The Holy Ghost hasn't abandoned us. Paul VI abandoned the Church, was not Pope, and so Vatican II was not a true Ecumenical Council but the inauguration of a new religion.
I fail to see how it is. You are stating that Vatican II is the inauguration of a new religion. I’m simply trying to finish the logical conclusion that statement makes and asking you if that is what you are saying. You can say you don’t want to answer, which is fine, but no it is not “strangely formulated.”
The question is self-contradictory. That's because it is either indeed strangely formulated unintentionally, or begging the question. Notwithstanding your qualification (under Vatican II etc) you are saying “Are you saying the Catholic Church isn't the Catholic Church?” Of course I'm not saying such an absurd thing.
So, I don't want to answer a question like that, no. But I'll happily answer it if it's properly formulated.
If the fruits of Vatican 2 are that the Traditional Mass, loved by Saints for centuries, is no longer valid according to the Novus Ordo church, then of course it's a new religion.
Very well written. Temperamentally, Barron has always struck me as a man with a diplomat's heart who wishes to reconcile feuding opposites, hence he is predisposed to seek the middle way as a matter of course. This isn't a bad temperament to have, particularly when trying to shepherd a parish, congregation or diocese, whether they are Corinthians in the New Testament or a tempestuous group in the midwestern United States Unfortunately, its tempting to let this devolve into a rationalistic mindset that fails to understand what's at play in the supernatural realm driving all of this toward an Apocalyptic conclusion.
Its quite remarkable how many members of the conventional Diocesan presbyterate and episcopate view Vatican II as an unassailable topic that has a higher degree of certitude than even Trent. When pressed, many of them seem to have replaced the First Commandment with the 2nd Vatican Council as a type of loyalty oath. For them, dissent isn't just in bad taste and equivalent to mixing up the shrimp and salad fork at the annual Bishop's fundraising dinner for seminarians, its inconceivable and sometimes I think they're secretly biting their tongue to avoid rending their garments and screaming "blasphemy".
Not to pick on the Jesuits, but if you look at the list of Jesuit partisans of the Council who were discarded as "too conservative" once it got rolling, its quite breath taking -- De Lubac is just one that comes to mind.
Cardinal Manning's prescient sermons on the Anti Christ still rings in my ear, and I don't see any kind of reconciliation with modernity on the horizon. As we roll toward the inevitable "final confrontation" either in the transition to the 5th and 6th age under Holehauser or the end of all ages in the Apocalypse I don't see the center holding for anyone.
Matt Gaspers had a revealing clip of Prevost at the Synodal press conferences in Rome when he did a recent livestream with Ryan Grant and Gasper's exasperation was evident when watching Prevost try to soft shoe the obvious dissent of the African clergy as just "local customs" and then, of course, he had to point out that in parts of Africa, homosexuality is a crime meriting the death penalty.
In the sense of Barron above, it strikes me that Prevost also thinks that he can negotiate a "middle way" between Francis's more edgy views and those of everyone else but still keep rolling along the Synodal roller coaster. But seeing that weird montage after the election of Cupich, Roche and the various Rogue's Gallery of Oceans 13 St Gallen Mafia heist perpetrators I am not optimistic.
We're heading toward another key Fatima date on December 10th, 2025 and I think another big milestone is about to land as we head toward an even bigger one in 2029.
Barron is a celebrity cleric. Look at who and what he’s surrounded himself with. His life is, in his words, about defending Vatican II. He’s an influencer and that’s reprehensible for a cleric. Furthermore he’s supposed to be shepherding a diocese. Those poor people. He’s overstayed his time in the limelight. Get the hook.
LOL. You’re full of yourself. Do you think I or anyone actually cares what you say? That’s hysterical coming from a woman in love with a celebrity bishop. ROFLMAO
"...a very poor implementation of the council." Sixty years now, Bishop Barron, and they still haven't got it right? As Casey Stengel, manager of the terrible 1962 New York Mets, said, "Can't anybody here play this game?"
Vatican II doesn’t express “the ideological errors of the 1960s” but rather the already condemned errors of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. All that was required was the enforcement of these condemnations.
A new sect was founded at Vatican II. It calls itself the conciliar or synodal church and it is controlled by modernists who are not members of the Church as they don't publicly profess the Catholic faith. It is an undeclared sect that eclipses the Church.
Confused on when explaining how revolutions are bad the American Revolution is left out. Could it be that not all revolutions are bad? A point which would undermine the pinnings of this article.
In any case, the point wasn't exactly that all revolutions are bad, but rather that all revolutions represent change from what came before, and that applies even to the moderates.
“Throughout history,” the paragraph proceeding this line makes a pretty strong condemnation of Revolution and marks the cause as an overthrowing of authority. Mostly besides the point from the purpose of your article, but still I’d say an inaccurate historical assessment of Revolution.
The US revolution wasn't a true revolution. It was merely a secession from an empire. Colonial authorities remained, they just became renamed as states.
What you're doing is a abusing your perceived position of power as a physician. The problem is you're well out of your areas of expertise and Mr Wright is a specialist in his field. The facts back his point of view.
My area of expertise is utterly appropriate. 56 years since graduation as a doctor, 45 years as a Catholic Psychiatrist known to and utilised by my Bishop and his exorcist. Persons such as presbyters, friars and nuns were occasionally sent by the Church for diagnosis and discernment which included detection of the demonic sharing in that discernment.
Your discernment of me and of the Second Vatican Council is unsurprisingly defective in both cases.
I do appreciate that your personal judgement of me is couched in moderate terms, I do not see you as the honey-badger Scott Bailey, a proud son of clerical thunder explicitly promising to continue and repeat verbal violence.
Doctor, be all this as it may, I just registered your first message above. You do not get to come onto someone's website, insult them, and then praise someone else for their "moderate" terms in dealing with you. It's over to the time out naughty corner for you.
Mr Wright 1) isn’t your patient and 2) hasn’t included any personal information in his articles that would allow you to make any kind of diagnosis even if he was.
Any judgement you might make is based solely on personal bias and will be a rash one. Your actions have harmed your own reputation and illustrate a lack of sound professional judgement.
If this is how you choose to behave in public Mr Wright would do well to make a formal complaint against you.
and Nazism, antisemitism and all sort of conspiracy theories about Jews and Masons and extraterrestrials and realize just how similar this "Catholic Tradition" meme is just like them.
I recommend Taylor Marshall's book, Infiltration. In Chapter 9, The Communist Infiltration of the Priesthood, "Clearly, high-ranking priests and bishops before and during Vatican II were infiltrated Freemasons. The testimonies provided by Bella Dodd and Manning Johnson, along with the guilt and expulsion of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, reveal that Infiltration of the Catholic clergy had been accomplished before and after 1940 (90)."
Clearly, human beings have free will and if free will has been defiled; then, there will be strange fruit. Imagine what the Holy Spirit mitigated!
Below is what Bishop Barron actually wrote regarding "beige Catholicism. Not what the Commonweal hit piece wants us to believe.
"I commenced my writing career, roughly twenty-five years ago, as a critic of liberal Catholicism, which I referred to, in one of the first articles I ever published, as “beige Catholicism.”
By this designation, I meant a faith that had become culturally accommodating, hand-wringing, unsure of itself; a Church that had allowed its distinctive colors to be muted and its sharp edges to be dulled.
In a series of articles and talks as well as in such books as And Now I See, The Strangest Way, and especially The Priority of Christ, I laid out my critique of the type of Catholicism that held sway in the years after the Second Vatican Council. . .
I emphasized Christocentrism as opposed to anthropocentrism, a Scripture-based theological method rather than one grounded in human experience, the need to resist the reduction of Christianity to psychology and social service, a recovery of the great Catholic intellectual tradition, and a robust embrace of evangelical proclamation.
In all of this, I took as my mentor Pope John Paul II, especially the sainted pontiff’s interpretation of Vatican II as a missionary council, whose purpose was to bring Christ to the nations."
The problem for Bishop Barron is not that Vatican II has been misinterpreted in its application but rather that the Catholic faith was misinterpreted in its application at Vatican II.
After reading Leo XIII’s letter to the Brazilian emperor at the end of the 19th century, it seems clear to me that it is intended for “Catholic countries” who are moving away from being Catholic to accommodating to other religions. That is precisely what the USA is not and never has been, quite the contrary. So Bishop Barron’s participation in a religious liberty commission in the USA is not contrary to Leo’s admonition. In fact, it is the first amendment of the US Constitution that makes it possible for people like Bishop Barron to evangelize the one true faith in the USA without fear of persecution by the state.
I’m going to admit up front that I have no particular knowledge or expertise in these matters, but I believe I have a rational mind that is capable of discerning arguments that are coherent. I also start from the premise that an ecumenical council of the OHCA church is entitled to an automatic and very significant presumption of validity and authority. To do otherwise is to commit the same error you seem to be attributing to Vatican II, unless I am failing to understand that your argument is premised on the fundamental invalidity of Vatican II.
Therefore, if I am able to make sense of something like DH in light of the earlier papal pronouncements, which you believe stand in contradiction to DH, then I am compelled to accept that understanding and reject any other that would contradict it.
The declarations of the Holy See that you offer seem to condemn absolute religious freedom, i.e. indifferentism, that is without constraints like Natural Law and the divine authority of the Church. I think this can be understood as a point of significant distinction from what DH proposes. Phrases such as ”within due limits,” and “provided that just public order be observed,” can be read as placing real “natural law” type limitations on religious liberty. Thankfully, Vatican II gives us a definition of “religious freedom” as contemplated by DH.
“This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power…”. So “religious freedom,” as used by the council seems to mean we “are to be immune from coercion.” Is this not in line with Catholic teaching and the necessity of free will?
Moreover, does anyone seriously think that pointing out the evil of coercion by human power is somehow “revolutionary”? It seems like a bridge too far to suggest much less to affirmatively argue that Vatican II stands for the idea of a “right to error,” or a “right to blaspheme.” It seems much better understood as a right to not be coerced, especially given the historical and political circumstances of the 50 years leading up to the council. God gives us freedom to choose him or reject him, so much more the right to choose or reject the beliefs of other mere creatures. Having faith in the power of truth, goodness and beauty as understood in our religion to prevail upon the minds of confused beings, I fail to see the catastrophe your views seem to reflect. If I have mischaracterized your views please forgive me.
I do forgive you. I think what is necessary here is for you to study the pre-conciliar magisterium and its treatment of religious liberty a little more. Because it seems to me that you could not make the arguments you're making if you were more familiar with it. We'll be posting some related material soon, in the meantime you can see here:
How do you navigate the issue of the indefectibility of the Magisterium and the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome? Are you contending that Vatican II is not a council worthy of the same consideration as Nicea or Ephesus or Trent?
Yes, that it is a robber council, falsely believed to be an ecumenical council.
That conclusion is precisely how we are navigating the Church's indecectibility etc. But the more pertinent question would be, how are you navigating the Church's indefectibility and the Pope's infallibility, given the fact that V2 teaches doctrines previously condemned by the Church?
I don’t know what a “robber council” is but I am willing to be informed. Can you point me to some resources? TIA.
From what I understand, V2 was convened by the successor of Peter, Pope John XXIII and continued under Pope Paul VI. V2 gathered bishops from around the world. V2 produced documents that shaped Church teachings and practices.
I have not read all the previous councils, but it seems to me you are alleging V2 contradicts in one way or another those prior councils. My response would be that V2 has all the marks of a valid ecumenical council and therefore to the contrary, it is the interpretations that being applied to the allegedly contradictory teachings that are in question and not the V2 pronouncements themselves.
How is the position you seem to be taking different than the position the Reformers took/take toward Trent? Why shouldn’t your position be considered schismatic?
Vatican 2 was never sold as anything more than a pastoral council at the time. Of course now, they make all kinds of revisionist arguments that it was more than that, but I was around back then.
It was not a dogmatic council, such as the ones you compare it to, and there was nothing in the Vatican 2 documents that would have allowed Paul VI to change the mass, under anathema from St Pius V at the Council of Trent.
It’s worth naming what’s actually being argued here: this is not just a critique of Bishop Barron’s reading of Vatican II, it’s a rejection of Vatican II’s entire vision of religious liberty.
What’s being promoted instead is basically Catholic integralism: the idea that the state must recognize the Catholic Church as the one true religion, and that religious freedom—as articulated in Dignitatis Humanae, is a modern error.
Let’s be honest: this isn’t a moderate theological disagreement. It’s a call to roll back the Church’s teaching on human dignity, conscience, and the rightful autonomy of civil society.
If modern, contemporary politics had shown anyone anything, it's that centrism and moderation are meaningless illusions, because what they're being centrist moderates about is largely determined by the extremes and where they are in the ideologocal tug of war.
We can pretend that the Catholic Church is apolitical, but we know that radical leftists had been running circles around conservative voices who are forced to follow their big book of rules; and bkatant reactionary behavior is evidently being stamped out by these gaslighting, delusional boomers.
Bishop Barron has always seemed, to me, to be most interested in getting a red hat. He goes out of his way to attract attention, and has been quite successful in marketing his brand.
This is not the first time he's accused someone of calumny, which seems a nasty way for a bishop to debate his point.
Anyway, he probably will fall under the bus, because I don't think he's smart enough to be this public and to play in the rough sport of Vatican politics.
I am interested to see who will embrace the new mass for climate change with feverish enthusiasm. I am still trying to get my mind around how this could come about, and so quickly on Leo's watch. But here we are - I guess this is modernism and staying relevant or something like that. However, I have always understood that this earth is passing away and that we Christians are in this world but not of it, not to say we should not be good stewards. Of course we should. Just as the Vatican was a key player in the new Covid religion under Francis, we will now see Leo champion the new climate change religion. I just don't buy it and am sure a lot of faithful priests will struggle with this.
The Holy Ghost hasn't abandoned us. Paul VI abandoned the Church, was not Pope, and so Vatican II was not a true Ecumenical Council but the inauguration of a new religion.
Publishing more on that next week, so stay tuned.
To be clear, are you stating that the Catholic Church as she is today under Vatican II is not actually the Catholic Church?
Well, that's a strangely formulated question, I must say.
I fail to see how it is. You are stating that Vatican II is the inauguration of a new religion. I’m simply trying to finish the logical conclusion that statement makes and asking you if that is what you are saying. You can say you don’t want to answer, which is fine, but no it is not “strangely formulated.”
The question is self-contradictory. That's because it is either indeed strangely formulated unintentionally, or begging the question. Notwithstanding your qualification (under Vatican II etc) you are saying “Are you saying the Catholic Church isn't the Catholic Church?” Of course I'm not saying such an absurd thing.
So, I don't want to answer a question like that, no. But I'll happily answer it if it's properly formulated.
You are claiming Vatican II started a new religion. Perhaps the better question to ask is do you consider the ecumenical council Vatican II valid?
If the fruits of Vatican 2 are that the Traditional Mass, loved by Saints for centuries, is no longer valid according to the Novus Ordo church, then of course it's a new religion.
Very well written. Temperamentally, Barron has always struck me as a man with a diplomat's heart who wishes to reconcile feuding opposites, hence he is predisposed to seek the middle way as a matter of course. This isn't a bad temperament to have, particularly when trying to shepherd a parish, congregation or diocese, whether they are Corinthians in the New Testament or a tempestuous group in the midwestern United States Unfortunately, its tempting to let this devolve into a rationalistic mindset that fails to understand what's at play in the supernatural realm driving all of this toward an Apocalyptic conclusion.
Its quite remarkable how many members of the conventional Diocesan presbyterate and episcopate view Vatican II as an unassailable topic that has a higher degree of certitude than even Trent. When pressed, many of them seem to have replaced the First Commandment with the 2nd Vatican Council as a type of loyalty oath. For them, dissent isn't just in bad taste and equivalent to mixing up the shrimp and salad fork at the annual Bishop's fundraising dinner for seminarians, its inconceivable and sometimes I think they're secretly biting their tongue to avoid rending their garments and screaming "blasphemy".
Not to pick on the Jesuits, but if you look at the list of Jesuit partisans of the Council who were discarded as "too conservative" once it got rolling, its quite breath taking -- De Lubac is just one that comes to mind.
Cardinal Manning's prescient sermons on the Anti Christ still rings in my ear, and I don't see any kind of reconciliation with modernity on the horizon. As we roll toward the inevitable "final confrontation" either in the transition to the 5th and 6th age under Holehauser or the end of all ages in the Apocalypse I don't see the center holding for anyone.
Matt Gaspers had a revealing clip of Prevost at the Synodal press conferences in Rome when he did a recent livestream with Ryan Grant and Gasper's exasperation was evident when watching Prevost try to soft shoe the obvious dissent of the African clergy as just "local customs" and then, of course, he had to point out that in parts of Africa, homosexuality is a crime meriting the death penalty.
In the sense of Barron above, it strikes me that Prevost also thinks that he can negotiate a "middle way" between Francis's more edgy views and those of everyone else but still keep rolling along the Synodal roller coaster. But seeing that weird montage after the election of Cupich, Roche and the various Rogue's Gallery of Oceans 13 St Gallen Mafia heist perpetrators I am not optimistic.
We're heading toward another key Fatima date on December 10th, 2025 and I think another big milestone is about to land as we head toward an even bigger one in 2029.
Barron is a celebrity cleric. Look at who and what he’s surrounded himself with. His life is, in his words, about defending Vatican II. He’s an influencer and that’s reprehensible for a cleric. Furthermore he’s supposed to be shepherding a diocese. Those poor people. He’s overstayed his time in the limelight. Get the hook.
So true. Bishop Barron, along with priests from Nigeria, have kept me a Catholic.
That is the most shallow analysis. Read what the bishop says. It is obvious that you never have.
LOL. You’re full of yourself. Do you think I or anyone actually cares what you say? That’s hysterical coming from a woman in love with a celebrity bishop. ROFLMAO
OK, keep it peaceful please. This isn't to turn into a slanging match.
Fortis Esperantis, you've made your points clear too and there is no need for further elaboration. You can start your own site if you need to.
"...a very poor implementation of the council." Sixty years now, Bishop Barron, and they still haven't got it right? As Casey Stengel, manager of the terrible 1962 New York Mets, said, "Can't anybody here play this game?"
Vatican II doesn’t express “the ideological errors of the 1960s” but rather the already condemned errors of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. All that was required was the enforcement of these condemnations.
The council contains errors and its proponents like Fr Ratzinger publicly confirm that the council is an anti-syllabus. https://www.traditioninaction.org/ProgressivistDoc/A_031_RatzingerCouterSyllabus.htm
A new sect was founded at Vatican II. It calls itself the conciliar or synodal church and it is controlled by modernists who are not members of the Church as they don't publicly profess the Catholic faith. It is an undeclared sect that eclipses the Church.
Oh, they're playing "The Game" alright, it's just not Catholicism.
Confused on when explaining how revolutions are bad the American Revolution is left out. Could it be that not all revolutions are bad? A point which would undermine the pinnings of this article.
You should read this by our friend:
https://open.substack.com/pub/americanreform/p/contra-lazar-is-america-really-a
In any case, the point wasn't exactly that all revolutions are bad, but rather that all revolutions represent change from what came before, and that applies even to the moderates.
“Throughout history,” the paragraph proceeding this line makes a pretty strong condemnation of Revolution and marks the cause as an overthrowing of authority. Mostly besides the point from the purpose of your article, but still I’d say an inaccurate historical assessment of Revolution.
Exactly. The American Revolution was as far as I know, was not based on a policy of revenge.
And?
The US revolution wasn't a true revolution. It was merely a secession from an empire. Colonial authorities remained, they just became renamed as states.
Another deluded paranoiac condemning an orthodox bishop
Ad hominem attacks should be beneath you.
It is a diagnosis based on the presented materiel.
What you're doing is a abusing your perceived position of power as a physician. The problem is you're well out of your areas of expertise and Mr Wright is a specialist in his field. The facts back his point of view.
My area of expertise is utterly appropriate. 56 years since graduation as a doctor, 45 years as a Catholic Psychiatrist known to and utilised by my Bishop and his exorcist. Persons such as presbyters, friars and nuns were occasionally sent by the Church for diagnosis and discernment which included detection of the demonic sharing in that discernment.
Your discernment of me and of the Second Vatican Council is unsurprisingly defective in both cases.
I do appreciate that your personal judgement of me is couched in moderate terms, I do not see you as the honey-badger Scott Bailey, a proud son of clerical thunder explicitly promising to continue and repeat verbal violence.
Doctor, be all this as it may, I just registered your first message above. You do not get to come onto someone's website, insult them, and then praise someone else for their "moderate" terms in dealing with you. It's over to the time out naughty corner for you.
Mr Wright 1) isn’t your patient and 2) hasn’t included any personal information in his articles that would allow you to make any kind of diagnosis even if he was.
Any judgement you might make is based solely on personal bias and will be a rash one. Your actions have harmed your own reputation and illustrate a lack of sound professional judgement.
If this is how you choose to behave in public Mr Wright would do well to make a formal complaint against you.
It's not even smart enough to be an ad hominem attack. It's just an uninformed wisecrack from a physician who didn't bother to read the article.
Try replying to the actual text.
Back-biting, calumny and detraction are sins.
I guess you should knock that off, then
Google "cultural contagion"
You know - anxiety hysteria, anorexia/bulimia, self-harm cutting, transexuality ... juvenile females predominantly
and Nazism, antisemitism and all sort of conspiracy theories about Jews and Masons and extraterrestrials and realize just how similar this "Catholic Tradition" meme is just like them.
You might learn something.
@anyone, explain to me the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit/Ghost in guiding the Church. How can a council err if the Spirit guides it?
I recommend Taylor Marshall's book, Infiltration. In Chapter 9, The Communist Infiltration of the Priesthood, "Clearly, high-ranking priests and bishops before and during Vatican II were infiltrated Freemasons. The testimonies provided by Bella Dodd and Manning Johnson, along with the guilt and expulsion of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, reveal that Infiltration of the Catholic clergy had been accomplished before and after 1940 (90)."
Clearly, human beings have free will and if free will has been defiled; then, there will be strange fruit. Imagine what the Holy Spirit mitigated!
Below is what Bishop Barron actually wrote regarding "beige Catholicism. Not what the Commonweal hit piece wants us to believe.
"I commenced my writing career, roughly twenty-five years ago, as a critic of liberal Catholicism, which I referred to, in one of the first articles I ever published, as “beige Catholicism.”
By this designation, I meant a faith that had become culturally accommodating, hand-wringing, unsure of itself; a Church that had allowed its distinctive colors to be muted and its sharp edges to be dulled.
In a series of articles and talks as well as in such books as And Now I See, The Strangest Way, and especially The Priority of Christ, I laid out my critique of the type of Catholicism that held sway in the years after the Second Vatican Council. . .
I emphasized Christocentrism as opposed to anthropocentrism, a Scripture-based theological method rather than one grounded in human experience, the need to resist the reduction of Christianity to psychology and social service, a recovery of the great Catholic intellectual tradition, and a robust embrace of evangelical proclamation.
In all of this, I took as my mentor Pope John Paul II, especially the sainted pontiff’s interpretation of Vatican II as a missionary council, whose purpose was to bring Christ to the nations."
https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/barron/the-evangelical-path-of-word-on-fire/
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/leo-pope-rober-conciliar-francis-church-vatican-ii
The problem for Bishop Barron is not that Vatican II has been misinterpreted in its application but rather that the Catholic faith was misinterpreted in its application at Vatican II.
After reading Leo XIII’s letter to the Brazilian emperor at the end of the 19th century, it seems clear to me that it is intended for “Catholic countries” who are moving away from being Catholic to accommodating to other religions. That is precisely what the USA is not and never has been, quite the contrary. So Bishop Barron’s participation in a religious liberty commission in the USA is not contrary to Leo’s admonition. In fact, it is the first amendment of the US Constitution that makes it possible for people like Bishop Barron to evangelize the one true faith in the USA without fear of persecution by the state.
Thanks Marty. Your points were acknowledged by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae but he also taught that they were very much not the whole story.
The problem is not so much serving on such a commission, but the rationale given for it.
You can also read some more about the America situation here:
https://www.wmreview.org/p/is-america-a-christian-nation-american
I’m going to admit up front that I have no particular knowledge or expertise in these matters, but I believe I have a rational mind that is capable of discerning arguments that are coherent. I also start from the premise that an ecumenical council of the OHCA church is entitled to an automatic and very significant presumption of validity and authority. To do otherwise is to commit the same error you seem to be attributing to Vatican II, unless I am failing to understand that your argument is premised on the fundamental invalidity of Vatican II.
Therefore, if I am able to make sense of something like DH in light of the earlier papal pronouncements, which you believe stand in contradiction to DH, then I am compelled to accept that understanding and reject any other that would contradict it.
The declarations of the Holy See that you offer seem to condemn absolute religious freedom, i.e. indifferentism, that is without constraints like Natural Law and the divine authority of the Church. I think this can be understood as a point of significant distinction from what DH proposes. Phrases such as ”within due limits,” and “provided that just public order be observed,” can be read as placing real “natural law” type limitations on religious liberty. Thankfully, Vatican II gives us a definition of “religious freedom” as contemplated by DH.
“This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power…”. So “religious freedom,” as used by the council seems to mean we “are to be immune from coercion.” Is this not in line with Catholic teaching and the necessity of free will?
Moreover, does anyone seriously think that pointing out the evil of coercion by human power is somehow “revolutionary”? It seems like a bridge too far to suggest much less to affirmatively argue that Vatican II stands for the idea of a “right to error,” or a “right to blaspheme.” It seems much better understood as a right to not be coerced, especially given the historical and political circumstances of the 50 years leading up to the council. God gives us freedom to choose him or reject him, so much more the right to choose or reject the beliefs of other mere creatures. Having faith in the power of truth, goodness and beauty as understood in our religion to prevail upon the minds of confused beings, I fail to see the catastrophe your views seem to reflect. If I have mischaracterized your views please forgive me.
Just to be clear, Dr Chalmers was not banned for this comment, but for the below:
https://www.wmreview.org/p/bishop-robert-barron-attacked-responds/comment/121620532
Disagreement is one thing, but plain insults or pseudo-diagnosis over the internet results in a temporary ban and being sent to the naughty corner.
I do forgive you. I think what is necessary here is for you to study the pre-conciliar magisterium and its treatment of religious liberty a little more. Because it seems to me that you could not make the arguments you're making if you were more familiar with it. We'll be posting some related material soon, in the meantime you can see here:
https://www.wmreview.org/p/religious-liberty-extent
How do you navigate the issue of the indefectibility of the Magisterium and the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome? Are you contending that Vatican II is not a council worthy of the same consideration as Nicea or Ephesus or Trent?
Yes, that it is a robber council, falsely believed to be an ecumenical council.
That conclusion is precisely how we are navigating the Church's indecectibility etc. But the more pertinent question would be, how are you navigating the Church's indefectibility and the Pope's infallibility, given the fact that V2 teaches doctrines previously condemned by the Church?
I don’t know what a “robber council” is but I am willing to be informed. Can you point me to some resources? TIA.
From what I understand, V2 was convened by the successor of Peter, Pope John XXIII and continued under Pope Paul VI. V2 gathered bishops from around the world. V2 produced documents that shaped Church teachings and practices.
I have not read all the previous councils, but it seems to me you are alleging V2 contradicts in one way or another those prior councils. My response would be that V2 has all the marks of a valid ecumenical council and therefore to the contrary, it is the interpretations that being applied to the allegedly contradictory teachings that are in question and not the V2 pronouncements themselves.
How is the position you seem to be taking different than the position the Reformers took/take toward Trent? Why shouldn’t your position be considered schismatic?
Vatican 2 was never sold as anything more than a pastoral council at the time. Of course now, they make all kinds of revisionist arguments that it was more than that, but I was around back then.
It was not a dogmatic council, such as the ones you compare it to, and there was nothing in the Vatican 2 documents that would have allowed Paul VI to change the mass, under anathema from St Pius V at the Council of Trent.
Well, this certainly escalated quickly.
It’s worth naming what’s actually being argued here: this is not just a critique of Bishop Barron’s reading of Vatican II, it’s a rejection of Vatican II’s entire vision of religious liberty.
What’s being promoted instead is basically Catholic integralism: the idea that the state must recognize the Catholic Church as the one true religion, and that religious freedom—as articulated in Dignitatis Humanae, is a modern error.
Let’s be honest: this isn’t a moderate theological disagreement. It’s a call to roll back the Church’s teaching on human dignity, conscience, and the rightful autonomy of civil society.
A liberal trying to be "moderate centrist"
If modern, contemporary politics had shown anyone anything, it's that centrism and moderation are meaningless illusions, because what they're being centrist moderates about is largely determined by the extremes and where they are in the ideologocal tug of war.
We can pretend that the Catholic Church is apolitical, but we know that radical leftists had been running circles around conservative voices who are forced to follow their big book of rules; and bkatant reactionary behavior is evidently being stamped out by these gaslighting, delusional boomers.
Bishop Barron has always seemed, to me, to be most interested in getting a red hat. He goes out of his way to attract attention, and has been quite successful in marketing his brand.
This is not the first time he's accused someone of calumny, which seems a nasty way for a bishop to debate his point.
Anyway, he probably will fall under the bus, because I don't think he's smart enough to be this public and to play in the rough sport of Vatican politics.
I am interested to see who will embrace the new mass for climate change with feverish enthusiasm. I am still trying to get my mind around how this could come about, and so quickly on Leo's watch. But here we are - I guess this is modernism and staying relevant or something like that. However, I have always understood that this earth is passing away and that we Christians are in this world but not of it, not to say we should not be good stewards. Of course we should. Just as the Vatican was a key player in the new Covid religion under Francis, we will now see Leo champion the new climate change religion. I just don't buy it and am sure a lot of faithful priests will struggle with this.