After 60 Years, Is It Time to Bury Vatican II?

[00:01:01] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:01:17] Speaker A: Hello. This week marks the 60th anniversary of the closing of Vatican II. And the usual suspects are trying to tell us it still has wonderful fruits, that we should still try to keep it alive. But really, is that what we need to do? Or do we need to just simply recognize reality, hold a funeral for Vatican II and move on? That's what I'm talking about today on Crisis Point. Hello, I'm Eric Sims, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, you know what to do. Where's my little button there? Smash that like button. Subscribe to the channel. You don't have to hit the notify bell. I don't like you having. I don't like people having their phones tell them what to do. I don't like to tell me what to do. So you don't hit the notify bell, but definitely subscribe to the channel and hit that and smash that like button. Also, subscribe to our email newsletter. Just go to crisismagazine.com and you can pull in your Put in your email address and you'll get your. [00:02:11] Speaker A: Get our email sent to you every day in the morning. Two news articles, opinion articles, I should say a day into your inbox. Okay, let's go again. Start. So as you can tell from the beginning, I plan to have a funeral service here. It's a funeral service for Vatican II. Yesterday, December 8, 2025, was the 60th anniversary of the closing of Vatican II. Kind of the birth of the Vatican II church, so to speak, the birth of the spirit of Vatican ii, the birth of everything that followed the post conciliar period. And I'm here to tell you that after 60 long years and after many years in poor health, that era is over and we just need to move on. And so we're going to have a funeral service here today for Vatican ii. And what I want to do is talk about some of the fruits of Vatican II that are claimed for Vatican II and the reality on the ground. Now I do want to say one thing. Right before I came on this podcast, literally like maybe 10 minutes ago, somebody sent me an article from Larry Chapp from yesterday over at Catholic World Report, I think, in which he said it's too early to write obituary for Vatican ii. I did not read this article. I literally, I did not see it until a few minutes ago. And somebody said though, that me declaring Vatican II dead is the coward's path that Larry Chapp supposedly said that perhaps, I don't know, I've been called worse. I don't like. So this podcast is not in a response to that. I prepared all this before I. Even. [00:03:47] Speaker A: Before I even saw that article. And I guess I haven't even read the article yet. But I will note this. This isn't necessarily about Dr. Chap in particular, but in general, there is a certain generation of Catholics, particularly the older generation, that clings to Vatican II as if it's some magic talisman that we have to keep it alive or else everything will fall apart. Like, there's this great fear. I mean, with the progressives, it's the fear that, like, we'll go backwards or something like that. But even with conservative Catholics who love Vatican II or. And want it to be the defining feature of our modern church. [00:04:27] Speaker A: There'S this idea that if we don't keep Vatican II alive, I don't care if it's, you know, using a mouth to mouth resuscitation, we got paddles or whatever it takes, we got to keep it alive or else everything falls apart if we don't Vatican II harder. [00:04:43] Speaker A: Now, the reality is, of course, everything already has fallen apart in the era of Vatican ii. And so I really can't see how moving on and just kind of forgetting about Vatican II is going to make things worse. Hard to see how that could be possible. Another thing to note is that for young people, they don't really care. It's almost, in a sense, Vatican II is already dead in their minds as far as how they. [00:05:11] Speaker A: View the church and, like, the importance of Vatican II and things like that. They just don't think about that much. They don't care that much. But for us older people, you know, millennials, even Gen X boomers, you know, it's still a matter of discussion. I think younger people can learn a lot, though, from understanding the history of this. You know, it's like somebody's, like, killing the. Let me go ahead and get rid of this person on the. [00:05:40] Speaker A: There we go. Okay. I had this pop up. Somebody said, eric, you really need mods. Yes, our mod must have missed that. So I got rid of those comments. So we'll move on from there. Sorry for the distraction. And so. [00:05:54] Speaker A: I'm here to say that Vatican II clearly is dead. And by this, I want to be clear what I mean by this doesn't mean that Vatican II was invalid, doesn't mean there wasn't some good things in Vatican II. It simply means in the sense that Vatican II's impact on the church and how it should be seen as a means in which we move forward. Nobody, for example, today says, we need to go back and look at the documents of Lateran 5 and really make sure we live the church according to how Lateran5 said. Nor do we need to. Nor do people say, you know, even, like something like the Council of Florence, which reunited the churches briefly, the east and west briefly. Nobody says, okay, we have to go back to Florence and just do what Florence says. Those councils are dead. As far as their impact. Now, there are some councils that are still alive. The first four ecumenical councils will always be alive in the church. And we say the Nicene Creed every single Sunday from the two first two ecumenical councils. The Council of Trent still has a great impact on the church today, particularly in our relationship with Protestant Christians. So it's not that every, every council is dead in the sense of its impact, but a lot are. A lot are. So there's no, like, heresy or somehow rejecting the validity of Vatican II if I say that Vatican II is now dead. Now, the problem, of course, is not Everybody. I mean, Dr. Chappell, course, in his article, apparently not. But more importantly, a lot of hierarchs in the church, they don't apparently think that Vatican II is dead. They think it's still this living monument in the church. I mean, just at last month's USCCB meeting, the papal nuncio, Cardinal Pierre, he was talking about his whole message to the bishops was, we hit the Vatican II harder. The Vatican II is the means by which we move forward. And that's how we bring about whatever revelation you know, bring about, like revival in the church to Vatican two more. And then we just got yesterday, on the anniversary, we got this x post from USCCB in which it said, Today we mark the 60th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council. The influences of Vatican II can be seen in every aspect of the modern church. That's true in our understanding of divine revelation, the universal call to holiness, the sacred liturgy, religious freedom, ecumenical dialogue, the participation of the lady in the life of the church, and so much more. Learn more about the council and they give a link. And I'll go to that link in a minute and tell you what it says. So Basically, though, the USCCB is saying Vatican 260, and look how much it's affecting the church, how much it's impacted, influenced the church, and obviously, in this positive, great way. And what it links to is this document here, which was written actually when Vatican II turned 50. But in this document, it gives 10 ways Vatican II shapes the church today. And it goes through these 10 ways like, for example, number one, Vatican Jew presented a renewed vision of what it means to be the church. Number two, it called the Eucharist the source and summit of the faith. Number three, it reformed the liturgy and so on and so forth. So we can see Here we have 10 different ways in which Vatican II. [00:09:08] Speaker A: Impacted shapes the church today. And what I want to do is I want to go through these and I want to go through these and say, okay, is the impact of Vatican II such that it should be praised in these areas? Has it helped the church? Has it helped our mission to convert souls, to bring souls to Jesus Christ and to save them, bring them into heaven? Or hasn't it? Because if it hasn't. [00:09:34] Speaker A: Then it's time to declare Vatican II dead and just move on, you know, sing its praises. If we want to mourn what it did wrong, you know, you know, whatever, and just move on. And let's try to understand what we need to move forward in the church. So the first one. [00:09:55] Speaker A: From this document is Vatican II present a Renewed vision of what it means to be church. And so let's look at that for a second renewed vision. [00:10:06] Speaker A: So the problem with this is this is true. I mean, most of these statements are true, but what did that really mean? The problem is this is something Peter Kwasniewski touched upon in an article he posted yesterday about. I can't remember what he called the it's over at Pelican plus, but what it did was it had the most powerful. [00:10:33] Speaker A: And strongest institution in the west, the moral authority of the west, the Catholic Church, decide to open up everything for questioning this renewed vision of the Church. Really what it meant was we're going to question everything in the church. We're going to question everything about the church, about the faith. We're going to question it all and put it up for debate. Now, Vatican II didn't change doctrines, and doctrines weren't changed after Vatican ii. But this idea of everything for question, I mean, we just saw it last week. I think it was when the Vatican had yet another declaration that we're not going to have women deacons. And you saw a number of progressives were disappointed, but they said, not yet. This is just a hurdle that will go over and eventually we will get women deacons, women priests, women bishops, like we're meant to be. This is the direct fruit of Vatican ii. Not that the Council Fathers intended for women priests or something like that. No, what I mean by that is simply by opening up everything for questioning, for revision, for a renewed vision, what they did was what the Council of Fathers did was basically they left us in a situation which there were no sure norms. And that really wrecked the church in a lot of ways and wrecked the Western world. I mean, it really follows from Vatican ii. I mean, a great example, of course, is the debate over contraception. So many people accepted our official contraception after Vatican II in that era because they're like, we're changing things now. Heck, if we can change something as important and as foundational to our faith as the liturgy, how we worship God. [00:12:14] Speaker A: Well, then why can't we change something fundamental like about sexual relations between a man and a woman, between a husband and a wife, and allow for contraception? It really does flow. One does flow from the other. Might not be obvious to people, but it really does. One does flow from the other. [00:12:32] Speaker A: And so what we see here is the renewed vision of the Church that Vatican II brought really was one that led to the whole spirit of Vatican ii. Because the spirit of Vatican II doesn't exist if Vatican II itself didn't open the door. [00:12:48] Speaker A: I know a lot of conservative Catholics don't like that idea. Don't think that they don't want to accept that that's true. They'll say, oh, yeah, it's going against the documents, all that stuff. No, you have to understand, there's the event Vatican ii, and that's not just the documents. The documents are very important. But if you know the history of Vatican II leading up to it, during it, after it, what you see is this idea of a renewed vision of the Church is exactly what was being pushed by so many people during Vatican ii. Like, everything's up for discussion and debate and questioning and all that. And that is the essence of Vatican ii. Sorry, of the Spirit of Vatican ii. That's the essence of the Spirit of Vatican II is this idea of questioning everything. So that's the first thing we have from this document from the usccb. The second one is Vatican II called the Eucharist the source and summit of the faith. Okay, I just have a question. [00:13:48] Speaker A: Is Eucharistic devotion greater or lesser today than it was in the pre conciliar Church? [00:13:59] Speaker A: Do Catholics have a greater devotion to the Eucharist today or before Vatican ii? The answer is obvious. I'm not saying Vatican II got rid of Eucharistic devotion, but this idea that Vatican II somehow, by having a sentence that literally says Eucharist is source and summoner of the faith, somehow made the Eucharist something that people are more devoted to is just a Joke that has no connection to reality. I mean, 70% of Americans, Catholics, I think it was, don't, you know, reject the real presence. The fact that so many people stop being Catholic going to Mass obviously shows a lack of devotion to the Eucharist. I mean, this one's kind of a clear cut. I don't know why you bring this up because it has a sentence in there that the Eucharist is the source of some of faith. People knew this beforehand. It wasn't like a new teaching. So they have this one sentence that we say all the time, but we don't actually have the reality on the ground that people treat it like the source and summit of the faith because of everything else that happened at Vatican II and following Vatican ii. So that one is definitely not a, that's a rotten fruit or a unproductive fruit of Vatican ii. The next one is Vatican II reformed the liturgy. Ah yes, the reformation of the liturgy. I'm not going to go in super detail on this one because I've talked about ad nauseam, everybody's talked about ad nauseam. But let me just give the overview here. It obviously wasn't a reformed liturgy. It was a revolution in liturgy. It changed things in such a radical way. And anybody who has studied this knows this. I'd recommend watching Mass of the Ages documentary part two for a lot of the details of exactly how this was, you know, how this has changed. [00:15:39] Speaker A: It's been a disaster, an obvious disaster, the reformed liturgy. And we can see this very clearly in the fact that if you just attend the average Mass, particularly in the Western world. [00:15:53] Speaker A: It'S said irreverently, it's said in a way that does not foster devotion, does not foster a feeling of worship of God. It is very man centric. It's completely based on the priest, the celebrant priest preferences. So you don't know what you're going to get from one Sunday to the next between one priest and another. I mean, this is just something where we can keep on saying we have a reformed liturgy that does something good. But the fruits are obvious. The fruits are obvious that the liturgy, the reformation of the liturgy, the revolution in liturgy has not been a good fruit. And so I'm not even going to go further on that one because this, this topic is just so obvious to any, any unbiased person looking at it that it doesn't need to go into much more. Okay. 4 Vatican II said every Catholic is called to holiness and to be a missionary. Okay, you hear this a lot too. This Universal call to holiness. This is always connected to Vatican ii. And I want to. I want to put something up on the screen now. A quote. Who said this? Christ has called the whole human race to the lofty heights of sanctity. There are some who say that sanctity is not everyone's vocation. On the contrary, is everyone's vocation, and all are called to it. Jesus Christ has given himself as an example for all to imitate. So all are called. Everybody's vocation is the sanctity to holiness. Who said that? Was it Pope Francis? Pope Leo? Was it maybe John Paul ii? It sounds pretty kind of more academic. So maybe it's Pope Benedict. No, this was said by Pope Pius XI. Pope Pius XI said this back in the 1930s. I think it was. Might have been 1920s. That's when he was pope. So he said this 30 or 40 years before Vatican II. He talked about that everybody has a vocation to holiness. Likewise. And also, I got that quote, by the way, from this book, Divine Intimacy. [00:17:56] Speaker A: One of the reading, it was talking about how everybody's called the holiness. And one of the first. It's like literally the first entry in the book. And this book was written in the 1950s, before Vatican II, talking about everybody's called the Holiness. Also, I wrote a book called Holiness for Everyone, the Practical Spirituality of who? Saint Jose Maria Escriva, who worked mostly and came up with this, you know. You know, really promoted this before Vatican ii. So it's not really true to act like that. Vatican II somehow. [00:18:32] Speaker A: Was the instigator of this idea of universal holiness. It was in the church before that people, popes, were talking about it. You know, founders of religious organizations were talking about it. You know, people write, priests writing devotional books were talking about it. [00:18:50] Speaker A: Universal call holiness did not originate with Vatican II or it wasn't recovered by Vatican II either. You hear that a lot of times in the early church. Everybody knew about the universal call holiness, but Vatican II brought it back. [00:19:01] Speaker A: No, it didn't. It was already back in Vatican ii. Just reiterate, which is good, that we reiterated it, everybody is called to holiness. I mean, like I said, I wrote a book called Holiness for Everyone. But let's not act like Vatican II discovered something that had been lost. People were talking about. Catholics were talking about it at the highest levels before Vatican ii. And so that's another thing where it's like kind of this mythology around Vatican II that without Vatican ii, people would not have been realized that holiness is for everyone. Say something, though. [00:19:36] Speaker A: Have we in the era of Vatican II, the 60 years since Vatican II, have we become a more holy church? Have people really been striving for holiness? Do we think people are holier today than they were, let's say, in the 1930s? Maybe, I mean, you know, the day to day. But I suspect by mass attendance, by confession attendance, sacramental, you know, vocations, all that stuff. I suspect on a whole. [00:20:05] Speaker A: That holiness was greater in the church before Vatican II than after Vatican ii. So even this call to whole, universal call, holiness is kind of a, not really something that you can give to Vatican ii. Number five, Vatican two, emphasize the importance of the family. Okay. [00:20:24] Speaker A: That'S good to know. [00:20:27] Speaker A: But what's happened to the family since Vatican ii? It's been decimated in the western world. Now, is that Vatican II's fault? I don't, of course not. I don't think that. But the fact is, Vatican II and its aftermath, we're talking about the era of Vatican II here. It didn't do anything to slow that down, that's for sure. It really didn't. I mean, the family in the western world, particularly around the world, really has been decimated, decimated. So the fact that Vacant II had a few statements about the pro family in its documents didn't really become something that really helped the world in any real way. Also, I'll go back to the fact that the change in the air that Vatican II brought about in the church, the idea that we question everything, we change everything, all that stuff, is what led people to question the contraception ban. I mean, people might question it before that, but that's what really gave the movement, gave it to the power, to the movement, the question, the ban on artificial contraception. And of course, Paul VI heroically did stand up against it. But inside the church, throughout the church, Paul 6 did nothing, literally nothing. [00:21:39] Speaker A: To stop a widespread acceptance of contraception, both among the laity and among the clergy. There's story upon story of Catholics who were told by their priests, it's okay to use contraception. A wink and a nudge. You don't even talk about contraception anymore. And there's no question that the widespread use of artificial contraception is one of the worst attacks on the family in our modern world. It's helped decimate the family. And so that is part of Vatican II's legacy in a certain sense. This idea of everything's up for questioning, including things like artificial contraceptions. What people thought, okay, number six, Vatican II reshape the church's relationship with Other Christians and other religions. Okay. This we're talking about, of course, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue. I've talked about this a lot. I wrote an entire book. I don't have that book. I don't have that book in front of me. Deadly. And my book about ecumenism, interreligious dialogue and how it's led to indifference by the Catholic Church. It's an unmitigated disaster. I would probably, if you ask me, is the. Which would have effect on the church. [00:22:53] Speaker A: Embrace of humanism and religious dialogue or the acceptance of form liturgy, the new liturgy. I would be. I would have to think about it. I probably would lean towards the liturgy just simply because that's so important. It's so foundational to Eucharist, source and summit of our life. And so it's so foundational, but it's. It's a close second for the ecumenical and religious dialogue movement. We no longer believe, we no longer practice like the. Outside the church. There is no salvation. I go into great detail about this in my book Deadly Indifference. And you can buy it, by the way. Just go. Ericsammons.com I. I didn't have copies. I was sold out for a while. But I did get some more. So go to ericsammons.com you can buy my book Deadly Indifference if you really want a detailed look at what I'm, what I'm trying to say here. But ultimately, we no longer really believe as Catholics that outside the church, there's no salvation. And we relegate the Catholic Church as just one among many. Instead of the unique instrument given to us by Christ for salvation. [00:23:57] Speaker A: We look at it as just one denomination among many, one religion among many. And this has dominated the church. I would say ecumenism and religious dialogue has become almost the religion of so many Catholic leaders. And, you know, up to today, I mean, Francis was obviously kind of the high priest of that. But, you know, you saw it with JP2 Benedict, you see it with Leo. You see it with tons and tons of bishops. And it really has led to so many problems as far as like, leading people astray and leading people to false beliefs and heretical beliefs, even though Vatican II itself didn't have heretical beliefs in it. I don't believe it clearly led people to heretical beliefs like the idea that you can be saved outside the Catholic Church, which just simply isn't true and isn't Catholic teaching. So that's. That's another rotten fruit of Vatican II and the whole spirit of Vatican ii. The era of Vatican II as we. I'm calling it right now. Okay, number seven is. [00:24:55] Speaker A: Oh, yes, Vatican II promoted collaboration. And here it's talking about collaboration among bishops and working together, things like that. Really what it's talking about is it's trying to democratize the Church. It's trying to make it so that the Church is not a monarchy, not a hierarchy, but a democracy. And obviously that is heretical, the idea that the Church is a democracy. And they won't say that straight up, but it's this idea of C. That, you know, bishops collaborate and stuff like that. But really, here's the. Here's the sad thing. It's all fake, as the young people would say. It's all fake and gay. It's all fake and gay. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Bishops have become just middle managers in the Church. There is no collaboration in the sense of, like, okay, we're all going to, you know, talk together before something happens. What happens is, we saw this under Francis. If the Pope wants to do something, he does it. He might then put it under Cidality to make it sound like it's, you know, collaboration. But we saw with the, you know, I mean, Traditionus Custodis is a great example. He polled the bishops, he surveyed the bishops, and they were like, no, do not do this. And he was like, I'm going to do this and say it's because you guys all demanded it. Like I said, fake and gay. It just simply isn't accurate to say there is this increased collaboration because it's just done for show, really. [00:26:18] Speaker A: Okay, number eight, I think it is. Yeah. Oh, yes. Back into updated the Church, which, of course. Oh, my gosh, that is such a generic term that really should never be said by a Catholic. [00:26:33] Speaker A: No Catholic, if they understand Catholic tradition, should ever be like, I want to update the Church. [00:26:41] Speaker A: What we want to do is we want to receive what's been passed on to us, hand it on to the next generation. Yes, there might be some changes in how we. In how we explain it to them, but we're not updating the Church as they're talking about here. I mean, to what end do we update the church? Had the Church fallen astray? Are we Mormons who think that, like, the Church fell away, had a great apostasy, and we now need to bring it back? If you listen to some of the Cardinal Cupich today, that's exactly what he sounds like. He sounds like a Mormon. Like, for a thousand years, having a traditional Mass basically led us to all these problems. But now we've brought it all back. I Mean, it's such an ahistorical, anti traditional view of the church to say that it. We updated the church. [00:27:25] Speaker A: And it talks about making the church more accessible. You know, what it did, it made the church less interesting. [00:27:32] Speaker A: We're talking particularly about the. [00:27:36] Speaker A: The new Mass. They love to talk about how it makes it more accessible. What it did was it made it less interesting. The fact is, a true religion should have a good deal of mystery in it. Should have a good deal of mystery in it. [00:27:52] Speaker A: There should be an understanding. When you go to the Sacred Liturgy, you don't understand everything that's happening. You don't necessarily trying to follow along, like it's a conference, that you're trying to take notes and follow along with it. No, you're simply entering into the worship of God and the worship of the infinite. God is beyond us. [00:28:12] Speaker A: So it's okay that there's mysterious elements to the Mass. So this idea of updating the church to make it more long no longer make it more accessible. All it did was it made it less interesting. And so people flocked to the doors to leave. That's how it updated the church. It made it so people didn't want to be part of it anymore. Okay, number nine is. But Bagatu also returned the church to its roots. You know, it updated church, but also returned it to its roots. What they're talking about here is the movement, the new theology movement in the 20th century, to go back to the Fathers, go back to the sources, the resoucement, this idea of returning to the sources and really all it was. And I, you know, I totally imbibed this for a long time when I first became Catholic. This idea of the resource mont, you know, new theology. And I'm not as anti that stuff as somebody like maybe Taylor Marshall is or something. He's got a lot of good critiques of it. I'll give him, you know, I. I acknowledge that he's a lot smarter than I am, so, you know, take that for what it's worth. But at the same time, it is a joke. A lot of it. The new theology, the resource mont, and it's. It's a false antiquarianism. What do I mean by that? What it does is it doesn't look at tradition as something that flows from the time of Christ until today, really from the time Adam and Eve all the way till today. What it does is it picks and chooses certain things from the ancient times and brings them to today, and then it kind of ignores other ones. I mean, a lot of times like you hear this like, oh, we're bringing back communion on the hand because that was practiced in the early church. Well, that's a very debatable point. Yeah. Another thing about this is it's got a lot of poor scholarship. Peter Kwasnski's pointed that out a number of times that the scholarship behind Elias is very poor. But let's just grant that communion in hand was some, was done at certain times in the early church. I don't think that's true really the way they mean it. But let's just grant that. Well, what about. So we're going to take that and bring it to today. But what about like for example, public confession, three year penances for certain sins where you. Public sin penances where you like sit in front of church and you beg for forgiveness for three years before you can go to communion? We're going to bring back that too. Why not? If we're really into the early church and let's do it like the church fathers did, why don't we do that? [00:30:38] Speaker A: It shows that all it really is is just, it's a pick and choose, you know, antiquarianism where we just decide what do we like about something we read in a book one time about something they did in the early church. And let's just bring that today. There's not this idea that the Holy Spirit has guided the Catholic Church throughout 2000 years and led us to today and led us to the 20th century. And then all of a sudden we have to decide, let's just go ahead and scrap it all. And so this returning to roots is kind of a joke. The last thing was just simply kind of funny. Then Father Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict 16th played, played a significant behind the scenes role. Now it's just they said that because this was written originally in. [00:31:22] Speaker A: I guess it was, it was 2015 and I don't know why they, you know, whatever on that one. So I think though what we see here is the church leaders love to talk about the impact of Vatican ii and they make it sound all flowery, but when you look at the actual details of what happened, it just simply isn't. It doesn't pass muster. I mean the best example, a lot of good examples here. But the reason was just saying that can say Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith. Yet Eucharist devotion has cratered since the time of Vatican ii or that Vatican II call for universal call to holiness. Yet people are definitely not living lives of holiness. Catholics are Definitely rejecting the means of holiness, like the sacraments, things like that today, much more than they were back then. So it's, it's just clear that Vatican II has been a dying project for a very long time and we just have to declare it dead. Now. There is the, the idea, you know, am I just blaming Vatican II for all today's problems? Was it the cause of all our problems or was it just like a, a cause, you know, was it just a casualty, so to speak, of the, the problems of today? Peter Kwesnowski, like I mentioned, read an article about this in Pelican Plus. I think it was yesterday or today. He talks about this some, but the truth is, I've talked about this before. The truth is it's intertwined the, the cause and effect of Vatican II in our problems today. There's no question that Vatican II itself was influenced by certain ideas, ideologies, currents in the western world at the time of Vatican II that started up after World War II in particular, started to gain some traction in the 50s and particularly in the 60s. No question Vatican II was influenced by Vatican II. The documents are very specific to the time. They really are outdated now in a lot of ways in the way they're worded and you know, they say things that just, I mean, they're really cringe worthy the way some of the wording is done in the Vatican II documents. But it's not true to just act like Vatican II was simply a victim of these currents. Vatican II also helped accelerate them. It accelerated the things that were going on in many ways, because like I said, when it decided to basically open up everything for debate, I mean, basically that was the idea. I know they weren't like debating the Trinity or resurrection, but they were debating like every single practice of the Church, no question about that. And that led to many thoughts of like debating doctrines and things of that nature. And so it really did undermine the Western world in a lot of real ways. It made it so that the Western world just rejected authority. I think Vatican II helped accelerate that and that's definitely true in the church. And you, Stephen Bullivant, his book Mass Exodus. I interviewed him once, I think about the book. He does a good job of showing that you can't say, like he does a very good job of showing all the things that were happening in the church before Vatican II that were leading to this to say, okay, we're not just blaming Vatican two, but then he also makes it clear you can't let back into off the hook like it had Nothing to do with. [00:34:47] Speaker A: Clearly accelerated a lot of the problems that were going on. It was not the solution that many of the Council Fathers sincerely wanted it to be. I mean, the Council Fathers, most of them, they wanted this to be for a renewal of the church to really. Because there were starting to see some cracks in the church as far as people leaving and things like that. That was happening before Vatican ii, but instead of throwing water on the growing fire, they threw gasoline. That's essentially what happened. [00:35:15] Speaker A: So what do we do for the future? I'm convinced we have to just let Vatican II die. Let its impact die. Yes. We can just say, yeah, it was a valid counsel. Whatever it's in the past, it does not help us today. It does not really. Whenever I hear people say Vatican II is really the way forward, I never hear any good arguments for why. Like, what are the specific things about Vatu that really touched us today? Like, if you say universal call holiness existed before Vatican ii, we didn't need Vatican II for that. If you say it emphasizes the Eucharist, well, we're not actually doing that. [00:35:54] Speaker A: So Vacant two. And of course, the Eucharist was hugely focused, was a huge focus of the church devotions before Vatican ii. So I just say we stop using as a reference point for going forward. We stop. I mean, honestly, you know, hearing me as a traditional Catholic, say, stop looking back. You know, church leaders, stop looking back. Bishops at like, this moment in time in the 1960s, as the lodestar for everything. Let's pull from the entire Catholic tradition. There's so much we can learn from the early church, the medieval church. Oh, the ugly medieval church where everything was so bad or whatever. The post Trent, the Trinity Church. Oh, that was even worse. Fortress mentality, all that stuff. We need a little fortress mentality today, frankly. What happened when we tore down the fortress is all the enemies came in and a bunch of people left. That's what happened. We took the fortress down. The point is we can learn a lot from the totality of tradition. We should not look just at simply a moment in time, the 1960s, as like the guiding light. So let's just, you know, declare Vatican II dead. You know, it died of just, you know, illness and disease. Nobody killed it. I'm not saying kill it. I'm just saying it's already dead. And it's been. It's been in poor health for basically its whole life. It's like, you know, think about the person who's always had health problems their entire life and eventually they kind of die. Early. Well, that's. That's the case for Vatican II. I mean, it's 60. That's a pretty good age. I mean, obviously most of us hope to live a lot past 60. I know I do because I'm getting close to 60 myself. But let's just let it die. That's what we need to do. Let's have our funeral for Vatican ii. Okay. Let's look at the live chat. Appreciate everybody. Tuesday afternoon live podcast. So bring your chat. We had somebody kind of spam it for a little while. We took them out. So. But if you have good comments, you don't have to agree with me. A good comments. We're gonna let them ride and we're gonna feature some of them here at the end. One says vacuum. Two should be treated like ladder. And two's ban on crossbows. I love that analogy. I know exactly what you're talking about. Formally promulgated, legitimate, valid counsel. Widely ignored and conveniently forgotten and now inconvenient, irrelevant. Yeah, people might not realize that there was actually an ecumenical council that banned crossbows. And basically, of course, we all know we. Nobody, nobody's like, oh my gosh, you're using crossbow. You're going against a valid communical council. So Juan's got a great point there. Dko Tradish says there's a documentary you can watch on YouTube called the New American Catholic that shows how truly crazy the liturgy got in some places. I wonder how Vatican was implemented in other countries. You know, I think I've seen that. The New American Catholic. I think I know what you're talking about. It is wild. I mean, do not watch that unless you are ready for some crazy 60s madness in the church. You know, there's a big debate about Vatican ii, how it was implemented in other countries, like, for example, in Africa. Like, that's something conservative Catholics often throw out at any traditional critique of academy. Well, look at Africa. It grew so great. Well, a couple of things to note. First of all, we know in the Western world, Europe, you know, America, places like that, Australia, place like the church was decimated. Decimated after Vatican ii. Also South America, Central America, decimated. Dr. Vatican ii, Africa. There has been some growth. But here's the thing. [00:39:16] Speaker A: Growth in Catholicism in, in Africa started in the early 20th century. It grew radically, I mean, dramatically. Before Vatican II, there was a bishop who, a certain bishop whom we all probably heard of, who was a missionary bishop in Africa. And he saw tremendous growth there. His name was Marcel Lefebvre. Oop, I'm not allowed to say his name. I think somebody's gonna note in the comments. Oh, no, you said his name. Marcel Lefebvre was a missionary bishop in Africa and he saw tremendous growth there. And he wasn't doing it through the Novus Order. Let me tell you that first of all, it's before Vatican ii and we all know Archer Lefebvre wouldn't have been doing that by. So here we have this traditional bishop. He wasn't traditional at time. He was just a normal bishop bringing about lots of conversion in Africa. So to act like Africa, some proof that Vatican II itself worked and caught. We don't, we can't really say that. I do think it probably had less of impact, negative impact there, as in other places. But let's look at what it did do wrong in the country we live in, in the countries we live in. Patrick says judge it by its fruits. Complete collapse, revolution and modernism throughout the entire hierarchy. Hard to argue with that. [00:40:26] Speaker A: Albert says most faithful Catholics wish that Vatican 2 had never taken place. I was 11 years old when it ended. Suddenly the only anchor in a troubled childhood was gone. I stayed true to the old mass. God bless you, Albert. My father in law, God rest his soul. He was born in the 30s, so he was in his late 20s, early 30s, when Vatican II was happening. And I know for a fact that he just, he wasn't some revolutionary, he wasn't some crazy training like that. He just simply knew. I don't like this. I don't like these changes Now. A lot of people were like him and they left the church because of that. He didn't leave the church, God, God bless him, because I'm very happy about that. Because that means his daughters didn't leave the Church, including his daughter, who's the daughter, who was my wife. But the fact is, is that he never liked it till the day he died. He just, you know, he, he tried to hang on as much as he could. He. He went to Novus Ordo because he didn't even know about. There wasn't a lot of traditional options. He didn't even know about them. He died really before, even before Sumarum Pontificam came out. And he just tried to, you know, but it was very disturbing to him and very disheartening. And if you read a lot of documents like from people of that time, Evelyn wa, for example, they felt the same way. Eggie Spammy says, in my opinion, if there is no sacrament of life, everything else deteriorates from there. I mean, that is very True, the sacraments are our lifeblood. Without the sacraments we just die off. And the fact is too many, too many Catholics are not living a sacramental life. Okay, I don't know what this name is. Palermo. Palermo. [00:42:02] Speaker A: Trapani. I don't know. Sorry about that. I'm curious how this extraordinary consistent story in January with all the cardinals voting in November is going to turn out. Could be lots of issues that were left from Francis papacy come up here now. It's very interesting. One thing that was interesting about Francis is he never called the cardinals together. He basically like, no, I don't want you guys all coming together. I don't know what he's afraid of. Maybe thought they would like conspire against him or something. But Pope Leo is calling it consistory in January of all the cardinals and God bless him. I think that's a good thing. I think it's good he's doing that. Hopefully that means he's going to listen to him and hopefully the cardinals have something good to say. Hard to say though what they're going to talk about, what it's going to mean, what they're going to do, but it'll be interesting to find out. [00:42:40] Speaker A: Mark says, speaking of the Rio Vatican ii, can you address the noto previa of Lumen gentium? Thanks. I'm not going to do it right here. I, I, I'm not 100. What you mean? I think, are you talking about where it talks about subsists in the church? I'm not sure what you're referring to there, so I apologize. But the fact is is that I've talked about like Vatican lumen gentium in depth in my book, Deadly indifference in other places. But here's the, here's the, the deal. I mean here's the, the bottom line, let's just get over Vatican 2. I understand for an older generation they're clinging to it. It really has been especially for academics who've made kind of the study back in two and bishops back to their whole life, like their whole direction. It's very difficult to hear what I'm saying and they get upset. They might do things like call me a coward or whatever and that's okay, I understand they're emotionally attached to it. But for those of us who are born after Vatican ii, that includes me, an old guy like me, I was born Vatican ii. That's how old it is. Particularly the further away you get from Vatican II and its battles, the less emotionally attached you are to it and the more you're willing to just say, okay, it's dead, let's move on. Let's find new ways to, to recover the full tradition of the church, not just this little sliver, this little point in time from the 1960s and act like that's the way forward. It's not. And the sooner we recognize this on all levels of church, the more the closer we're going to get to revival and really bringing souls to Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church. And that's what it's all about. After all, that's what the mission is. That's what the Council Fathers wanted. The Council Fathers wanted to bring souls to Jesus Christ and more people to the Catholic Church. And if Vatican 2 is not doing that, and it's not, then the Council Fathers themselves would want us to just move on from it. And so that's what we need to do. Okay, that's it for today. Until next time, everybody. God love you.