Vatican II: Rupture or reform?
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I just ordered George Wiegle’s new book on Vatican II. I think it is a must read book for any Catholic today, given all the ambiguities and incoherence of the current papacy and his less than faithful advisors.
You can read a somewhat very good critique of the book by America Magazine’s Gregory Hillis HERE. I hope you can open it as it might be behind a paywall, but often they allow some free peaks.
Wiegle, like any faithful Catholic, and I include myself in that category, knows that no one can dismiss an ecumenical Council and call it heretical or call a heretical interpretation of the Council and call it orthodox.
Within that context, he points to the two polarized groups that are opposed to the actual Second Vatican Council, those on the far-right heterodox who dismiss the Council altogether, some of whom make comments on my most humble blog, and others who read the documents of Vatican II or rely on others to tell them what Vatican II taught, which they misrepresent, who see the Council in a complete rupture with with had transpired in the Church prior to St. Pope John XXIII and the beginning of the Council, which concluded under a different pope, St. Pope Paul VI. The rupture is from the far left heterodox, but make no mistake, if it is from the left or the right, their ideology or belief is heterodox.
Wiegle, a brilliant historian and theologian in his own right, shows the proper way and it is the way that St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict traced in their two papacies which spanned almost two generations of Catholics, from 1978 until 2013.
Here is an excerpt from the Hillis critique of Wiegle’s book:
While Weigel argues that the neo-scholastic language and theology that dominated prior to the council was unable to address the modern human condition in ways that would be compelling to contemporary people, it becomes clear that he thinks the more biblical, patristic and pastoral language of the council caused more problems than it solved. Because the documents did not provide the kind of “precise vocabulary, finely honed distinctions, and tight logic characteristic of Neo-Scholasticism,” they were open to distortive interpretations that ran amok in the decades after the council. And because the council defined no doctrines, articulated no creed, anathematized no heresies, legislated no canons and commissioned no catechism, there were no interpretative “keys” to correct distortions after the council.
So even though he spends significant time earlier in the book exploring the theology of the council documents, Weigel appears to believe that the documents themselves are not enough because they lack the kind of theological rigor that he had criticized as being incapable of addressing modernity adequately. What is needed, he argues, are interpretive keys to rein in distortion, and he argues that Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI provided precisely those keys during their pontificates. By this he means that the council documents should be read through the lens of the teachings of these two popes because their theologies admitted no ambiguity.
26 comments:
You can defend Vatican II 'till the cows come home but "Res ipsae loquuntur". It failed massively.
Perhaps not completely off topic:
See a great article at Lifesite USA Opinion
"Why bishops are to blame for empty Catholic churches across Australia."
- Changing the beliefs (over 50 years) of orthodox Catholics through stealth and deceit.
Above article applies equally to many dioceses in the UK and, I assume, in parts of the USA...
19 very VERY interesting and revealing comments to this article - many not by Australians.
P.
PS if those who want to regard Taylor Marshall as a nutcase and always unreliable - then at times too the late great Dietrich Von Hildebrand and others of equal standing must also be nutcased and at least often unreliable as well - something quite unlikely, in my Opinion..
Nutcases - not nutcased...
Notice how Mark Thomas won’t touch this? Likely because his Golden Calf has done RIEN!
If the documents are worthless without orthodox guidance and that guidance is not accepted what good can come of it? Furthermore, I ask this if the Council did not create or change anything in the deposit of the Faith why was the Council necessary at all? All the destruction commited in its name then must be the work of the Enemy,no?
"Furthermore, I ask this if the Council did not create or change anything in the deposit of the Faith why was the Council necessary at all?"
George Weigel answers: "It also made me ponder why the Council was necessary. That question is often raised today by young Catholics who, unsettled by the excessive ecclesiastical air turbulence over the past decade and generally ill-informed about the pre-conciliar Church, imagine that everything in Catholicism was copacetic until John XXIII made the fatal mistake of summoning an ecumenical council. That, however, was not the view of some quite orthodox Catholic leaders in the decade before Vatican II."
More: https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/why-vatican-ii-was-necessary?gclid=CjwKCAjwpayjBhAnEiwA-7ena2rtA1qvFlx0I9_3XUu7dTNtnYp_dwTNjpaMfZCpwAZsfde7DltRRhoCpBAQAvD_BwE
Well only a liar would deny that far more Catholics went to Mass, contributed to the support of the Church, and vocations to religious life were booming prior to the Council in stark contrast to today but keep drinking that Vatican Disaster Koolaid. Things are so much better now because priests can remain priests in good standing even if they vote for a Party whose raison d’etre is killing the unborn!
TJM, I was a young adult and student at a Catholic college all during V2 and its immediate after-shocks, and I can confirm your description of the pre-V2 Church. Catholics were healthier, happier, and holier before the Council.
The pre-Vatican II Church demanded obedience from the laity and most were glad to give it even in matters of discipline. You would be committing a mortal sin if your community had a Catholic school and a Catholic parent didn’t send their child there. You were to obey the pope, your bishop and your pastor when directed to do so. You were not to criticize the pope or the clergy and religious, especially in your parish. To do so would be a mortal sin. You were not to question an ecumenical council, or any formal teaching of the pope, encyclicals be the highest but letters and exhortations also.
If you disagreed with something in the Church, you bit your tongue and spoke of it only as a sin when you went to Confession.
You were to disown friends and family members who strayed from the Church. Shunning is what it is called.
Religious life for women, compared to men, was austere and sometimes brutal.
Vatican II’s problems are a reaction to the authoritarian pre-Vatican II Church. Those who rebelled the most were clergy and religious who went wild with new freedoms afforded them and the process of maturity which led them through a horrible adolescence as older adults as they didn’t go through it during adolescence.
Yes there are problems in the post-Vatican II Church much greater than the ones I highlight above, but these are due to a rebellious spirit on the right heterodox (some who post here) as well as the left heterodox. Wiegle hits the nail on the head that the problem with Vatican II is its misrepresentation for ideological and nefarious reasons and its rejection for the same.
Father Kavanaugh, thank you for the link to George Weigel's essay:
-- Why Vatican II Was Necessary
George Weigel offered several reasons that Father Joseph Ratzinger had, in turn, delineated to explain as to why the Council was necessary.
Among said reasons, Joseph Ratzinger had declared:
-- "...it made the liturgy once more accessible;"
During the early 1960s, Father Joseph Ratzinger had insisted that Church was in a state of liturgical/spiritual (at least the Roman Liturgy), collapse.
He had blamed the Council of Trent for the centuries-long awful state of the Roman Liturgy.
As noted in Father Fessio's Adoremus bulletin:
"Ratzinger does not romanticize the state of the liturgy before the council... he knew that the liturgy as celebrated before the Second Vatican Council was no “golden era” but in need of reform."
"...Ratzinger saw the pre-conciliar liturgy as in a state of fossilization or mummification when it needed to be open to development and change..."
Father Ratzinger declared that the Roman Liturgy had been "almost completely overlaid with whitewash by later generations...as far as the faithful were concerned, it was largely concealed beneath instructions for and forms of private prayer."
Father Ratzinger also had blamed "the wall of Latinity" for having transformed the Faithful at Mass into silent spectators.
The Adoremus article noted that according to Father Ratzinger, Latin had prevented "a substantial amount of the faithful from participation in the liturgy and caused the laity to focus on their own private prayers and devotions and muted the communal nature of the liturgical celebration."
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During the 1960s, Archbishop Lefebvre had also noted that Latin had rendered the Mass all but incomprehensible to the "silent spectators" in attendance.
Therefore, Archbishop Lefebvre had insisted upon the introduction of vernaculars into The Mass of the Catechumens.
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Throughout the 1950s, Father Leonard Feeney insisted that the Latin Church was in a state of liturgical/spiritual collapse.
Father Feeney insisted that the Latin Church Faithful had little knowledge of the Mass/Faith.
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Cardinal Cushing had acknowledged that he, along with countless Latin Church Faithful, had found Latin incomprehensible. He insisted that the vernacularize the Mass had become imperative.
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If anything, to repeat Father Ratzinger's declaration at the beginning of my comment, as quoted by George Weigel: :
"...it made the liturgy once more accessible;"
Pax.
Mark Thomas
Father McDonald,
I have to disagree with some of what you are saying. My family, which has Methodists, Episcopals and Lutherans ALL got along with each other prior to the Council. Maybe because we believed what the Church taught about love and charity. IN terms of women religious, I had cousins who were nuns and teachers who were nuns, and they seemed a happy group. In my grade school we had 21 teaching sisters, I would peg maybe 1 or 2 who were difficult characters. I adored most of the sisters who taught me. For being "authoritarian" our parish was fun - bazaars, parties, etc., and the priests were in the middle of them! The post Vatican Church does not even come remotely close to the vibrant communities we had then.
Fr. McDonald, the mistake in your view is that the causes of those problems came from the Liturgy and teachings of the Church. The worst in the Church can be fixed by what is best in the Church.
" That, however, was not the view of some quite orthodox Catholic leaders in the decade before Vatican II."
Fr K
The folks in the pews were never asked. Had they had the option to continue attending the TLM or switching to the NO then it might have worked better. As it is the Mass has became politicized. Since 1965 we have benn witnessing many deformations as a resulq of the chaotic conditions in the Worship ptractices outside the remaining TLM .
RCG,
"The worst in the Church can be fixed by what is best in the Church."
What a GREAT line! 👍 !!
I'd add just one word:
"The worst in the Church can ONLY be fixed by what is best in the Church."
Dear Fr K,
De Nile ain't just a river in Egypt.
P.
John - If the "deformations" we have witnessed were unique to the Catholic Church I might be inclined to believe your contention that the changes in the liturgies of the Church caused them.
However, they're not unique to the Church.
We've seen massive "deformations" throughout our society in the last 75 years. It is highly unlikely that our internal changes brought about such society-wide tumult. All mainline denominations and most social service groups such as the Lions and Rotary Clubs have seen a precipitous decline in membership.
There are more fundamental and widespread causes underlying the "deformations" we are witnessing. Therefore, the prescription of traditionalists for a return to the liturgies of old (pre-1962 or thereabouts) as a remedy is woefully inadequate. Were that to happen, I suggest the upshot would be narrow and ephemeral.
Well, Father K, I can see what you’re saying. Take you for example. You vote for a Party committed to killing the unborn up to the time the baby comes down the birth canal, is in denial about the two sexes, and allowing young children to change their gender without parental consent when virtually every State requires parental consent for ear piercings. The Party of Science!
The difference between genius and stupidity is, genius has its limits.
Thanks, Paul. I have to acknowledge that I got that from a friend of mine in the US Army and he referred to the United States. Since both are under the care of Our Lady, it works in both cases.
The standard expectations of conduct and performance for the Kiwanis, Lions Clubs, and Rotary are significantly lower than the expectations for the Holy Catholic Church. These problems have existed throughout human history, but have become a problem for the Church at large only in the last 75 years. The casual familiarity and disrespect for God in all Three Persons is critical to this decline and any debate or argument is foolish.
TJM,
The Party of Denial, Delusions and almost demonic Dishonesty....
And the Party that is a Disgrace to what it once was, especially pre 1960...
The DDD US Democrat party now today is more corrupt ...much MORE corrupt etc and dishonest and delusional and so on than past days when some in it it had their KKK connections and associations...
Stupid is as Stupid does - says not just a Mr F Gump...
I wonder who, which individual, or what institution's leader or leadership has ever shown a stupidity that knows almost no limits ..
In the past my sources inform me it was either the Archdiocese of Los Angeles or perhaps the chancery in Milwaukee...or maybe even later the Chicago Archdiocese...or the majority of Germany's Catholic bishops...later yet..
Who each and all in their own way can at times display or have displayed stupidity almost without limits..
But then again my sources have never always been 100 per cent accurate - but whose are?
Stupid is as Stupid does - says not just a Mr F Gump...
I wonder who, which individual, or what institution's leader or leadership has ever shown a stupidity that knows almost no limits ..
In the past my sources inform me it was either the Archdiocese of Los Angeles or perhaps the chancery in Milwaukee...or maybe even later the Chicago Archdiocese...or the majority of Germany's Catholic bishops...later yet..
Who each and all in their own way can at times display or have displayed stupidity almost without limits..
But then again my sources have never always been 100 per cent accurate - but whose are?
Paul,
The modern Democratic Party is intrinsically evil and anti-American yet so-called “Catholic” bishops and priests vote for it when their evil is so obvious it is beyond peradventure. Those bishops and priests are on a one way ticket to Hell
Father McDonald,
Here is another excellent critique of Weigel:
https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2023/05/historical-falsehoods-about-liturgy.html
Enjoy!
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