The title of this article is a shocking one. Is it a question, leaving room for doubt? Or else is it an absolute affirmation, even an exclamation?
These oratory precautions are devoid of interest. Why? Because the title itself makes us feel uncomfortable; it disturbs us in that it goes against Catholic dogma: one Faith, one Church, and one Pope. It cannot be said that there are two Churches for one Pope. The statement “one Pope and two Churches” is not a Catholic one. We can therefore ask ourselves whether this question, affirmation, or exclamation has arisen due to an unfounded, malicious accusation, or rather that it is, in fact, a sad but established fact.
I suggest the following plan. First, we will study the historical context in which this expression came to light, to see how Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, formally challenges this dichotomy. Afterwards, we will look at the solutions he envisages to remedy this division. Finally, we will ask ourselves whether these remedies will really bring about the solution hoped for by the Pope or whether or not they will create other difficulties.
First of all it must be understood that there is no malicious, unfounded accusation in this expression when it is used by priests or faithful in traditional circles. Indeed, originally it was an affirmation which almost sounded like a claim made by an important Roman prelate, Archbishop Benelli, deputy to the Secretariat of State. In 1976 he wrote to Archbishop Lefebvre on behalf of Paul VI:
If the seminarians of Ecône are of good-will and are well prepared for a priestly ministry in true fidelity to the Conciliar Church, we will ensure that the best possible solution will be found for them.
The expression “Conciliar Church” was used by the deputy for the Secretariat of State! Once this surprising statement had been uttered, it did indeed provoke many comments. This letter was written just before the ordinations in June 1976 in the hopes that it would stop them from taking place. It was Father Dhanis who was responsible for handing it over to Archbishop Lefebvre at Flavigny and asking him not to go ahead with the ordinations. Afterwards it became known as the “hot summer”: the Archbishop was suspended a divinis, and the Lille Mass took place. It was after this that comments about the “Conciliar Church” began appearing in the traditional press.
An editorial written by Jean Madiran in June 1976 in a supplement to Itinéraires states:
As the deputy to the Secretariat of State speaks about a Conciliar Church, then there are indeed two Churches. He doesn’t say “Catholic Church,” but rather “Conciliar Church.” There are now two Churches with the one same Paul VI at the head of both one and the other, and there is nothing we can do about it. We have not invented this. We are merely stating that it is so and have recorded Archbishop Benelli’s affirmation of this fact. Several episcopates who declare themselves to be in communion with the Pope, and whom the Pope has not rejected from his communion, are objectively out of Catholic communion. Yes, even if they are betrayers of trust, deserters or impostors, Paul VI remains at their head without repudiating or correcting them. He keeps them in communion. He presides over that Church as well.
Another text written by philosopher Gustave Corçao in May 1978 explains how he came to the conclusion that there were two Churches, one Conciliar and one Traditional, after Archbishop Benelli had made this affirmation. The article can be found in Itinéraires, or in the winter edition of Le Sel de la Terre, pp. 11-12:
If a reader now asks me which essential differences separate these two religions, I reply: a different spirit, a different doctrine, a different worship and different morals. How did I manage to forge such an awful conviction? Well, like all those Catholics who share this opinion with me, by years of suffering and reflection. First of all we confronted the new texts, new allocutions, and new pastoral publications with the doctrine which had been taught by the Church right up to….the day before yesterday. Starting with the texts emanating from the very highest ranks, a painful examination forces us to conclude that these latter have been inspired by another spirit, they are anchored in another doctrine.
We can then quote from the main texts of Vatican II: Gaudium et Spes, Unitatis Redintegratio, Dignitatis Humanae, the closing speeches of the Council on December 7, 1965, and the Institutio Generalis of the Novus Ordo Missae.
Gustave Corçao was content to say that it was another spirit which inspired the Conciliar Church, because Archbishop Benelli himself didn’t supply a definition. In the above mentioned Le Sel de la Terre he based his views on several of Archbishop Lefebvre’s declarations and characterized the Conciliar Church by a search for the unity of mankind; ecumenism in the wider sense of the term. I also believe that we can characterize it by that which, in the eyes of Benedict XVI, makes it its specificity. In his discourse of December 22, 2005, to the Roman Curia, he declared that the Council had to determine the relationship between the Church and the contemporary world in a new way.
It might be said that three circles of questions had formed which then, at the time of the Second Vatican Council, were expecting an answer. First of all, the relationship between faith and modern science had to be redefined. Furthermore, this did not only concern the natural sciences but also historical science for, in a certain school, the historical-critical method claimed to have the last word on the interpretation of the Bible and, demanding total exclusivity for its interpretation of Sacred Scripture, was opposed to important points in the interpretation elaborated by the faith of the Church. Secondly, it was necessary to give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion. Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance–a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.
The Pope gave us this description of the conciliar project in the absence of a definition of the Conciliar Church. I think we should therefore base ourselves upon it. He quoted Paul VI, if not to correct him, at least to clarify his comments about this adaptation and opening to the world: “In his concluding speech to the council on December 7, 1965, Paul VI indicated there was another specific motivation for which hermeneutics of discontinuity could appear convincing,” a motivation which could allow us to understand that there was a certain discontinuity. In other words, that the change was not superficial but profound and that it could effectively lead to a rupture. Here it should be noted that Pope Benedict XVI alternatively questioned and yet recognized this discontinuity. While saying that this discontinuity was merely an impression, he then claimed a continuity to which it is attached but which, he admitted, is not always obvious. In other words, those who think that there is a rupture are mistaken, but they have excuses for their misunderstanding.
Benedict XVI continued:
In the great dispute about man which marks the modern epoch, the Council had to focus in particular on the theme of anthropology. It had to question the relationship between the Church and her faith on the one hand, and man and the contemporary world on the other.
This is why we can say that what made for the specificity of the Council and the Conciliar Church and that which Archbishop Benelli called for, was its opening to the contemporary world. Is this opening one that will go so far as to dissolve Catholic identity? It is precisely what is at stake.
Obviously Pope Benedict XVI challenged the dichotomy: there are not two Churches, there is only one. He objected to the affirmation which would mean that there was a Traditional Church and a Conciliar Church. By this very fact he repudiated Benelli. In 1985, in The Ratzinger Report between Cardinal Ratzinger and the journalist Vittorio Messori, we can read:
On this point, he insists, he wants to be very precise. “This distinction of a before and after in the history of the Church, wholly unjustified by the documents of Vatican II, which do nothing but reaffirm the continuity of Catholicism, must be decidedly opposed. There is no ‘pre-’ or ‘post-’ conciliar Church; there is but one, unique Church that walks the path toward the Lord, ever deepening and ever better understanding the treasure of faith that he himself has entrusted to her. There are no leaps in this history, there are no fractures, and there is no break in continuity. In no wise did the Council intend to introduce a temporal dichotomy in the Church.” (The Ratzinger Report, p.35)
Therefore, this opening to the world is not a rupture. As you can see, the Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith insisted upon this fact but did not prove it.
Generally speaking, the Pope thinks that we have made a bad argument if we unduly declare that there was one Ratzinger before the papal election and another Ratzinger when he became Benedict XVI. He claims to be the same and not to have changed. As proof, read between the lines of the declaration made to Messori in 1985 and you already have the discourse given to the Curia in 2005. If we go back ten years further we can see that he said the same thing in 1975 at the tenth anniversary of the closing of the Council:
First: “It is impossible (‘for a Catholic’) to take a position for Vatican II but against Trent or Vatican I. Whoever accepts Vatican II, as it has clearly expressed and understood itself, at the same time accepts the whole binding tradition of the Catholic Church, particularly also the two previous councils. And that also applies to the so-called ‘progressivism’, at least in its extreme forms.” Second: “It is likewise 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. And this applies to the so-called ‘traditionalism’, also in its extreme forms.” “Every partisan choice destroys the whole (the very history of the Church) which can exist only as an indivisible unity” [passages between parenthesis were inserted in the Cardinal’s own hand]. (The Ratzinger Report, pp.28-29)
Here too the Cardinal affirmed but did not prove.
Is it possible to find a demonstration of this continuity in the 2005 discourse? There is doubtless an embarrassing affirmation–recognizable by the style used–of a hidden continuity, adjacent yet unobvious, coexisting with an apparent discontinuity but inexistent in the eyes of the Pope. To go further, let us see how Benedict XVI tried to use this hermeneutics of continuity and how he endeavored to make it visible by taking some examples. On the subject of the relationships between Church and State, he said that he was going to show us that continuity is real and that discontinuity is only apparent. Let us see if this chosen example is convincing:
It was necessary to learn to recognize that…it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within. On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change.
Here the Pope seemed to be suggesting this: as ever, there are old things which must be expressed in a new way; Tradition must be presented in a new way, vetera sed noviter dicta. This is absolutely traditional. However, is it possible to affirm that principles which refer to changing realities are in themselves more or less null and void? Is not the characteristic of a principle to be so rooted in concrete reality that it remains as an immutable fixed point?
Let us take the example that Benedict XVI suggested in order to illustrate his point and to show how this hermeneutics of continuity isn’t just a simple affirmation, but rather the expression of a visible reality.
Basic decisions, therefore, continue to be well-grounded, whereas the way they are applied to new contexts can change. Thus, for example, if religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism, then this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge. It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence…
Here, religious liberty opposes head-on the teaching of Pius IX; it is the “anti-Syllabus” according to Cardinal Ratzinger’s own expression. Doesn’t this anti-Syllabus present a rupture? Isn’t there a considerable break? Is there still hidden continuity, coexisting in an unobvious way? Let us continue our examination of the text:
It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence, or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction. The Second Vatican Council recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State with the Decree on Religious Freedom has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church.
This concerns the opening of the Council to the modern world. In this text, Vatican II adopted “an essential principle of the modern State,” but, says the Pope, there is no rupture because by thus doing it is only reappropriating that which, in fact, is its essential patrimony: “It has again recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church...” This signifies that in fact there was discontinuity with Pius IX who, by affirming what he did, opposed himself to this deepest patrimony of the Church. Thus, if there is no discontinuity today, there was, nonetheless, such a discontinuity before Vatican II.
By so doing she [the Church] can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt. 22:21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time. The ancient Church naturally prayed for the emperors and political leaders out of duty (cf. I Tim. 2:2); but while she prayed for the emperors, she refused to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion of the State.
The martyrs certainly refused to burn incense before emperors who were auto-proclaimed gods.
The martyrs of the early Church died for their faith in that God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, and for this very reason they also died for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one’s own faith–a profession that no State can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God’s grace in freedom of conscience.
Which means that Constantine brought about a rupture and that all the Popes since then, from the Edict of Milan onwards have in fact been in rupture!
Here we have Jesus Christ’s martyrs…and liberty of conscience? That an act of faith is indeed a free act is certain, but what is far less certain is that the martyrs were martyred for religious liberty. The least we can say is that it is an anachronism. The idea of religious liberty didn’t exist at the time; the liberty of an act of faith did, but, religious liberty described as an essential principle of the modern State certainly did not! Therefore, this example does not work very well because it is an anachronous example. It does not shed light on the hermeneutics of continuity, either in a philosophical or theological way, or even, quite simply, in a truthful way. Certainly, early Christians did refuse to adore self-proclaimed divine creatures; they refused all those divinities which were adored in the Roman pantheon, but they did not refuse the State religion when it was the religion revealed by Jesus Christ.
Let us continue our study using other examples. In The Ratzinger Report, Benedict XVI proposed, as one of his important projects—to instigate “the reform of the reform”—which must enable us to resolve this opposition and to get rid of the rupture between pre- and post-conciliar Church. For him, the reform, the restoration, cannot be a return to the past: Here is the Cardinal’s textual reply to Messori:
“If by ‘restoration’ is meant a turning back, no restoration of such kind is possible. The Church moves forward toward the consummation of history, she looks ahead to the Lord who is coming. No, there is no going back, nor is it possible to go back. Hence there is no ‘restoration’ whatsoever in this sense. But if by restoration we understand the search for a new balance after all the exaggerations of an indiscriminate opening to the world, after the overly positive interpretations of an agnostic and atheistic world, well, then a restoration understood in this sense (a newly found balance of orientations and values within the Catholic totality) is altogether desirable and, for that matter, is already in operation in the Church. In this sense it can be said that the first phase after Vatican II has come to a close.” (The Ratzinger Report, pp.37-38)
Without any doubt Benedict XVI recognizes the fact that the post-conciliar era has been disastrous: “The Church seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side...” He has said it on several occasions. It is in this sense that the Pope seems to converge with the analysis made by priests and faithful of the traditional movement. Addressing the priests of the dioceses of Belluno-Feltre and Treviso in July 2007, he said: “I too was very enthusiastic during the Council and had hope of a new encounter between the Church and the world but then we all experienced the fact that things remained difficult.”
However, whilst he affirmed this–and it is in this context that we must see the reform of the reform–the Council remained, he said, the compass of his pontificate, just as it was the compass of the pontificate of his predecessor, John Paul II. At the beginning of his pontificate, Benedict XVI addressed the Cardinal-Electors in the Sistine Chapel as follows:
I have especially in mind the testimony of Pope John Paul II. He left a more courageous, freer and younger Church. A Church which, according to his teaching and example, looks at the past with serenity, and is not afraid of the future. During the great Jubilee, this latter entered the new millennium, carrying in her hands the Gospel, applied to the present world through the authoritative interpretation of the Second Vatican Council. Pope John Paul II rightly pointed out to the Council as to the “compass” which enables us to find our way on the vast ocean of the third millennium (cf. Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, nn. 57-58). In his spiritual Testament he also noted: “I am convinced that it will still be given to the new generations to draw for a long time from the riches which this 20th-century Council has left us” (17. III. 2000). As I am also preparing for the service proper to the Successor of Peter, I want to state strongly my firm will to keep the commitment to implement the Second Vatican Council, following in the footsteps of my Predecessors and in faithful continuity with the bimillenary tradition of the Church.
Cardinal Ratzinger spoke to Messori about “a new balance after all the exaggerations of an indiscriminate opening to the world.” It is indeed this that characterizes the post-conciliar era but which, according to him, was due to poor hermeneutics. “After the overly positive interpretations of an agnostic and atheistic world, well, then a restoration understood in this sense” (a newly found balance of orientations and values within the Catholic totality) “is altogether desirable and, for that matter, is already in operation in the Church.” It would be a kind of new equilibrium, less abusive, less excessive: a readjustment. Elsewhere a new “synthesis” is invoked in order to overcome conflicts; where there is a conflict, a thesis, an anti-thesis and perhaps a way would be made for yet another new synthesis. On this subject, an interesting example, that of St. Charles Borromeo, was given by Cardinal Ratzinger to Messori:
“It can certainly be said that Charles Borromeo rebuilt (‘restored’) the Catholic Church, which also in the area around Milan was at that time nearly destroyed for awhile, without making a return to the Middle Ages. On the contrary, he created a modern form of the Church. How little ‘restorative’ such a reform was is seen, for example, in the fact that Charles suppressed a religious order that was nearly in decline and assigned its goods to new, live communities.…
“In Charles Borromeo, therefore, we can also see what I meant to say with ‘reform’ or ‘restoration’ in its original meaning: to live outstretched toward a totality, to live from a ‘yes’ that leads back to the unity of the human forces in conflict with each other. A ‘yes’ that confers on them a positive meaning within the totality. In Charles Borromeo we can also see the essential prerequisite for a similar renewal. Charles could convince others because he himself was a man of conviction. He was able to exist with his certitudes amid the contradictions of his time because he himself lived them.” (The Ratzinger Report, pp.38-39)
It must be noted that the definition of the reform has a strong existential connotation. To “live” the reform was to “live” saying “yes.” It is not easy to explain but “a ‘yes’ gives a positive connotation to the heart of the whole.” Here, the personal existential dimension is very strong, but difficult to conceptualize.
We may certainly review the examples given by the Pope, not in an existentialist way, but rather in a Thomistic way, in order to show how his reform of the reform would work–that which would finally resolve the opposition between the pre- and post-conciliar Church. We could envisage them in a totally different light. The idea of reform is completely traditional in the Church. Indeed it is said that the Benedictines need a monastic reform every 100 years. Certainly not, however, a reform in the sense of an aggiornamento, or in the revolutionary sense, of recycling! What did a monastic reform of a great reformer such as St. Teresa of Avila really consist of? Above all, it was concerned with a return to the original form, to the spirit of the foundation and the founder. Here, it is not a case of going back because it is not returning to a status quo ante. It is neither anterior nor posterior but rather superior. It is of a higher order. It is necessary to go back to the original form given to a foundation by its founder. This is not, however, exactly what we have seen in the examples given by Cardinal Ratzinger.
We could also consider this search for balance wished for by Benedict XVI in a Thomistic light, but it could not be a kind of Hegelian surpassing: thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis–it is difficult to really know what the synthesis takes or does not take from the thesis and anti-thesis. On the other hand, if we regard this “surpassing” in a realistic way, inspired by a Thomist such as Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, one rises to the apex veritatis, a summit where truth is found, meaning not some kind of half and half mixture: both hot and cold with a tepid result. The apex veritatis is represented by a schema in which the two parties at the base of the pyramid are right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny. The classical example is that of Heraclites, who is right when he affirms movement but wrong when he denies being; Parmenides is right when he affirms being and wrong when he denies movement. Is the truth to be found in a vague synthesis which relies on a tentative to conciliate opposites? Is the solution to be found in a heracliteo-parmenidism or else in a parmenido-heracliteism? No, it is to be found in Aristotle. Up above! It is to be found in potentiality and in actuality. But perhaps this example is too metaphysical; we ought to take an example more relevant to our present preoccupations.
Today we ask ourselves about liberty. Liberty cannot exist without a certain order, but order opposes liberty. Which is right? Is it an oxymoron to talk about well-ordered liberty? Ordered liberty seems to be the opposite of liberty. We can then propose an inverted oxymoron and say that liberty resides in free order, but then this is no longer order. The Thomistic view neither defines liberty as free order nor as ordered liberty but as vis electiva mediorum servato ordine finis. In other words, we must distinguish between order as an end (servato ordine finis) and a capacity to choose among the means (vis electiva mediorum). It then becomes clear that it does not consist of a fragile balancing act on unstable foundations.
These reflections enable us to question ourselves about the efficaciousness of the reform of the reform. To resume what has just been said, we have the impression that we could understand the reform of the reform, as suggested by Benedict XVI, as a unifying reform of the first reform which intervened immediately after the Council and which had dissolving results. This second reform is hardly satisfactory because it would be a compromise, a precarious balance. It does not rise to the apex veritatis, nor leads to a true kind of reform–not a turning back! Rather, it would be a return to the original form, to the spirit of the foundation where no narrow historicist vision is to be found. The original form is neither anterior nor posterior but above all, superior, transcendental. It is along these lines, I think, that it would be possible to reply to our earlier question about principles which apply to contingent realities, without being themselves, however, subject to change.
At this point in our reflection, it is necessary to see precisely where the difficulty resides: is the Council to be called into question or not? What is interesting to note is the fact that the Pope believes that there was a disastrous application of the Council. What we fail to understand however, is how he considers this application to be totally independent of the Council itself. The Council is exempt of fault, and definitely not to be blamed. It was perfect and if we want to go back to the texts themselves, we will find the solution to the application which followed the Council and which the Pope calls disastrous for lack of satisfactory interpretation–an interpretation, please note, which has not yet been implemented for 40 years!
The difficulty is concentrated on this point: how do you manage to get across that there is indeed a link between the texts themselves and the ensuing application of the Council? Further, that this latter is not independent, that it was not simply subverted or perverted through an unfortunate interpretation of the texts. This is no easy task because the Pope considers these texts to be good and thinks that if we return to them all will be right.
Let us now examine the Pope’s personal vision of the Council and let us risk the following affirmation: the hermeneutics of continuity is based on a benign interpretation of the Council. Let us give two examples.
Firstly, the spirit of Vatican II; here I will let Vittorio Messori speak. The Pope tells us that the Council is in perfect continuity with the spirituality of the Church and that it always intended to say what the Church has always said. The interpretations which followed were not good but, if we revert to the texts, all will be alright. Cardinal Ratzinger affirmed this to Messori, who was somewhat taken aback and so he then asked him the following very pertinent question: “Can, then, The Imitation of Christ continue to exist alongside Gaudium et Spes?”
The Pope answered:
“Obviously, it is a matter of two very different spiritualities. The Imitation is a text that reflects the great late medieval monastic tradition. But Vatican II in no way intended to take good things away from the good.”
“And is The Imitation of Christ (taken, of course, as a symbol of a certain spirituality) still among the ‘good’ things?” asked Messori, who knew very well that anything that savored of sacrifice had to a great extent been done away with after the Council. The Pope replied by insisting:
“Indeed: among the most urgent objectives of the modern Catholic belongs that of recovering all the positive elements of a spirituality of this kind, with its awareness of the qualitative distance between the mentality of faith and a worldly mentality.”
The common-sense reaction of this learned layman, a Catholic journalist, is most interesting:
Just consider: twenty years ago it was declared in sundry tones that the most pressing problem of the Catholic was to find a spirituality that was “new”, “communitarian”, “open”, “non-sacral”, “turned toward the world”. Now after long wanderings it is being discovered that the urgent task is to find again a connecting link with the ancient spirituality of “flight from the world”.
The Cardinal noticed Messori’s surprise and replied:
“The problem is once more that of finding a new equilibrium. Apart from the legitimate, indeed, for the Church, precious monastic or eremitic vocations, the believer is held to live that none-too-easy balance between a proper incarnation in history and the indispensable tension toward eternity. It is precisely this balance that prevents one from either sacralizing earthly commitment or laying oneself open to the reproach of ‘alienation’.” (The Ratzinger Report, pp.115-117)
Once again we come back to equilibrium, but which one? A compromise, an overcoming of tensions? The hermeneutics of continuity rests on a benign interpretation; let us see what Paul VI said at the end of the Council, on December 7, 1965:
Secular humanism, revealing itself in its horrible anti-clerical reality has, in a certain sense, defied the Council. The religion of the God who became man has met the religion (for such it is) of man who makes himself God. And what happened? Was there a clash, a battle, a condemnation? There could have been, but there was none. The old story of the Samaritan has been the model of the spirituality of the Council. A feeling of boundless sympathy has permeated the whole of it. The attention of our Council has been absorbed by the discovery of human needs (and these needs grow in proportion to the greatness which the son of the earth claims for himself). But we call upon those who term themselves modern humanists, and who have renounced the transcendent value of the highest realities, to give the Council credit at least for one quality and to recognize our own new type of humanism: we, too, in fact, we more than any others, honor mankind. (Closing speech of the Second Vatican Council by Paul VI, December 7, 1965)
This really does appear to be an anti-Imitation of Jesus Christ, especially as here the parable of the Good Samaritan is quoted wrongly. The Good Samaritan does not take care of the suffering man by saying “I too worship mankind,” but rather: “You are ill and I am going to take care of you.” He is a figure of Jesus Christ. This is a very favorable interpretation compared with what Paul VI himself said about the Council which he led to its end.
In They Have Uncrowned Him, Archbishop Lefebvre made a judgment which conforms more to the reality:
There you have it then, explained, in an ingenuous and lyrical manner, but clearly and terribly, what was not the spirit, but the spirituality of the Council: a “sympathy without limits” towards the secular man, for the man without God! Still, if it had been for the purpose of lifting up this fallen man, of revealing his mortal wounds to him, of dressing them for him with an effective remedy, of healing him and bringing him into the bosom of the Church, of submitting to his God….But no! It was to be able to say to the world, ‘You see, the Church also has the cult of man.’ I do not hesitate to affirm that the Council brought to reality the conversion of the Church to the world. (Archbishop Lefebvre, They Have Uncrowned Him [Angelus Press, 2003], pp.216-217).
The other example concerns the history of the Council–its disturbing beginning, which was to considerably influence its whole development. This is how Cardinal Ratzinger spoke about it to Messori:
“After Pope John XXIII had announced its convocation, the Roman Curia worked together with the most distinguished representatives of the world episcopate in the preparation of those schemata which were then rejected by the Council Fathers as too theoretical, too textbook-like and insufficiently pastoral. Pope John had not reckoned on the possibility of a rejection but was expecting a quick and frictionless balloting on these projects which he had approvingly read. It is clear that none of those texts aimed to change doctrine. Rather, it was a matter of synthesizing it, at most, of arriving also at a clarification of some points not yet precisely defined and, in that way, of developing it further. Even the rejection of these texts by the Council Fathers was not directed against the doctrine as such, but against the inadequate way of expressing it and certainly also against some definitions that had never existed up to then and are considered unnecessary even today. What is certain is that the Council did not take the turn that John XXIII had expected....It must also be admitted that, in respect to the whole Church, at least up to now, Pope John XXIII’s prayer that the Council be for her a new spring forward, renewed life and unity, was not heard.” (The Ratzinger Report, pp.41-42)
When presenting this coup de force, which consisted of rejecting all the preparatory schemata, meaning all those serious studies which had been elaborated to ensure that the assembly would not merely consist of an agitprop, but rather be a real assembly of bishops, of theologians, Archbishop Lefebvre did not hesitate to refer to the “fraud” which had taken place at the Council of Ephesus:
If his testimony may appear questionable, let us listen to Cardinal Liénart himself who was at the outset of this coup de force and who admitted how, encouraged by others–Cardinal Joseph Frings, Bishop Daneels, etc., he stood up and declared: “Everything that has been prepared is null and void.” How could this have come about? Had they come with empty hands without having prepared anything? Was there nothing behind this concerted maneuver? Was it a benign, and even angelical, vision of reality?
I would have you know that after this amazing statement, and while leaving the hall of the Council, a Dutch bishop hardly suspected of traditional tendencies, expressed his thoughts in no uncertain terms, the same as those of French and German liberal bishops, when he shouted to a priest friend a short distance away: “Our first victory.” Such is the historical reality. (Archbishop Lefebvre, They Have Uncrowned Him [Angelus Press, 2003], ch.24).
Let us now examine the texts themselves and try to establish a link of cause and effect between them and the present crisis in which we now find ourselves, and which the Pope himself acknowledges. The least we can say, if we study them attentively and without prejudice, is that they are highly ambiguous; they are equivocal and often contain oxymorons. Lumen Gentium (§10), it is true, does distinguish between the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood. However, in the following number, pages after pages talk about the priesthood in general, confusing both or making the priesthood of priests merely one function among others of the common priesthood. How can this be reconciled? Let us speak frankly: if we do not want there be two Churches for one Pope, it is first of all necessary to ensure that there are not two Councils for one Church.
In Dignitatis Humanae it is stated–in §2–that man must be subject to God’s law. But–in §3–man’s freedom is exalted, as is personal conscience. The objection of conscience is upheld in such a general way as to be false.
In Dignitatis Humanae also, distinctions are made between acts exempt from coercion by the State but here distinctions should be made between internal and external, private or public acts. The same freedom should not be granted to all.
What simply needs to be done, as the Pope invites us to do, is to examine the texts themselves. This must be done in order to uncover what Bossuet called variations when talking about the Protestants: contradictions or incoherencies. This study was undertaken during the last century by Romano Amerio in his work Iota Unum, of which the subtitle is precisely: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century (Sarto House). It would be a case of trying, in an unpretentious way, to see how, in these texts, the principle of non-contradiction is respected or else flouted.
I would like to conclude by repeating that we must not allow ourselves to be contaminated by this vague thinking and its contradictions. Today people talk about “dynamic fidelity”: fidelity open to the world, a faithful opening to the Gospel... This is worldly language, and a language which particularly belongs to the world of politicians. Thus we have had the “conservative revolution”; and on the death of John-Paul II we were told that he had been a “revolutionary conservative” pope. In a different context we were told of “quiet strength”….We must not bear this kind of speech. Not for aesthetical reasons, but rather for ontological ones!
An oxymoron allows the human mind to nourish itself with chimera, to feed on utopias. It keeps us in the illusion that reality is supple, elastic, of variable geometry, and that nothing opposes our will because everything in it is made of rubber. In the real world, it is impossible to reconcile being and non-being, real and false, good and bad. This rhetoric gives us the impression of being able to free ourselves from the laws of gravity proper to human thought and to be floating instead in the sky. Pope St. Pius X himself denounced this “staring at a chimera.”
Let us reject the enterprise of intimidation which wants to make us believe that a restoration within the Church would be a turning back, whereas it actually must be a return to fundamental principles–not prior but superior. The remedy for the frightful crisis presently shaking the Church consists of a return to reality: natural reality as it exists, and to supernatural reality as it has been revealed to us.