https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_counci
III Features of the Texts Influential for
promoting the Council’s Work
We here consider:
1.
Authority;
2.
Appeal to Charismatic Inspiration;
3.
Appeal to the Senses;
1.
Authority
The dynamism of the Council
derives not least from its ecumenical (in the sense of universal) and Papal
authority: that is to say the authority which the universal episcopate
possesses in a Council in collaboration with, and under the governance of, the Pope;
together with the papal authority in which it participates. This authority was
then to be made concrete in law, official documents, catechisms, programs of
seminary formation, and Religious Rules: a formidable and solid bulwark indeed
against lone voices of dissent. Papal authority was to have a similar power
shortly afterwards in the imposition of the New Order of Mass [1].
Cardinal Siri himself
described authority as the ‘capacity to create an obligation of conscience’ and
consequently accepted decisions of Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI which he
did not personally agree with, and so it was also with many of the other
conservative Council Fathers. Father Wiltgen wrote: ‘When the point of view of
the majority was clarified and promulgated by the Pope as common doctrine of
the Second Vatican Council, they did not hesitate to adhere to it.’ Even
Monsignor Lefebvre admitted signing many Council texts: ‘…under the moral
pressure of the Holy Father… because I cannot separate myself from the Holy
Father; if the Holy Father signs, I am morally obliged to sign’ [2].
Professor de Mattei observes
that in order to resist, a Council Father would have had to possess not only
the requisite theological knowledge, but also a prophetic attitude. The Abbé de
Nantes remarks: ‘His appeal to the Truth revealed by God would suffice to block
the entire machine of subversion’ [3].
Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliviera agrees, observing: ‘Had a public stand been
taken at the right time with the necessary energy, the history of the Church
would have changed’ [4].
It was just this attitude, though, which was lacking in the Council. Professor
de Mattei explains: ‘If in the first phase of the Council [the first three
sessions] the principal problem of the conservative Fathers was the lack of
organization, in the last two sessions what was lacking was rather the will to
resist to the very limit’ [5].
As the Abbé de Nantes’ words
imply: the Faith is a principle higher than the Papacy, and the Pope only has
authority to teach in accord with the Faith: the Pope and the entire Episcopacy
possess authority in the field of doctrine only to re-iterate, deepen, or clarify
the Faith, and none whatsoever to teach new or false doctrines, and if they are
new then they are necessarily also false. What is regarded as the authority of
the Council to impose novelty and falsehood is a false authority deceiving the
whole world; it is a demon filling the members of the Church with inept joy, or
a Sphinx squeezing and throttling [6]
them, paralyzing them with fear even at the thought of questioning it.
‘What
is regarded as the authority of the Council to impose novelty and falsehood is
a false authority deceiving the whole world…’ (paraphrased from Abbe de Nantes)
‘Hence, however, beloved
brethren, I not only admonish but counsel you, not rashly to trust to
mischievous words, nor to yield an easy consent to deceitful sayings, nor to
take darkness for light, night for day, hunger for food, thirst for drink,
poison for medicine, death for safety. Let not the age nor the authority
deceive you of those who, answering to the ancient wickedness of the two elders
as they attempted to corrupt and violate the chaste Susannah, are thus also
attempting, with their adulterous doctrines, to corrupt the chastity of the
Church and violate the truth of the Gospel...
‘The Lord cries aloud, saying,
“Hearken not unto the words of the false prophets, for the visions of their own
hearts deceive them. They speak, but not out of the mouth of the Lord.... There
is one God, and Christ is one, and there is one Church, and one chair founded
upon the rock by the word of the Lord. Another altar cannot be constituted nor
a new priesthood be made, except the one altar and the one priesthood.
Whosoever gathereth elsewhere, scattereth. Whatsoever is appointed by human
madness, so that the divine disposition is violated, is adulterous, is impious,
is sacrilegious. Depart far from the contagion of men of this kind and flee
from their words, avoiding them as a cancer and a plague, as the Lord warns you
and says, “They are blind leaders of the blind. But if the blind lead the
blind, they shall both fall into the ditch.” ...Let no-one, beloved brethren,
make you to err from the ways of the Lord; let no-one snatch you, Christians,
from the Gospel of Christ; let no- one take sons of the Church away from the
Church; let them perish alone for themselves who have wished to perish; let
them remain outside the Church alone who have departed from the Church...
‘Avoid the wolves who separate
the sheep from the shepherd; avoid the envenomed tongue of the devil, who from
the beginning of the world, always deceitful and lying, lies that he may
deceive, cajoles that he may injure, promises good that he may give evil,
promises life that he may put to death. Now also his words are evident, and his
poisons are plain. He promises peace, in order that peace may not possibly be
attained; he promises salvation, that he who has sinned may not come to
salvation; he promises a Church, when he so contrives that he who believes him
may utterly perish apart from the Church [7].
2. Appeal to
Charismatic Inspiration
Both Pope John XXIII and Pope
Paul VI laid claim to Charismatic, or Divine, inspiration for the Council [8].
Indeed
the opening speech of Pope John XXIII in which he voiced such an opinion
begins: ‘Gaudet Mater Ecclesia’
recalling the Exsultet (... Gaudeat... laetetur Mater Ecclesia) of
Easter night, and insinuating that the Council was an event of charismatic
magnitude similar to the Resurrection. What greater importance could he have
lent it, other than calling it a ‘Second Pentecost’ as did Pope John Paul II,
the other Supreme Pontiff who, by his active role in composing documents and in
his subsequent enthusiastic promotion of the Council, may also be termed a
‘Conciliar Pope.’ And yet Pentecost is the work of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit
of Truth, and having seen how the Council opposed this Spirit, we cannot be
justified in attributing in a special way to the Holy Spirit [9]
the Council’s inspiration or teachings.
‘What
was presented as charismatic inspiration turns out then to be not supernatural
but natural, or at most preternatural (if inspired by the devil), in the
tradition of Protestant ‘enthusiastic’ experience.’
Indeed we have seen the
Council erring not only on a doctrinal, but even on a purely pastoral, level,
in forseeing a continuing expansion of the world’s population and of Communism,
so as not explicitly to condemn either contraception or Communism. As for Pope
John’s inspiration for the Council, we observe that he was not the only
instigator of world-shaking changes inspired by a vision [10]:
we think of ‘The Buddha’, Mohammed, Luther [11],
Descartes, Marx, Lenin, and, to a lesser extent, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin [12].
What was presented as
charismatic inspiration turns out then to be not supernatural but natural, or
at most preternatural (if inspired by the devil), in the tradition of
Protestant ‘enthusiastic’ experience. Removing its charismatic clothing, it
remains little more than the emotion of hope for a glorious Church future.
3. Appeal to
the Emotions
We spoke above of the shift
from Charity, that is from rational, supernatural love in the state of Grace,
to the natural love of the senses as the motivating force of Ecumenism [13];
we noted a further preoccupation with sense love in the Council’s treatment of
marriage [14],
where ‘love’, no longer considered as mutual assistance but as carnal love, is
presented as:
-
pertaining to the very essence of marriage;
-
the primary end of marriage;
-
the ground of its dignity;
-
the ground of the equality of the spouses; and also ostensibly
as
-
a possible motive for contraception.
In general, we spoke of the
Council’s adoption of an attitude of affection towards all men without regard
for objective distinctions, and we have seen it insist on mercy over
‘condemnation.’ We also spoke of a shift from the rational, supernatural virtue
of Hope [15], to
hope as an emotion, or passion.
‘[The Council’s] attitude was very much and deliberately optimistic. A wave of affection and admiration flowed from the Council over the modern world of humanity.’ Pope Paul VI
We have seen this optimism in
the texts of Gaudium et Spes,[16]
in the texts on the reform of the sacraments [17].
As an example of the Council’s promotion of love and hope of the sensible order
we take the following text from Gaudium
et Spes: ‘The Church… courteously invites atheists to examine the gospel of
Christ with an open mind.’ Michael Davies comments: ‘It is hardly being cynical
to speculate on the amusement with which this courteous invitation would be
received, if it was ever received in the guardrooms of the Gulag Archipelago or
the garrisons of Hungary and Czechoslovakia’ [18].
In connection with this shift
of meaning of ‘love’ and ‘hope’, we quote Pope Paul VI’s address to the last
Council meeting: ‘[The Council’s] attitude was very much and deliberately
optimistic. A wave of affection and admiration flowed from the Council over the
modern world of humanity. Errors were condemned, indeed, because charity
demanded this no less than did truth, but for the persons themselves there was
only warning, respect, and love. Instead of depressing diagnoses, encouraging
remedies; instead of direful prognostics, messages of trust issued from the
Council to the present-day world. The modern world’s values were not only
respected but honored, its efforts approved, its aspirations purified and
blessed.’
Michael Davies comments: ‘The
values of the modern world are now clearly apparent even in nominally Catholic
countries to-day in the legalization of divorce, contraception, pornography,
sodomy, and abortion. ’ We could mention other iniquities in our current
society 30 years after the publication of the book in which these words were
written, but we refrain: si monumentum
requiritis, circumspicite [19].
Both in the case of love and
of hope we see a shift from supernatural to natural, from objective to subjective,
from rationality to passion. We have referred to the shift from supernatural to
natural above as the false metaphysical principle of naturalism; we have
referred to the shift from objective to subjective as the false principle of
antirealist subjectivism; as to the shift from rationality to passion, it can
already be seen in the Modernist shift from rationality to vital immanence. We
shall content ourselves with asking here: is the Church interested in the
supernatural, in objective reality, and in rationality, or is She not?
[1] as we have noted in ‘The Destruction of the Roman
Rite’ op. cit.
[2] RdM VI. 11 (c). Professor Plinio Corrêa de Olviera understands the Archbishop’s motives
differently, referring to an ‘avowed optimism’ present in the conservative
Fathers, and also in him, according to which: ‘they thought that all that was
happening would be worked out in one way or another, and that therefore it was
not worth it to engage that frontal combat’ Minha
Vida Pública, ch. 9
[3] Lettre à mes amis n.211 1965 p.
13, RdM VI. 11 (c)
[4] ibid. cf. penultimate footnote
[5] RdM ibid..
[6] ‘sphinx’ means ‘the throttler’
[7] St. Cyprian, Epistle 39, 4-6
[8] see the Preface, section B
[9] at least not in a positive sense (see our essay ‘How
to Regard the Second Vatican Council’)
[10] without wishing in any way to compare the person of
Pope John XXIII with any of these other visionaries
[11] at least in relation to the Mass
[12] his vision of the ‘spirit of the world’ which entered
into him (see above)
[13] ch.2, conclusion to sections B&C, (c)
[14] ch.6, A
[15] which is the hope for Heaven after this life, and the vision
of the things of this life (especially suffering) in the light of Faith
[16] criticized for this reason by a number of Council
Fathers and experts, notably Cardinal Lercaro who contrasted the ‘completely
supernatural Christian optimism’ with the ‘naturalistic optimism’ RdM VI.5 (b)
[17] as also in the execution of this reform in the book Lex Orandi cited above
[18] MD pjc p. 185
[19] MD rl, p.245. If you need a monument, look around
