"The traditionalists of the Council"
Isabelle Gaulmyn [a "Progressive" journalist], in La Croix, speaks of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Council. As she correctly recalls, "in the nation where the Lefebvrist crisis originated [France] and where the number of faithful of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, opposed to the Council, remains significant, the fifty-year anniversary of the Conciliar texts should lead to a deep reflection." However, her proposal of "...re-reading the texts of Vatican II, in light of the fifty years that have just ended," seems to me to go against "the hermeneutic of reform," the key of interpretation given by Benedict XVI in his address of December 22, 2005. To reread the texts in "light" (?) of the last fifty years of the life of the Church is to confine oneself to the conflicts and clashes that the author recalls in the beginning of her article.
Quite the contrary, what is needed is a return to the bimillenary teaching of the Church, in order to allow, not only the young people who do not know the Council, but also the aged ones who believe to have known it, to view the texts of Vatican II in the perspective of a just reform and not of a change of look. Moreover, the Council is not an end in itself! It is not for nothing that the Pope makes us enter, in the occasion of this celebration, in the year of the faith. The Council is an instrument at the service of the faith, as it has always happened in the life of the Church. To stop at the Council it to risk ignoring the faith, perhaps even of losing it...[sic] Beware of turning into the traditionalists-of-Vatican-II.
On the other hand, in the perspective of the "apologies" dating from the beginning of the third millenium, one can foresee a penitential ceremony for the conflicts, the clashes, the mutual condemnations, the anathemas which have marked these 50 last years of the life of the Church. ... Let us not wait another millennium so that others may admit guilt on our behalf.
