Friday, July 17, 2020

SHAME ON US

Wreckovation is a portmanteau term coined by some Catholics to describe the style of renovations which historic Catholic cathedrals, churches, and oratories have undergone since the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II)... - Wikipedia
Iconoclasts ‘on the job’. Coloured engraving by Frans Hogenberg (1566)

There is much outrage over the current defacing and destruction of Catholic churches and statues. However, the first defacers and destroyers of Catholic churches and statues were our own bishops. 

After Vatican II, and in it's so called "spirit," Catholics my age saw the absolute "wreckovation" of their sacred spaces and images.



Church of Our Savior - New York City. Today. 

In the parish I grew up in near Los Angeles, most of the statues were immediately removed after the promulgation of the "new Mass" in 1969, especially statues of Mary. 


The motivation was soon evident. 

After the destruction or hiding of the statues of Mary, our (Los Angeles) parish began hosting ecumenical prayer meetings in our church and we did not want to offend the protestants.

Heck! it was 1970 and it was, in the words of a popular book of the time (which we were required to read in our Catholic high school religion class), "I'm Okay. You're Okay." 

However, given that our parish was in the Los Angeles area and there was a strong Mexican presence, the then-pastor figured that it would be dangerous to alienate "the brown people" (he disdained Mexicans), so he built a little side chapel into which he stuffed a framed picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe which could be entered from outside the church - sort of a "Mexican chapel" - so as to appease "the brown people," because brown people - of which I am one - apparently don't "matter." 

I remember my pastor actually detesting the reforms wrought by the "spirit of Vatican II," but such was the pressure from the "head office" that our parish church was immediately "wreckovated." 

In the spirit of Vatican II...Many historic and irreplaceable works of art have been discarded or destroyed during these renovations. - Wikipedia

While the above quote from the Wikipedia article notes "citation needed", no citation is needed for most Catholics (my age) who lived through the iconoclast destruction of our sacred spaces and sacred images before our very eyes in the wake of Vatican II, which were not just sanctioned, but urged by our mitre'd and well-supplied "shepherds."

(I am referring to the very "groovy digs" of certain "pastors" at the time - and probably still. Best booze I ever had. Not complaining - but knew when to leave.)

Vatican II issued no instruction to do this nor did it even issue an instruction to change the liturgy. In fact, Vatican II's instruction was that there should be NO INNOVATIONS. 

"...there must be no innovations..." Sacrosanctum Concilium 

However, the real "value" of Vatican II - to those who hijacked it - was the loopholes deliberately inserted into the Vatican II documents that were large enough to "drive a truck through" (as one author put it), and, laid there (like time bombs) so said "time bombs" could be "exploded" a la "post-conciliar." And that is exactly what happened.

In almost every document, the revolutionary fathers of Vatican II, while authoring no new doctrine and only restating traditional Catholic teaching and practice, these same "revolutionary fathers" inserted a caveat into almost every document, permitting local bishops (the same "fathers") to functionally do (Alinsky-esque) whatever they wanted under the guise of "the good of the Church..."

e.g. "...there must be no innovations UNLESS (emphasis mine) the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them..." - Sacrosanctum Concilium 

This is the secular equivalent of saying that the speed limit is 35mph UNLESS you don't want it to be. In that sense, Vatican II meant nothing but a license to drive as fast as you want. And so they did. 








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