The Destructive Ethos of Progressivism by Lyle Arnold @ Tradition In Action.org

Consequences of Vatican II

The Destructive Ethos of Progressivism

Lyle Arnold, Jr.

To demonstrate the destructive ethos of today's Conciliar Church, I will briefly touch on four current eye-catching traits.

Item one: On matters concerning Catholic marriages and conjugal life

• Pre-conciliar annulments numbered about 338 a year. Post-conciliar annulments have reached about 50,000 per year only in the U.S.

• A parish priest today can expect that about 97% to 99% of his newlyweds will be using unnatural methods of birth control. (1)

Item two: Clerical abuse and homosexuality

Archbishop Weakland informing his flock that he resigned for being caught in a homosexual scandal

• As of March 2006 the financial settlements for victims of clerical sexual abuse was above $1.5 billion. The result was the closure of churches, schools and entire dioceses declaring bankruptcy. (2) In 2007 the Catholic Church spent $615 million on sex abuse cases in the United States.

• Statistics show up to 50% of the priesthood being homosexual, (3)

The Church in the United States, in fact, had to be treated almost as a criminal institution. All 195 dioceses in this country had to be audited by former FBI agents to insure that the criminal abuse by priests came to a halt.

Item three: Mass attendance

• Pre-conciliar Mass attendance records three out of four Catholics attended Sunday Mass. Post-Conciliar attendance is one out of four. (4)

These figures must be put into perspective. One must note that Catholics today at Mass are not what you call solid. Two Catholic authors - Richard & Elizabeth Gerbracht - who assisted at Novus Ordo Masses noted this about the fellow-attendants around them:

“To the left stands a person who last week said it's just as good to take Communion at a Lutheran church as at a Catholic church. A little farther over, someone else supports abortion. In the rear, a person who wants married priests. And another who wants women priests. Then there's one who said it's O.K. to receive Communion in a state of mortal sin as long as you're doing it to get the grace to go to confession.

“Some approve homosexuality because if God arranges for the birth of homosexual children, He must approve of it. We can't overlook the New Age nun, wearing a pantsuit and no doubt yearning for the day when she can snake into the vestments and consecrate something." (5)

Clearly, assisting at Mass is not considered in the same serious way as it was in the past.

Item four: Catholic education

How many parents today have sacrificed and struggled to send their children to feed at the trough of Catholic grade and high schools, then off to Catholic colleges, only to find that their children lost their faith!

In fact, if you ask them basic questions about the Catholic Faith, they probably could not answer. They may not even know their prayers. They were too busy doing social work, learning about inter-faith religious meetings and practicing tolerance to bother with Catechism and the Rosary.

A tribal society in the making

In the 1950's William H. Whyte, Jr. developed a thesis assessing a new social ethic that was moving in rapidly. (6) A kind of revolution was replacing our traditional system, where the individual is primary. The tendencies of this new system can be listed as adjustment and adaptation, group thinking, group creativity, group loyalty. Instead of the individual, it is the tribe who engages in a kind of collective thinking.

A tribal youth leaning toward group thinking, willing and feeling

In parallel, this revolution embodied in a social ethic has entered the Church. In the dynamic book Revolution and Counter-Revolution, Plinio Correa de Oliveira states that the Revolution "has shifted from the temporal society to the spiritual one. This center has now come to be the Holy Church. In its fabric, on the one side are the progressivists, crypto-communists, and pro-communists, and on the other side are the anti-progressivists and the anti-communists. And these two factions confront each other." (7)

In chapter III of this work, Dr. Plinio broaches the sequel to the first three revolutions. Preceded by the Protestant Revolution, the French Revolution and the Communist Revolution, this is now the Fourth Revolution, the Sorbonne “hippy” revolution. In it you see this adjustment and group thinking has become the social mechanism for its advancement. This Revolution at base is a cultural anarchy that is intrinsically tribal, which ends in a consented-to collectivism. Dr. Plinio explains, “This tribal collective personality generates one thought, one will, and one style of being common to all ... It is thought that doesn't think.” (8)

If you look around us, you can see we are immersed in this revolution, facing a “thought that doesn’t think.” And there is more to come

I recall the words in Tradition in Action's We Resist You to the Face:

"We have stressed repeatedly that we are only in the early stages of the Vatican II revolution. There are many more radical changes to come. The liberal, Hegelian principles of Vatican II continue to play themselves out, and move Catholics further and further away from Catholicism."

God knows how much more time Satan has to corrupt the Faith through Progressivism's big con, but one senses the demons are running scared and putting things in high motion to snatch as many souls as possible. Because from the beginning, the enemies of the Faith have known that residuum revertetur, the remnant shall return. (10)

The Church still exists, because "God's plan continues through a few." And victory is assured, because Our Lady has promised that, "Finally, my Immaculate Heart will triumph."

1. Catholic Family News, January 2006, p. 11.
2. Wikipedia, Catholic sex abuse cases.
3. Barbara Erickson, "Auditors say diocese complied with mandates on sex abuse," The Catholic Voice, p. 1, September 22, 2003
4. Op cit, CMRI.
5. Richard & Elizabeth Gerbracht, "Phenomenological Soup for the Catholic Soul," New Oxford Review, January 2009
6. William H. Whyte, Jr., The Organization Man," Simon and Schuster, 1956.
7. The Foundation for a Christian Civilization, New Rochelle, NY, 1980, pp. 152, 153.
8. Ibid., pp. 161, 162.
9 Atila Sinke Guimaraes, Michael Matt, John Vennari, Marian Horvat, We Resist You To The Face, (Tradition in Action, 2000) p. 122
10. See Atila S. Guimaraes’ article, "The Fidelity of the Remnant Throughout History," Tradition in Action website

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Posted September 4, 2009

Related Topics of Interest

  Progressivism's Big Con

  Code of Canon Law Favors Annulments

  Are Present Day Annulments To Be Taken Seriously?

  Homosexuality and the Clergy

  The Current Vatican Moral Relativism

  The Fidelity of the Remnant Throughout History