THIS MAKES SENSE TO ME, BUT HOW ABOUT YOU?

Sandro Magister, that solid Vaticanista, has called Archbishop Vigano on the carpet forcing the good Archbishop to clarify what many felt was a schismatic attitude toward Vatican II and the current pope.

This is a later reflection that Magister offers from someone who agrees with a more nuanced approach to Vatican II and its proper implementation. This is a google translation of  Italian and thus may sound like how I write in English:

(s.m.) According to the messages sent to Settimo Cielo after the previous post, the confrontation between Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò and Cardinal Walter Brandmüller regarding the interpretation of Vatican Council II was resolved with the overwhelming victory of the cardinal. Only one, among the numerous writers, took the defense of Viganò.

But the following letter is also interesting for the reflections with which it develops the appreciation for Brandmüller. The author, Francesco Arzillo, is a magistrate from Rome who is appreciated author of essays on philosophy and theology.

*

Dear Magister,

there would be little to add to the truly masterful lesson of Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, who applies the hermeneutics of continuity in a not only historiographic but also theological key.

I would just like to insist that this hermeneutics should not be understood as a sort of academic fixation of the theologian pope Josef Ratzinger, good for writing books and giving lectures more or less learned on ecclesiastical history or theology.

It does nothing but make explicit - in a conceptually profound way - what is the only Catholic way of reading the texts of the Church's two-thousand-year magisterium. The Spirit, who guides the shepherds, who is the Spirit of Jesus Christ Logos and Truth, guides us towards an ever fuller understanding of it, not towards a contradiction.

However, one must know how to distinguish what is true contradiction and what is not. It is certainly not the change in the forms of the Roman rite, which retains its essential characteristics, which allowed Benedict XVI to identify two forms of the same rite.

Neither is the doctrine of the conciliar documents "Nostra aetate" and "Unitatis redintegratio", read in the light of subsequent encyclicals, but also read in itself, paying attention to the fact that every word is weighed there and that there is no word. syncretism.

Nor are those doctrines and practices that surpass - perhaps only partially - some pre-conciliar doctrine not endowed with a "de fide" or non-irreformable theological note. It is enough to open Ludwig Ott's classic manual of dogmatic theology to realize how many they are also for traditional theology, which has always been very careful to distinguish and classify. In my opinion, this is an attention that is not found in Romano Amerio or in the French traditionalism, which at times seems to treat texts with a Cartesian rather than Thomistic logical mentality. And of course the great theologians of Vatican II knew all this well.

The main moments of dogmatic and doctrinal continuity are found, in the final analysis, in Paul VI's "Creed of the People of God" and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Anyone who believes that there are heresies should bear the burden of proof of such a demanding statement.

In my opinion, this also applies to the teaching of Pope Francis, who in his doctrinal documents always starts from the citation of the sources. Moreover, not a few acts of Francis find punctual hooks in previous popes. For one, to appoint St. Francis patron of ecology enthusiasts was John Paul II in 1979 with the apostolic letter "Inter sanctos". It is not new today, even if the "Laudato si '" has rightly provided the Franciscans the stimulus to deepen these aspects.

All the rest, if allowed, seems to me relevant from a historical, political, sociological point of view, since it is evident that the formation of intra-ecclesial parties - in the wake of modern politics - has its own weight. But this should not be an obstacle for a peaceful doctrinal consideration.

In this perspective, criticism of some worrying positions in some sector of the episcopate would also be strengthened, because it would not arise from an inadmissible refusal of the Council, but from the need for its legitimate implementation.

Without forgetting, then, that in the background the prospect of the convocation of a new assembly cannot be excluded: the first Council of the third millennium.

Francesco Arzillo