Interpreting the Council

Since June of last year, when I first began the blog, I have included a link to dotCommonweal.  Honestly, I've frequently wondered whether their writers actually read what they're commenting on (as is the case in a recent Commonweal article on the Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum).

Personally, I'm interested in a balance of opinion, so I link to both progressive and traditional sites--as well as those in between, or even better I like those that defy categorization.  Nevertheless, the above referenced article almost convinced me to remove my link to dotCommonweal.  However, just as I was about to click "delete" I found an interesting, and surprising, discussion on Benedict XVI and Vatican II, so I'll keep Commonweal's link until I'm convinced to do otherwise.

I thought it might be worthwhile to devote a separate theme to Pope Benedict and the interpretation of Vatican II. I had not read until this afternoon the remarks the Pope made to the group of priests who had asked his opinion about the Council. From what had been described in other posts I I expected to find it giving aid and comfort to anti-conciliarists and restorationists and to promote continuity over discontinuity in the interpretation of the Council. Instead, I find that this dichotomy between continuity and discontinuity is absent from his remarks and that he distinguishes two extremes that he thinks once predominated with reference to the Council: a progressive mentality that thought everything can and ought to change in the Church and an absolute anti-conciliarism, between which, he says, a third and more valid interpretation had difficulty making its way.

The idea that Pope Benedict wants to return us to "those thrilling days of yesteryear", that is, before the Council, should be discredited, I think, by two quotes, one at the beginning and one near the end. The first is the one to which Bob Imbelli drew attention: "We had such great hopes, but in reality things proved to be more difficult. Nonetheless, it is still true that the great legacy of the Council, which opened a new road, is a "magna carta" of the Church’s path, very essential and fundamental." The other quote describes all the good the Council has brought:

"It seems very important to me that we can now see with open eyes how much that was positive also grew following the Council: in the renewal of the liturgy, in the synods – Roman synods, universal synods, diocesan synods – in the parish structures, in collaboration, in the new responsibility of laypeople, in intercultural and intercontinental shared responsibility, in a new experience of the Church’s catholicity, of the unanimity that grows in humility, and nonetheless is the true hope of the world.

"And thus it seems to me that we must rediscover the great heritage of the Council, which is not a "spirit" reconstructed behind the texts, but the great conciliar texts themselves, reread today with the experiences that we have had and that have born fruit in so many movements, in so many new religious communities."

And then the Pope recommends a re-reading, a re-reception of the conciliar texts in the light of what has happened in the Church and in the world since the Council.

I do not know what could possibly be considered restorationist about these remarks.

Continue reading

Comments

[Paul Stokell]

More than one church-related content provider - left, right or center - have a "track record" of intolerance, hype and just plain un-Christian behavior. But for every bloviating writer are two or three who are working hard to tell the Truth and share it. Sorting out the weeds from the wheat is real work, but worth it!

To consider "unlinking" is a reality, and a sometimes necessary editorial task. It takes courage to remove oneself from those sorts of scandal - dissociating from one who keeps on bullying, or who causes dissent at worst and dissonance at best, and remains obstinate despite calls for change and reflection. Walking away from these - at least for a while - isn't ideological retreat or isolation. It's remaining true to one's self, and proving it.

[Anonymous]

Right. It also takes guts to ask Catholic people specifically not to link to one's site, if one has any content that may be off the Mark.

Overall, as a friend says, we just do the best we can, and Purgatory will burn off the rest.
-----

As for me and my house, we are not Magisterium, so in-depth overviews of this wondrous M.P. are something I'll leave to those whose duty it is to parse it. Obedience is my duty, so I look to my priest to understand the M.P. and pass it on to us. But no wonder the Pope's brother was so worried over him initially at the habemus Papem. He knew what tremendous work in this age would befall Joseph in his old age.

All any of us may have needed to know is that there was no abrogation, so I will let the Holy Spirit, via the Pope and Magisterium, go on interpreting the Second Vatican Council, too. Again, my duty, which was true even for Padre Pio and Francis -- Stigmatics! -- is obedience.

[C.O.]

Little did I know until early this morn that V II was invoked under the auspices of the Blessed Virgin! That's likely my own lazily-uninformed fault, but that throws an entirely new light on it all, somehow. A gorgeous one. Fr. Regis Scanlan is archived in audio about Vatican II's documents at EWTN. Not a one of us could live long enough to listen to/read everything in anyone's library, multimedia or otherwise, but I will certainly pick and choose a few more.. beginning with those to do with Mary, preceded only by those to do with the Eucharist, such as Sr. Joan Noreen's "The Eucharistic Journey," also archived there.