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Catholic Theology · Reformed Thinking

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  In 1963, seventy, 1% of Catholics attended church every
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  single week. Right, which is a massive
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  number. Yeah, it really is.
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  And then while the Vatican decided to modernize, they
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  translated the Mass from Latin into the local languages.
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  And, you know, they turn the priests around to face the
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  people and they soften some of their hardest doctrines.
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  And you would think that would bring more people in.
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  You would think so, but the result?
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  Attendance just plummeted. I mean, by the late 1990s it
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  dropped to just 37%. It is just a staggering drop
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  off. It really is so welcome to
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  reformed thinking. Today on our Deep dive, we are
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  looking at the ultimate institutional backfire.
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  Yeah, we really are. We are taking a focused look at
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  excerpts from The Moody Handbook of Theology by Paul Ends, and
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  our mission today is to understand the massive
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  theological and structural shifts within the Roman Catholic
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  Church. Right.
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  Specifically looking at the before and after of the Second
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  Vatican Council. Yeah, which most people just
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  call Vatican too. And you know, whether you are a
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  theology student or just someone observing cultural history,
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  watching a centuries old institution shift this fast is
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  just fascinating. Oh, absolutely.
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  When you look at the source material, we are analyzing a
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  period where the core stones of this massive institution were
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  just rapidly reevaluated. So to set the stage for how that
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  staggering statistical drop happened, we really have to look
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  at the timeline, right? Yeah, we do.
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  So Vatican 2 was convened in October 1962 by Pope John the 10
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  to 33rd, OK? And then it met in several
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  separate sessions. It was reconvened by Pope Paul
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  the 6th until it finally concluded in December 1965.
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  Got it. So about a three-year span.
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  What was the actual goal of all this?
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  Well, the stated goal was to meet the impact of the
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  technological age. They were dealing with the rise
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  of materialism and, you know, weakened spiritual values in the
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  modern world. Right.
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  So they wanted to renew the church, minister mercy to the
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  poor and deal with the inequitable distribution of
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  wealth. That was the idea, yeah.
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  But in doing so, they basically set off a massive chain reaction
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  of internal debates regarding authority and doctrine and
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  really the very identity of the Church.
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  They absolutely did. OK, let's unpack this To
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  understand the shock of Vatican 2.
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  I mean, we really have to look at the climate right before it.
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  We do. Yeah.
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  We need to talk about the breakdown of the ex cathedral
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  consensus. Right.
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  So before 1962, what was the standard operating procedure for
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  authority in Rome? Well, the traditional teaching
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  was centered on the infallibility of the Pope when
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  speaking ex cathedral. And that is a Latin phrase,
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  right? Yeah, it translates to from the
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  chair. It basically means that when the
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  Pope makes a formal official pronouncement on faith or
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  morals, it is considered infallible.
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  So Rome speaks. The matter is settled.
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  Spot on. That was decreed definitively at
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  the First Vatican Council, which took place between 1869 and
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  1870. OK.
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  So almost 100 years prior, right?
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  And you have to realize the psychological comfort of that
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  system for the average believer was massive.
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  Sure, because you never had to wonder what the truth was.
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  You just had to look to Rome. Exactly.
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  I mean, yes, that is right. So it is top down authority, the
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  absolute final word. But you know, our source text
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  points out that even before Vatican 2 there were rumblings
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  of descent, right? It was not a total surprise that
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  things were fracturing. No, not at all.
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  But the reaction to dissent used to be swift and severe.
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  Paul ends details how in the 19th century, some Roman
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  Catholics began calling for the separation of church in date.
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  And how did the Pope handle that back then?
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  Well, Pope Pius the Next severely chastised them.
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  He issued the Syllabus of Errors in 1864, which basically
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  condemned modernism, rationalism and any idea that the Roman
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  Pontiff ought to reconcile himself with progress.
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  Wow, so no room for progress at all?
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  None. And then early in the 20th
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  century, you had a scholar named Alfred Loisey.
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  He contradicted Rome on the topic of biblical inspiration.
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  OK, influenced by the liberal critical methods from Protestant
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  universities. I assume you got it.
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  And the result for Loisey was swift.
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  He was relieved of his teaching post.
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  Just fired. Yep, Pope Pius AX even wrote an
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  encyclical in 1910 attacking Catholic liberals and
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  dissidents. So the old method was super
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  simple. If you step out of line, you are
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  out. Yeah, pretty much.
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  But the tide could not be stopped.
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  Those early developments really paved the way for Vatican 2.
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  I mean, think of a massive global corporation that has
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  operated with top down unquestioned management for
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  centuries. Right, that is a great analogy.
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  And then suddenly the executives announce a corporate
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  restructuring to, you know, get with the times they want to
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  rebrand. And when you do that, you
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  trigger a huge backlash from the people who actually liked the
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  old management style. Right.
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  And that backlash was intense. I mean, the handbook highlights
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  a prime example in Archbishop Marcel Lefev.
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  Oh, Lefev. Yeah, his reaction to Vatican 2
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  was just absolute denunciation. He literally claimed that
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  antichrists had taken over the Vatican.
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  Antichrist. I mean, that is not subtle, not
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  at all. And he did not just write an
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  angry letter. He actually took action.
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  He did drastic action. Lefev abandoned The Maine
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  Catholic Church, but he did not stop operating as a Bishop.
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  Wait, really? How does that work?
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  Well, between 1905 and his death in 1991, he continued to ordain
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  priests and bishops and held strictly to the old Catholic
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  traditions. So he just started his own
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  parallel thing. Yeah, he insisted that his
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  group, the Society of Saint Pius X, represented the true Catholic
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  faith. He entirely rejected the
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  modernizing efforts of Vatican 2.
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  Especially the changes to the mass I bet.
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  Oh yeah, the mass changes and the new friendly posture toward
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  other religions. Right.
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  And he was not alone in feeling alienated.
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  Which brings us back to that wild statistic I mentioned at
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  the start of the deep dive. Right, the attendance drop.
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  Yeah, the effort to modernize was supposed to bring the church
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  in step of the 20th century to reach out to people.
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  Yep. The survey data in the handbook
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  shows church attendance was at 71% in 1963.
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  Right around the start of the council, yeah.
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  And then by 1974, it was down to 50%.
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  And the data gets even more severe.
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  The number of people not going to church at all doubled in that
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  same period. Leveled.
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  Yeah. Fast forward to 1999, and AUSA
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  Today report cited by ENDS noted that only 37% of Catholics said
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  they attended Mass every week. But why the massive drop?
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  I mean, if you make the organization more accessible and
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  friendly, shouldn't attendance go?
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  Up. You would think so.
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  But sociologically, when an institution lowers its demands
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  and demystifies its rituals, it often loses its perceived
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  urgency. Oh, that makes a lot of sense.
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  Yeah, what is really fascinating here is how that statistical
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  drop signals a huge fracture in the institution's identity.
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  You no longer had a unified block of believers marching in
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  lockstep. So it became fragmented.
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  Highly fragmented, the post Vatican 2 landscape became an
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  amalgam. You had some local churches
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  remaining pre counseled traditionalists like Laferre's
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  followers, you had others becoming progressive and
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  contemporary. And then you had a vast number
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  of parishioners who were simply confused, seeking identity or
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  just leaving all together because the absolute certainty
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  they relied on was gone. Right.
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  So the structure fractured and once the cracks formed, people
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  started pushing the boundaries, which leads us into the radical
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  theology who started reimagining the core doctrines during this
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  era. Oh yeah, they really ran with
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  it. Because if the council said they
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  were open to change, some scholars took that as a green
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  light to drive as fast as they could.
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  Our source material specifically highlights three major
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  theologians who pushed far beyond what Vatican 2 officially
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  prescribed. And who are they?
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  Hans Kuhn, Carl Ronner and Edward Shillavecs.
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  These men drove the theological shift from a God centered
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  framework to a heavily man centered framework.
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  OK, let's start with Hans Kuhn. He was a professor at Tubingen
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  in Germany, Ends points out. He was one of the most outspoken
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  critics of Rome. He was.
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  He wanted changes that went way beyond Vatican 2.
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  And here is a detail that stood out to me from a Reformed
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  theological perspective, Kuhn suggested There is little
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  distinction between the Catholic and Calvinist views of
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  justification. That is a massive claim.
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  It really is. Historically, the divide between
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  Catholicism and the Reformed tradition regarding
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  justification is the very heart of the Protestant Reformation.
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  Right. If you hold to the Westminster
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  Confession, you know they're worlds apart.
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  Completely. The Reformed view understands
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  justification as a legal declaration by God where
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  Christ's righteousness is imputed to the believer through
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  faith alone. Right, an external declaration.
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  Exactly. Whereas the historic Catholic
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  view affirmed at the Council of Trent views justification as a
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  process where righteousness is actually infused into the
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  believer through the sacraments. Requiring ongoing cooperation.
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  Right. So for Kung to blur that line
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  was a direct challenge to centuries of Catholic dogma.
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  But Kung kept pushing. I mean, in 1968 he published a
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  book called Apostolic Succession.
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  Well, that. Was a controversial 1.
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  Yeah, because the traditional Catholic view is that authority
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  passes down physically and officially from the apostles to
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  the bishops through the laying on of hands, right?
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  Yes, very structured. But Kung suggested that
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  prophets, teachers and other gifted individuals could claim
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  succession just as well as apostles.
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  He is basically arguing that you do not need the official
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  hierarchy to have authority. Wow.
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  If you have the spiritual gift, you have the succession.
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  That completely undermines the entire corporate structure we
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  were just talking about. He went even further.
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  He published a book titled Infallible with a question mark
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  directly questioning papal authority.
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  And you can imagine how Rome responded to.
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  That yeah. As a result, Rome removed him
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  from his position as an official Catholic teacher.
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  They fired him just like they did Alfred Loisey decades
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  earlier. Right, but Paulin's notes Kung
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  departed from historic orthodoxy entirely and aligned with modern
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  liberalism. How so?
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  Well, he abandoned the belief in the infallibility of the
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  Scriptures. He relied on historical
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  criticism to suggest some biblical stories are unreliable.
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  The evaluation in our text notes that Kung's view of Christ
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  abandons any form of orthodoxy too.
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  Yeah, it does. He claimed Jesus never assumed
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  any titles of Messiahship for himself.
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  Wait, he said. The church just made those
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  titles up later. Yes.
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  Furthermore, Kung argued the title Son of God had nothing to
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  do with the actual nature of Jesus person.
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  He was outright rejecting the deity of Christ.
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  So he went from questioning church authority to questioning
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  the nature of Christ himself. That is quite a trajectory.
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  It really is a steep slide. Now let's look at the second
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  theologian Karl Rohner ends calls his system transcendental
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  Thomism. I mean, this sounds like
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  incredibly dense academic jargon.
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  It is dense, very dense. So what does it actually mean?
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  Well, Thomas refers to the theological and philosophical
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  system of Thomas Aquinas. OK, the guy who believed you can
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  know God through observing the natural world and using reason.
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  Right. Ronner developed a
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  transcendental version of this, heavily influenced by modern
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  philosophers like Immanuel Kant. Bringing Kant into it, yeah.
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  Ronner concluded that because the absolute being of God stands
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  behind all human knowledge, every human being is, by the
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  very nature of their intellect, predisposed to the knowledge of
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  God. It sounds like Ronner upgrade
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  humanity's spiritual operating system.
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  That is a fun way to put it. Like he is saying, God pre
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  installed the grace software on every human hard drive at birth,
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  whereas the old view is that you had to go to the church to
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  download it. That is a brilliant analogy.
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  Ronner develops an anthropocentric theology,
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  meaning it is centered on man, right?
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  He coined a concept called the supernatural existential.
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  This is the idea that God has given every single person the
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  potential to receive divine grace.
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  Every person. Yes, it is a fundamental human
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  characteristic to be able to hear God, and he explicitly
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  includes atheists and followers of other religions in this
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  category. He calls them anonymous
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  Christians. OK, I have to stop you there
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  because Ron supernatural existential concept is breaking
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  my brain a bit. And a lot to take in.
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  Right. So what does this all mean,
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  practically? If an atheist can receive divine
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  grace internally simply through this human potential that
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  everyone possesses, doesn't that make the entire external
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  structure of the church completely obsolete?
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  That is the logical conclusion. Yes, I mean, why have the Pope,
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  the bishops or even global missionary work if grace is just
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  an internal human condition? That is exactly the implication
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  Ends draws out. The handbook states that
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  Forerunner man may relate to God internally, not externally
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  through the Church. Thus eliminating the necessity
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  of being connected to the institution.
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  Right. It removes the urgency of
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  evangelism. If an atheist in a remote
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  village is already an anonymous Christian who can experience
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  grace internally, sending missionaries seems redundant.
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  That is a staggering shift from the historic Roman Catholic
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  doctrine that outside the Church there is no salvation.
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  A complete 180. And how does Ronner view Jesus
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  in this framework? Well, since his theology is so
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  focused on human potential, Ronner perceives Christ as
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  fulfilling human potentiality through his obedience.
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  So he is just a really good human.
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  Basically, the text notes he views Christ as the pinnacle of
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  human evolution. The evaluation section points
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  out the flaw here. Rauner views Christ with
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  admiration based on his human obedience, but he does not teach
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  Christ's two natures as the God man, right?
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  It totally fails to account for the Orthodox view, the
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  Incarnation. Plus, from a Reformed
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  perspective, Rauner's view of humanity does not properly
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  account for the fallen condition in sin.
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  Spot on. It ignores it.
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  If everyone is naturally disposed to knowing God, it
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  glosses over the biblical concepts of total depravity or
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  human rebellion. Yeah, there is no room for total
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  depravity in Ronner's system, all right.
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  The third theologian is Edward Schillabach's, a Dutch Roman
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  Catholic. How did he deviate from the
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  prescribed doctrine? So Schillabach's focused heavily
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  on Revelation and the historical Jesus.
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  On the topic of Revelation, he stressed that it happens not
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  only in Word but also in reality.
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  OK. And what does he mean by
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  reality? He applied this to the
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  Eucharist, the Communion meal. He argued that by the act of
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  partaking, a person comes into contact with revelation in both
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  word and reality. OK, that sounds somewhat
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  traditional. But he added a catch.
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  This is only possible through the illumination of the Holy
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  Spirit, what He called the light of faith.
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  So he ties the meaning of doctrine to the inner witness of
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  the Holy Spirit inside the believer.
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  Correct, but Paul Ends critiques this approach.
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  What does the handbook say? The handbook states that
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  Schillerbeck's leans heavily into existentialism by relating
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  it to the Eucharist while confusing the illuminating
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  ministry of the Holy Spirit with the physical reception of the
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  elements. I was reading the notes on
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  Schillerbeck's and his focus on a purely human Jesus feels like
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  a complete contradiction of orthodox Christianity.
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  The text says he used historical critical methodology, yes.
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  And by using that methodology, he heavily focused on a purely
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  human Jesus. Really.
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  Yeah, he suggested Jesus's ministry was carried out simply
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  by his unique relationship to God.
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  This raises a massive question. If you take away Christ's
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  divinity, you are not just modernizing Catholicism, you
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  were dismantling Christianity altogether.
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  You really are. I mean, if Kung denies Christ's
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  deity, Ronner sees him as the peak of human evolution, and
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  Sheila Beck's focuses on a purely human Jesus, what happens
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  to the core doctrines established at the early church
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  councils? The handbook evaluates this very
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  severely. It notes that while Shilabik
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  suggested a Trinitarian view, it is highly doubtful he holds to
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  the historic orthodox view of Christ and the Trinity.
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  Specifically, he appears to deny the union of the two natures of
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  Christ, fully human and fully divine, in the one God man.
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  Which is known as the Hypostatic Union.
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  Yes, that was settled at the Council of Telesadon in 451 AD.
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  To walk away from that is a massive departure from historic
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  orthodoxy. OK, so we've seen how these
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  radical theologians push the boundaries far beyond the
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  official lines. But let's look at the official
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  lines themselves. Right.
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  What did the actual council say? Let's move to how Vatican 2
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  actually redefined the doctrines regarding tradition, scripture
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  and the Pope, because the Council itself had to address
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  these tensions, even if they did not go as far as Kung or Ronner.
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  The tension between the authority of Scripture and the
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  authority of Catholic tradition is one of the oldest debates in
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  Church history. Oh, definitely.
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  During the Reformation, Protestants championed sola
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  scriptura, meaning scripture alone is the final authority.
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  And the Catholic response at the Council of Trent was that truth
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  is found in both written books and unwritten traditions.
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  So how did Vatican Second handle that?
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  Vatican 2 sought to update state this language.
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  Their official statement affirmed that both Scripture and
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  tradition were the revelation of God, right.
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  Because both were given by the Holy Spirit, they concluded the
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  two could not be contradictory. The phrase they used was that
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  together, scripture and tradition form one sacred
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  deposit of the Word of God. Yes, that is the exact phrase.
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  And to make sure they reconciled the 2, they said interpretation
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  should concentrate on the revelation that both give.
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  But they also shifted how they defined Revelation.
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  Vatican Sue stressed that revelation is not just a set of
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  doctrines. Revelation is in a person.
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  Oh, that is interesting. Paul ANZ points out that the Neo
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  Orthodox theologian Sarin Kierkegaard appears to have
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  influenced Vatican 2 theologians on this specific point.
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  Let's breakdown your orthodoxy and Kierkegaard for a second,
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  because Kierkegaard was an existentialist.
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  He was, yeah. In plain English, that means he
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  believed faith is not about memorizing a checklist of
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  historical facts or objective data.
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  It is about a deeply personal, subjective, deep into a
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  relationship with God. That is a great way to summarize
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  it. So when Vatican 2 adopted this
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  tone, they essentially shifted the Catholic focus from knowing
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  the rules to experiencing the person of Jesus.
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  Right, it is an encounter with a person rather than just
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  assenting to a list of facts. Here is where it gets really
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  interesting. Look at their stance on biblical
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  inerrancy. Oh, this is a huge shift.
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  The historical Protestant and Orthodox Catholic position
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  usually defends the Bible as entirely without error in all
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  matters it addresses, including history and geography.
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  Yes, total inerrancy. But the Second Vatican Council
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  used a very specific caveat. They affirmed that the books of
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  Scripture teach firmly, faithfully, and without error
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  that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the
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  sake of our salvation. That phrase, for the sake of our
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  salvation, is the key loophole A.
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  Massive loophole. The Moody Handbook analyzes this
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  by showing how this new Catholic emphasis aligns itself with
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  liberal Protestantism. Because it limits the scope of
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  what has to be true. Right.
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  By limiting inerrancy to matters of salvation, it allows for
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  incidental misstatements or errors in the Bible where this
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  does not affect its essential message.
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  So if a historical timeline in the Old Testament seems off, or
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  a geographical detail does not line up with modern archaeology,
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  the council essentially says, well, that detail is not
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  required for your salvation. Right, so it does not break the
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  rule of inerrancy in their new view.
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  That is a huge shift in how you read the Bible.
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  It softens the absolute authority of the text.
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  It does, and we see another massive softening in the decree
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  on ecumenism. Oh.
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  Right. For centuries the Roman Catholic
• 19:36
  Church called for non Catholics to return to Rome as the only
• 19:39
  true church. Protestants were historically
• 19:41
  viewed as heretics and face anathemous.
• 19:43
  But Vatican 2 changed that vocabulary.
• 19:45
  Right, they did. They began referring to non
• 19:47
  Catholic Christians as separated brethren.
• 19:50
  Separated brethren, I mean, that is a much friendlier term than
• 19:52
  heretic. Oh, absolutely.
• 19:54
  The psychological shift there is huge.
• 19:56
  You go from viewing your Protestant neighbor as a doomed
• 19:58
  outsider to viewing them as an estranged family member.
• 20:01
  It was a conscious effort to reach out Vatican 2 recognized
• 20:05
  non Catholic groups as legitimate Christian
• 20:08
  communities. And they even allowed Catholics
• 20:10
  to engage in public worship together with Protestants, which
• 20:13
  was previously strictly forbidden.
• 20:15
  Right. That was a huge deal, yeah.
• 20:17
  The council also admitted that both Protestants and Catholics
• 20:20
  alike were responsible for the division at the Reformation.
• 20:22
  Admitting shared blame for the Reformation division is a
• 20:25
  staggering concession. It really is.
• 20:27
  They even created a permanent secretariat for promoting
• 20:30
  Christian unity. But if they are extending olive
• 20:34
  branches to Protestants and admitting fault, how did that
• 20:38
  affect the absolute power of the Pope?
• 20:40
  Did he give up his authority to be more democratic?
• 20:43
  Not entirely Vatican to 2nd reaffirm the doctrine from
• 20:46
  Vatican like an Alice that the Pope is infallible when speaking
• 20:50
  ex cathedra as the successor of the Apostle Peter.
• 20:53
  OK, so they kept the top down power?
• 20:55
  Yes, However, they modify the absolutism of the papacy by
• 20:59
  introducing the principle of collegiality.
• 21:01
  Collegiality. So sharing the power, yeah.
• 21:04
  They affirmed the authority of the bishops, together with the
• 21:07
  Pope, as a College of bishops, over the church.
• 21:10
  That makes sense, Ends notes. This action of sharing authority
• 21:14
  mollified some dissenting elements in the church who were
• 21:17
  uncomfortable with strict papal absolutism.
• 21:21
  The Pope is still the head, but he operates in a more
• 21:23
  collaborative framework with the global bishops.
• 21:26
  OK. So far we have talked about high
• 21:28
  level theological doctrine. We have talked about papal
• 21:31
  authority, historical critical methodology, and existentialism.
• 21:35
  A lot of heavy academic stuff. Right, but I want to ground
• 21:38
  this. If you are an average Catholic
• 21:40
  parishioner in 1965, you are not reading Carl Renner's dense
• 21:45
  academic papers on Transcendental Thomism.
• 21:47
  Definitely not. You are just showing up for
• 21:49
  Sunday Mass. What did this look like from the
• 21:51
  pews? Let's walk through the physical
• 21:53
  everyday experience. Marry the Mass and the
• 21:56
  Sacraments. OK, the physical and sensory
• 21:58
  changes to the liturgy were perhaps the most jarring aspects
• 22:01
  for the average person I can imagine.
• 22:03
  ENZ lists several explicit modifications aimed at making
• 22:06
  the liturgy more simple, participatory, intelligible, and
• 22:10
  dynamic. OK, imagine you have been
• 22:12
  attending church the exact same way for 40 years.
• 22:16
  Before Vatican 2, the priest faced the altar with his back to
• 22:20
  the people in a posture called ad orientem, right?
• 22:23
  The entire Mass was spoken in Latin.
• 22:27
  You might have been holding a rosary, praying your own private
• 22:30
  prayers while the priest performed the mysterious
• 22:32
  sacrifice at the front. Very disconnected from the
• 22:35
  congregation, yeah. And then after the council, the
• 22:38
  priest turns around to face the people.
• 22:40
  Known as in channel versus populum.
• 22:43
  And they dropped the Latin in favor of the vernacular, the
• 22:46
  everyday language of the local congregation.
• 22:49
  They also simplified the rights. They eliminated a lot of the
• 22:52
  repetitions, bows, kisses, signs of the cross, and genuflections.
• 22:55
  Just stripping it down. Yeah, they wanted the people to
• 22:58
  understand what was being said, so they assigned responses to
• 23:00
  the congregation. Laymen were allowed to assist
• 23:02
  the priest too, right? Yes, and women were permitted to
• 23:05
  serve as lectors reading the scriptures during the Mass.
• 23:09
  Think of a highly formal ancient stage play where the actors are
• 23:13
  speaking language you do not know and their backs are to you.
• 23:16
  You are just observing a sacred, untouchable mystery.
• 23:19
  Then suddenly the director breaks the 4th wall, turns the
• 23:23
  actors around, translates the script into English and hands
• 23:27
  you a microphone to read some of the lines.
• 23:29
  That is a great way to visualize it.
• 23:31
  It completely changes the psychology of the event.
• 23:34
  It goes from a mysterious spectacle to a community
• 23:36
  gathering. And that community focus
• 23:38
  extended to their view of Mary as well.
• 23:41
  Let's talk about Mary. Vatican A6 A nuanced stance here
• 23:45
  to balance traditional devotion with the new ecumenical outreach
• 23:49
  to Protestants. Because Protestants are very
• 23:52
  wary of Marian devotion. Right.
• 23:54
  So the Hamburg states they focused on Mary as a fellow
• 23:58
  member of the church and not as some kind of semi divine being
• 24:00
  exalted above the church. But they did not lower her
• 24:03
  status to just a regular person, right?
• 24:06
  From a Protestant perspective, any elevation of Mary above
• 24:09
  other believers is an issue. So how did Vatican 2 thread that
• 24:12
  needle? They maintained her unique
• 24:14
  status. She is still venerated above all
• 24:16
  the Saints. The Council affirmed her sublime
• 24:19
  dignity as the Mother of God and the Mother of the Church.
• 24:22
  They maintained the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, believing
• 24:26
  she was entirely holy and free from sin from the time of
• 24:29
  conception. So the core dogmas did not
• 24:32
  change. No, they didn't.
• 24:33
  Furthermore, they stated that at every point in Christ's life,
• 24:37
  Mary stood at His side, cooperating with Him and
• 24:40
  restoring life to souls. And they believe she continues
• 24:43
  that function after being taken up into heaven, acting as an
• 24:46
  intercessor. Exactly right.
• 24:48
  So while they call her a fellow member to soften the language
• 24:51
  for Protestant ears, they heavily recommended continued
• 24:54
  devotion to her. Now let's look at the seven
• 24:56
  sacraments, because Vatican 2 updated almost all of them to
• 24:59
  involve the individual more actively.
• 25:01
  Yes, they did. We will go through them one by
• 25:03
  one to see how the everyday Catholic life was altered.
• 25:06
  First baptism. For baptism, they placed greater
• 25:10
  focus on the unity of the members with Christ in his death
• 25:13
  and resurrection. They also revived the
• 25:16
  catechumenate. The catechumenate being a
• 25:17
  preparation class where the candidate receives instruction
• 25:21
  and examination before baptism. It makes the process more
• 25:24
  educational and intentional, rather than just a ritual
• 25:27
  performed on an infant. Correct.
• 25:29
  Second is confirmation. Originally, in the Middle Ages,
• 25:33
  this was decreed as a separate sacrament.
• 25:35
  But post Vatican 2. It is sometimes regarded as part
• 25:38
  of the baptism ritual. It became common for the priest
• 25:41
  to administer both sacraments at the same time, especially for
• 25:45
  adult converts. Tying the receiving of the Holy
• 25:48
  Spirit more closely to the initiation into the Church.
• 25:50
  Spot on. 3rd is the Eucharist, the Communion meal.
• 25:54
  We already mentioned the mass changing to the local language,
• 25:57
  but they also shortened and simplified the ceremony.
• 26:00
  They did. People became involved as
• 26:02
  readers and in presenting offerings.
• 26:04
  And as we noted earlier, Catholics were encouraged to
• 26:06
  pray and occasionally worship with Protestants, which tied
• 26:10
  into this new view of the Eucharist as a shared Christian
• 26:13
  experience rather than an exclusive Roman possession.
• 26:16
  Right. 4th is penance or confession.
• 26:19
  OK, how did that change? Well, with a noticeable decline
• 26:23
  in people going to private confession during the 1960s,
• 26:26
  Vatican 2 reformed the right. They introduced general
• 26:29
  confession and general absolution for group settings.
• 26:32
  So you could just be absolved in a group without saying your sins
• 26:35
  out loud to the priest. Sometimes, yes.
• 26:38
  For private confession, the priest was encouraged to be more
• 26:40
  flexible and less legalistic. Imagine you have confessed your
• 26:44
  sins the exact same way for decades in a dark box, terrified
• 26:49
  of the priest acting as a strict judge handing down a sentence of
• 26:52
  Hail Marys. Right.
• 26:53
  Very intimidating. Suddenly, in 1965, you are told
• 26:57
  to view the priest as a flexible, loving brother or
• 26:59
  counselor rather than a judge. The focus shifted to reminding
• 27:03
  the penitent of God's love. That psychological whiplash is
• 27:07
  what happened when Vatican 2 redefined penance. 5th is what
• 27:10
  used to be called extreme unction.
• 27:12
  They dropped that scary sounding term completely.
• 27:15
  They renamed it Anointing the Sick, Paul Ends explains.
• 27:18
  This was a shift away from viewing the sacrament mainly as
• 27:21
  the final act of the Church assisting a soul as it enters
• 27:24
  eternity. Oh, like last rites?
• 27:26
  Yeah, instead, they began seeing it as a means of strengthening
• 27:30
  and healing both body and soul. Instead of only anointing
• 27:33
  someone on their deathbed, the ritual now involves the sick
• 27:36
  person actively in readings and prayer.
• 27:39
  Promoting a community environment of healing, right?
• 27:42
  6th is marriage. This is a fascinating cultural
• 27:46
  shift that lines up perfectly with the broader cultural
• 27:49
  revolution of the 1960's. The traditional Catholic view
• 27:53
  was that the primary reasons for marriage were the procreation
• 27:56
  and education of children. The expression of love was
• 27:59
  strictly A secondary reason. But Vatican 2 erased those
• 28:03
  strict distinctions and elevated the expression of love in
• 28:06
  marriage to be equal with procreation.
• 28:08
  They also permitted the mass to be said during a wedding
• 28:11
  ceremony when a Catholic marries A baptized non Catholic, Which
• 28:14
  reflects that ecumenical outreach we discussed.
• 28:17
  If you're calling Protestants separated brethren, it makes
• 28:20
  sense to allow them to participate more fully in a
• 28:22
  mixed marriage. Ceremony it does.
• 28:24
  However, they maintain the strict rule that divorce is
• 28:27
  forbidden. Finally, the 7th Sacrament Holy
• 28:30
  Orders. This relates to the clergy.
• 28:32
  Prior to the council, ministry was almost entirely the domain
• 28:35
  of the clergy. The priest did the ministry, the
• 28:38
  lay people received it. A.
• 28:39
  Clear division of Labor, yeah. Vatican 2 sought to educate
• 28:43
  laypersons to recognize and use their spiritual gifts in
• 28:47
  ministry. The priest was redefined as a
• 28:50
  brother among brothers. Which is a huge shift in tone.
• 28:54
  It really is While the clergy retained its unique Sacramento
• 28:57
  role, all adherents were regarded as equals in dignity
• 29:01
  and lay people could assume an active role in the life of the
• 29:04
  parish that. Phrase brother among brothers
• 29:07
  perfectly captures the shift. It is flattening the hierarchy
• 29:10
  completely. But when you flatten the
• 29:11
  hierarchy, demystify the rituals, and tell lay people to
• 29:15
  discover their spiritual gifts, you sometimes get results you
• 29:18
  did not plan for. Oh, you certainly do.
• 29:20
  This leads us to our final section, the unintended
• 29:23
  consequences, looking at the charismatic and modern amalgam.
• 29:26
  When you open the windows to let in fresh air, you sometimes let
• 29:30
  in a storm. That is a great quote.
• 29:32
  The modernization efforts open the door for entirely new
• 29:36
  grassroots movements that looked wildly different from
• 29:39
  traditional Catholicism. By telling lay people they had
• 29:42
  direct access to God and encouraging an experiential
• 29:45
  faith, the council inadvertently laid the groundwork for the
• 29:49
  Catholic charismatic renewal. The timeline of the charismatic
• 29:52
  outbreak in the Catholic Church is incredible.
• 29:55
  It starts in 1967, right? Just a couple of years after the
• 29:58
  council closed. According to our source
• 30:00
  material, 2 professors at Duquesne University in
• 30:03
  Pittsburgh had been reading about Protestant Pentecostalism
• 30:06
  and attending their meetings. They also attended a Spanish
• 30:10
  Crisillo, which is an intense, emotional weekend of prayer.
• 30:14
  They took what they experienced and organized a Catholic weekend
• 30:18
  retreat in February 1967. What happened?
• 30:22
  At that retreat, the group had a full blown Pentecostal
• 30:25
  experience. You have to picture the
• 30:26
  juxtaposition. Here you have Catholics who are
• 30:29
  used to highly structured written prayers and formal
• 30:32
  sacraments suddenly speaking in tongues, engaging in emotional
• 30:35
  worship, and claiming physical healings.
• 30:37
  It is wild. These are the kinds of things
• 30:39
  you would normally associate with an Assemblies of God church
• 30:43
  suddenly happening in a Catholic University retreat.
• 30:46
  And it did not stop there. The movement swelled by the
• 30:49
  spring of that same year. Similar experiences happened at
• 30:51
  Notre Dame and Michigan State. And the church hierarchy,
• 30:54
  perhaps unsure of how to handle this grassroots explosion,
• 30:58
  actually gave it cautious approval in 1969.
• 31:01
  The numbers ends provides are staggering.
• 31:04
  In 1973, there were 50,000 Catholic Pentecostals in the US
• 31:09
  and Canada. By 1984, the text cites 5700
• 31:13
  prayer groups, with a quarter million people attending
• 31:17
  charismatic prayer meetings weekly.
• 31:19
  That is a massive movement. Overall, it is estimated that 8
• 31:22
  to 10 million Catholics have been involved in this movement
• 31:24
  since 1967. They established their own
• 31:27
  headquarters in South Bend, IN, published their own magazine,
• 31:31
  and started hosting annual conventions.
• 31:33
  The Moody Handbook also notes a parallel evangelical Catholic
• 31:37
  movement. Oh, right, what did that look
• 31:39
  like? With a new focus on a personal
• 31:41
  experiential religion, Catholics began meeting in small groups
• 31:44
  for Bible study and prayer, which was very rare before
• 31:48
  Vatican 2. Really rare.
• 31:50
  They started sharing their faith, witnessing to others in a
• 31:53
  very Protestant style. They formed communities to
• 31:55
  discern life in Christ together, even sharing in one another's
• 31:59
  financial needs. The handbook mentions reports of
• 32:02
  healings and evangelical revivals becoming popular and
• 32:05
  Black Catholic churches. The personalization of faith
• 32:08
  became highly noticeable. The focus shifted from receiving
• 32:12
  grace automatically through the institutional sacraments to
• 32:15
  experiencing God personally in a small group setting.
• 32:18
  But as this Protestant style grassroots theology spread, the
• 32:22
  institution eventually felt the need to pump the brakes.
• 32:25
  Right, because if you let everyone define their own
• 32:27
  spiritual experience, the central authority loses its grip
• 32:31
  entirely. He really is.
• 32:32
  Despite all the Ekumanism and the separated Brethren talk of
• 32:35
  the 1960's, the hierarchy had to draw a hard line to maintain its
• 32:39
  identity. We see that line drawn clearly
• 32:42
  in 2007 by Pope Benedict the 60s.
• 32:44
  What did he do? He issued a statement
• 32:47
  reasserting the unique identity of Rome.
• 32:50
  He stated that the Roman Catholic Church is the one
• 32:53
  Church of Christ. Wow.
• 32:54
  OK, he clarified. The Vatican 2 did not change the
• 32:57
  belief that the true Church, with its historic elements like
• 33:00
  Apostolic succession and the valid Sacramento priesthood,
• 33:03
  subsists only in the Roman Catholic Church.
• 33:06
  So after decades of softening the edges, translating the Mass
• 33:10
  and singing kumbaya with Protestants, Benedict says,
• 33:13
  let's be clear, we are still still the one true church.
• 33:17
  Yeah, he really put his foot down.
• 33:18
  It sounds like an attempt to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
• 33:21
  It was a necessary corrective from their perspective.
• 33:24
  The 2007 statement did acknowledge that the Church of
• 33:27
  Christ is operative in churches not in full communion with Rome,
• 33:30
  and that God uses those other churches as instruments of
• 33:33
  salvation. But it firmly reasserted Rome's
• 33:36
  supreme and exclusive position. Yes, it did.
• 33:39
  If we connect this to the bigger picture, how does Paul ends in
• 33:42
  the Moody Handbook summarize this entire era?
• 33:46
  The summary is really quite sharp.
• 33:48
  Because we started with a top down absolute authority under
• 33:51
  Vatican One, we moved through. Radical theologians like Kung
• 33:55
  and Ron are questioning everything right.
• 33:57
  We saw a council that compromised on biblical
• 33:59
  inerrancy by adding the salvation loophole.
• 34:02
  We saw a complete overhaul of the physical Sunday service,
• 34:06
  breaking the 4th wall for the parishioners, and we saw a
• 34:09
  grassroots charismatic explosion.
• 34:12
  What is the final theological evaluation of this shift?
• 34:16
  The evaluation in our text concludes that Catholicism
• 34:19
  shifted from a God centered approach to a man centered
• 34:23
  approach. A man centered approach.
• 34:24
  Yes, the 1960s sparked A trend towards secularization within
• 34:29
  the Church. Catholics left their isolation
• 34:31
  and adapted to a pluralistic society.
• 34:34
  The theology became heavily influenced by existentialism,
• 34:37
  starting with man rather than God seeking an experiential
• 34:40
  encounter. The focus moved from evaluating
• 34:42
  the world objectively from God's reveal perspective in Scripture
• 34:45
  to experiencing the world subjectively from man's
• 34:48
  perspective. And the result of that shift is
• 34:50
  the fractured institution we see today, an amalgam.
• 34:52
  Very fractured. You have traditionalists
• 34:55
  clinging to the Latin Mass, furious at the modernists.
• 34:58
  You have progressives pushing for further changes, ordaining
• 35:01
  women or altering moral doctrine.
• 35:04
  Of charismatic groups speaking in tongues.
• 35:06
  And you have everyday people just trying to figure out where
• 35:08
  they fit in. It is a remarkable case study of
• 35:11
  what happens when a rigidly structured organization attempts
• 35:15
  to absorb modern philosophical and cultural frameworks.
• 35:19
  The attempt to become relevant often leads to a crisis of
• 35:23
  identity. If you have ever watched a
• 35:25
  modern corporation desperately rebrand itself to appeal to a
• 35:28
  younger demographic, only to alienate its core customer base
• 35:32
  and cause its stock to plummet, you were looking at the exact
• 35:35
  same sociological phenomenon that happened at Vatican 2.
• 35:38
  It is a. Perfect parallel.
• 35:39
  To recap our deep dive today, we watched an absolute Latin
• 35:42
  speaking institution open its windows to the modern world in
• 35:45
  1962. In the span of three years, they
• 35:48
  created a theological the Wild West.
• 35:50
  They really did. They inadvertently gave rise to
• 35:53
  radical professors who denied the deity of Christ, sparked A
• 35:56
  charismatic movement among millions of laypeople, and
• 35:59
  modified their core doctrines on Scripture, tradition and the
• 36:03
  sacraments to accommodate a changing society.
• 36:06
  And as the statistics showed, rather than filling the pews,
• 36:10
  demystifying the church left millions feeling untethered.
• 36:13
  The urgency was gone and the attendance dropped from 71% down
• 36:17
  to 37%. The dust is still settling from
• 36:20
  Vatican 2 even decades later, and I want to leave you with a
• 36:23
  final thought to ponder as we wrap up.
• 36:25
  Let's hear it. If a massive, centralized,
• 36:28
  seemingly immovable institution like pre 1962 Rome can overhaul
• 36:33
  its liturgy, redefine its view of biblical error, and change
• 36:36
  its posture toward outsiders so drastically in just three short
• 36:40
  years, what does that suggest about the vulnerability of any
• 36:43
  institutional doctrine when it faces the crushing pressure of
• 36:46
  modern cultural shifts? No matter how solid the walls
• 36:49
  look, the structure is always vulnerable to the shifting
• 36:52
  ground of human culture. Thank you for joining us on this
• 36:55
  deep dive into the source material.