VATICAN II AT 60 YEARS OLD—A TIME FOR A CRITIQUE OF THE GOOD, BAD AND UGLEY IN THE LAST 60 YEARS?

Recently, Cardinal Fernandez, with Pope Leo’s imprimatur, critiqued two Marian titles used for centuries by popes, bishops, priests and laity in popular piety. These are “Mary, as Co-Remptrix” and “Mary, as Co-Mediatrix.” In both cases, for various reasons, primarily that neither title has a defined doctrinal or dogmatic formulation or decree, that these two titles, used for centuries, by popes, St. John Paul II, the latest, cannot be used in any formal teachings of the Church. However, if someone, like a pope, understands these formulations in a proper way, they can continue to use these in private piety and beliefs. 

Yet, yet, yet, so many in the Church to include popes, bishops and priests, proclaim certain aspects of Vatican II, contained in its documents, as doctrine and dogma, when in fact these are only statements of a “pastoral” nature, or theological configurations not defined as doctrines or dogmas. 

To be sure, the documents of Vatican II reiterate pre-Vatican II defined doctrines and dogmas. In this critique, I am not writing about these immutable truths.

But when it comes to the Liturgy and its reforms—these are discipline-oriented recommendations and there is nothing to say that what is recommended are doctrines, dogmas or set in concrete. There is nothing preventing arguments of a theological and doctrinal or even disciplinary nature, to say that the Fathers of Vatican II got this, that and the other wrong. The Second Vatican Council is not a dogmatic Council, but rather pastoral. And pastoral initiatives, no matter how wise or stupid, are not doctrines or dogmas. Yet so many state that everything about Vatican II must be obeyed and believed on the same level as though doctrines and dogmas. That is a false narrative in my most humble opinion.

I won’t go any further in my critique, except to say that all the documents concerning ecumenism, inter-faith relationships and relationships with the world in general, are pastoral initiatives that can and must be critiqued in terms of results in the last 60 years. Nothing in this vain is doctrine or dogmas. One can raise questions and no one should say that a Catholic is being disobedient toward Vatican II or its authority in raising questions!

The same is true of Religious Freedom.

The same is true of the reforms of religious life and the priesthood.

With that said, though, the hierarchical nature of the Church, which is dogma, must be respected for the sake of sacred order in the Church. Canon laws that are for order, not necessarily divine or unchangable, must be respected. But with these, dispensations from canon law are always possible.

So, my recommendation on the 60th anniversary of Vatican II is to go back to Pope Benedict XVI’s elocution to the Cardinals of the Curia at their Christmas gathering where His Holiness called for the proper interpretation of Vatican II in continuity with all that preceded the Council, especially Trent which was a dogmatic Council and anathematized so many heresies of the Protestant Reformation. 

And certainly Summorum Pontificum should be reinstated as an authoritative product of Pope Benedict’s Magisterium in His Holiness’ efforts to interpret Vatican II properly, that is in continuity with all that preceded it, all the Councils of the Church to include the Council of Trent, which was a dogmatic Council!

Co-Redemptrix and Co-Mediatrix have a longer history in the Church than most of the pastoral solutions proposed by the Second Vatican Council—points of discipline and attitudes, not doctrines and dogmas!

Judge the pastoral initiatives by the fruits, good, bad or rotten, that has occurred, especially as the “new springtime for the Church” never happened, although much touted as a future result of Vatican II! Judge the fruits and their quality compared to the results of the Council of Trent!