With the best will in the world...

I firmly believe Bishop Barron is a man who operates in good faith. An energetic and irenic shepherd, he shows the treasury of the Faith to the world. Yes, I am aware of his stumbles on the Last Things and in other areas, but I will bracket those for now.

However, like all contemporary bishops, he firmly shackles himself to the crumbling Vatican II paradigm, insisting that, contrary to what our sensory and statistical input are constantly telling us, things have been good since 1965, all things considered.

 

Exhibit A: this brand-spanking-new FAQ on the most recent ecumenical council.  

Hoo, boy. 

There's a lot to respond to there, but I will confine myself to two areas.

1.    First, the question of deliberate ambiguity in the conciliar documents.  

This answer does not cover itself in glory, he says politely. First, it engages in the genetic fallacy by dismissing the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's quote of the progressive Dutch Dominican Edward Schillebeeckx because Lefebvre reports it. Sorry, doesn't work that way, even if you don't like the man. 

Secondly, while no, Schillebeeckx did not vote on the final form of the documents, his influence on the conciliar documents and debates is well-documented. He would certainly have been privy to the various drafts and discussions. For him to say such a thing--especially in light of his overall theological record--is far from implausible.

Thirdly, no less than Walter Cardinal Kasper acknowledged in L'Osservatore Romano that the documents offered compromise language which can be interpreted in different ways--in other words, inherent--and certainly foreseeable--ambiguity. If you want to quibble about "deliberate," go ahead and lawyer. 

How about "wilful and wanton disregard for the consequences"?

[Pope John XXIII] saw a new era unfolding, which he met with optimism, in the unshakeable trust in God. He spoke of a pastoral objective of the council, meaning an update, a "becoming today" of the Church. It was not meant a banal adaptation to the spirit of the times, but the appeal to make the faith transmitted today speak.

The large majority of the Council Fathers grasped the idea. He wanted to meet the requests of the biblical, liturgical, patristic, pastoral and ecumenical renewal movements, which arose between the two world wars; to begin a new page of history with Judaism, full of burdens, and enter into dialogue with modern culture. It was the project of a modernization that he did not want [to--]and could not even be[--]modernism.

An influential minority stubbornly resisted this attempt by the majority. John XXIII's successor, Pope Paul VI, was fundamentally on the side of the majority, but he tried to involve the minority and, in line with the ancient conciliar tradition, to reach an approval, as far as possible unanimously, of the conciliar documents, which in total were sixteen. 

He succeeded; but he paid a price. In many places, compromise formulas had to be found, in which, often, the positions of the majority are immediately alongside those of the minority, designed to delimit them.

Thus, the conciliar texts have within themselves an enormous potential for conflict; they open the door to selective reception in one or the other direction.

It is understandable that the Word on Fire staff did not stumble across a L'Osservatore Romano article from April 12, 2013 which was only in Italian. But trust me--it's well known to those who have long-noticed such ambiguous formulations.

2.    Blame for the obvious decay in sacramental practice and belief.

I will agree that blame for clerical corruption can hardly be laid at the feet of the 21st council. This grim and pervasive infection existed long before 1962, and its effects will be with our descendants.

Those who still practice the Faith, that is.

Because that's the essential problem with this section: it asks us to look at raw growth numbers outside of Europe. But it does not directly acknowledge that sacramental participation continues to crater even in places where the nominal numbers continue to rise. 

To wit, look at these daunting figures for Catholic observance in the United States between 1970 and 2019. Yes, the number of nominal Catholics inches upwards, but actual sacramental practice is fading away.

And two quotes from Archbishop Fulton Sheen from the 1970s do not a convincing rebuttal make. I love Sheen and look forward to his canonization. But he left this vale of tears in 1979, and things have not exactly turned the corner. 

Forty more years have passed, and it has become worse than turbulence, with no end in sight. One does not have to reject a council recognize its failure in its expressed aims. And one does not have to blame the council for everything to recognize that it played a negative role, even if just via contested interpretations of ambiguity. 

Indeed, refusing to accept either failure or a share of the blame suggests that the council has ceased being an historical event conditioned by time and place. Instead, it has become an idol which is not to be blasphemed.

That mindset does not bode well for the future.