GROWTH IN ONE’S CATHOLICISM FROM IMMATURITY TO MATURITY—JOSEPH RATZINGER IS OUR MODEL

Joseph Ratzinger during the Council and immediately afterward was the darling of progressives in the Church. He seem to canonize the Second Vatican Council, although its scope was not doctrinal or dogmatic, but pastoral and thus limited in scope. 

By 1968, Joseph Ratzinger passed his adolescent stage as a theologian and began to realize that the adolescents pushing a progressive, heterodox agenda in the Church, were precisely that-- adolescents--or they were in arrested development as it concerned the dogmatizing of the “new and improved” over the “ancient and supposedly stale”. 

The post above this where Cardinal Ratzinger writes the Chilean bishops about Vatican II and the liturgy in general, shows the growth into maturity of the good Cardinal. He puts Vatican II in its proper place, as he will do during his magnificent papacy. And he makes clear and should have declared infallibly that what previous generations considered sacred could not then be considered not so by subsequent generations. This was specifically geared toward the Mass of the Ages, the Traditional Latin Mass and giving this form of the Mass pride of place. 

He also knew that if one could critique and dismiss the TLM so too could one do the same for the Mass of Pope Paul VI which was contrived by progressives in the pope’s papal court. 

Ratzinger as a theologian, as a bishop, cardinal and then pope never dismissed Vatican II but acknowledged not all of its documents carried equal weight and some of them were time-constrained by facets of life prior to and during the Council. None of the documents break new dogma or doctrine or anathematize errors of the Tridentine period. 

As it concerns the Liturgy, I think Pope Benedict would have preferred the conservative, modest proposals of the Council Fathers rather than the committee that hijacked the Council’s desires for the Liturgy. But he knew that one could critique the errors of the reformed Mass and the reasons why the small group of reformers wanted them and dogmatized them. 

Pope Francis never matured past 1968 and embraces all that Pope Benedict called out!

This is what Cardinal and later Pope Ratzinger would have desired and could have affected or is it effected:

1. The Order of the Mass would not have changed.

2. The useless repetition of the double Confiteor and absolutions for the priest and servers could have been combined in to one set for both. The same for the Rite of Holy Communion for the priest and then again for the laity. Psalm 42 should not have been eliminated except during Passiontide as the Council wanted more Scripture not less!

3. Gregorian Chant for the Sung and Solemn Sung Mass for the Propers should have remained and not changed or made optional

4. Latin for the fixed parts of the Mass should have been maintained.Vernacular as an option for the other parts.

5. None of the private devotional prayers of the priest should have been eliminated and should have allowed for optional vernacular.

6. The Roman Calendar should have not be radically revised nor the Lectionary. The TLM lectionary in the vernacular should have been maintained as Year A and two additional Years, B and C modeled on A but with more use of the Old Testament and readings not in the TLM lectionary. Vernacular for the Readings as an option. A good revision of the daily Mass lectionary according to the Paul VI lectionary is advisable.

7. No need for additional Eucharistic Prayers but more Prefaces with the option of the vernacular, since these are changing. 

8. No change to Holy Communion practices in terms of manner of receiving and the fast (three hours before Mass).

What I have highlighted above is what Vatican II desired, no if’s, and’s, or’s about it!