Ireland, Quebec, Portugal, Spain: not "modern enough" to take Vatican II

For someone who actually thinks that the solution for the Irish Church is to be found in Canadian bishops, well... this article ("Erin go bonkers", George Weigel) is not that surprising. And the lumping of what were essentially liberal representative governments (Quebec, Ireland) with one peculiar regime that came about almost peacefully and came down in flames (Portugal) and another one that was forged in war and peacefully transitioned to constitutional monarchy (Spain) is absurd; not only that, but, as critical as we have been of the Portuguese situation (and, less so, of the Spanish situation, whose prelates are in general better than those of their smaller neighbor), there has surely been no child abuse "crisis" in these two nations.

Now, it is quite good to see walking (and writing) contradictions such as Weigel admit that the Second Vatican Council was a "deluge".
But it is ridiculous to pretend that the situation in most nations is any better than they are in the aforementioned lands. We can surely speak of great Catholic nations that were "prepared" for the Council (that is, their intellectual Catholic "elites" were, in Weigel's words, marked "by the mid-20th-century Catholic renaissance in biblical, historical, philosophical, and theological studies that paved the way toward the Second Vatican Council" - by the way, the ignorance this shows of the intense development of Catholic studies in Spain, for instance, perfectly traditional but innovative and deep, as represented, for one small example, in the majestic first decades of the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos is breathtaking). But did these nations fare any better? 

Belgium and the Catholic Netherlands? Austria? Catholic Germany, including Bavaria? Most of rural France? Catholic Switzerland? These were areas just as deeply and traditionally Catholic as the four regions mentioned by Weigel, and their "intellectual elites" (well, some of them) were certainly "paving the way" for the deluge - but they became as much of a wasteland as any of the others. What about "Catholic America"?! How is the national Church that brought child abuse to the grand stage an example of anything to anyone? It is incredible that 50 years after Vatican II we actually have to read that the solution to the Vatican II crisis is more "Church of Vatican II" (Weigel's own words, not ours). We would be willing to admit that a mild semi-detachment from blindingly following the hierarchy may have been essential to preserving Traditional liturgy and practices in France and in America (which would explain why there are more Traditional-minded Catholics in these two nations, historically characterized by independent thinking, than elsewhere), but only because the semi-detached stood still against the Vatican II tide, not because they followed it. The crisis everywhere was not caused by "too much Tradition", but by the whosesale abandonment of all that our forefathers in faith bequeathed to us, and by the enthusiastic reception of the teachings of Vatican II and the post-Conciliar reforms by hierarchs everywhere, including in Ireland, Quebec, Spain and Portugal (and their former colonies) - and Italy.

No, the solution is not more "Church of Vatican II" - we have tested it, we have to hold on to what is good (cf. I Thess. v, 21): a Church of Tradition and of All Concils, from Nicaea onwards and including Trent, a Council with a reform that worked, and of true reformers such as Hildebrand (St. Gregory VII) and Ghislieri (St. Pius V), not revolutionaries. It was so during our last religious revolution in the 16th century; it remains so now.

[In the image, liturgy in the Religious Education Congress of Los Angeles: the Church in America, a "Church of Vatican II" leading a prophetic path.]