Monday, February 06, 2012

Vatican II: a traitor or betrayed? Neither, it's still in front of us (Comment)

The year of the 50th anniversary of Vatican Council II has begun. 

When Pope John announced the Council, on January 25, 1959, at Saint Paul's Basilica, I was just a few steps away from him, and witnessed the astonished faces of the cardinals… In particular I remember Cardinal Tisserant's beard… In many meetings, afterwards, I was with other friends at St. Peter's helping the Bishops get seated and move about the Basilica during the meetings….They called us “assignatores locorum”, in effect, the “masks” - like in the movie theaters in those days - of the Council.

Things of no great importance. What is instead of great importance is that Vatican II is still today the object of argument and debate. 

To me, three main voices can be clearly distinguished: one claims the Council was a “traitor”, the Devil’s leaven that insinuated itself into the Church; another affirms the Council was a gift of the Holy Spirit, but has been “betrayed”; still another says the Council was and is a gift of the Holy Spirit, which not only should be commemorated, but also put in practice over time, even in the long-term, while always respecting the circumstances and reality.

“The Council, a traitor”? It's obvious that among these ranks stand the so-called “Lefebvrists”, who manifested themselves during the Council itself, where they were a minority – though a noisy one – and  even after the Council, with support from internal forces within the Curia, and not there alone. 

They always thought it a tragedy for the Church and the faith, even a “deceit” - a frequently used term - of a progressive and half-Protestant minority that has de facto imposed itself using every means possible, including illicit and false ones, on the Popes and other bishops who held to the faith of the Roman Catholic Tradition. 

They are the ones who still today write that everything has precipitated since and thanks to the Council. Extremists, such as Lefebre's disciples, who have broken with ecclesial communion and who even support the theory - just read the repeated accusations on the Internet - that the last real Pope was Pius XII, and that for half a century the See of Peter has been “vacant”. 

I'm not joking: a priest personally “suspended a divinis”, Fr. Ricossa, has written these exact words, and in the end, many agree with him. Books have been written, for instance, by Prof. Roberto De Mattei, demonizing the Council. One of his last works is an admirable myriad of real documents – writings, witness statements, episodes - told in such a way as to form a false and ideologically bogus mosaic, supporting the idea that the origin of all evil is the Council. 

It's the Lefebvrists’ basic position: they start from Latin and from the liturgy - and with some correct observations regarding the lack of equilibrium and unfortunate improvisations in the opposite direction - to affirm that the real “crisis” in which they see the faith and the Church today is the effect and fault of the Council. 

For them, the only true faith is that predating Vatican II, which betrayed it, and only by returning to their theological and disciplinary positions can the true faith return to the Catholic Church. What can one say?

Prof. De Mattei himself – a lay intellectual leader in the Italian field - has written a book on tradition, affirming that the rules of the faith are those laid out in a treaty on “Theological premises” by Melchiorre Cano, a priest and Spanish bishop of the XVI century, born in 1509 and who died in 1560, who participated in the Council of Trent as an “imperial theologian”, by mandate of the king of Spain… Everything that does not re-enter into Cano's canons is suspect, almost always contrary to the faith.

All that's left is to thank Heaven that the times of the Inquisition are over. I could cite hundreds of pages, even recent ones, coming from this angle, in which the Popes of the Council and those following it, up to and including Benedict XVI, are accused of betraying the faith… Recently, strong accusations have come from those sides because while in Germany, Benedict XVI respectfully recalled “the faith” of Martin Luther. Scandal! 

The Pope, for them, is a dangerous theologian of transalpine lands, who has been crucial - they used to say it openly, today they say it with greater reluctance - for the “overthrow” of all that that the Roman Curia had prepared, and therefore for the “drift” of the entire Council regarding Tradition, which for them is more important and decisive than the Bible… Hence - according to the Lefebvrists in their various shades - the fatal errors of the Council: the primacy of the Word of God, episcopal collegiality, the universal call to salvation and even to holiness, the rights of man instead of those of God and of the Church, freedom of religion and of conscience even for other religions, ecumenism, peace with the Jewish people, dialogue with men of good will, the affirmation of the “People of God", who are all "priestly" and endowed with that "regal priesthood" forgotten for 2000 years, and dangerously threatening for the exclusive authority of the clergy, the revaluation of human sexuality with the transformations that have ensued, the importance of women's freedom, and finally, the acknowledgment of the limits of authority as such, even in the Church.

There you have it: the train of thought of those who consider the Council a “traitor” to the faith, and the origin of the crisis today. 

On the fringe of this current discussion, there are many, even at levels of responsibility in the Church, who deem it necessary to return to the Church of the times of Pius XII, and even before that, to Latin as the language that differentiates and silences unsanctioned voices, to the splendor of the liturgy that distrusts everything exalting poverty as a witness of the Kingdom of Heaven, to suspecting all that means social promotion and liberating the oppressed…

If this seems like a schematic portrait, that’s because it is, since I've expressed it in just a few lines. But it says a lot about the lively debate…

There is, of course, also the opposite position, and thus the view of those who also see the Council as a decisive break with the past, with the conception of a perfect hierarchical Church, of an all-submissive laity, of a liturgy made of aesthetics and mystery - the music, the Latin, the silences, the celebrant with his back turned to the people who “attend”, who do not participate, who do not also celebrate it, but are present and observe the precept…

They call themselves “dissenters”, a word never used by the first group. They've practiced this dissent for half a century, saying that the real dissenters are the Council and the Popes who have celebrated and praised it. In reality, though they'd never admit it, they are two extremes that touch: the view that the Council is a “traitor” to the faith, and the view that the post-Conciliar Church has “betrayed” the Council, both lead to the same extreme position. 

Both sides identify themselves as the Christian faith, and deny credibility to whoever disagrees with their positions: “We are the Church” and you are not! That goes for those who thought the Council authorized the throwing away of all that is old, both positive elements and matters of faith, in favor of the new, negative and traitorous elements, and those who thought that everything ancient was old and to be thrown away in favor of the new, positive and finally truly evangelical and Christian elements: two sides and the same position, which does not accept the grace of the Council, defined as such by every Pope in the last 50 years…

Thus, is Vatican II ancient or new? 

It is both. 

Ancient because it confirms the faith of always, new because of its pastoral method, involving analyszing and acknowledging the new times and their needs. 

The Church, too, is ancient as well as new, and living out the 50-year anniversary of the Council. Ancient because it is always the same, that “Mater Ecclesia” that rejoiced in the words with which John XXIII opened the Council, on October 11, 1962, and new because from the Council “new things” have indeed come: at least seven great innovations.