Tuesday 16 November 2010

It's me, it's me, it's me, O Lord!

I recognised myself in this quote from all the times my allegedly "conservative" views have been criticised as dissenting from "what everyone does now":

"Anyone who dares to dissent, however timidly, is branded with the infamous mark of "preconciliar," ..."

Where does it come from? Who said it? Some beyond-the-pale reactionary Traditionalist perhaps? One of the more orthodox seminarians we are getting in these days? No. Cardinal Biffi (now retired Archbishop of Bologna). He has just written a book of memoirs published in Italian. You can read a small section here: www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2010/11/cardinal-biffi-critiques-postconciliar.html

He goes on to say about the Second Vatican Council that:

"what is adopted and exalted in an almost obsessive manner is not the Council that in fact was celebrated, but (so to speak) a "virtual Council"; a Council that has a place not in the history of the Church, but in the history of ecclesiastical imagination."


Pope Benedict has also distinguished the true spirit of the Council from false interpretations, blaming the disappointed hopes for renewal on "those who have gone far beyond both the letter and the spirit of Vatican II", and calling for a "return to the authentic texts of the original Vatican II". The Holy Father insists that the Council should be understood in terms of "renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God." Pope Benedict set forth this view in a 2005 speech to the Roman Curia and described it as the view proposed at the start and at the close of the Council by Popes John XXIII and Paul VI.

In other words: Spirit of the Council - phooey!

2 comments:

GOR said...

Yes Father, some timely reminders from the Cardinal – and his discourse on the “Ideology of Homosexuality” is also very much ad rem.

However, a question: why is it we are only hearing these things from retired or soon- to- be-retired members of the hierarchy…? I’m also thinking of Bishop Patrick O’Donohue in this regard.

Of course, better late than never. And there are some retired hierarchs we are better off not hearing from - as a certain emeritus of Milan and another of Detroit exemplify…

RJ said...

Well, I've never been branded "pre-conciliar" but "fundamentalist" was a word used in my hearing. "Fundamentally", we should accept Vatican II in its entirety while remaining in continuity with the entire tradition of the Church.