Vatican II (Part I)

Matt Fradd is now a member of the Daily Wire.

While many Catholics are quick to denounce the move as traitorous, some are pointing to the possible Catholic infiltration of the company.

Before Fradd’s entrance, the company consisted of four main personalities: Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, Michael Knowles, and Matt Walsh. As many know, Knowles and Walsh are devout Catholics, while Klavan and Shapiro are ethnically Jewish—though Klavan converted to Christianity in his later adult years. However, despite his Christian faith, it is clear that his ethnic identity is just as, if not more important, than his religion, thus making the Catholic-Jewish split a 2-2 tie.

This is relevant because the Daily Wire is of course a political organization with massive influence. As Catholicism’s popularity has steadily increased and Zionism’s slowly diminished, the same can be said for the pair of duos within the organization. Ben Shapiro—once at the top of the conservative movement—seems to have lost much of his sway, as the hypocrisy of once accusing liberals of focusing too much on identity politics but inevitably engaging in it himself has left many to seek for right-wing guidance somewhere else.

With this in mind, it is reasonable to be optimistic that adding Fradd—who stays mainly within the realm of Catholic theology—can be the new chapter that seeks to transform the Daily Wire from an alleged Mossad operation to Christendom’s largest media organization.

Matt Fradd’s “reversion” story to Catholicism is a common one in the West, as he grew up nominally Catholic in an Australian town where seemingly no one was taking the faith seriously.

Except for his grandmother.

He knew that his grandmother prayed her rosary often, but he had little to no clue what “the Rosary” was nor how to pray it. But to be frank, he had little to no interest in learning. He was convinced that God wasn’t actually real but rather the figment of our imagination to make life a bit more bearable.

All of this changed when he took a trip to Rome for World Youth Day in 2000. Rather than going to join his fellow Catholic youth to discuss the faith, he acquiesced to his mom’s request simply because it was a free trip to Europe. It wasn’t long until he began to dialogue about God with his peers and realized that his arguments from the “New Atheism” sphere were much more shallow than he thought.

This was the first domino in the long chain of events that placed him on the list of the most notable Catholic apologists in the digital space.

A few years before the World Youth Day trip, he recounts the times in which he had complete apathy for mass:

On one hand, Fradd was of the age of reason as a teenager and was aware that this stunt was obviously inappropriate.

However, Fradd brings up a good point: where was the leadership? Where were the adults to explain that this was not some simple communal gathering but rather a chance to participate in Christ’s eternal sacrifice?

This sort of horror show is something that could simply never happen pre-Vatican II.

While playing Metallica songs wasn’t common place in the post Vatican II world, many abuses did occur.

Although the ecumenical council emphasized that sacred art and objects were still a vital part of the faith, certain bad actors seized on the “spirit of Vatican II” to modernize churches.

High altars were dismantled and burned. Communion rails were jackhammered apart. Relics were somehow “lost.” Worst of all, statues of saints and the Blessed Virgin Mary were smashed with hammers and thrown into dumpsters.

All of this supposedly done in the “spirit of Vatican II.”

This obviously begs the question: what is the spirit of Vatican II? Moreover, what is Vatican II?

To answer this question, we must take a trip back to St. Peter’s Basilica in 1959.

Pope John XXIII had just celebrated Mass and convened with a small group of cardinals in a nearby hall. He told his peers that he was going to call an ecumenical council, just 90 years after the previous council of Vatican I.

On the surface, it made no sense. There was no heresy spreading that needed to be quelled nor any specific doctrine that needed clarification.

But this was ignoring one obvious reality: since Vatican I convened in 1870, the world had essentially transformed and undergone arguably more change during a 100-year period than what was thought to be possible.

Technology like cars, airplanes, electricity in homes, telephones, radios, refrigeration, recorded music and film, household plumbing, vaccines, and antibiotics went from being non-existent to ubiquitous.

The typical agricultural lifestyle that most people were accustomed to shifted to an industrial one before entering into the earliest stages of postindustrial office work we now know.

Warfare went from being fought with rifles and cannons to entire cities being wiped out through nuclear power.

World War I and II led to a complete upheaval of the previous order of Christian monarchies to the uprising of the secular democratic state that has prevailed today.

For instance, in the early 20th century, roughly 90% of the European landmass was governed by Christian monarchies with an explicit church and state unity through kingdoms like the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Catholic), German empire (Protestant), and Russian empire (Orthodox). Just half a century later, these kingdoms evaporated, being replaced by secularist regimes, with the USSR becoming one of the most brutal atheist regimes the world has ever seen.

Not only did the governmental structures become more secular but the populace also began to drift away from traditional Christian teachings, subtly embracing modernist beliefs despite still self-identifying as Christian.

The two wars not only ripped church and state apart but also brutally decimated Europe both economically and societally. The continent that had ruled the world for numerous centuries had seen its glory days move into the rearview mirror.

The baton was officially passed to America.

This shift in global power was interestingly highly correlated with religiosity levels. Europe maintained its cultural Christian identity but levels of participation dropped sharply. For example, in England, Sunday attendance in the Anglican Church decreased from 50% to 10% between 1900 and 1960. However, during this exact same period in America, the exact opposite happened. The number of priests doubled from 1900 to 1960, religious sisters saw even more growth as Catholic hospitals and schools demanded them, and mass attendance more than doubled from 35% in 1900 to 75% by the 1950s.

American Catholic Renaissance 1.0 was in full swing during this time.

Sadly, it would see its end as the 1960s rolled around.

Coming back to the council, there is a peculiar dichotomy between what is actually in the documents and what was implemented. The most relevant document with regards to the Sacred Liturgy was Sacrosanctum Concilium, as it authorized the use of vernacular when appropriate, simplified rites, and shifted the emphasis to an active participation of the faithful.

With this in mind, what almost no one knows about the council as a whole, is most of the changes that were implemented simply were not in the documents.

Some “rad-trads” will lament that Vatican II was a conspiracy led by liberal bishops to hijack the Church and rupture the continuity of tradition that the Church had built over the past two millennia.

Now it’s possible there was a conspiracy to purposely modernize the Church and drive it away from tradition, but it didn’t happen while the bishops were gathering.

Nearly every document received more than 98% approval from the bishops, with Sacrosanctum Concilium receiving 99.8% approval.

More specifically, the bishops all affirmed that Latin was to remain the normative language of the liturgy (with the potential of some parts to be spoken in vernacular) and Gregorian chant would continue its role of being the main form of liturgical music.

The documents also never mentioned anything about a shift to receiving the Body of Christ on the hand and shifting from ad orientum (facing away from the people) to versus populum (facing towards the people).

An obvious question arises: how in the world did we get all of these changes if they didn’t come from the council?

More importantly, do these changes have a causal relationship with the drastic decline in participation and belief we see in the post-council years?

Buckle up and get ready to dive in.

Part II coming soon.