Dear Doc. Mr. V. is a zealous and intelligent man; and he is wrong.
If an Ecumenical Council can be in error at any one time it can be in error at any time and at all time; that is, if Vatican Two is wrong than Trent can be wrong, and Vatican I can be wrong and Nicea can be wrong etc.
In The Ratzinger Report the then Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith averred; It is impossible (for a Catholic) to take a position for or against Trent or Vatican 1. Whoever accepts Vatican II, as it has been clearly expressed and understood itself, at the same time accepts the whole binding tradition of the Catholic Church...It is impossible to decide in favor of Trent and Vatican I, but against Vatican II. Whoever denies Vatican II denies the authority that upholds the other two councils and thereby detaches them from their foundation...Every partisan choice destroys the whole (the very history of the Church) which can exist only as an indivisible unity.
Here is a far better source for thinking about D.H.
In the Vatican Two Super Bowl of Religious Liberty Doctrine, it was the unstoppable offense of Americanism with its HOF Theologian, John Courtney Murray and his Owners (CIA Henry Luce, CD Jackson, Pro Deo Univ founded in in Rome by Felix Morlion, OP) against the Impregnable Defense of Holy Mother Church and HM Church skunked Murray, Luce, the CIA etc but Christian Catholics in America have yet to be told the final score.
It is as though fifty years in the future, following from last night's Super Bowl, we will have men walking around depressed and drenched in a Seattle deluge muttering, Frigging Denver beast us, badly.
Um, nope. The Bad Ass Defense always wins.
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt33.html
And Holy Mother Church is the baddest ass defense ever because its owner is Jesus and its Coach is the Pope.
I used Fr. Brian Harrison's essay as a supplemental reading in one of my Political Philosophy classes, in which we examined Catholic Social teaching. It's excellent.
What's amazing is the deft heel-and-toe work it takes for him to steer a course between the two cliffs of saying that the Council document (1) slips into error and (2) is unambiguously clear. Clearly it is neither of those things, but in order to show it, Fr. Harrison has to walk the reader from the original schema through several recensions to even the footnotes appended in English by Fr. Murray in the final draft in the Abbott edition. How ghastly complicated, when the truth ought to be plain as the nose on your face!
Still, I admire Fr. Harrison for the yeoman's job he's been doing along these lines.
As for L. Verrecchio, maybe I missed it if he says anywhere outright that the Council slipped into error. I wouldn't agree with that. I took him to be suggesting the commonplace point that there was a modernist faction vying for position in the drafting of the schemas, with the result that there are some conflicting and ambiguous passages in the documents which modernists have been gleefully exploiting to their revisionist advantage since the Council.
That's exactly what Murray did, after all, isn't it. The Council did not finally accept the precise wording that Murray proposed. Nevertheless, in his English footnotes to the Abbott edition, he twists the documents, like a wax nose, into saying what he wanted them to say all along; and this (and this sort of thing, across the board) has been the problem, hasn't it.
Dear Doc. I will have to go back and listen to it again.
But as to the point about Documents being misused, that is also true of Holy Writ.
We have to rely on the Magisterium to tell us what is and isn't irreformable within the documents - not Lefebvre, Fellay or, well, me ( I used to specialise in that haughty avocation).
By the same token that no pope has an authority higher than any other pope, so can no council have an authority higher than any other council. That is why (a) Humani Generis was consigned to the Vatican Well of Forgetfulness within a generation of its appearance, and (b) previous councils had been very clear, specific, and tight-lipped with their pronouncements out of a concern not to force a crisis of inconsistency.
Until the engorged, ambiguous, blathering verbiage of V2.
The very idea that V2's verbiage is no better or worse, no more or less accurate and "orthodox" than the verbiage of any other council should promote a sense of caution and restraint on council participants. It did just the opposite in the case of V2: if nouvelle blather is no worse than any other council's output, then let's give them a double shot, boyz.
So that is just more evidence that the men who assumed control of V2 were of a radically different mindset, and a radically different world view, than those who controlled previous councils.
The statement:
"Whoever accepts Vatican II, as it has been clearly expressed and understood itself, at the same time accepts the whole binding tradition of the Catholic Church"
ought to have been directed at those who assumed control of V2. In fact, it probably was. But the Afro-American in the woodpile is the fairly obvious escape clause, "as it has been clearly expressed and understood [sic] itself." Which translates to its "native language" as "it seemed like a good idea at the time -- now you're stuck with it."
Dear Ralph. Your private judgment of Vatican Two is no different from the protestants private judgment of scripture.
I oughta know, I've been doing the same damn thing forever
We have had two famously highly intelligent and highly educated Popes repeatedly state that V2 is Kosher; one will soon be canonised.
Roma locuta...
As for Vatican Two being uniquely vague, have you read the works of all the councils?
Much of the sturm und drang the council trailed in its wake is not properly attributed to the council and even in D.H. - under putatively friendly fire here - was adequately explained in laymen's language by Fr. Most.
Dear Doc. Mr. V. is a zealous and intelligent man; and he is wrong.
ReplyDeleteIf an Ecumenical Council can be in error at any one time it can be in error at any time and at all time; that is, if Vatican Two is wrong than Trent can be wrong, and Vatican I can be wrong and Nicea can be wrong etc.
In The Ratzinger Report the then Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith averred; It is impossible (for a Catholic) to take a position for or against Trent or Vatican 1. Whoever accepts Vatican II, as it has been clearly expressed and understood itself, at the same time accepts the whole binding tradition of the Catholic Church...It is impossible to decide in favor of Trent and Vatican I, but against Vatican II. Whoever denies Vatican II denies the authority that upholds the other two councils and thereby detaches them from their foundation...Every partisan choice destroys the whole (the very history of the Church) which can exist only as an indivisible unity.
Here is a far better source for thinking about D.H.
http://catholictradition.blogspot.com/2009/03/dignitatis-humanae.html
O, and Mr. V. made several errors, notably in his definition of the common good and his claims about JC Murray's putative triumph at V2.
In the Vatican Two Super Bowl of Religious Liberty Doctrine, it was the unstoppable offense of Americanism with its HOF Theologian, John Courtney Murray and his Owners (CIA Henry Luce, CD Jackson, Pro Deo Univ founded in in Rome by Felix Morlion, OP) against the Impregnable Defense of Holy Mother Church and HM Church skunked Murray, Luce, the CIA etc but Christian Catholics in America have yet to be told the final score.
ReplyDeleteIt is as though fifty years in the future, following from last night's Super Bowl, we will have men walking around depressed and drenched in a Seattle deluge muttering, Frigging Denver beast us, badly.
Um, nope. The Bad Ass Defense always wins.
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt33.html
And Holy Mother Church is the baddest ass defense ever because its owner is Jesus and its Coach is the Pope.
IANS,
ReplyDeleteI used Fr. Brian Harrison's essay as a supplemental reading in one of my Political Philosophy classes, in which we examined Catholic Social teaching. It's excellent.
What's amazing is the deft heel-and-toe work it takes for him to steer a course between the two cliffs of saying that the Council document (1) slips into error and (2) is unambiguously clear. Clearly it is neither of those things, but in order to show it, Fr. Harrison has to walk the reader from the original schema through several recensions to even the footnotes appended in English by Fr. Murray in the final draft in the Abbott edition. How ghastly complicated, when the truth ought to be plain as the nose on your face!
Still, I admire Fr. Harrison for the yeoman's job he's been doing along these lines.
As for L. Verrecchio, maybe I missed it if he says anywhere outright that the Council slipped into error. I wouldn't agree with that. I took him to be suggesting the commonplace point that there was a modernist faction vying for position in the drafting of the schemas, with the result that there are some conflicting and ambiguous passages in the documents which modernists have been gleefully exploiting to their revisionist advantage since the Council.
That's exactly what Murray did, after all, isn't it. The Council did not finally accept the precise wording that Murray proposed. Nevertheless, in his English footnotes to the Abbott edition, he twists the documents, like a wax nose, into saying what he wanted them to say all along; and this (and this sort of thing, across the board) has been the problem, hasn't it.
God bless, PP.
Dear Doc. I will have to go back and listen to it again.
ReplyDeleteBut as to the point about Documents being misused, that is also true of Holy Writ.
We have to rely on the Magisterium to tell us what is and isn't irreformable within the documents - not Lefebvre, Fellay or, well, me ( I used to specialise in that haughty avocation).
By the same token that no pope has an authority higher than any other pope, so can no council have an authority higher than any other council. That is why (a) Humani Generis was consigned to the Vatican Well of Forgetfulness within a generation of its appearance, and (b) previous councils had been very clear, specific, and tight-lipped with their pronouncements out of a concern not to force a crisis of inconsistency.
ReplyDeleteUntil the engorged, ambiguous, blathering verbiage of V2.
The very idea that V2's verbiage is no better or worse, no more or less accurate and "orthodox" than the verbiage of any other council should promote a sense of caution and restraint on council participants. It did just the opposite in the case of V2: if nouvelle blather is no worse than any other council's output, then let's give them a double shot, boyz.
So that is just more evidence that the men who assumed control of V2 were of a radically different mindset, and a radically different world view, than those who controlled previous councils.
The statement:
"Whoever accepts Vatican II, as it has been clearly expressed and understood itself, at the same time accepts the whole binding tradition of the Catholic Church"
ought to have been directed at those who assumed control of V2. In fact, it probably was. But the Afro-American in the woodpile is the fairly obvious escape clause, "as it has been clearly expressed and understood [sic] itself." Which translates to its "native language" as "it seemed like a good idea at the time -- now you're stuck with it."
Reminds one of Obamacare.
"Reminds one of Obamacare" ...
ReplyDeleteSnort! This is priceless!!
Dear Ralph. Your private judgment of Vatican Two is no different from the protestants private judgment of scripture.
ReplyDeleteI oughta know, I've been doing the same damn thing forever
We have had two famously highly intelligent and highly educated Popes repeatedly state that V2 is Kosher; one will soon be canonised.
Roma locuta...
As for Vatican Two being uniquely vague, have you read the works of all the councils?
Much of the sturm und drang the council trailed in its wake is not properly attributed to the council and even in D.H. - under putatively friendly fire here - was adequately explained in laymen's language by Fr. Most.
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=209