John Martin said it all;

The Second Vatican council misread the writing on the wall So it opened wide the windows and began an overhaul That would have baffled Peter and flabbergasted Paul It even shocked the Buddhists and the Hindus of Bengal And all the time the spokesmen sang, like songbirds on a perch We're only changing little things, we'd never harm the Church! The second vatican council breathed love from every pore, To every other faith on earth it preached an open door. It said nothing bad against the Reds, it would've welcomed Thor. But on traditional Catholicism, it launched a holy war!

And all the time it's spokesmen sang, "Our souls are white as birch, We only hate Traditionalists, We'd never harm the Church!

The second vatican council was a council ecumnical, Unlike the twelve Apostles and their undiluted cenacle, It brought in so many rabbis and Lutherans tubigenical That the church of Rome began to sound Protestant/rabbinical!

And all the time it's songbirds sang,It's just some new research. Long live the Revolution,But we're still sweet Mother Church!

The second vatican council coined catchwords by the score, Cult of man, People of God, Dialogue and more. Renewal, and Collegiality raised such a mighty roar That few there were who dared to say,"Bah,humbug. What a bore!"

And all the time it's songbirds sang,"Our name please don't besmirch We may sound like true-blue modernists,But we'd never change the Church!"

0And when the council ended, a few years down the line, Pope Paul the sixth,the council's chief, made water out of wine, He changed the Mass of History, that glory and that sign, Into something weak and feeble, diluted it benign.

And though the sheep were scattered, the songbirds sang in glee: We've rid the Church of discipline!, What joy!, What fun! We're free!"

Yes our feckless, reckless modernists gave up the Rock for sand, They pulled down half the altars, gave Communion in the hand, Crowned Eucharistic ministers, their smiles blank and bland, While Father Bob sang solo with a three-guitar rock band!

And those that blamed the Council, were sneered at or dismissed. "You'll only harm our brave new church!", those nasty songbirds hissed

Across the world, the faith grew cold, with novelty the thing. The seminaries emptied, the fountain lost it's spring. Scandals there were many, with pedophilia king, Annulments were assembly-line and heresy took wing.

This confusion worse counfounded, Left the songbirds unconcerned: "We only built a little fire; Too bad so much has burned!"

Now Catholics live and Catholics die while the tragic farce proceeds, They doubt the Blessed Sacrament and no longer pray their beads. They think that Heaven's guaranteed no matter what their deeds And fail to see Hell"s quicksand as they play among the reeds.

And still those spokesmen sing in Rome, Like songbirds on a perch. "Alas if there are perished souls, But we'd never harm the Church!" Someday another Council will restore all things to Christ-- Give us steak and not baloney so cunningly thin sliced,

Give us truth and not the trumpery of the fashionable zeitgeist, And repair the seamless garment for which the soldiers diced!.

And then those smirking songbirds, Will have to leave their perch

And fly so very far away, They'll no more harm the Church!. THE END

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 14, 2002

Answers

Spoken like a true traditionalist! Like so many, you seem unable to differentiate between the spiritual wisdom of what the Council actually said (have you read any of it?), and the perversions of Council teaching that modernists and "progressives" have forced upon the Church ever since, supposedly in the name of Vatican II. The Council did not authorize ANY of the apalling changes which are currently transforming some Catholic dioceses into non-denominational purveyors of "mere Christianity". Don't blame the Church for attacks against the Church by those who disregard and defy its teachings.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), December 14, 2002.

Thanks, Paul, for your devastatingly true post.

What really rang a bell with me was this thought of yours:
"... spiritual wisdom of what the Council actually said (have you read any of it?)"
It is so true that few of the schismatic bashers of the Council have read (or having read, have understood) the documents.
Note that the scurrilous poem above states: "The Second Vatican council ... said nothing bad against the Reds."
But now look at the following two excerpts from a Council document, which so obviously condemned Communism in the midst of the Cold War:
----- "... it is inhuman for public authority to fall back on dictatorial systems or totalitarian methods which violate the rights of the person or social groups."
----- ".... those political systems, prevailing in some parts of the world, are to be reproved which hamper civic or religious freedom, victimize large numbers through avarice and political crimes, and divert the exercise of authority from the service of the common good to the interests of one or another faction or of the rulers themselves."

And, in fact, one of the main purposes of the Council's document on "religious liberty" was to demand that liberty for Catholics in communist-dominated (and other) lands where they were being persecuted in the mid-1960s!

At this point "Ex-Catholic Ed" has proved that he is here only to cause mischief. His contributions are almost 100% worthless. He is breaking the forum's rules at every turn and has merited a banning.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), December 15, 2002.

From "Ex Catholic" Ed.

Checked my copy of Documents of Vatican 2, Go to index. Se if you can find Communism mentioned..

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 16, 2002.

Dear ed,

As already mentioned, Communism is not singled out, but clearly falls under the category "dictatorial systems and totalitarian methods"

Peace! Paul

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), December 16, 2002.

Paul,

do your research to find out why communism was not mentioned by name.

-- Isabel (isabel@yahoo.com), December 16, 2002.

Did anyone look up the "Vatican-Moscow", agreement in 1962. That might be a very good reason, why Communism was not mentioned.

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 16, 2002.

Did anyone look up the "Vatican-Moscow", agreement in 1962. That might be a very good reason, why Communism was not mentioned.The Church promised, not to criticize Communism directly.

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 16, 2002.

A 1962 ''agreement''--??? With whom, my serene little turtle doves? Who did Vatican Council II agree to protect from direct criticism? Pardon my smirk; I'm a songbird gathering birdseed here. Pre-digested. --For use as fertilizer.

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), December 16, 2002.

Eugene never heard of the Moscow agreement?. What smoke filled room are you writing from!. Again Gene. do you never leave this website to find out what's going on? Ask any of your friends on this web, if they have heard of it.

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 16, 2002.

Eugene, you got one thing right! If anyone can spread fertilizer, it's you.

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 16, 2002.

Read it here, Guardian of the faith.

I'm lately not interested in defying the Church of the apostles.

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), December 16, 2002.

It's certainly possible (in fact, probable) that in 1960, when both the Church and the U.S. were *actively* trying to end, or at least warm up, the Cold War - for the eminently practical purpose of preventing nuclear war. Anyone who was alive in 1960 -- or who has watched any old Twilight Zone episodes ( ;-) - knows very well that this was the PREVAILING fear of the day.

So it doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me that the Vatican Council might have decided, all things considered, let's try talking WITH them instead of AT them for a change and see if it does any good.

Whether it was the right choice or not, you might want to take into consideration the fact that Pope John Paul II - who has provided the ultimate interpretation of Vatican II in the Catechism of the Catholic Church - is widely credited as being one of the reasons Communist Russia no longer exists. Put that in your pipe and hack on it. ;-)

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), December 16, 2002.

Christine, with all due respect. Communist Russia no longer exists?!!!

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 16, 2002.

"So it doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me that the Vatican Council might have decided, all things considered, let's try talking WITH them instead of AT them for a change and see if it does any good."

I think that's exactly right; this is why I believe the ecumenical approach is a 'ways of man' approach. Fatima was attempting to offer the 'ways of God' approach. I believe it may yet remain to be seen how much of a screwup this really was.

What half-way decent evangelist of old wouldn't have tried to play up on common things of other religions as a platform to begin the conversion process? What is so new about this style in the 20th Century? It is like selling life insurance by calling it a retirement plan. All it does is present yet another ambiguity ready and available to be abused.

And what in the world ecumenism have to do with doctrine? What's new about the new evangelism? It is packaging, a way of presenting, a strategy... my gosh, its a feeling. Yeah, that's it! That's all it is; feelings.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), December 16, 2002.

Read up on The Pestroika Deception. Also, The Vatican-Moscow agreement did not happen the way you like picture it in your head, Christine, sorry. Read up on that, too.

-- Isabel (isabel@yahoo.com), December 16, 2002.

EMERALD-- ''And what in the world did ecumenism have to do with doctrine? What's new about the new evangelism?''

If the ecumenical spirit can't be equated with ''doctrine'', what's the accusation? Bad political intent on the part of the Pope?

As for evangelizing the Soviet Union, the Catholic Church has a long way yet to go. ''Old or new'' it takes time; and the Church was given time; trust her.

With or without Ed Richards' song, the Church has to serve God through men. To the saints and angels we can only offer up our prayers, they can't help us over the conference table in Moscow.

Ed maintains: "Alas if there are perished souls, But we'd never harm the Church!" Someday another Council will restore all things to Christ-- Give us steak and not baloney so cunningly thin sliced, Give us truth and not the trumpery of the fashionable zeitgeist, And repair the seamless garment for which the soldiers diced!''

Is scorn for Christ's holy Church in fashion in Ed's Tridentine parish? He openly reviles the leaders of our Church. Christ is just his punching bag; Ed can't see that the Church is Christ's Body.

Just so strange; a coincidence-- last night we (my wife and I) gave a man a ride home from Mass. My wife asked if he had a family. Yes, he had four brothers.

One of them was a corporate lawyer, a millionaire until he died, at only 45 years age.

He choked to death on a steak. Yes, how morbid. p>Ed Richards demanding ''steak'' from the Pope and his Cardinals this morning.-- Hmmm. --Sounds apropos.

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), December 16, 2002.

Let me add something to that, though, Christine, to kind of round it out a bit.

I also think it is plausible that, if you consider an alternate past scenario.. if we had had a Pope come in around the mid part of the last century and rule with an iron fist, the losses in the pews and the priesthood may have been similiar, as well as the further marginalization of the Roman Catholic Church, even attributable to this very iron fist approach. I do, however, think it would have been less severe.

The reason I think this is that the root cause, or starting point, of failure will always be the entire body of Christ (especially the laity) to fail to uphold the dogma of the Faith and the practice of their Faith in their lives and in their homes. This was the target of Fatima's message. I think this is the root cause of all, and it is almost bound to happen. It is biblically almost cyclical.

The one benefit for the Church, I believe, in the iron fist approach is that it would have been more akin to the pruning of the tree analogy of Scripture, whereby the tree would produce better fruit. At least when coming back into the fold, those who had went astray would not have come home and found the house in a wreck.

But then again, cleaning up a wreck is a great means of atonement...

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), December 16, 2002.

"Bad political intent on the part of the Pope?"

Who knows, Eugene. On this question of the holiness or lack thereof of the Pope, I have no clue. Why does he do some of what he does? Who knows. Why doesn't he condemn this, that, the other thing? Who knows.

What is it then? I have no idea, really. I have a theory though, and it can't be substantiated in any way, but I wonder if the end of his Papacy will not be starkly different from the beginning of it; that through the course of the Papacy the presence of the Holy Spirit, the incredible suffering inherent in the occupation of the Chair itself, a continued striving for holiness... that at the end of it, he may actually attain that holiness.

I don't understand this pre-canonization of the Pope... this judging of the holiness of the Pope, always coming from the same people that say we have no business judging anything at all; we are not qualified, we are in no position to ascertain these things. What a contradiction. If this is so, why the high-five precanonization throng? Many of which don't really give a rip about the living of the Faith. Just witness World Youth Day; that disaster needs to be anathemetized.

Pray for the Pope. Not an admonition; I'm positive you already do this. He needs to be saved as do any of the rest of us; in fact, big job means big life review and corresponding reward... all the more we should pray for him. Statistically, a another papal saint is not due on the horizon for another 350 years or so, if the last gap is to be any measure. We live in different times though and I don't think the matter is even relevant anymore.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), December 16, 2002.

The 1962 agreement was a simple concession made by the Church to the government of Russia, that no direct and specific political attacks would be made upon the Russian state at the Council. This agreement was coerced by Russian authorities, by refusing to allow Russian clergy to attend the Council unless the Vatican agreed to such a clause. However, this did nothing to restrain the Vatican from voicing, in the strongest possible terms, its blanket opposition to all forms of totalitarian and authoritarian government. There would have been no point in specifying particular governmental systems, as totalitarianism existed in many deviant forms, in many parts of the world, and overemphasis on one such system might be taken as tacit approval of, or at least reduced opposition to, other equally sinister systems of human oppression. The wisest possible mode of attack was exactly that which the Church used - sweeping condemnation of the political forms which everyone at that time in history associated primarily with Communism - yet which would also clearly apply to Fascism, Socialism, and dictatorship in all its variant forms. Thus, the Church addressed not just the dominant oppressive system of that specific time, but all such abuses, in all times and places.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), December 16, 2002.

Isabel wrote: "Also, The Vatican-Moscow agreement did not happen the way you like picture it in your head, Christine, sorry. Read up on that, too."

I try not to picture things in my head, Isabel, it just confuses me. I stick to the facts, which is what I wish someone would provide. Does anyone have the actual TEXT of this agreement which we could read and parse together?

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), December 16, 2002.

Ed, you wrote: "Christine, with all due respect. Communist Russia no longer exists?!!!"

Um - it was in all the newspapers, Ed. I remember it well, being one of the people who was out dancing in the streets (albeit in L.A. rather than the Berlin Wall, still . . . ) :-)

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), December 16, 2002.

Emerald, you actually have a good point about "precanonizing" the Pope.

From my point of view, the reason I make a point to honor the Pope as a future saint is because when I was an Atheist I said some really nasty things about him - so now I'm just kinda trying to balance things out! :-)

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), December 16, 2002.

Um - it was in all the newspapers, Ed.

Christine, please don't think I am picking on you, or trying to be disrespectful in any way by the things I say. I can be rather abrasive at times. A fault I work on constantly, never quite to succeecd, though. The reason I picked this quote out was because, surely you must know how very liberal our news agencies are. You only hear and see what they want you to see.

Also, please read on the Pestroika Deception. I know another 'conspiracy type' theory. But if you read writings or interviews of some of the first communists, you will see that they had a certain time in history that they wanted to be in control of the world. With that time come and gone, maybe they are trying a different approach?

-- Isabel (isabel@yahoo.com), December 16, 2002.

Well, sorry, but I just don't think it's a productive use of our time to be reading books on conspiracy theories and criticizing the Church. Better to spend it praying and asking Our Lord to sanctify His Church. I think He will, if we ask Him nicely. :-)

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), December 17, 2002.

Hello, Christine.
You asked: "Does anyone have the actual TEXT of this agreement which we could read and parse together?"
Notice the mad rush by the schis-trads to supply the text to you?
No, I didn't think so. I have read about this "pact." If there was an agreement [and I will believe deacon Paul's statement that there was], it was either a simple oral agreement ... or it was written but has been kept confidential.
Those alleged to have met (in a French town) were the Cardinal Secretary of State and a Russian Orthodox Metropolitan (high-ranking bishop).
God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), December 18, 2002.

It was not alleged,that the meeting took place at Metz. It certainly did,. Pope John 23rd, with the urging of Cardinal Montini, sent Cardinal Tisserant to Metz, to meet with the Russian Prelate. If you think that this was church to church, you are mistaken. This stuff came right from Kruschev. Malachi Martin, ( a vatican insider at the time), sometime later on, exposed the whole thing. You know Christine, we do have adulterers, prostitutes, etc etc, in the Church, But their sole mission is not to destroy the church, like the Masonic commies. Those othe poor souls, are just sinners, not destroyers, they need this hospital of the soul. They'd be the last ones that wanted it destroyed.

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 18, 2002.

Christine,

Also remember these "masonic commies" were all saying the Tridentine mass, so when you think of the evils of "masonic commies", remember they all inflicted their evil influence through the Tridentine mass.

Thankfully, no Novus Ordo "masonic commies" have been discovered yet!

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), December 18, 2002.

Well, Frank, as I'm sure you know, EVERYONE who observes the "Novus Ordo" is a Masonic Commie, so it would be redundant for Ed to have mentioned it. ;-)

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), December 18, 2002.

Christine, yes those commies said th latin mass, but could not make any real headway, until Vatican 2. That was the linch pin that they were waiting for. Poor old John, He expected the council to last 3 weeks. At his death, he was crying, "Stop the council, Stop the council! Poor old guy, was snookered.

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 18, 2002.

Really? Got any evidence to back THAT up? According to those who were actually at his bedside, he died with a smile on his face and the words "it is finished" on his lips.

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), December 18, 2002.

Ed,
Would you say a mass is invalid if celebrated by a communist? An ordained priest who was a communist, and has never been unfrocked, ex-communicated or laicized; Tridentine or otherwise, is it valid?

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), December 18, 2002.

Eugene; Truce, but to answer your question, if commie priest is validly ordained, valid matter, form, intention, then valid consecration.

If saint is ordained, and lacks any of the above, No valid consecration.

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 18, 2002.

"At seven on the evening of June 3rd [1963], the Monday after Pentecost, a Mass was celebrated for Pope John in Saint Peter's Square below the apartment where he lay dying. I [Joseph A. Komonchak] was in that crowd. Half-full as the Mass began, the square was crowded by the time it ended. Around 7:40 the Ite missa est was chanted and we began to sing "Ubi caritas et amor ibi Deus est." Above in his room, where the hymn could be heard, John XXIII trembled for an instant and peacefully died."

(doesn't sound like "Stop the Council! Stop the Council" to me ... )

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), December 18, 2002.

God rest his soul.

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 18, 2002.

Yes, Christine, the "quotation" is a phony. I believe that it was invented for the double purpose of
(1) denigrating Vatican II and
(2) letting a certain wing of trads "rehabilitate" a pope that the public loves. ("Oh, he wasn't one of those mean and nasty "novus ordo" clowns. That was Paul VI's doing! Yeah, that's right. John XXIII died saying, 'Stop the Council, stop the Council!'")
JFG

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), December 19, 2002.

Yes, it's the same thing those who promote false apparitions do - claim that they heard the Pope say, in a PRIVATE audience (no witnesses, natch!), that he really supports their apparition but has to wait for the investigation to conclude! :-)

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), December 19, 2002.

Christine; We're back in the game, Hallelujah!

-- ed Richards (loztra@yahoo.com), December 19, 2002.

Amen, amen, Ed! ;-)

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), December 19, 2002.