The following comes from an April 1 edition of the Oakland diocese paper, the Catholic Voice.
The day after Pope Francis was installed, by coincidence three Catholic speakers found cautious hope for church reform in the spirit of Vatican II.
In a program at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, they shared a common view that the vision of the council still has not been fully implemented in the Church, a half century after it took place (1962-65).
Oakland Emeritus Bishop John Cummins read signs of hope from Pope Francis’ background, both as a prelate in Latin America and as a Jesuit.
Liberation theology is most vigorous in Latin America, where the new pope has lived all his life, Bishop Cummins pointed out. And former Jesuit Superior General Pedro Arupe “put the Jesuits on track toward justice in the world.”
Bishop Cummins participated in Vatican II as an expert, drafting position papers.
The new pope has been widely reported as living modestly and eschewing many of the trappings available to the archbishop of Buenos Aires. Service to the poor is prominent in his life.
Another speaker, Emeritus Bishop Remi DeRoo of Victoria, B.C., said he prayed before the recent consistory that the man chosen “would have experience with poverty and would be in solidarity with the poor.” Bishop DeRoo was the youngest bishop in Vatican II and still calls himself “a pilgrim of the Second Vatican Council.”
But lay theologian Massimo Faggioli cautioned “it is increasingly difficult to govern this big church from small offices in Rome.”
All three speakers agreed Pope Francis faces a tough challenge in reforming the Curia, the ecclesiastical structure supporting the pope in managing the church. The curia has been criticized from many perspectives for infighting, inefficiency and worse. Many see it as the primary challenge to church reform.
From an episcopal perspective Cummins emphasized that “the Curia does not stand between the pope and the bishops!”
Francis comes into the papacy as a strong advocate for the poor and disadvantaged. He also is traditional in matters of faith and morals. Because he has no personal experience working in the Curia there is a wide range of views on how he will proceed.
The speakers voiced a common view that Vatican II provided direction for greater local direction and shaping of the church. But all also asserted that the council’s vision remains far from fulfillment.
Faggioli, who writes extensively about Vatican II, argued that “kidnapping of the council” occurred a few years after its 1965 conclusion. He is critical of Pope John Paul II and especially of Pope Benedict XVI for allegedly reversing course after the council and not carrying out some of the changes debated. In the late 1960s Benedict XVI “had second, third and fourth thoughts about Vatican II,” according to Faggioli and did not implement the liberating ideas from Vatican II.
Now a theology professor at St. John’s University in Minnesota, Faggioli said he left Italy because “they were pulling the plug on the brains of theologians.”
Faggioli said that the post-Vatican II shift resulted in “disappointed liberal Catholics have left, and angry conservative Catholics have taken over in many places.”
The program at Saint Mary’s followed coursework in which students read and discussed Faggioli’s most recent book analyzing Vatican II.
Cummins fondly recalled changes that followed his return to the diocese after Vatican II. He grouped changes in the Oakland diocese into four broad areas: lay involvement in the liturgy, service to the community, the style of authority and collegiality.
Style was significant in changing the face of Catholicism. The use of English (or other local languages) in the Mass may be the most obvious change begun by Vatican II. But other important changes, in Cummins’ view, include consultation and dialogue and a realization that there are no non-negotiables.
During his episcopacy (1977 to 2003) Cummins presided over many changes in the diocese. He recalled that “when I came in, priests ran every department” in the chancery. That changed rapidly, recalling a later meeting “when there were more lay than priests, more women than men. Everybody noticed it and nobody said anything!”
To read original article, click here.
I hate to see Bishop Cummins making positive comments about Pope Francis. Bishop Cummins was an important figure in the battle for “gay rights” decades ago and was useful in assuring that sodomy was legalized. More later after I look up the references.
For details on Bishop Cummins pro-sodomy efforts, see Randy Engel’s book, “The Rite of Sodomy Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church”. Here is the relevant quote: “Cummins is best remembered for his role in maneuvering a ‘consenting adults’ bill through the Sacramento legislature in 1975 that legalized adulterous cohabitation, oral sex, and sodomy, when he (Cummins) was President of the California Catholic Conference”. So here is the California Catholic Conference again!!
My advice to Pope Francis would be to watch out for the wolves in shepherd’s clothing!
Thank you for calling attention to bishop Cummins wrongdoings…The worst enemies of the Church are inside its ranks and the same we can say of the Jesuits…
Laurette I agree…it is creepy. I pray that it doesn’t mean a thing though.
This article only enforces the fact that the modernists are taking over the Church and in doing so “reform” means reforming the Teaching of Jesus Christ. You do not change the teachings of God. If there are any reforms in order they are to reform the “reforms” having already been made – such as clown Masses, Masses becoming music recitals etc.
Instead of bellyaching about the Church not saying “anything goes”, why don’t Faggioli and the rest of them just become Episcopalians?
Who is surprised?
St. Mary’s hosted terrorist Bill Ayers as an on-campus speaker to inculcate students in the Marxist dialectic.
St. Mary’s recently installed an administrator from Berkeley’s GTU as its new President.
St. Mary’s hosts Protestant “inclusive” “masses” at its chapel each Sunday at 930.
Who is surprised at any of this?
Anyone who has not been paying attention, that’s who.
The “Liberal” wing of Catholicism is so completely foolish. Let them leave the Church and join the Anglicans; they should be very happy there. In fact, history will show — if any Western history is written after the Muslim faith becomes the dominant faith in Europe (see the planned building of an enormous mosque in Ireland) — Vatican II Implementation (apart from the Council itself, although that was bad enough), and the corruption of the Catholic clergy through homosexual membership, as the forces that destroyed the institutional Church. Yet, there is Faith here, true Faith. Tradition lives and will not be extinguished, as it bears the Deposit of Faith. Cries of “reform this, reform that” are senseless and lead only to sterile, and endless, self-examination. The Church is about one thing — Salvation. It is not a shared responsibility: the Catholic Church alone carries this message and promise to Mankind. With American bishops and other leaders such as Cardinal Dolan, there is little chance for the Church Militant to raise up its army to fight sin and death, and to invite all Mankind to the promise of Christ. Without this, reform means nothing. Little men, fighting about little things that mean next to nothing. And, washing up the poor means nothing, nothing, if it does not lead to salvation; many faiths practice charity.
Our Lady is reported to have given us our Marching Orders at Akita when she reportedly stated some thing like this: “only those who keep to Tradition will survive”!
If a bishop, or even a Pope goes against Tradition, we do not have to follow!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Vatican II has been hijacked by Liberals who twist its writing and meaning.
To see the 16 Documents of Vatican II in entirety go to the Vatican web site and search: “Documents of the II Vatican Council”.
Under this heading please note you will also find a link to the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” – which liberal and ultra-conservative heretics and schismatics refuse to adhere to in entirety.
Marxist Liberation Theology violates Church teaching – – –
“Thou shall not steal.”
CCC: ” 2411 Contracts are subject to commutative justice which regulates exchanges between persons and between institutions in accordance with a strict respect for their rights.
Commutative justice obliges strictly; it requires safeguarding property rights, paying debts, and fulfilling obligations freely contracted.
Without commutative justice, no other form of justice is possible.
One distinguishes commutative justice from legal justice which concerns what the citizen owes in fairness to the community, and from distributive justice which regulates what the community owes its citizens in proportion to their contributions and needs.”
CCC: ” 2424 …….. A system that “subordinates the basic rights of individuals and of groups to the collective organization of production” is contrary to human dignity. Every practice that reduces persons to nothing more than a means of profit enslaves man, leads to idolizing money, and contributes to the spread of atheism. “You cannot serve God and mammon.”
The Bishops in the USA are required to enforce that all Catholic Charities must evangelize, not merely be a social organization or provide funds to groups that oppose teachings of our Faith. – “ON the SERVICE of CHARITY” – APOSTOLIC LETTER ISSUED ‘MOTU PROPRIO’ or the SUPREME PONTIFF BENEDICT XVI.
I hope the Pope and those from other Countries fully understand that the USA is NO longer a PROSPEROUS NATION.
The USA’s current national DEBT is: $16, 774, 304, 966, 820.00.
This does NOT include the serious debts of some States. CA debt = $407,397,622,473.00.
Nor the separate additional debts of counties or cities within each State.
The Church needs to preach its teaching of Commutative Justice (CCC 2411) – which includes paying just debts. (This action requires stopping over-spending, governmental waste, and non-essentials.)
(Our new Pope is correct that far too much money is spent on cosmetics by individuals throughout the world. As individuals we are each required to help those who are unable to help themselves. If you do not have money, clean out your closets and pantries and donate goods to the poor.)
Sandy,
Cosmetics! How about Sports? I was a jock, and lettered in 3 sports, but “the truth shall set you free”!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
The following is copied from one of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s farewell addresses, regarding what V2 was versus what the world made of it, what the world wanted to make of it, in the world’s scaled-over blindness — or, worse, in the world’s diabolicalness. To be read carefully:
I would now like to add yet a third point: there was the Council of the Fathers – the true Council – but there was also the Council of the media. It was almost a Council in and of itself, and the world perceived the Council through them, through the media. So the immediately efficiently Council that got thorough to the people, was that of the media, not that of the Fathers. And while the Council of the Fathers evolved within the faith, it was a Council of the faith that sought the intellectus, that sought to understand and try to understand the signs of God at that moment, that tried to meet the challenge of God in this time to find the words for today and tomorrow. So while the whole council – as I said – moved within the faith, as fides quaerens intellectum, the Council of journalists did not, naturally, take place within the world of faith but within the categories of the media of today, that is outside of the faith, with different hermeneutics. It was a hermeneutic of politics. The media saw the Council as a political struggle, a struggle for power between different currents within the Church. It was obvious that the media would take the side of whatever faction best suited their world. There were those who sought a decentralization of the Church, power for the bishops and then, through the Word for the “people of God”, the power of the people, the laity. There was this triple issue: the power of the Pope, then transferred to the power of the bishops and then the power of all … popular sovereignty. Naturally they saw this as the part to be approved, to promulgate, to help. This was the case for the liturgy: there was no interest in the liturgy as an act of faith, but as a something to be made understandable, similar to a community activity, something profane. And we know that there was a trend, which was also historically based, that said: “Sacredness is a pagan thing, possibly even from the Old Testament. In the New Testament the only important thing is that Christ died outside: that is, outside the gates, that is, in the secular world”. Sacredness ended up as profanity even in worship: worship is not worship but an act that brings people together, communal participation and thus participation as activity. And these translations, trivializing the idea of the Council, were virulent in the practice of implementing the liturgical reform, born in a vision of the Council outside of its own key vision of faith. And it was so, also in the matter of Scripture: Scripture is a book, historical, to treat historically and nothing else, and so on.
And we know that this Council of the media was accessible to all. So, dominant, more efficient, this Council created many calamities, so many problems, so much misery, in reality: seminaries closed, convents closed liturgy trivialized … and the true Council has struggled to materialize, to be realized: the virtual Council was stronger than the real Council. But the real strength of the Council was present and slowly it has emerged and is becoming the real power which is also true reform, true renewal of the Church. It seems to me that 50 years after the Council, we see how this Virtual Council is breaking down, getting lost and the true Council is emerging with all its spiritual strength. And it is our task, in this Year of Faith, starting from this Year of Faith, to work so that the true Council with the power of the Holy Spirit is realized and Church is really renewed. We hope that the Lord will help us. I, retired in prayer, will always be with you, and together we will move ahead with the Lord in certainty. The Lord is victorious. Thank you.
Thank you for calling our attention to these words of sapiens Benedict xvi. Good to have him in the background of Pope Francis and good to have the Holy Spirit taking care of our Church.
Whenever one hears “Spirit of the Council” you know immediately from which way they are coming. If we paid attention to the words of the Council, we would still have the Mass being said in Latin, with English being the exception.
Of course, there are those who still think the mass exodus of priests, religious and laity after Vatican II was for some other reason other than how they changed the Church (and left many who have no concept of Catholicism to run it). There is another possibility — they couldn’t find a Catholic church because all the churches look all alike (Protestant, Catholic, it doesn’t matter)!
Bob,
Whenever I heard a speaker, priest or lay, use the term “Spirit of Vatican II”, I immediately challenged them to not give us that so called Spirit, but the actual directives of Vatican II, and they always retreated!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Bishop Cummins was the director of the bishops’ lobby, the California Catholic Conference, from 1971 until 1977.
During his lobbying days, Cummins had no personal record of opposing abortion. Pro-life state senators and assembly members who were pro-life, knew that Cummins was disinterested.
it is no wonder that young Catholics, serious about their faith, are leaving the Catholic Church because they see clergy who constantly politicize Catholicism into a socialist program rather than a religion that calls us to chastity, personal goodness, the sacredness of life and meaningful worship.
Faggioli means beans in Italian. You all know what beans give you…a lot of smelly hot air!
F
How can one take serious anything Faggolio says about VaticanII. From his picture he looks like he was born after VaticanII. I will stick with what our Pope Emeritus Benedict teaches on VaticanII because he was there and lived it.
These men are not Catholic. They desire to form a church in their image and inject their poison wherever they are allowed to speak. I pray Pope Francis does not heed to heretical forces within the Church. To do so will only accelerate a deep schism. As it is, there is quite a divide between a “Spirit” of Vatican II Catholic (disdains tradition) and a Traditional Catholic (loves tradition and adheres to Church teaching).
Sadly, we need to pray for our fellow catholics that try to follow this world and help lead others to perdition. When comments are asked for by the media, conservative comments are shunned. Whether it be the killing of innocents, the killing of the innocent, or following the liberal ideology that we are creating God, not that God created us, satan wins the battle.
The Church has allowed bishops free reign. Pope Francis could have sent a resounding gong in the Church by refusing The Eucharist to the V.P. The press would have noticed. God gave us free will. If a political position costs heaven, the Church has an obligation to try to save that soul. By not speaking against a political leader, he is given acceptance for his political views. Jesus spoke for God, but would not be trapped by the Pharisees’ question about Caesars tax.
Pray for Pope Francis. May he lead all back to God, especially the young Catholics that have fallen away from the Church because the CHURCH accepted homosexuality and the preying on our young, not praying for our young. JMJ pray for us.
P.S. As I age, all of the “superstitions” the nuns taught back in the 50s and 60s that we were told in the 70s and 80s were superstitions, are truth not lies or make believe.
You know what I just love (sarcasm of course) about the modernists? After they have practically shoved all women into the work force in the name of “equal rights” and filling quotas, they now want us to get fully involved in working in the “Church”, including being priests. They seem to care less if any of us women have any time left to take care of home and hearth, which includes husbands and children. You cannot have it both ways guys. We only have so many arms, hands, legs and feet. Is it any wonder that many women now hate the word feminist and dislike (to put it mildly) men who back “feminism”.
Annet T.,
” Is it any wonder that many women now hate the word feminist and dislike (to put it mildly) men who back “feminism”. Boy! how I hope and pray that is true!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
If any of these progressive Catholics think Pope Francis will carry out their program of deconstructing the faith of our fathers they will be sadly disappointed. They obviously are incapable of grasping the true nature of this pope. If they think he is the typical Jesuit of the sixties they will have a rude awakening. They will then attack him as they have his two predecessors. Why don’t they just create their own assembly where they can have women priests, homo-marriages, and practice Marxism.
Cummins, Cummings two peas in a pod!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
I’m so tired of hearing from these washed up libertine bishops. The high praise of liberation theology makes me sick. Cummins also utters “There are no non-negotiables.”
We’ll he sure enabled a bunch of pedafiles in his diocese now didn’t he.
Some old stand-bys such as “the check is in the mail” are nearly obsolete.
Others have endured, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.”
For Catholcs we have added a phrase to the lexicon, “according to the spirit of Vatican II….”, which will not become obsolete soon enough.
Beware of the bishop or priest with the open collar. True Catholic clergy are proud of their vocations and dress and act accordingly. Modernists/heretics dress and act as if they are ashamed of the Catholic Church.
Modernists seem to have been possessed by the Spirit of Vatican II. I will persist in prayer that they be liberated from that desperate circumstance. Now, if they only would pray the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary…
It’s hard to understand why some people just keep missing the truth. They are someone’s child….if they have good holy faithful parents, can you imagine their pain to know that their child is defiant. When one is focused purely in their salvation, it does bring to concern the salvation of others as well, it can be humbling to just accept the fact that we have no power over such things, people and their free will. BUT prayer is truly our weapon.
I would like to thank all the conservative, or devout regional Catholics who have their memory, allowing those who care to listen & learn.
I’ve come from a progressive Diocese back in PA, & can see gradually how ideas like opening the Church to homosex. have been done, with gay, closeted priests, seemingly without fault, pointed me, married, toward divorce & finding a male partner. I did. It never took.
I learned my faith in pre-Vat. II parochial school, & knew it was no good.
God bless you all!