Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Any reconsideration should start with Nostra Aetate and the question of how much cancer is healthy.
Yep. The fact an ecumenical council needs “a hermeneutic of continuity” to make it fit with the rest is all you need to know.
In fact, I’ve gotten so tired of hearing the “hermeneutic” phrase I’ve started saying it in the voice of the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show: “Herbenberben a kerneltooity.”
It was a manifest failure in its own aims.
The documents are committee exercises in studied ambiguity.
What it did to the liturgy was the equivalent of throwing decks of Old Maid, Pinochle and Uno into a wind tunnel and then playing 52 pickup.
And its signature social achievement was to empty the term “Catholic” of any descriptive meaning.
But yes, the great fruits of the Council are still ripening up there somewhere. All we have to do is to patiently climb the tree to see them first. And to do that, we must keep pushing the rope upwards toward its glorious branches.
About 17 years ago, the Congregation for Divine Worship promulgated some amendments to the liturgy which included an instruction to avoid the use of eucharistic ministers except in odd circumstances. I asked the administrator of the small parish I was attending at the time why that instruction was ignored in his parish. Well, he tells me, ignoring it was Bp. Moynihan’s policy. He begins to mumble an excuse about time constraints. I walked away from him and never returned to that parish. His predecessor had been formally reprimanded for promoting kneeling and communion on the tongue. You can certainly change the instructions (could we have an instruction that debars hymns in favor of antiphonal and responsorial chant?) Some bishops and priests will pay attention and some will not. The one thing you can do top down that might have some salutary effect is to put an end to the wheel-spinning exercises which go on under the the heading ‘ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue’. Another would be an instruction that national bishops’ conferences close up shop and dismiss their staffs. Other things which might be salutary (e.g an unambiguous instruction to exclude known homosexuals from seminaries and houses of formation) are good measures but likely to be ignored.
NB, not much prevents bishops and priests from implementing salutary reforms right now. They. Just. Don’t. Feel. Like. It.
Art Deco, that is a pretty good exploration of what I was trying to articulate. I only add that Pope Benedict and JPII believed Vatican II to be valid and my respect for both of their intelligences and insights precludes me from independently concluding it wasn’t. To Dale Price’s point above, one I find intriguing and uncomfortable for its accurate representation of the way things are, we’ve seen how valid synods are manipulated and the documents misrepresented. I’ve a sneakign suspicion that Dale and Art are both right because the Council was valid but the documents intentionally manipulated to provide no centralized authority and, so, allow Modernists to work evil under its auspices. Satan is really clever. He is, after all, an angel, if not angellic.
David:
V2 was definitely a valid council. But church history demonstrates that validity and failure can go hand in hand.
For example, Lateran V was intended to be a reforming council. And….that didn’t happen.
The 21st council didn’t do what it said it would do, either. But it has become the institutional equivalent of a golden calf, so the slightest criticism of it leads to ecclesiastical cancel culture.
In the meantime, clerics talk about springtime as they close parishes and watch sacramental participation crater.
Art Deco raises an excellent point: Do we really think the current posse of clowns would do a better job than the last one?
“Yep. The fact an ecumenical council needs “a hermeneutic of continuity” to make it fit with the rest is all you need to know”.
I rather like the hermeneutic of continuity myself. Especially when the alternative is the “hermeneutic of rupture.”
But then, I’ve never understood the tendency of conservatives (broadly speaking) to accept the premises progressives (again, broadly speaking) offer up. (Especially when I find myself doing it).
I guess I’d have to better understand what the “aims” of the Council were before I’d declare it a success or failure. Arguably Chalcedon was a failure, since the majority of the then chuch rejected it.
I guess I’d have to better understand what the “aims” of the Council were before I’d declare it a success or failure.
If the aims were any of the notable features of the Church today in occidental countries, it was one nasty conspiracy.
Hagan Lio! right?
Not sure if I’m being cynical, whistling past the graveyard, both of these or none of these.
I just know the Church is greater than the men temporarily entrusted with its care. And we can thank God for it.
If only the United States had the same sort of promise Christ gave Peter.
Now, this is interesting:
Read the whole thing (and video!) at the link.
According to Pope Paul VI, the goals of the most recent council:
“You know the purpose of this council, which has more participants than any other: As it was expressed by our illustrious predecessor [Pope John XXIII], the Church must appear in its perennial vigor, the instrument of salvation for all; to her Our Lord Jesus Christ has entrusted the deposit of the Faith, to be guarded faithfully and in an apt and convenient way. This energetic vigor of the Church, which illuminates, attracts, moves souls, can take new strength from the council, which meets at the tomb of St. Peter.”
Found here: https://vaticaniiat50.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/pope-paul-stresses-john-xxiiis-goals/
As much as I want to be cheeky and say “it’s to early to tell if Vatican II was a success or failure,” I’ll concede you’ve made your point.
Ernst:
Let me offer an olive branch–the hermeneutic of continuity is necessary to address the documents of the council. Where I part ways with people is seeing it as critical to “making the Council work” or something like that.
Are there some enduring insights which can be taken from the council? Sure–some portion of every council finds its way into Denzinger, but in some cases, not very much did. And that’s fine. Test everything, hold fast to the good.
But using it as a polestar in 2020 is counterproductive. The conditions on the ground have changed radically since the New Frontier era. To continue to refer to it is like insisting on using maps from the Age of Exploration.
It seems like the final word regarding both Vatican II and Communism is that a bad idea remains a bad idea. So obvious – why didn’t we think of this earlier? In the realization (so obvious and so overdue) that Vatican II was a disaster whose work and thought are no.longer relevant as well as hopelessly tainted and outdated, why not just forget it happened, stop grappling with its errors, omissions and outright rebellion against the truth and let in recede into the past. Why agonize at a failed project built on the sand of the then-modern world which is now as quaint as macrame and flower power and as pernicious as communism, the other brilliant idea of the 20th century, that resulted in the deaths of 100 million people and the toppling of whole societies and governments into famine, slavery, imprisonment, war and mass migrations.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/100-years-of-communismand-100-million-dead-1510011810
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism