The so-called errors of Vatican II debunked; a thread

Objection: The document “Unitatis Redintegratio” teaches that salvation can be found outside the Church, this is a contradiction of prior teaching!

Rebuttal: When the document is read properly, one can see that in the proper context it is talking about the theological reality of the sacraments being efficacious. Specifically, baptism. Even Protestants give real baptisms which are indeed real sacraments with real effects...

HOWEVER, in the very next paragraph, it makes it clear with its own "HOWEVER" statement: these people are NOT blessed with the unity of the Church on earth, which: the document writes...

“For it is only through Christ's Catholic Church, which is "the all-embracing means of salvation," that they can benefit fully from the means of salvation. We believe that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant to the apostolic college alone...

of which Peter is the head, in order to establish the one Body of Christ on earth to which all should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God.”

As shown, this objection can be debunked quite easily by actually reading the document itself.

Objection: In “Lumen Gentium” it states that the Church of God subsists in the Catholic Church, the correct teaching is that the Church of God IS the Catholic Church. It also teaches that many elements of sanctification and of truth can be found outside of her visible structure.

Rebuttal: The word “subsistit” in scholastic Latin means “stands under”, it is a stronger word than “is”, as it denotes the idea of perfection, like the idea of the Church as “a perfect society”...

The word had been suggested by the man who was behind the crafting of St. Pius XII’s encyclical “Mystici corporis Christi” – Sebastiaan Tromp – who was the secretary for the doctrinal commission of Vatican II...

He had suggested it as a word to intensify the notion from Pius XII’s encyclical of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Church of Christ, not as an opening for Ecumenism. Many theologians chose to use modern translations of “subsistere”...

ignoring the Latin philosophical meaning of the term. These modernist theologians falsely understood it to mean that the Church of Christ equals the Catholic Church plus elements found outside of it. The elements of sanctification and truth found outside the visible structure...

of the Catholic Church under the classical Latin understanding of “subsistere” do not mean that those elements are part of the Church of Christ...

It was the intention of Tromp to use the word to uphold the traditional Catholic teaching of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Church of Christ, in that the Church of Christ equals the Catholic Church, and elements of the Church also exist outside of her...

As one can see, there is a clear difference between Tromp's intention behind the usage of the term and understanding of it by modernist theologians.

Objection: The document “Nostra Aetate” gives praise to non-Christian religions and attempts to show likeness to the Catholic faith.

Rebuttal: There is not anything inherently wrong with giving praise to non-Christian religions. It is literally in the bible when Paul praises the pagans for their religiousness in the first part of his evangelisation (Acts 17:22-23)...

A lot of Christians do not realise that this is super important part of our entire apologetic arguments. Can God be known through the light of natural reason? Or can God be identified ONLY supernaturally?...

It is taught in a council that fideism is not acceptable, we indeed can know God by the light of natural reason. If we cannot, then we need to throw away Aristotle since nothing he said can apply to Christianity. But that would deny the reality of Christianity being true...

Islam has a long philosophical tradition and it is an important point that they use the same natural reason to identify God, even if the religion also contains a multitude of false teachings...

But to go back to Paul, this is the first step of all evangelisation: finding common ground, praising them in their efforts of truth, revealing to them the Gospel, and then ridding of what is wrong.

Objection: In the document “Dignitatis Humanae”, it teaches that the human person has a right to religious freedom. Prior to the council, this had always been rejected by the Church!

Rebuttal: The Church has always understood that the nature of salvation is entirely voluntary. For example, you cannot make someone get baptised. The sacrament would literally be invalid, it will not work...

Religious liberty is not here to promote alien religions. It is here to protect the authenticity of Catholicism. All rights are aimed at a specific duty. It is a very 20th century liberal idea that rights are about "doing as thou wilt"...

The traditional usage of rights was the guarantee that a civil body cannot PREVENT you from carrying out a duty...

Freedom of religion is given specifically so that you are free to choose Catholicism. If you are not free to choose Catholicism, then we cannot carry out our duty of choosing Catholicism. The integrity of our agency must be preserved.

-end of thread-