Church and World
Exclusive: Excerpts from "The Ecumenical Vatican Council II: A Much Needed Discussion"
DICI offers its readers a preview of substantial excerpts from the book by Msgr. Brunero Gherardini, soon to be published in English under the title: The Ecumenical Vatican Council II: A Much Needed Discussion. The book, released in Italy before the summer, has already been reprinted twice. We translated the following excerpts from the French version of the book.
Up to Vatican II, to clarify this point, the theologian had at his disposal a fairly precise elaboration of the concept of Tradition from which he could draw an argument to assess suitably his judgment.
I have already alluded to this elaboration in the first part of the present chapter, considering Tradition from various viewpoints, and calling it accordingly, apostolic, divino-apostolic, humano-apostolic, inherent, declarative, and constitutive.
Now Vatican II, which made one exception for apostolic Tradition—yet without ever presenting it with the meaning henceforth considered as “traditional” of this qualification—systematically ignored all the others. On the other hand, we find in the Council a different qualification: living Tradition, which I will discuss later on.
We are confronted with a manner of expression which, while desirous of simplifying the message, ends up by making it more complicated because of a too generic language, its amphibological use and its lack of specificity. And I am not talking about the fact that living could open the doors to all kinds of innovations which could be born of, or germinated from the old plant.…
I make one last observation concerning the so-called living Tradition of the Church. Apparently it is an irreproachable expression, yet it is in fact ambiguous. It is irreproachable because the Church is a living reality and Tradition is its very life. It is ambiguous because it allows the introduction into the Church of any novelty, even the least recommended, as expression of the Church’s life.
Dei Verbum speaks of the living Gospel, the living Magisterium and the living Tradition. Already this large array of usage does not plead in favor of the univocality of the concept.
In number 7, for instance, it affirms: “In order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their successors.”
In number 8, we read: “The Holy Spirit, through whom the living [emphasis mine] voice of the Gospel resounds in the Church, and through her, in the world, leads unto all truth those who believe.”
Next, we find in number 10 the following statement: “The task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed down, has been entrusted exclusively to the living [emphasis mine] teaching office of the Church.”
A little further down, in number 12, it is recommended as a duty that “no less serious attention [must] be given to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture,” and “the living [emphasis mine] tradition of the whole Church must be taken into account.”
From all these statements we vaguely perceive a certain analogy in the use of the adjective “living,” but certainly not its true meaning, nor the reason for its use.
What guarantees the vitality of the Gospel–we know it well–is the Gospel: through it resounds the Word of the living God, which is the very Person of God speaking, and hence the expression of His very life. That there exists also a Magisterium is a truth of our Faith, in the sense that anyone in charge of the Magisterium continues, thanks to the apostolic succession, the uninterrupted transmission of the teaching of Christ and of His Apostles.
In fact, this succession causes the teaching of Christ and of His Apostles to reach the Church at every period in time, because it is a living and vital element of the very existence of the Church. On the other hand, the concept of “living Tradition” is more nebulous.
The conciliar text does not oblige to abide only by it, but also by the analogy of the faith, i.e. the link which binds together in a reciprocal interdependence each of the revealed truths and makes of them an unbreakable unity.
The objective of the double obligation tends to trespass the limits of the written word, this word coming from the living Word, which constitutes the beginning of ecclesiastic Tradition.
But why is it said to be living? The Council does not say, or at least not with the requisite clarity. Probably because of the unity—at least substantial (hence the continuity)–between the first stage of Tradition which is apostolic, and the following stages beginning with that which was immediately post-apostolic, down to the others, concerned with the great historic periods of the Church, and eventually all the way to the present stage.
This is probably what is meant. But silence about this continuity also implies, and unfortunately so, the absence of any certitude on this issue. “Living” might certainly indicate a link between the various stages and avoid more or less serious ruptures, thus ensuring the living and vital continuity of Tradition. But the text remains silent on the subject. It merely states that Tradition is living.
Now it does not suffice to declare it to be living for it to be really so. The vital communication between its various phases must not only be proclaimed, it must first and foremost be proved, and in such a way that the proof coincides with the continuity–at least substantial–of its contents with that of the preceding phases.
Tradition is living not when it becomes integrated into some novelty, but when we discover in, or deduce from it, some new aspect which had before escaped notice; or when some new understanding of its original contents enriches the present life of the Church.
This life does not progress by leaps and bounds unconnected with each other, but along the main line of the “quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est,” which Vatican I, following in the footsteps of Trent, expressed by referring to the meaning “quem tenuit ac tenet sancta Mater Ecclesia” (DS 1507 and 3007).
The “always,” the “everywhere” and the “by all” are not concerned with an identity of words and hence of the statement as a whole, but really with the meaning that the Church, by means of her solemn and ordinary Magisterium, has always upheld, and still upholds now in her theological and dogmatic assertions.
The principle of the “living Tradition” was not the subject of any discussions, yet, it is prone to pave the way to a falsification of the sacred deposit of the truths contained in Tradition.
In an atmosphere such as that prevalent during and after Vatican II, when only what was new appeared to be true, and when novelty was coming under the guise of the immanentist and fundamentally atheistic culture of our time, the doctrine of all times was but a vast graveyard.
Tradition has remained mortally wounded and is still agonizing today (unless it be already dead) because of stands taken which were radically irreconcilable with its past. So, it is not sufficient to define it as living, if there is not longer anything alive in it.
The truth is (and this is serious) that we speak of living Tradition only to rubber stamp any innovation presented as the natural development of truths officially handed down and received, even if the innovation has nothing in common with the said truths and is something far removed from a new shoot out of the old trunk.
As a matter of fact, Tradition is living only inasmuch as it is and continues to be the same apostolic Tradition, which presents itself anew–unaltered–in and through the ecclesiastic Tradition. The former carries in itself a rather passive meaning: it is what is handed down, equal to itself, included in its transmission, because the deposit must be kept unaltered. The latter, on the contrary, displays a more active meaning as the official organ which ensures the faithful transmission of the deposit and finds, in this its end, the justification of the adjective “living.”
Hence, a data which would not have its roots in the contents handed down would not be a data of the living Tradition, even in the case—in itself and per se absurd– that this data would be officially proposed.
A blatant example: it will never be possible for the transcendental theology of Rahner to be declared an element of the living Tradition, because it is in fact its tomb.
Something in the Council, and many things in the post-Council era have contributed to dig this grave.
The legitimacy of the adjective “living” with regard to the progress in the knowledge we may have of Tradition is unquestionable, as we have already said. In this case, it belongs to the field of “dogmatic progress.”
As a matter of fact, the duty of the Church’s Magisterium is not only to present anew the apostolic Tradition, but also to study it thoroughly, to analyze and to explain it.
The living character of Tradition is then manifested, not by measuring the apostolic contents in comparison with the level and the contents of the culture of such or such a historical period, but by the fact that it initiates a transition from an implicit to an explicit statement of the contents.
In any case, the present call to living Tradition can be summed up as a genuine danger for the faith of each Christian and of the Christian community as a whole.
The changes already mentioned and those which will be studied further down will fully prove this.
So is it possible to inscribe Dignitatis Humanæ within the hermeneutics of continuity? If we are satisfied with an abstract proclamation, certainly so; but at the level of historic pertinence, I cannot see how it could be.
And the reason boils down to stating the obvious: the liberty proclaimed in the Decree Dignitatis Humanæ, which does not concern one aspect of the human person, but his very essence and, together with it, all his individual and public activity since he is free from any political and religious conditioning, has very little in common with, for instance, Mirari Vos by Gregory XVI, Quanta Cura and the Syllabus appended by Blessed Pius IX, Immortale Dei by Leo XIII (especially with regard to all that pertains to the relationships between civil authority and the government of the Church), Pascendi Dominici Gregis by St. Pius X and the Decree Lamentabili released shortly before by the Holy Office, or with Humani Generis by Pius XII.
In fact, it is not a matter of a different language. The diversity is substantial and hence irreducible. The respective contents are different. The content of the preceding Magisterium finds neither continuity nor development in that of Dignitatis Humanæ. So, are there two Magisterii?
The question should not even be asked because, by its very nature, the Church’s Magisterium is one and indivisible: it is that created by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Many are those who, given the climate of the present time, while reaffirming its unity and indivisibility, do not at all distinguish the danger of the split in two. The idea that today, as homage to the present changed circumstances, the Magisterium applies a principle in a way different from, or even counter to yesterday does not frighten them.
I could also declare myself in agreement, provided that the requisite and unquestionable condition of the “eodem sensu, eademque sententia” be always saved. Unfortunately, everyone obviously seems to be going his own way, and this may well give the impression of a Magisterium split in two.
Yes truly, let us ask once more what is the Protestantism of Unitatis Redintegratio.
Left to this uncertainty, the post-council Church did not spare her attention to everyone, accepting the inclination of all men for the world, as if it were a “principle and foundation” (cf. Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius) of a new kind. She took charge of the world’s joys and hopes, as well as of its contradictions, and forgot the Apostle’s warning: “If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10).
They displayed the results obtained consequently to this agreement with the world, which, if it is not necessarily a betrayal of Christ, is always, when all is said and done, a rupture with the venerable Tradition. Volumes of the Enchiridion Œcumenicum were filled with these ruptures, without any concern for the scandal, or at least the astonishment, to which these facts gave rise in the mind of any serious Catholic.
Only one single example, and “ab uno disce omnes” (Virgil, Aeneid, II, 65): the astonishing joint declaration concerning the Lutheran doctrine of “justification.” Anyone possessing minimal information knows that this doctrine is about original sin, its devastating effects on human nature, and its remission by grace alone, independently of any contribution on the part of man’s free will. It only admits a purely exterior application of the merits of Christ which supposedly cover sin, with the consequence that the justified person remains at the same time both sanctified and sinner, “simul iustus et peccator.”
I have recalled above that Luther (in 1537) would have been precisely disposed to any kind of concession towards “popery”; yet one single thing could not be questioned: the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
It took five centuries, but he won the day: the post-conciliar Church eventually proved him right, and carried his doctrine into the antechamber of the Faith.
A Plea to Pope Benedict XVI
The idea (which I dare now to submit to Your Holiness) has been in my mind for a long time. It is that a grandiose and if possible final clarification of the last council be given concerning each of its aspects and contents.
Indeed, it would seem logical, and it seems urgent to me, that these aspects and contents be studied in themselves and in the context of all the others, with a close examination of all the sources, and from the specific viewpoint of continuity with the preceding Church’s Magisterium, both solemn and ordinary. On the basis of a scientific and critical work—as vast and irreproachable as possible—in comparison with the traditional Magisterium of the Church, it will then be possible to draw matter for a sure and objective evaluation of Vatican II.
This will make it possible to answer the following questions (among many others):
Monsignor Brunero Gherardini, a priest of the diocese of Prato (Italy), has been at the service of the Holy See since 1965, especially as professor of ecclesiology and ecumenism at the Lateran Pontifical University until 1995. He is the author of about a hundred books and of several hundreds of articles in reviews dealing with three concentric fields of research: the 16th century Reform, ecclesiology, and Mariology. Msgr. Gherardini is at present a canon of the Vatican Arch-basilica and editor of the international review of theology Divinitas.
(Dici)
Russia, Poland, and Austria Stand by Italy Concerning Crucifixes in Classrooms
In Russia, Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, President of the Department for Foreign Relations for the Patriarchate of Moscow, declared, on November 11, that he absolutely stood by the Vatican and the Italian government after the sentence of the European Court of the Rights of Man condemning the presence of crucifixes in classrooms of public schools on this past November 3. “We think that the activity of the European Court must not become a farce and that these hyper-liberal ideas must not prevail,” added the Orthodox prelate addressing foreign newsmen. Moreover, touching upon the meeting between the Patriarch of Moscow, Cyril, and Pope Benedict XVI, Bishop Hilarion said that up until now the place and precise date had not been considered, but that there was a “desire to take a step forward.”
In Poland, some 50 Polish members of Parliament, from the government coalition and from the conservative opposition, signed a resolution for “the protection of religious liberty” against the ruling of Strasbourg. They accused the European Court of the Rights of Man of violating the rights and feelings of the believers and of jeopardizing social peace. On November 19, the Polish press indicated that only the Social-Democrats did not join the movement. Most of the signatories belong to the civic platform of President minister Donald Tusk.
On November 19, in Austria, the parties of the OVP and SPO coalition brought in a bill to the National Council to protect themselves against the prohibition of crucifixes in classrooms. Thus it is required that the government take necessary measures so as to guarantee the presence of religious symbols in public places and of the cross in classes numbering a majority of Christian students in the future. The Austrian National Council gave charge to its government to explain to the European institutions that the ruling of the European Court of the Rights of Man and the consequences which flow from it cannot be supported by Article 9 of the European Convention of the Rights of Man on freedom of belief, of conscience and of religion. (See DICI, No.205.)
(DICI, No.206, December 2009)
Ordinations in Argentina and Australia
In December, the Society of St. Pius X welcomed five new priests into its family. On December 19, 2009, at Holy Cross Seminary (Goulburn, Australia), Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais conferred the Sacred Priesthood on two deacons. On the same date, at Seminario Nuestra Senora Corredentora in La Reja, Argentina, Bishop de Galaretta ordained three priests.
(Angelus Press)
Open Letter to Cardinal George
Andy Martin, an Episcopalian candidate for the U.S. Senate, wrote an open letter to Cardinal George of Chicago. In it, he asks the Cardinal, from the perspective of one interested in converting to the Catholic Church, why he allows pro-abortion politicians to receive Holy Communion. Here are some excerpts from his letter:
“I am a member of the Episcopal Church. Some years ago I studied for Holy Orders in my church, but I ultimately elected not to enter the ordained ministry. I though my secular work fighting corruption and working for the improvement of this state and the United States was an honorable calling....
“Two months ago the Holy Father invited Episcopalians (Anglicans) such as me to rejoin the Roman Catholic Church. I was startled by the boldness of Pope Benedict’s invitation. And I have studied his words carefully.
“In the Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the first paragraph challenges all of us ‘who wish to enter into full visible communion.’ The Note confirms that the holy sacrament of communion is a visible manifestation, perhaps the most visible manifestation, of our call to follow Christ.
“But before I can accept the Holy Father’s invitation to join the church, and before I can even make an informed and intelligent decision on how to decide, I need to ask you a clear question.
“If Holy Communion is such a ‘visible’ and universal sacrament of the Church, how can you allow apostates such as Senator Richard Durbin to receive communion when Durbin mocks the church’s teachings on abortion and the right to life, both for the unborn and those facing the end of life? How indeed?...
“If you allow Durbin to defy and mock church teaching, and to glory over his victories in defeating the most precious right to life, you allow a sinner to elevate himself over the church and over the authority of the Holy Father.
“I ask you to consider requesting that Senator Durbin refrain from receiving the sacrament of communion. I most respectfully ask you to explain to me how any church leader can tolerate the defiance of mockery for church teaching manifested by Senator Durbin.”
At the time of printing, we knew of no response.
(Angelus Press)
United States: “Manhattan Declaration” against Pro-abortion Ideology of Barack Obama
On November 22, more than a hundred Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical religious leaders made public their manifesto against the pro-abortion ideology of President Obama and its administration. The text, entitled “The Manhattan Declaration,” has already collected more than 175,000 signatures. Among other things, it says: “We will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.” Among the Catholics signatories are the names of fifteen Cardinals and bishops, among them the archbishops of New York, Timothy Dolan, and of Washington, Donald Wuerl; Cardinals Justin Francis Rigali, archbishop of Philadelphia, and Adam Maida, emeritus archbishop of Detroit.
(DICI, No. 206, 12/17/2009)
Eminent Pius XII Specialist Rev. Dr. Pierre Blet Has Passed Away
On December 1st, Radio Vatican announced the passing away of the French Jesuit in the following terms:
“Father Pierre Blet, famous Church historian, professor in Rome, renowned Jesuit scholar and a great defender of the memory of Pius XII (Pius XII and the Second World War by Perrin, and Pius XII and Second World War according to Archives of the Vatican), died of a heart attack at the age of 91 at Rome’s Hospital Santo Spirito. He divided his time between Rue Grenelle in Paris and Rome where he taught modern history in the Pontifical Gregorian University. With this loss the Company of Jesus loses one of its most heroic members.”
The Osservatore Romano gave tribute to this “Vatican historian” who, along with three other Jesuits –Robert Graham, Angelo Martini, and Burkhart Schneider–was commissioned by Paul VI (1963-78) to publish the most important documents concerning the Second World War to throw light on Pius XII’s (1939-58) alleged silence. Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican was published in 12 volumes and contains Holy See documents dating between 1939 and 1942. The first volume was published in 1965 (Acts and Documents of the Holy See related to the Second World War), just seven years after Pius XII’s death. The last volume was published in 1982. The French Jesuit compiled a summary of his research: Pius XII and the Second World War according to the Archives of the Vatican. It was published in 1997 and has been translated into about ten languages.
Father Blet recently published another book based on unexplored documents about Church and State under Cardinal Richelieu: Richelieu and the Church, Editions Via Romana, 2007 (not yet translated into English).
Born in 1918, Father Blet entered the Jesuits in 1937. He was invited to Rome in 1950 to teach Modern History at the Pontifical Gregorian University. On June 21, 1958, he finished his Doctorate in the Sorbonne. From 1965 to 1995, he taught Diplomatic History at the Pontifical Academy of Ecclesiastics (dedicated to training priests).
He was a reserved and discreet person. A few days before his death he gave an interview to Avvenire, the Catholic Italian daily, where he announced that historians who would one day have access to the Vatican Archives concerning the 1939-2005 period, would not find more than what was already published in the Acts.
(DICI, No. 207, December 2009).
Current Issue
