Propping Up Paul VI and Vatican II

Pope St. Paul VI, prophetic defender of Church teaching who led the Second Vatican Council to its close, pray for us! pic.twitter.com/qNJ1MECsNb

— Bishop Robert Barron (@BishopBarron) May 29, 2021

The Forty Martyrs of England and Wales

Fifty years ago today Pope Saint Paul VI canonized the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. May they pray for the Church in Britain, that in all its undertaking it may be unswervingly faithful to Christ and the Church, and to the enduring legacy of their blood. pic.twitter.com/4gTa2MsJYj

— Fr James Bradley (@FrJamesBradley) October 25, 2020

Does It Talk About Feminism and Cultural Marxism?

I doubt it.

“Unprotected” documentary tells the story of Paul VI, the Pill, and sexual revolution

“Pope Paul VI was getting at the essence of what it is to be human,” says filmmaker Don Johnson. “As I try to show in the movie, the debate over contraception is really about the meaning of sex and the meaning of love, and that discussion is ultimately about the meaning of life.”

The Old and New Ostpolitik of the Vatican

Asia News: The old and new Ostpolitik of the Holy See (I) di Stefano Caprio*
Part 2

Related:
Dear Chinese bishops, where is the measure of your heart? Joseph*

The First Globe-Trotting Pope

Thanks to cheap energy. Has it enabled the inclination to a more centralized Roman Church?

Post by Fr. James Martin, SJ.

"Paul, who implemented the Second Vatican Council that his predecessor had convened, made great strides in ecumenism and began in earnest the modern tradition of the papal visit to countries around the world, did not fear the new."

I hope this is published.

Post by Sacra Liturgia 2013.

Heartiste on Paul VI and Humanae Vitae

Didn't think I'd see the pontiff's name mentioned on his blog.

Pope Paul VI On Birth Control Externalities

Papal Pedastalizing

From the closing of Vatican II, the address of Pope Paul VI to women:

But the hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of woman is being achieved in its fullness, the hour in which woman acquires in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is under-going so deep a transformation, women impregnated with the spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid mankind in not falling.

Impregnated? Really? Perhaps he thought it was an apt metaphor but it does sound a bit creepy, doesn't it? Maybe it's different in Italian. Despite the exaggerated rhetoric, though, Pope Paul VI does not seem to be embracing a form of feminism here. But this sort of wide-eyed optimism, like so much else that was present in the council and its documents, has been shown to be mistaken? If Western women are allowed to exert an increaseing influence on a wider scale, it has rather been rather baneful, tools for those who actually hold power.

(Can there be a "non-radical" feminism? I read this brief citation in Extreme Makeover. More on these in a bit.)

Zmirak v. Hoopes on the changes in the Roman Rite

Fr. Z: Zmirak responds to Hoopes, Fr. Z does Liturgy Science Theatre 3000

John Zmirak's original article. The response by Tom Hoopes. Mr. Zmirak's rejoinder.

While I read through Fr. Z's fisking, the first thought that came to my mind was, "Is this really surprising for a Legionary publication? The sort of ultra-orthodox, ultra-montanist defense that the LCs pride themselves on?" The second thought was, "Isn't this also characteristic of a certain LC mindset which attempts to defend the order by depicting the Church according to one extreme or another, as it fits the circumstances?" See Life After RC for examples.

Mr. Zmirak may have painted too rosy a picture of the pre-Vatican II Church. Then Mr. Hoopes should have addressed this part of the argument. However, even if there was a need for liturgical reform (and I tend to think that this was the case), this does not mean that everything was handled prudently, or that the introduction of a new missal, discontinuous from the previous missal in so many ways, was a necessary component of the reform.

Fr. Z's previous post on the debate: A little debate about the Extraordinary Form in the blogs