You learn something new every day

[scarlettina]

An LJ friend, this morning, introduced me a to a new concept: sedevacantism. Sedevacantists believe that the papacy has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958 (or, in some cases, the death of Pope John XXIII in 1963). Sedevacantists believe that the subsequent successors (or, in their view, claimants) to the papal office have been neither true Catholics nor true, legitimate popes. Tell that to John Paul II and those who either want to canonize him or want to add the epithet "the Great" to his title. The Wikipedia entry I linked to above goes into the history of this position. Fascinating stuff.

Comments

[botgrrrl.livejournal.com]

People get really attached to they way they practice religion, and Vatican 2 changed the way many people practiced the Roman Catholic faith. I've heard tell of people leaving congregations because the hymnal was changed.

This is also not the first time in history when there has been dispute over whether or not the pope is really the pope. There is something "happy tradition" of popes and anti-popes in the Roman Catholic church. At one point, there where three competing Popes.

Most sedevacantists point to the Second Vatican Council (or Vatican II) as the reason for their split. What I find funny, is that Vatican II enacted many of proposals Martin Luther's 1517 letter. You know, the famous one nailed to the church door?

Martin Luther...

[gaelfarce.livejournal.com]

Which is why the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches have an 'understanding' with each other now since most all dogmatic differences have changed...however that moves the RC crowd more towards the Lutheran heresy which just isn't kosher in many RC congregations.

[djonn]

I've heard tell of people leaving congregations because the hymnal was changed.

Heh. That would be me, but not necessarily for the reasons you'd think.

I grew up in a relatively mainstream Protestant environment (United Church of Christ, specifically the Congregationalist side), but fell out of active participation some years back -- and one of the major reasons was annoyance with the forces that were "updating" hymnals and hymn lyrics to politically-correctify the gender pronouns and references to unfashionable political titles ("Lord", "King", etc.).

I objected on multiple grounds. I think it's disrespectful to the original lyricists. I think it disconnects the hymns from the historical context and tradition in which they were written. I think it's intellectually lazy, if not outright dishonest, to tinker with the lyrics of old hymns instead of writing wholly new lyrics (especially when you take away all the copies of the old hymnals, so that you can't go look up the prior versions of the hymn and see how the lyrics have evolved). And worst of all? Way too many of the PC adaptations are badly written; they don't scan well, and the substituted constructions don't fit well into the text. [As far as I know, no one has yet tried to render Sydney Carter's lyric as "Leader of the Dance". But it wouldn't surprise me....]

If I ever happen to run across a mainline Protestant congregation that has actively resisted the stupid-ization of classic hymns, I will probably be very tempted to sign on. But I'm not holding out a lot of hope.