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This teaching [on ecumenism], which was intended to be neither black nor white, lacked -- and for good reason -- the ultimate authority. It was decided that this Council would be "pastoral only", i.e. without dogmatic authority, perhaps inspired by the "priority of the pastoral", elaborated by P. Congar in Vraie et fausse réforme dans l'Église, which we'll talk about later. The principle of the atypical nature of this Council, which was subsequently affirmed many times, was laid down on the first day, Thursday October 11, 1962, by John XXIII's famous opening address, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia: Vatican II, in which, said the Pope, distinguishing himself in this respect from all past councils, would dogmatize neither positively (canons) nor negatively (anathemas).
When the magisterium commits itself as such, it can only do so totally. And yet, at the time, it was only half-committed. In fact, entry into this via media met with a kind of unanimity. On the part of the conciliar majority, it offered the advantage of a more "open" doctrine, without contradicting previous doctrine. But the minority, overwhelmed from the very first days of the assembly, also found in it its own advantage: it too quickly relied on the theme of the absence of infallible authority of the texts, which it thought would relativize their scope.
This is particularly striking in the decree on ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio, which, astonishing as it may seem, contains no definition of "ecumenism" as such; but it is also true of the declaration on non-Christian religions Nostra aetate, which is careful not to specify what it means by "religion."
Be that as it may, recognizing a certain legitimacy to the diversity of Christian and non-Christian beliefs implies volens nolens that God wills (does not condemn) this pluralism of religions and that God wills (does not condemn) a diversity of Christian confessions. This is what the joint document on Human Fraternity, signed on February 4, 2019 in Abu Dhabi by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, will quietly spell out: "Pluralism and diversity of religion, color, sex, race and language are a wise divine will, by which God created human beings."
Thus, both in matter and in manner, a certain number of pledges were given to pluralism, and therefore to relativism, with Vatican II achieving a definite openness to modern Weltanschauung, to the modern conception of the world, in accordance with the mission entrusted to it by John XXIII when he convened it.
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In support of the foregoing analysis of the non-authority of Vatican II -- which nevertheless asserts itself with the indisputable authority of ideology, in this case that of the "spirit of the Council" -- there is one massive fact: instead of an interpreting Council, we had a Council that could be interpreted in a wide variety of ways. This means that the proper role of the classical magisterium -- that of interpreting the deposit of faith and the previous magisterium -- has not been assumed. In a sense, the most radical criticism that can be levelled at Vatican II is the well-known assertion that it must be "interpreted in the sense of tradition". In the belief that Vatican II can be saved, it's actually being criticized for being the last Council to date and, in essence, the last word on interpretative tradition: for it is Vatican II that should be interpreting tradition. The problem is that it is considered incapable of doing so.
All things being equal, the same could be said of the new liturgy, which no longer has the framework of ritual that corresponds to the framework of dogmatic teaching. Like the Council, and for similar reasons, Paul VI's liturgy also requires interpretation. And we know how many different interpretations can be made of it.
The famous adage lex orandi, lex credendi applies in content to the relationship between conciliar teaching and liturgical reform -- the "openness" of the new magisterium to the world is matched by the immanentization of Paul VI's reform.
But it should be noted that the adage lex orandi, lex credendi refers to the form -- that of law. Thus, just as the teaching of Vatican II is not expressed in the manner of a law of faith, the unfolding of Vatican II worship no longer meets the requirements of a law of prayer properly so called. The infinite number of possible choices, the translations and adaptations into a multitude of languages, the wide variety of personal interpretations by each of the actors involved, mean that the worship resulting from the reform is in no way a rule: the new cult is by its very nature non-rule. It is deregulatory, like the new theological intuitions.
This new liturgy, and the new Mass in particular, is the tangible translation of the spirit of the Council for the Christian people. Just think, for example, of what the turning of the altar "towards the people", or the suppression of the sacrificial offertory, represents in terms of changing the meaning of the sacred action. Paul VI's Mass, especially when it is not excessive, is a good illustration of what Vatican II was all about: the establishment of a bourgeois ideology in the Church, in the sense of the liberal ideology of modernity at the end of the twentieth century and the first part of the twenty-first. The new liturgy, compared to the traditional liturgy and to what has remained of the Eastern liturgies, is a desacralized liturgy, a "profaned" liturgy, that is, a liturgy that profane style and thought have invaded to the detriment of access to transcendence. The result is immense spiritual damage, not only for the Catholic faithful, but for an entire civilization.
All in all, this Council has placed the Church in a very modern, unconventional situation, in which lawlessness (in this case, essentially doctrinal lawlessness) plays the role of law and takes its place. It's as if, unheard of in the history of the Church, the magisterium as such, which makes definitive decisions, had not dared or had not wanted to exercise itself.
