February 5, 2012 Vatican
II – Better if it never happened?
David Timbs
When
Pope John XXIII convoked the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council he invited all
Catholics to enter a time of deep reflection on and conversation about the
identity and mission of the Church in the 20th Century.
But
when the Bishops of the world, our representatives, gathered in Rome it became
clear from the very outset that there was a very determined group of Curial
Cardinals and other officials who resented the very idea of the Council.
This hostility translated into fierce resistance to anything remotely suggestive
of change! The mind they brought to
the Council had its origins in Trent and the counter-Reformation. Their Church
was the immutable one, divinely established in its structures and practice. It
was all about fear of losing centralised power and control over the universal
Church and it was not a game.
It
was obvious they did not welcome what John XXIII welcomed as the spirit of the
Council, conversation and debate among
equals. That implied and demanded a process of living, human conversion
deeper than and beyond the static lines of dogmatism and regulation so
prized by Cardinal Ottaviani and his Curial colleagues.
They
wanted a stop before the start, a full stop not a comma, …..
It
has emerged that the resistance of Ottaviani has reincarnated itself during the
pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. The shape it has assumed is a
slow but relentless program of conscious and planned regression from and even
substantial non reception of the
conversation, consensus and directions of Vatican II. In a recent La
Stampa
article Cardinal Walter Kasper rightly cautions that Vat II can easily be
mythologized and that there is a need to explain Vat II and its reforms to
Church structure and praxis to a generation removed from it. However, in doing
so, he gives a hint that Benedict’s Reform
of the Reform might just founder on charges that it constitutes a form of
dissent in itself and that it could well be judged as breaking Continuity
with the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Maybe Kasper is just ahead of
the Curia on this one but history will no doubt take care of any kind of
lingering speculation.
The
playmaker in this critical Reform of the
Reform – read a narrow and self-interested regressive re-interpretation of
Vatican II – is Benedict XVI who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was the script writer
and program director for JP II’s pontificate. It is a matter of historical
documentary evidence that Bishop Karol Wojtyla and theologian Fr Joseph
Ratzinger became terrified by the robust and seminal conversation on the Council floor and at the crowed bars.
Essentially, they lost their nerve and, I think, trust in the Holy Spirit.
The
‘Power of the Keys’ has provided the authority and driven the intention to
strip back those initiatives of Vat II which substantially threatened their
ideal of a self-contained and self- sufficient Church of the pure, the simple
and the controllable.
This
graduated regression has led to a disastrous polarization among the People of
God almost to the point of schism. Its
most dramatic manifestation can be seen today in the Austrian crisis. But
Austrian is only the division writ
large. At its very worst it is partisan street fighting but at best it is a
church-wide contest featuring contending wills, perceptions and convictions over
what began in Rome fifty years ago when the Oekumene gathered in conversation
with the Holy Spirit and dreamt of a Gaudium
et Spes Church.
Whatever
of the Catholic Church in other parts of the world, there is plenty of evidence
that there is disaffection with the directions Church in Australia have pursued
since the end of the Council. It manifests itself on websites particularly those
operated by a small, shrill laity – supported by youngish trendy trad Latin
Mass line-dancing clerics - who hanker for a yesteryear us
and them Church militant, a Church of absolute, unassailable truth and
shielded by an overpowering apologia
before a mocking, pagan world. They also worship persecution and martyrdom
in its many disguises. It is near essential for their elitist and arcane
identity.
I
say we should teach the canons of the Trent
and weave them into the hermeneutic of
Continuity, as corrective to Vat II.
I
suggest at least some school kids would like the precision and clarity of the
canons (Trent)
as opposed to the fluff they currently get. - Comment in the virulently hostile and hot bed of paranoia, Australia
Incognita.
And
not to be outdone, the self-styled Anchoritess
herself opines magisterially,
Pope
Benedict XVI has … announced a ‘Year of Faith’ to start in October next
year on the anniversary of the opening of Vatican II in a Motu
Proprio, Porta Fidei (Door of
Faith).
It’s
hard to resist the idea that the intent is finally to put to bed the dominance
of Vatican II -and the utter disregard for all that came before it – in modern
thinking. – AI,
18/10/11
It
would be a monumental defeat for those generations of Catholics who have been
renewed and confirmed in their faith now to be bullied, bulldozed and dispirited
by this naive and juvenile few who prefer their lives to be governed more by the
emperor than by the prophet.
Vatican
II began and its vision continues under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The
Spirit wanders over the face of the earth still and will never be stilled,
domesticated or housed in a museum.
The
Spirit’s Council is just beginning
David
Timbs writes from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
05/02/12