Read the Actual Text

 “It seemed to me that timing the launch of the Year of Faith to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council would provide a good opportunity to help people understand that the texts bequeathed by the Council Fathers, in the words of Blessed John Paul II, “have lost nothing of their value or brilliance. They need to be read correctly, to be widely known and taken to heart as important and normative texts of the Magisterium, within the Church's Tradition ... I feel more than ever in duty bound to point to the Council as the great grace bestowed on the Church in the twentieth century: there we find a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the century now beginning.” I would also like to emphasize strongly what I had occasion to say concerning the Council a few months after my election as Successor of Peter: “if we interpret and implement it guided by a right hermeneutic, it can be and can become increasingly powerful for the ever necessary renewal of the Church.” (Benedict XVI, Porta Fidei, 5)

Inasmuch as the constant invocation of the “spirit of Vatican II” to justify liturgical innovations has caused much confusion among the faithful, we should take advantage of the Year of Faith to read the actual text of the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium). I think we have had enough of so-called liturgical experts (technocrats) who legitimize their “creativity” by hiding behind the authority of Vatican II. If it is true that their innovations were mandated by Vatican II, they should support their argument with the actual text of Sacrosanctum Concilium. I might sound like a fundamentalist but I think it is about time that we question these experts: Where in the documents of Vatican II did the Church say that you could do what you tell us to do? It is about time that we stop accepting this barrage of liturgical innovations and begin questioning these “experts.” Let us empower ourselves. Read the actual text of Vatican II. 

"Demythologizing" Vatican II

Over at Vultus Christi is an article which I am inclined to agree with. It is not that I do not accept Vatican II. (Believe it or not, I accept it as a legitimate Council.) I simply think that many prelates, by constantly invoking it as if it were the only legitimate ecumenical council, are really overrating it. There was Church life before Vatican II and we should not forget that alongside Vatican II is an abundance of magisterial teachings.

"Emphasis on Vatican II has a number of unfortunate side-effects. It means
that other, worthier, councils are ignored; and, in saying this I am not only
thinking of Trent ... and not even of the Synod of Bethlehem. I wonder if you
remember the striking ... mind-blowing ... assertion of Cardinal Ratzinger that
the West needs to receive the 'fundamental lines of the theology' of the Council
of Moskow in 1551. And I am far from sure that the Latin Church would come to
much harm if it humbly, prayerfully, set itself to assess the teachings of the
'Palamite' councils of the fourteenth century as they bear on the central
Christian mystery of theosis.

"And the fetichising of Vatican II distracts attention from the real and
significant and valuable actions of the Roman Magisterium, which deserve so very
much better than the sneers directed at them by illiterate fools. Humanae vitae
and Ordinatio sacerdotalis, slender volumes, are worth more than all the paper
wasted at Vatican II. Documents of the CDF, keeping up with the errors proposed
in areas of ethics by the World's agenda, represent the locus to which perplexed
modern Catholics should turn for teaching and guidance. "

Follow the link: Brilliant, Father Hunwicke

Bishop Athanasius Schneider on the hermeneutic of discontinuity

"The characteristic of the rupture in the interpretation of the conciliar texts is manifested in a more stereotypical and widespread way in the thesis of an anthropocentric, secularist, or naturalistic shift of Vatican Council II with respect to the previous ecclesial tradition. . .

"One interpretation of rupture of lighter doctrinal weight has been manifested in the pastoral-liturgical field. One might mention in this regard the decline of the sacred and sublime character of the liturgy, and the introduction of more anthropocentric elements of expression.

"This phenomenon can be seen in three liturgical practices that are fairly well known and widespread in almost all the parishes of the Catholic sphere: the almost complete disappearance of the use of the Latin language, the reception of the Eucharistic body of Christ directly in the hand while standing, and the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice in the modality of a closed circle in which priest and people are constantly looking at each other.

"This way of praying – without everyone facing the same direction, which is a more natural corporal and symbolic expression with respect to the truth of everyone being oriented toward God in public worship – contradicts the practice that Jesus himself and his apostles observed in public prayer, both in the temple and in the synagogue. It also contradicts the unanimous testimony of the Fathers and of all the subsequent tradition of the Eastern and Western Church.

"These three pastoral and liturgical practices glaringly at odds with the law of prayer maintained by generations of the Catholic faithful for at least one millennium find no support in the conciliar texts, and even contradict both a specific text of the Council (on the Latin language: cf. "Sacrosanctum Concilium," 36 and 54) and the "mens," the true intention of the conciliar Fathers, as can be seen in the proceedings of the Council.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Auxiliary of Karaganda

December 2010


Follow the link: An Excerpt from Bishop Athanasius Schneider