VATICAN II

          This third edition of Vatican II is a reworked update of an article of mine that was first published on the Feast of the Holy Rosary, Saturday, October 7, 1978, and reprinted in 1995. It is being made available with the same hope that accompanied the first edition: that it may help Catholic readers to understand a bit better the deep Mystery that lies hidden in this great Council of the Holy Church that caused the writing of this little booklet in the first place.

          It is by now an open secret that the Second Vatican Council is viewed by many orthodox Catholics, if not with a sort of latent hostility, then at least with open suspicion. This is largely (but, as we will see, not exclusively, for God never removes from us our free will) the direct result of the fury and ferocity with which the Modernists have seized on the post-Conciliar period in their determination to be heard as the exclusive interpreters of the letter and the spirit of this Council. Their relentless drive has created the unavoidable impression that all the modern heresies can be traced back to this great Council. And the silence and timidity of the ones, appointed by God to be the authentic teachers in the Church (with the notable exception of the late Pope Paul VI and some very courageous bishops) did not help much to restore morale and confidence.

          When my article In Defence of the Novus Ordo did the rounds, the reaction of not a few was “that Vatican II had itself to blame for the run-down of the Liturgy”. Others reacted to my latest article Our Lady with the incredulous reply: “But Vatican II is supposed to have downgraded devotion to Our Lady ...”. They found it hard to believe that so much beautiful teaching on the Mother of God, “the New Eve” and “the Mother of the Church” could come from a Council which had so obviously been subject to much dilution from the ‘Rhine’: the Northern Alliance of liberal bishops and their so-called ‘experts’.

          That, under these circumstances, many good Catholics are confused about Vatican II, is understandable. And then it does not help to recommend the teachings of the Second Vatican Council to these good and simple Catholics, if they repeatedly hear from teachers, catechists, Priests and other experts that they are too much pre-Vatican II in their thinking. For this rebuke contains the barb that Vatican II made essential changes in doctrine, and that the old is no longer acceptable.

          In support of the above it is possible to quote our present Holy Father from a recent address he gave to a group of North American Bishops at their “Ad Limina” visit on October 9, 1998. In this speech the Holy Father made the following observation:

“To look back over what has been done in the field of liturgical renewal in the years since the Council is, first, to see many reasons for giving heartfelt thanks and praise to the Most Holy Trinity for the marvelous awareness which has developed among the faithful of their role and responsibility in this priestly work of Christ and His Church. It is also to realise that not all changes have always and everywhere been accompanied by the necessary explanation and catechesis. As a result, in some cases there has been a misunderstanding of the very nature of the liturgy, leading to abuses, polarization, and sometimes even grave scandal. After the experience of more than thirty years of liturgical renewal, we are well placed to assess both the strength and the weakness of what has been done, in order more confidently to plot our course into the future which God has in mind for His cherished People.”

          Adding my humble comments to the above quoted remarks of Pope John Paul II, I would like to repeat what I wrote on Oct. 23, 1977 to a distinguished Roman theologian, in reply to a letter of his to me (May 25):

“To me, it is an article of faith, that it is absolutely impossible and useless to consider and discuss Vatican II without an absolute acceptance, i.e. an acceptance in Faith, of the Eternal Truths taught by the pre-Vatican II Church. The same Church that gave us the Syllabus of Errors gave us Vatican II. If I cannot induce my adversary to agree with me on pre-Vatican II teachings, it is utterly futile to look with him at Vatican II. If he attacks me for my adherence to pre-Vatican II teachings he is bound to disagree with me on the authentic interpretation to be given to the teachings of Vatican II, because this authentic interpretation can only come from an uninterrupted Catholic Tradition. If my articles are rejected because of my adherence to pre-Vatican II sources and teachings, they will be rejected because of my adherence to authentic Vatican II teachings. In fact, we see this plainly happening already: the teilhardians are so disillusioned with Vatican II, that they only casually, almost from reflex, link their erroneous effluent to this great Council. They know by now that their teachings are not found there, and they are looking forward to Vatican III, or Jerusalem II. The Holy Father Pope Paul VI himself is almost exclusively pre-Vatican II lately, linking up the teachings of this Council with Catholic Tradition.”

          This reference to Vatican III became substantiated with the appearance of the book called Toward Vatican III some 7 months later (mid 1978) containing the papers of the same ‘world famous theologians’ and ‘experts’ who, with their declaration in the London Times immediately prior to the Conclave, convened for the election of a successor to the late Pontiff Pope Paul VI, demanded stringent reforms of the Papacy, calling on the Cardinals not only to elect “a worldly pope”, but also, prior to the election, “to ponder over the Ten Point proposal contained in their joint declaration, and to devote the first part of this month’s conclave to a discussion of the declaration before they elected a new Pope”. [In dealing with these people are we not constantly reminded of the immortal words of His Holiness Pope St. Pius X, in his encyclical Pascendi: “Audacity is their chief characteristic”?]

          It is instructive to read in the “joint declaration” that the Cardinals are urged by these heretics “to elect a pope who will not be a doctrinaire defender of ancient bastions ... and who will share power with the bishops ...”. And in case the good Cardinals missed the point, the declaration “suggested the need for a reform of the papacy as an institution, with the pope looking on the synod of bishops as a responsible decision-making body”. Neither the language nor the intentions could be any clearer.

          I have read Toward Vatican III, and, as is to be expected, it is empty of ‘Theologia Sacra’ and full of human and social engineering, values clarifications, contradictions of Catholic Teaching and even heresies. It is a monumental testimony by the architects of the “One-World ‘Church’” of their final rejection of Vatican II. Unable to trace their frightful dissent any longer to this great and mysterious Council, they have resolved to make it the blue-print of a future ‘council’, so that already this dissent can be given the immediate benefit and respectability of “inevitable conciliar teachings” of the future ... .

          Finally, a word about the well-known book by Fr. Ralph Wiltgen, SVD: The Rhine Flows into the Tiber. This book, more than anything else, should explain why the above-mentioned architects of the “Church of Darkness” are despairing of Vatican II. The Council simply did not go their way in spite of the apparent dominant influence of the ‘Rhine’: the Northern Alliance of the liberal-catholic bishops and their periti. Here follows a typical passage of the book, p. 158, expressing someone’s acute disappointment:

“Prof. Oscar Cullmann, a guest of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, gave a lengthy press conference at the end of the Council, in the course of which he said:

“We cannot pass over in silence the disappointment that we experienced at seeing the title of Mediatrix given to Mary ... The fact that the text on Mary, after so much discussion as to where it should be placed, should have finally become the concluding chapter of the Schema on the Church - a decision which was in fact intended to weaken Mariology - has in reality made it even stronger, because everything stated about the Church culminates, so to speak, in this chapter ... Mariology at this Council has in general been intensified to a degree which is not in keeping with the ecumenical tendencies of Protestantism ... What was expected was a weakening of emphasis, not some sort of revision of the fundamental relationship to the Virgin Mary.”

          Is any further proof needed to show how skilfully the Holy Spirit used the bad intentions of some bishops, even of a dominant group of bishops, for His own designs? Whoever rejects or even mistrusts Vatican II on the basis of appearances, like the title of Fr. Wiltgen’s book, should seriously examen their Faith in pre-Conciliar teachings to see how ‘accommodating’ this Faith has become to unconsciously held private opinions and prejudices, and how adept we all had become in cushioning ourselves against the more uncomfortable demands of the Cross made upon this Faith.

          The all-time greatness and mystery of Vatican Council II lies hidden in the Mystery of the Church and points to the fact that, as a Beacon in the blackness of 20th century humanity, it has made all Catholics uncomfortable by the stark outline of a Cross. Not a Cross safely separated from us by some 2000 years of history, but the harsh outline of a Cross we have been at pains to overlook, but which we are now forced to recognize inescapably, as our very own. Now that many a support we had so earnestly labelled as “essential” simply because we found them so comfortable and reassuring, have been taken away from us, we are suddenly faced with the duty to measure our pre-Vatican II Faith and the strength it has to support us in the post-Conciliar turmoil. Or to stay within the parable of Our Lord Himself, we are faced with the responsibility of measuring the amount of oil we had taken with us before we fell asleep ...

          With these thoughts we have strayed from the province of the Preface (which is to supply a reason why the article should be written) into the domain of the Introduction, in which is outlined in what light the article should be viewed.

          Here I can be brief. I will view the subject-matter of this article in the same Light as I viewed all the others: the Supernatural Light of Divine and Catholic Faith and that of the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church. I do not merely write theology: I write to strengthen the Catholic Faith of my readers: their Faith in that Supernatural Reality here on earth: the Catholic Church.

          In earlier articles I examined before them the strange doctrines that have found their way “into the heart and veins of the Church” (Pascendi), and traced them to their common origin: Teilhard de Chardin and his brand of evolution which is nothing but systematic Modernism. At the same time I drew attention to the concerted and global attempts to trace these spurious teachings and principles to the Second Vatican Council, to make them more readily acceptable as genuine, post-Conciliar ‘Catholic’ insights. This was the necessary spade work for subsequent articles.

          In the more recent ones, I have contrasted these twistings of Catholic Dogma with the teachings of the authentic Catholic Magisterium, endeavouring - as already mentioned in the Preface - to show that no authentic pre-Conciliar teaching of the Church can be, nor ever was, at variance with the true teachings of Vatican II. Yet more is required. Vatican II is more than a sum-total of teachings. It has an inspiration all on its own: a uniqueness and mystery which can only be fully resolved in time, when future generations will give glory to God for His loving Providence.

          There is something that only we can do, for our own generation as well as for the future. We know from what Church and from what era this Sacred Council sprung forth, and from where it took root and formation. And this vital information will diminish in time for future generations. In support of this fading of understanding historical values already in the present generation of the young people we may quote the present Holy Father from the same address quoted above to the North American Bishops in Rome when he said:

“... In this sense the young are summoning the whole Church to take the next step in implementing the vision of worship which the Council has bequeathed on us. Unencumbered by the ideological agenda of an earlier time they are able to speak simply and directly of their desire to experience God ...” .

          The Holy Father is aware that it is a good thing not to be burdened by past ideological strife. But the whole tone of his address is to rectify a wide-spread misconception: that Vatican II constituted a break in Catholic Tradition, at least as far as the liturgy of the Church is concerned. For that very reason he was at pains to link the past with the present, going in his address as far back in time as the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

          It is from our era, and from the Church of our era, still so close to us, that we must wrestle to partly unlock the mystique contained in the very essence of Vatican II. For our own immediate benefit as well as for the benefit of the Catholics to whom Catholic Tradition must be handed over in its entirety. No doubt Vatican II has a clear message for the Church of the future, but this great Council happened in our time, and future generations of Catholics depend on us how well we understood that time. How well our Catholic children will comprehend the past which happens to be our present, depends entirely on us.