Friday, January 13, 2012

Ocáriz v. Gleize on V-II: What is "doctrinal continuity"?

For any of you who haven't noticed, there is a very interesting and often quite serious and substantial debate that has been going on for some time over at Rorate Caeli over the question doctrinal continuity and Vatican II, occasioned by two articles by participants in the doctrinal discussions about Vatican II that took place in Rome between the CDF and SSPX from October 2009 to April 2011.

The first article, by Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz Braña, Vicar General of Holy Cross and Opus Dei (one of the Vatican representatives in the doctrinal talks with the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X), was published in the December 2, 2011 issue of the official daily of the Holy See, L'Osservatore Romano, and is entitled "On adhesion to the Second Vatican Council."

The second article, by Fr. Jean-Michel Gleize, professor of theology in the International Seminary of Saint Pius X in Écône, Switzerland (also a participant in the doctrinal discussions between the Holy See and the Society of Saint Pius X), is a response to the former article published in Le Courrier de Rome (no. 350, décembre 2011), made available by DICI in English shortly before Christmas, 2011 (the full text, in Italian: "Una questione cruciale: il valore magisteriale del Concilio Vaticano II").

Those interested in the wider debate can garner a taste of the controversy by consulting the lively comments to the following two posts:Can academic conferences commemorating the Second Vatican Council in this 50th anniversary year expect to be taken seriously by turning a blind eye to the family of issues raised in the exchange between Ocáriz v. Gleize?

Related:
  • Another exchange, this one between Dominican Fr. Giovanni Cavalcoli and Sì Sì No No, published HERE.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

the sspx folk are spitting in the wind. securus iudicat orbis terrorum.

Anonymous Bosch said...

Not quite, Anonymous. I like that quote too, and it might have been true when the world was "Christendom." But it was not even true in the day of St. Jerome, who declared: "The whole world groaned and marvelled to find itself Arian." And what was true when Belloc declared "The Faith is Europe, and Europe is The Faith" is no longer true when The Faith is dismissed by the "orb of the world" (orbis terrarum) as a disgusting prejudice or, at best, a curious relic of antediluvian troglodytes.

Thus even St. Vincent of Lerins' formula as to what we ought to hold fast to, namely what has been believed "everywhere, always, and by all" (Quod Ubique, Quod Semper, Quod ab Omnibus) must be qualified: because not everything in "tradition" (=history) is part of Sacred Tradition. And not everything declared by Catholic clerics, even be they bishops, conforms to Sacred Tradition. One must DISCERN, or, as Reagan said, "trust, but verify."

Anonymous said...

remember Newman looking in the glass and recognizing himself to be a Monophysite or a Donatist? Vatican II bears the marks of CATHOLICISM but SSPX does not bear those marks.

JFM said...

"...the sspx folk are spitting in the wind."

From my contact with them, I'd say the are lighting a candle vs. cursing the darkness. While there is an element of harsh criticism of Rome, I have found many more simply wanting tradition and wishing for Rome to move a step in that direction. Kind of heartening, when in so many other places the wish is for a large tep *away* from it.

Anonymous Bosch said...

"remember Newman looking in the glass and recognizing himself to be a Monophysite or a Donatist? Vatican II bears the marks of CATHOLICISM but SSPX does not bear those marks."

Bosh -- the old canard that the SSPX can be tarred as contemporary "Protestants." Rubbish. Consistently, this would mean that Pio Nono, Pope St. Pius X, Pope Pius XI, and Pope Pius XII were all "Protestants."

The only thing the SSPX can be accused of is formal disobedience to the Pope. Schism? No, the Holy Father as Cardinal Ratzinger overtly denied this. Invalid orders or sacraments? Nobody in the know would deny this.

Ecumenicists are trying to "get in bed" with the Eastern Orthodox, the Anglicans, and various Protestants, but hold the SSPX off as pariahs. Ironic, when they embrace a more robust Catholicism than even that of some recent popes. Yes, Virginia, it is possible to be more Catholic than the pope!

You confidently assert: "Vatican II bears the marks of CATHOLICISM but SSPX does not bear those marks." But this is precisely the proposition that has been thrown into question by the last four decades of apostasy, the re-examination of the Council and the recent debate between the CDF and SSPX.

Humility.

Anonymous Bosch said...

JFM, from my own (admittedly limited) experience, too, I would say that I have never met an SSPX family I did not admire for its devotion to the Catholic faith and its desire to pass it on faithfully to the next generation. That sounds platitudinous, but when I think of the families I know, I am awed. Simply awed.

If their only fault is disobeying the pope, but the reason they have done so is because they sincerely believe that to obey him and embrace the Novus Ordo would have led their progeny down the well-trod path to heterodoxy, dissent, and apostasy, then more power to them!