The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. With the intensified crisis in the Church in recent years, many have begun to doubt Benedict’s assessment. For them, Benedict’s attempts at rescuing the Council, while perhaps noble, are no better than putting lipstick on the ecclesiastical pig. While this may seem hyperbolic, it is not. From the newly-minted position of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò to the more nuanced criticisms of Bishop Athanasius Schneider, to the recently issued petition of bloggers, commentators, and some scholars, the Second Vatican Council and its documents are seen increasingly as the problem. It was a rupture from what went before. Its ambiguities must be repudiated; its innovations scrapped. It has opened a festering and expanding wound in the Church and the best we can do is declare this pastoral council anathema and engage in the proper restoration of the old ways. How are contemporary lay Catholics to negotiate these debates? How can they make sense of the questions? How can they attempt, with Benedict, to see the Second Vatican Council, not as a rupture with what went before but a deepening of the riches of the Church’s Tradition?
A Deeper Context: Overlooked book provides insight into Vatican II debates – Catholic World Report
A Deeper Context: Overlooked book provides insight into Vatican II debates – Catholic World Report
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