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51 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Vatican II Regime Change, July 27, 2003
This review is from: The Great Facade: Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Roman Catholic Church (Paperback)
For some reason, there is a belief shared by both conservatives and liberals, that the Roman Catholic Church is a reactionary institution, intent on squelching all dissent. John Paul II is represented as an extreme reactionary who advances Catholicism in its most traditional form. Yet what isn't so well known, is that the Roman Catholic Church underwent a cataclysmic event in the 60s: the Second Vatican Council. Although initiated to update the church in the "modern world" it was taken over by the left. One of the leaders at Vatican was John Paul II. While no one denies that there have been dramatic changes since Vatican II, Woods and Ferrara argue that these changes were a direct result of the novelties introduced by Vatican II. Woods and Ferrara outline the changes since then and show that many have little basis in pre-Vatican II teaching. As a few examples, John Paul II opposes the death penalty, doesn't know if there is anyone in hell, supports evolution, permits altar girls and women serving communion, supports the UN, and holds ecumenical confabs that welcome Voodoo priests. Some reactionary. As our authors point out, had anyone other than John Paul II does these things, he wouldn't be considered much of a conservative. Yet when John Paul does these things, the "neo-Catholics" feel obligated to support him. Not only is John Paul II something of a progressive, but also what he permits is even more shocking. For example, John Paul named Walter Kasper a bishop and then a cardinal, even though Kasper doesn't even believe that Jesus performed the "nature miracles" of the Scripture, or raised anyone from the dead. [Kasper, JESUS THE CHRIST p. 90.] Even supposed champions of orthodoxy such as Cardinal O'Connor were leftists compared to pre-Vatican II Catholicism. This book has a few flaws. It started out as a collection of articles and it could have been edited a bit better. Some of the language will strike non-Catholics as a little overblown. Nonetheless, it is one of the more eye-opening books that one could read.
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68 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A response to Mr. Likoudis, March 10, 2004
This review is from: The Great Facade: Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Roman Catholic Church (Paperback)
I reply to the "review" of my book by James Likoudis. Mr. Likoudis fails to make a disclsoure he ought in fairness to have made: That he is strongly criticized in my book (co-authored with Tom Woods) for his erroneous and obfuscationist views on various aspects of the postconciliar crisis in the Church, for which he endlessly finds excuses whenever it comes to the policy decisions of Rome that have brought on the crisis. Mr. Likoudis is no "reviewer" but rather a prominent example, cited as such, of the book's very thesis: that "neo-Catholics" like himself have prolonged the post-conciliar crisis in the Church by counseling Catholics, out of false obedience, to accept the ruinous changes approved by the Vatican in the name of the Second Vatican Council, when Catholics have every right to object to the changes and to refuse to adopt them. For example, no Catholic was ever obliged to attend the New Mass. Mr. Likoudis's opinion (expressed 20 years ago in his The Pope, the Council and The Mass) that the Old Mass had been legally prohibited has since been demolished by Vatican prelates, including no less than Cardinal Ratzinger, who now concede that the Old Mass was never abrogated by Paul VI. To counter Mr. Likoudis's bogus "review" I have assigned five stars to the book. That resets the average review to reflect what truly indepedent readers may think of the work pro or con. It is the only way I can think of to counter this defect in the Amazon.com review system. Let the buyer beware that "reviewers" of products on Amazon.com are very often people with a very personal stake in the "review." I do not, of course, claim that this "review" has been posted for any other reason than to counter Mr. Likoudis's less than candid failure to disclose his adverse personal interest in the matter. Christopher A. Ferrara
Co-author
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37 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A strong challenge to the Reforms following Vatican II, March 2, 2005
This review is from: The Great Facade: Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Roman Catholic Church (Paperback)
Few books could be more important for concerned Catholics than this one. Woods and Ferrara present a fair and even handed critique of the abuses, novelties, and seemingly unwarranted changes to almost every aspect of Church life since Vatican II.
The Strength of this book is that it is well footnoted, and everything it purports can be verified in fact by both Church and Secular News.
Woods and Ferrera hit the nail on the head when they begin and center the attack on Post Vatican II reforms on Ecumenism. Just about every misinterpretation of Vatican II, and ambiguity in the council itself has its center in Ecumenism. The authors then continue a relentless and well thought out critique of Vatican positions and non-actions since the close of Vatican II, and help show how Neo-conservatives are doing more to undermine Catholicism by feeling as though the Pope must have the benefit of the doubt when he is doing things that are scandalous and tell other bishops their actions are okay because the Pope does them too. Like the interfaith gatherings at Assisi, the authors treat this very well. If in fact it was just a gathering to pray to God Himself for peace, why in the world did the Pagans there need to go to different places to worship? Its because they were worshiping their false gods, at the Pope's behest! If that's not scandalous, the word has taken on a new term.
Ferrera and Woods also deliver a strong critique of the best Neo-Conservative books and arguments defending the Novus Ordo and the status quo concerning Vatican II.
The only draw backs are that Ferrera and Woods attempt to defend the Society of Pius X by exposing contradictions within the Papal Curia on the subject of whether they are in schism or not. Sadly they miss in their critique that Vatican I declares that the Pope has SUPREME AND ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY in the Church, and he did in fact say in Ecclesia Dei Adflicta that there was a schism. The Pope is the author of Canon Law, he can change it or modify it at need, because Vatican I gives him that authority. Every canonist, bishop and Cardinal in the world could disagree with the Pope, but that is irrelevant. If he says there is a schism there is a schism whether we like it or not, whether the Pope is a saint, wise, a scoundrel or a fool. That is the power of the keys.
The other drawback to the book is that Woods and Ferrara coin a term that is somewhat misleading to define Neo-conservatives (mainstream Catholic conservatives who bear the butt of thier critique): Neo Catholic. The term itself suggest they are worshiping in a different Church, and believe a different set of doctrines than what Catholics have believed. This is not true with many of them, and in my opinion unfair. Perhaps however it is born out of frustration over the consistent demonization of Traditionalists by Neo-Conservatives.
Apart from these two points, this book is accurate, and a well placed challenge that I am yet to see any one in the Neo-Conservative camp refute with anything other than the same rhetoric used in that self-contradicting book "The Pope, the Council, and the Mass" whose errors and self-contradictions are exposed by Woods and Ferrara.
Perhaps the most important thing is that the criticisms of John Paul II are all criticisms of his personal actions and opinions, not dissent from any doctrines that the Pope has authoritatively declared. The criticisms of the Pope are done out of a spirit of love, not mean spiritedness. Nowhere do the authoris attack the motives, intentions or the soul of John Paul II, and they stay the line of Catholicism and do not stray into Sedevacantism (the belief that all Pope's after Pius XII have apostasized and are really anti-Pope's, and the Church has had no reap Pope since 1958). No self respecting Catholic who loves his Church can afford to miss this.
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