Treasures Old and New: Vatican II is to be Understood and Interpreted within a Hermeneutic of Continuity

By Deacon Keith Fournier
12/5/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Was the Council a break with past teaching, something entirely new, or was it a continuation, a freshening, of the trajectory of the truth as taught by the Church from its beginnings?

In discussing the Second Vatican Council much has been made about the difference between those who view that Council and its teaching through either a hermeneutic of continuity or a hermeneutic of rupture.

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CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) - I recently attended a forum where a theology Professor gave an address on Vatican II to a group of Deacons. It was meant to be a tribute, in light of the Councils' fiftieth anniversary, to the importance of the Council. For the most part, his thoughts were insightful and well presented.

However, in the question and answer session which followed his talk, something emerged which points to a serious challenge faced by the Catholic Church as she engages both her mission of the New Evangelization (ad intra) as well as her task of leading a new missionary age (ad extra).

I use the Latin terms for "from within" (ad intra) and "from without" (ad extra) intentionally. Such phrases often accompany theological discourse and debate. The question and answer session following the talk was no exception. What became clear was that terms - and what one means by them - really matter.

The term "New Evangelization" was coined by Blessed John Paul II and has been embraced as a foundation for the pastoral work of Pope Benedict XVI. It refers, among other things, to the evangelistic and catechetical work so desperately needed within the whole Catholic Church.

It acknowledges the fact that many people in the pews need to encounter the Risen Lord. They then need to hear the fullness of the Gospel as taught authentically and authoritatively by the teaching office (the magisterium) of the Catholic Church. Finally, they need to embrace that teaching in a way which is reflected in a unity of life.

Sadly, we must acknowledge that there are many sacramentalized Catholics who have not been evangelized. Further, there are many Catholics who do not really know what their own Church teaches. Much of our "catechesis" - instruction in the faith- since the Second Vatican Council - has been inadequate.

Thus, the Catholic Church has committed its resources to reawakening the faithful through an encounter with the Risen Jesus Christ. Further, the Church seeks to re-evangelize and re-catechize the faithful so that that they can consciously choose to live their lives as Catholic Christians in the heart of the Church for the sake of the world into which they have been sent on mission.

I use the phrase "New Missionary Age" to refer to the unchangeable task of the Catholic Church, through her members, to bring the whole world into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. That is to lead to incorporation into the Church, which is His Body.

The Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued in 200 and entitled "Dominus Iesus: On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church" stated this with simple clarity. Here is just one sentence:

"It must therefore be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God."

The Prefect of that Congregation, the author of this document, was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. He is now Pope Benedict XVI. His continual reminder to the faithful of the missionary vocation of the Church "ad extra" is one of the hallmarks of his papal Magisterium.

The speaker and I had an interesting discussion concerning the importance of that letter and what it really says. We strongly disagreed. I may return to that disagreement in a future article. In this one I want to zero in on another term he used, this one was an Italian word.

The speaker enthusiastically used the term "aggiornamento" when referring the Second Vatican Council. The word was used by Blessed John XXIII as he charged the Council Fathers in their important work. Loosely translated, the word means to bring something up to date. We would both agree on that.

However, as to what that term means as it relates to the teaching of that Council in the light of the two millennia of the Church history - and its relationship to the teachings of past Councils - now that is where our discussion revealed a strong disagreement. It also led to a lively discussion and debate.

This all relates to another theological term, "hermeneutic". A hermeneutic is a lens through which we view or interpret something of importance. In discussing the Second Vatican Council much has been made about the difference between those who view that Council and its teaching through either a hermeneutic of continuity, seeing proper reform in light of that continuity, or a hermeneutic of rupture.

In other words, was the Council a break with past teaching, something entirely new, or was it a continuation, a freshening, of the trajectory of the truth as ...

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1 - 8 of 8 Comments

Celia
5 months ago
The Vatican Council II was an adieu to the past & Hello to the present . I read somewhere that the churches before V.C II were full of the faithful then & now they're mostly empty. Why?? I certainly don't see much progress with V C II only chaos. Much as I'm proud & happy to be a Catholic it pains me to see people take their faith so lightly today. I've attended masses at various Catholic churches around the world & there seems to be a slight difference in how the mass is being said. I thought we were one Holy, Catholic & Apostolic church, why the difference? V C II made too many compromises in order to bring back our lost brothers & sisters who split from the Catholic church. We are here to please Christ not them. Our churches are too Protestant these days. I agree with Mrs Jacobs & Mr Cooney.
I enjoy reading your article Deacon keep up the good work. God Bless
Spiritus Gladius
6 months ago
I second the words of michael and David. Let it be heard, Catholic Church.
vance
6 months ago
This article points out well that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing when it comes to Vatican II. I accepted the newest changes to the Catholic Mass. I was told that this latest change is what was suppose to happen in the first place after Vatican II. But who knew any different? I have no idea because nothing is said from the pulpit. The faithful are ignorant of what we are suppose to believe because the priests aren't saying anything. For the most part, our church is drifting aimlessly while the anti-church is rolling up victories against Christ because the church leaders offer no opposition or leadership.
Mrs. Julie Jacob
6 months ago
The problem here is that there are no "New" treasures in the Catholic Church. St. Paul says to the Galatians, 1:8-9, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel to you other that that which we HAVE preached to you, let him be anathema! As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone preach a gospel to you other than that which you have received, let him be anathema!"
If it is NEW it is not Catholic. The only continuity in Vatican II is that which echoes what the Church has always taught.
"Tables" instead of Altars is a complete rupture with the 2000 + year Tradition of the Church. Never, until The Revolt of Luther have there been tables instead of Altars, thanks to Kramner....the Catholic Church is imitating the protestants on this one...
I will not elaborate on all the rest. I am tired of it.
David W. Cooney
6 months ago
I am very happy to see a requirement to interpret the Council in continuity with the past. For that requirement can only make sense if it means what the Church has always taught - that the truths of the Faith are unchangeable and that they must be past on unchanged, including the understanding of that teaching, from what was believed and how it was understood in the past.

Any "development" must comply with this requirement as well. We can reach a deeper understanding of the truths which have been past on to us, but that deeper understanding can only be consistent with those truths; they cannot be understood to mean something that contradicts what was previously taught. To argue otherwise is to say that there is no "continuity."

The problem I have is that the only way to ensure that the Council is being interpreted in continuity with what was always taught by the Church is by including references to the teachings as presented before the Council. Unfortunately, I don't see very much of this in the documents promulgated since the Council. There are copious references going back to the Council, but it is almost as if the Church before the Council did not exist for the authors of these new documents. Is it any wonder that the sedevacantists and the extreme progressives have reached their conclusions?

I am also disturbed by the fact that the Council is treated as though it enjoyed the same level of divine protection (infallibility) from error as the previous councils. However, by its own proclamation, Vatican II was a pastoral council and did not infallibly define anything that had not already been defined in the past. Now, to be consistent with what was taught in the past - that is, to maintain a hermenutic of continuity - we have no choice to to understand the teaching of the Council to be an exercise of the Church's ordinary magisterium, and that its infallibility is limited specifically to those points where it restates what has already been declared by the past. In other words, none of the pastoral directives enjoyed the protection of infallibility, which means that we are free to evaluate their effectiveness and raise issues with the Church where we find them lacking. So, the introduction of significant changes in the mass, the implementing of so many legitimate options and variations in the liturgy, even the changing the names of the parts of the mass, has resulted in a situation where Catholics in the pews can't reasonably know when priests and their "liturgical committees" were actually introducing abuses. The Council said that Latin must be maintained, that was ignored and parishes were allowed to completely eliminate it. Those who wished to maintain the traditional rites were ridiculed and truly persecuted in the Church and by the Church, bishops ignored John Paul II's instructions to generously "allow" the traditional rites, only to have Benedict XVI say that they were always allowed and that no priest needed a bishops permission to offer the rites that were, in the past, declared to be for all time. Even today, it has to suffer the ignomious label "extraordinary." I don't think that is consistent with a "hermenutic of continuity," where the teaching of the Council can only be understood as consistent with the past.
Tom McGuire
6 months ago
In the quoted remarks it is reported: "During his presentation, the head of the doctrinal dicastery, clearly stated that the only orthodox interpretation of the Second Vatican Council is that which sees it as an opportunity for reform and renewal, in continuity with the one subject-Church which the Lord has given us."

I agree with Archbishop Muller there are extremists on both ends of the spectrum, but most are somewhere in between. It seems to me the real problem is with "reform and renewal". The resistance to reform of the way authority is exercised and the constant need for renewal in Christ remains a great need in the Church. (I was present at a Baptism with one hundred people. There was no catechesis. The event was an important ceremony to the families, but my impression was that few understood what Baptism is. Sad!)

I love our Catholic tradition but evangelization starts and ends in the loving encounter with Christ. In the final judgment, how well one lives out the encounter with Christ will be based on what is done for the poor. The understanding of tradition and doctrine follows conversion. I pray we stop fighting one another over our degree of orthodoxy and begin to tell the story of Jesus in word and deed. Proof of successful evangelization will be when people say: "See how they love one another."
michael
6 months ago
Dear Deacon Keith...Good for you for standing for the Holy Faith at that above mentioned event for deacons. I would add just two things. First, the phrase used by our Holy Father was not a "hermeneutic of continuity," which every traditional Catholic would embrace, but rather the term was a "hermeneutic of reform in continuity with the one subject Church," There is always a problem when one has to struggle with a phrase, which is completely new, and is very difficult to understand. What does this mean - a "hermeneutic of reform in continuity with the one subject Church?"
According to Cardinals who have commented on this novel phrase, the hermeneutic of continuity is rejected as a traditionalist position as if doctrines and orientations are the same as they were before. There has been a break, at least with past orientations. Ecumenism and religious liberty questions have been radically changed from past positions of the Church. And in regards to the liturgy, even Cardinal Ratzinger was well aware of there being at least some rupture. As his favorite liturgist, Msgr. Klaus Gamber, once said: the "Roman Rite was destroyed" in 1969.
The interpretive lens, then, is not continuity so much as REFORM in connection with a Church which is still the same. But this makes no sense since continuity must apply to the Revelation we have received from the Son of God not just to the Church herself. As you well know, the council and its aftermath has been filled with confusion and ambiguity. To this day, the Holy See must provide clarifications on terms like subsists and collegiality 50 years later. Also, the once settled issue of the complete and utter inerrancy of Sacred Scripture is now open for discussion because of some prelates using a line in Dei Verbum #11, the document on Divine Revelation.
Let's face it...the council tried to reconcile with the revolutionary tendencies that have been present since the Protestant Revolt and especially since the French Revolution. But Christ and Baal do not mix. The council itself is very good in some parts, in fact, the SSPX accepts 85% to 90% of the council. But sees error in other parts. And there can be error in councils! Did not the council of Florence state that the matter for Holy Orders was the handing over of the vessels to the priest? Of course, the council of Florence was not defining here and so there could be error. Pope Pius XII stated definitively that the matter was the laying on of hands. Long story short, councils are not perfect. They are only protected in very narrow ways when they are actually defining doctrine or retelling the Faith that has always been told.
Archbishop Mueller suggestion that somehow Traditional Catholics have a heretical interpretation of the council is offensive. The Church has already admitted that the council has problems. The Fraternity of St. Peter, an order in union with Rome and founded by B. JPII, is allowed to have reservations about the council according to the agreement they signed with Rome. The Holy See has also been in doctrinal discussions with the SSPX for two full years with some of the unsound things in the council being freely discussed. In addition, what is heretical about my rejecting ecumenism as it is presently carried out? Ecumenism is not a doctrine but a policy. Cardinal Ratzinger stated that VII was a council that "defined no dogma at all and remained at a very modest level....it was a pastoral council."
Secondly, the term ressourcement was coined by French Jesuits like de Lubac who hated St. Thomas Aquinas, the scholastics, and the way the council of Trent presented the Holy Faith. They wanted not just to go back to the Fathers, but also to skip the scholastics like Anselm, Aquinas, Albert, and Bonaventure in the process of returning. This ressourcement movement has proven to be a disaster. Without our main theologian being St. Thomas, we are in confusion.
abey
6 months ago
The word "Catholic Faith " is to mean the belief in Christ to His words & works in letter & In Spirit, Preaching the kingdom of God but too often ending up preaching social gospels called to "itching ears" to Appeasings to know that gathering large crowds but becoming complacent to compromising on the Faith by not preaching the Gospel in its fulness called selected preachings or Convenient preachings are to the falling way into the days of Noe. Let not the Church preach what the world preaches, for Degrees & Doctorates do not make the faith reflecting those learned Pharisees but to the Synagogues of satan. Even though the intention of the second Vatican council was to strengthen the faith so it seems, its effects have not been achieved, for the Church to beware not to fall the way of the Anglicans & its like episcopals embedded in Legalisms, Leavens & Hypocrisy to immorality.

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