Don't make more of Vatican II than necessary

Vatican II and the Society of St Pius X: Where's the Beef?

The question is not whether or not to accept ( whatever that word might mean- in the literal sense, in the spiritual sense, agreement to the objectives must not the texts, agreement to the texts, but not the way they were implemented, agreement to the texts and the implementation etc, etc) Vatican II in whole or in part, but what position the Council is given in the hierarchy of authorative statements. To elevate the documents too highly would to endanger the doctrine of the indefectability of the Church, given the inconsistency with previous teaching.

The idea that the Council is in continuity with previous teaching is artificial- the break as such occured with the acceptance of "nouvelle theologie" prior to the Council.

Comments

pclaudel said…
"The idea that the Council is in continuity with previous teaching is artificial—the break as such occured with the acceptance of 'nouvelle theologie' prior to the Council."

Thank you, Mr. Gillibrand, for a splendid précis of what Christopher Ferrara's article fails to grasp or conveniently ignores. In pastoral terms alone, acceptance of the council would require an acceptance of the appropriateness and validity of the nuclear winter that has been the council's only true fruit. When one also factors in the doctrinal element you rightly mention, a reader is left to wonder whether this Mr. Ferrara is the same man who wrote The Great Façade.