Vatican II'd enough, that VII still needs to be implemented?

I guess I wasn't as clear as I thought...

Perhaps the distinction between "we haven't been Vatican II'd enough" and "we need the right version of Vatican II instead of the wrong version of Vatican II". I think the latter is more accurate as a representation of that perspective.

It was in reply to your statement "the Council still needs to be implemented". An attempt at sarcastic "correction" of your position that didn't come across as such. I was trying to be (sarcastically) as condescending to you as those who make the arguments I listed are to anyone who objects to their narrative.

Oops! Sorry, I guess we both failed and since two negatives make a positive: Mission Accomplished. :-)

Regrettably, most of literary academia would disagree with you, because they swear by the so-called "Intentional Fallacy" (from the title of a 1946 essay by W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley), which asserts that authorial intent is irrelevant to determining the meaning of a text. Wimsatt and Beardsley actually meant for this principle to apply only to poetry, but modern academia has seized on the idea and applied it indiscriminately to prose works, because it suits their purpose of hijacking any literary work they want to whatever political end they choose. (Which, again, is essentially Marxism in action.)

Pirates, those academics. They steal someone's work, tell him it doesn't mean what he wrote, and dismiss him as, what? A puppet manipulated by spirits?

On the other hand, an old literary rule (often broken by authors) is to never, ever tell anyone what some passage or other in one's writing means. Let them chew on it. That's what makes literature, the chewing, the pondering, the debating. After all, the difference between propaganda and art is the difference between art and porn: there's no question at all what the propaganda and porn are trying to convey.

RC

Perhaps insane, dear Father, or also perhaps just so proud he wouldn't admit the obvious -- that he's been wrong his whole life -- something like Luther, who is said to have lamented at death's door, "I don't get it! The German people are worse off now then when I began!"

Yeah, Marty. Odd, that, huh?

RC

Weigel is the Prince of Pollyannas.

Sort of reminds me of my childhood when I was about three and we'd all get into a circle and dance round singing "ring around the rosie" - the last line of which, as I recall, is "Ashes, ashes, all fall down." I think we're getting close to that last line.

"Atishoo, atishoo..."

Read about Bella Dodd. It's the only explanation that makes sense.

She's a great example of the problem we're facing. It was the pre-Vat2 Church that ignored her warnings. It was pre-Vat2, Vatican I Church clerics --hi and low -- who pulled the Church on our heads. (Those who didn't, well, except for a few, they stood by and watched, didn't they?

RC

Why should He? I don't mean about individuals but the Church and people like the pompous toad Weigel who really made up the most of the hierarchy from the 40's on down to today. They know, in most cases not consciously, but they know that no one paid the Church any mind in WWII or WWI. Just like Weigel, they wanted to be important, talked about, nodded to. "Oh! There goes the Right Reverend So-and-so!"

But to most of the "Modern World" with all its noise, sex, and narcissism, Catholicism is about as useful as a glass eye at a keyhole, as I believe Charlie Chan once commented.

RC

This reminds me of a dear Protestant coworker who attended a Catholic event and shared her reaction to the radical liturgical and architectural changes in the local Catholic church....."It just doesn't seem HOLY anymore."

Honored to have you. Your perspective sounds very similar to my dear departed Dad who was also a convert. Years after Vll he declared, "what happened to the religion that I fell in love with?"

Just about 15 years ago, Mr. Weigle came to the new church which had recently been dedicated by my bishop. He came with a very generous man who had done much to insure that that church could be built. It was my parish church and my parishioners and I were so happy and so proud of it. It's architect was Duncan Stroik, one of the leaders of the "return to traditional architecture" movement. Mr. Stroik had helped my parishioners and I to make sure that in spite of diocesan regulations at the time, the tabernacle was front and center in the church. The large, marble altar was topped by a magnificent baldachino. The church contained shrines for Our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph and statues of St. Peter and St. Paul were in prominent places. Niches were constructed where we would later place images of 20th century saints and blesseds: Mother Teresa, Padre Pio, Pier Giorgio Fassati, Gianna Molla, and Sr. Faustina, all painted by a local artist. It was a dream come true for me.

Mr. Weigle came to a morning Mass which I was offering before the children from our school (the children attended Mass every morning). The school was run by sisters who actually wore habits and lived like nuns! After the Mass, I went to the back of the church to greet Mr. Weigle. He totally ignored me. He said nothing to the dear sisters who were so excited that he had come to our church. He said nothing to the children or to any of the laity gathered there for Mass. When I held out my hand to shake his, he swept passed me and proceeded up the aisle. The generous man I mentioned earlier looked quite embarrassed, but he followed Mr. Weigle, out of courtesy, out the side door of the church and across the parking lot to his car and drove Mr. Weigle back to his (the generous man's) house where Mr. Weigle was staying.

Those of us in the church just looked at one another and shook our heads. One man came up to me and said, "Well, that b.....d just wrote a book called "The Courage to be Catholic", maybe he ought to write one called "The Courage to be Courteous". My parish never received even a short note from the famous Mr. Weigle. When I approached the generous man much later to express my disappointment, he said, "Well, you have to remember that Mr. Weigle is a very famous man, he just lacks social skills". Well, there you are.

Years later I ran into Mr. Weigle at the North American College in Rome. This time I did not extend my hand, but just stood smiling at him, to see whether such a great personage as himself would remember me or my parish church. He looked at me briefly, and then around me, where he caught sight of a bishop. Again he brushed past me. This time I just laughed.

Weigle, it seems to me, seldom writes even a brief article in which he does not find some way to remind us that he was a close acquaintance (friend?) of Pope John Paul II. We know that, Mr. Weigle, we know that. And we also know that you are one of those professional Catholics who enjoy fraternizing with the rich, the famous, the rich, the powerful, and the rich. You write nice things about conservative Catholicism. But you ignore the Catholics who, though unimportant in your view, are the ones who have been trying our best to live our Catholic faith in very trying times, and who, by the way, buy your books.

Father, I just had last night a conversation w my sister about the strange behavior of “celebrity Catholics”. It’s so not in the spirit of the Faith. The list is long, and I don’t want to get into detraction but Abbot Vonier once wrote such behavior is foreign to those who follow Christ. Ironically, many of these folk admire President Regan, who was well known to be able to speak w a janitor with respect. Or the anecdote of JP2 visiting a poor Mexican village and when he met a father of one of the families, embraced him!

Well, Ronald Wilson Reagan (two a's) was Irish on his father's side. His mother was of the Orange-Irish stock. An interesting mix, to say the least, but RWR's "people skills" were definitely Irish.

RC

Reagan, of course. Thanks and yes!