Second Vatican Council

The Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, was an Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church opened under Pope John XXIII in 1962 and closed under Pope Paul VI in 1965.

Post-Conciliar Catholic Life

Some of the more conservative Catholics view the Second Vatican Council as an event that moved the Church away from its historical view of Scripture, devotion to Scholasticism, and firm ideas on the "Four Last Things" (Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell). Rather than the beginning of a "New Springtime", they see it as the cause of a tremendous decline in vocations and widespread disbelief in many Catholic dogmas (for example, denial of the True Presence and reluctance about accepting the Resurrection as a historic event). They say it changed the focus of the Church from attaining Heaven to improving man's temporal situation.

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Some traditionalist Catholics even view it as a perversion of the Faith, since Pope Paul VI's actions included reaching out for unification with schismatics and heretics, such as Greek Orthodox and Protestants. Some traditionalists believe Protestants are not true Christians, on the grounds that separation from the Roman Catholic Church, the continuation of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, is separation from Jesus himself. All traditionalists agree that the souls of Protestants are in peril.

Related Topics:
Traditionalist Catholics - Pope Paul VI - Schismatics - Heretics - Greek Orthodox - Protestants - Roman Catholic Church

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United States of America

Kenneth C. Jones's "Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church Since Vatican II" cites many statistics comparing measurable aspects of Catholic life in the United States before and after the Second Vatican Council. One of the most important is the following:

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: Catholics aged 18–44 who don't believe in transubstantiation: 70%

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Research conducted by Fordham University's Dr. James Lothian compared statistics similar to the foregoing with allegedly equivalent data relevant to Protestantism, finding that no equivalent decline has occurred in Protestant faith communities over the same time period. Traditionalist Catholics often cite these statistics to buttress their assertion that the alleged ambiguity of Vatican II documents and the interpretations assigned to those documents have had a negative impact on the Church.

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On the other hand, the beginnings of these phenomena, such as the drop in Mass attendance, were evident in the United States even before the Second Vatican Council. Their acceleration others attribute not to the supposedly equivocal Council, but to the clear teaching of Pope Paul VI's 25 July 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae on artificial birth control. In The American Catholic: A Social Portrait, Andrew Greeley wrote: "The apostasy rate among American Catholics was 7 percent in 1953; it had not changed by 1967, the year before the encyclical. However, by the early 1970s the apostasy rate had doubled to 14 percent. … Dissatisfaction with the church's sexual teaching undoubtedly was widespread before the encyclical, but when all hope was turned off for reconsideration of the teaching, the encyclical became the catalyst for the dramatic religious change that has occurred in the years since." (p. 143)

Related Topics:
Pope Paul VI - 25 July - 1968 - Encyclical - Humanae Vitae - Apostasy - 1953 - 1967 - 1970s

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