A guest-post by Côme de Prévigny
Mgr. Ocáriz is not just any priest. The Vicar General of Opus Dei, the only community with a statute of personal prelature, he knows the differences between Rome and the Fraternity well because he was one of the two experts (along with future Cardinal Bertone) named to discuss with the theologians of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X (including future Bp. Tissier de Mallerais) in early 1988. He was the only one involved in those conversations to directly participate in the doctrinal discussions opened by Benedict XVI between 2009 and 2011 with the work founded by Abp. Marcel Lefebvre. The Spanish monsignor is known throughout the world as one of the experts in the matter of religious liberty.
Mgr. Ocáriz published his recent text in L'Osservatore Romano, a paper increasingly separated from the thinking of the Pope, in which he deals with the problem of the reception of Vatican II. A French journalist saw in this a firm response regarding the recent interventions of Bp. Fellay, Superior General of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X. I believe he is seriously mistaken.
What did this text say? It recalled the ordinary canonical rules for the reception of pontifical texts. Mgr. Ocáriz, with his intervention, wished to grant yet more acceptance to the hermeneutic of continuity - at least in appearance. It differentiated the levels of authority of the numerous conciliar documents. Certainly, this differentiation seems quite distant from the concerns of the Fraternity, because it seems to present the normal canonical rules as applicable in the case of force majeure, in which these very rules are turned upside down. Beyond these long recollections of the rules of the game rules, this excerpt merits some attention.
"A number of innovations of a doctrinal nature are to be found in the documents of the Second Vatican Council: on the sacramental nature of the episcopate, on episcopal collegiality, on religious freedom, etc. These innovations in matters concerning faith or morals, not proposed with a definitive act, still require religious submission of intellect and will, even though some of them were and still are the object of controversy with regard to their continuity with earlier magisterial teaching, or their compatibility with the tradition."
1. The author, though an undisputed expert on religious liberty, admits that Vatican II introduced doctrinal innovations, among which is religious liberty. Coming as it does from the mouth of an apostle of this doctrine, the confession is a true cold shower.
2. He affirms that the compatibility of these novelties with Tradition do not follow automatically, that they are subject to debate, that their connection with Tradition is the object of "controversy". The undisputable character of Vatican II, in its more innovative lines, suffers an irremediable blow.
3. Mgr. Ocáriz shows, in this article, that this controversy is allowed, and he implies that it takes place within the Roman Church. He makes clearly known that to think that religious liberty and collegiality are in rupture with Catholic Tradition is allowed within the Church.
This text marks a turnaround because it introduces in the conciliar edifice, through the opinion of a great expert, a leaven of the destruction of innovative ideas, which cannot but place young theologians back into the hands of traditional doctrine.
