It was only sixteen months ago--but it seems like a lifetime,
doesn't it?
Remember
the newsworthy joint declaration from the pontiff and the Sunni head of the Al
Azhar University in Cairo? That bit about the Almighty willing religious
diversity the same way He willed us to be male and female?
In defending that heretofore-unrevealed spin on Catholic
teaching, the pontiff was adamant: "From the Catholic point of view, the
document does not pull away one millimeter from Vatican II."
Interpreting what Vatican II said or what the footnotes supposedly help it
say is an exercise reminiscent of late-stage scholasticism: a lot of ink
spilled over puzzling/ambiguous minutiae to no benefit at all. Except for the
publishing prospects or feuds of a ring of clerics or clericalized-laity who have the parchment license to use the cant of the initiated.
No, for the purposes here, the important thing is that, once
again, Vatican II is invoked. In my snarkier moments I call it "Vatican
Too," because like "too," the council is inserted into an
embarrassing number of church contexts.
No ecumenical council insists upon itself quite like the 21st.
But why do we let our thinking be dominated by a failed
enterprise?
FAILED
ENTERPRISE?!
How can you say any such thing about an ecumenical council of
the Catholic Church?
Well, why don't we do a couple of things before we flee to our
fainting couches? First, let's consider the stated intent of that council.
Back in 1963 Pope Paul VI identified the goals of the Second
Vatican Council as follows:
"You know the purpose of this council, which has more participants than any other: As it was expressed by our illustrious predecessor [Pope John XXIII], the Church must appear in its perennial vigor, the instrument of salvation for all; to her Our Lord Jesus Christ has entrusted the deposit of the Faith, to be guarded faithfully and in an apt and convenient way. This energetic vigor of the Church, which illuminates, attracts, moves souls, can take new strength from the council, which meets at the tomb of St. Peter.”
And how has that worked out for us, three generations later? The
Church is dead in Western Europe, moribund in Latin America, withering or
barely holding its own in Asia and well on the way to irrelevance in North
America.
Only sub-Saharan Africa is a place of consistent growth, but that can hardly be taken for granted.
Thus, according the stated goals as set forth by Paul VI, one of the
presiding popes of that council, Vatican II has failed.
Some of you are mentally recoiling in horror right now (or
haven't stopped)--but why?
The second thing you have to remember is that the long history of the Church tells you you should not be freaked out. A searching look back across the centuries demonstrates that a
failed ecumenical council is Just One of Those Things.
Councils have failed before and will fail in the future. Is
anyone still talking about the Spirit of Vienne, or asking about Lateran IV?
I hear the sputtering "Butbutbut--it's *you* who aren't
taking the long view. Everyone knows it takes a century for a council to take
effect!!!”
And where is that written? That’s just one of
the popular apologetics slogans, right alongside the no True Scotsman-y "hasn't been implemented properly," "it's not in the actual documents"
and "bad translation." It's spin--pure ahistorical, corporate spin.
And it’s especially laughable if you peruse Church history.
Lateran V closed in 1517, but by 1545 it had been justly forgotten after half
of Europe had become Protestant. Certainly, there was no one in the Catholic
world dumb enough to suggest that Lateran V just needed some more time to
leaven the dough of faith, or some similar happy metaphor defending the
downward trajectory.
Unfortunately for our time, the one thing that unites the entire
leadership of the Church, regardless of label, is that Vatican II Was Just
Fine, no matter what the statistics say about the disintegration of
Catholic observance across three continents.
So instead of accepting the fact
that VToo was, by virtue of its pastoral mindset and focus on the moment, reaching out
to the world of the 1960s, it had a built-in sell-by
date...it is turned into a platonic Form. It is a super-council, "a
language event" unconstrained by time or place, a totally unique episode
in the Church untethered from her past.
While the “hermeneutic of continuity” scholastics would argue
against the last clause, it really has been treated like that, even by the
'conservative' popes. Both of whom unswervingly took the Council as the
unalterable touchstone and functional super-event in one way or another. And
they agreed that, of course, “these things take time.”
The only difference with the current pontiff is that he takes
the gestalt of the council to its logical end. He’s a true believer in singing
a new church and has not the slightest qualms. Forward, forward, always
forward! The only problems he sees in the Church are with those who
object—rigidly, of course—to another half-century of giddy autodemolition praised as a fruit of the spirit.
When you consider the undeniable ambiguity of the conciliar
documents, the wholesale re-constitution of the liturgy which followed and the
declarations of independence from the magisterium which were only occasionally
and half-heartedly reined in, the much-derided “spirit of the council” is
usually the council itself on laughing gas.
And the fact that 'conservatives' and 'liberals' alike insist on
using "*the* council" as *the* polestar in the face of
disintegration….well, that makes Vatican II the wordiest suicide note in
history.
Vatican II spoke to the 'New Frontier' era, albeit dishonestly
in spots (e.g., no mention of communism). And for that, it probably did a
decent-enough job. But the problem is that the New Frontier Man died in 1968,
both his children are divorced, none of his grandchildren go to church and the lot of them are happy with the straitjacket of bourgeois Western leftism so long as
their streaming services and WiFi are up.
Fast forward from 1963 to 2020: The perennial vigor of the
Church has almost entirely dissipated. The deposit of the Faith, far from being
faithfully guarded, is presented as a grab-bag of implicit novelties, the
latest of which now includes God willing other religions. Far from illuminating
and attracting souls, the Church’s tired, debilitated voice suggests that
people are just as well off looking elsewhere for their own truths.
If that’s not failure, I'd hate to see what actual failure looks
like.
It is past time to move on. Honesty requires no less.
