When the characterizations of Benedict XVI's pontificate (and, naturally, abdication) began to appear, I couldn't help thinking about the penultimate essay in Martin Mosebach's book, The Heresy of Formlessness (affiliate link), On the Occasion of the 90th Birthday of Benedict XVI. This essay captures the greatness of the man while expressing "disappointment," and, ultimately, thoughts of the patrimony of the Latin Mass, which he brought out of hiding for the people.
So I was glad to see this remembrance in First Things: On the Death of Benedict XVI, for I knew Mosebach, a novelist and imaginative traditionalist, would again express what I feel, with the right touch of deep appreciation coupled with an honest sense of bereavement, not only at his death but at the resignation.
His reflection adds to the previous tribute, as it takes into account the attempt, by Pope Francis, to obliterate his predecessor's work, especially in Traditionis Custodes. These passages about the "hermeneutic of continuity," the magnificent and inspired papal solution to the disruption of the post-conciliar time, so flagrantly abandoned by the current jackals in charge and so misunderstood by even well meaning guardians of tradition (understandably wracked with suspicion as they have become), are particularly needed now:
From his years as a cardinal, therefore, Pope Benedict saw it as his duty to refute the notion that Vatican II was a “super-Council” overruling all prior councils. Cardinal Ratzinger countered this idea of a “hermeneutic of rupture” with a “hermeneutic of continuity”—not because he was a troubled conservative but because he saw the Church as bound to a once-for-all revelation, to the tradition of the early martyrs and Church fathers. The Church was constantly to be reformed: For him this did not mean that it must measure itself continually against the social standards of the day, but that it must always take its measure from its Founder. As a historian, he knew only too well that the Church would have a heavy price to pay for having aligned itself too closely with “the spirit of the times.”
Accordingly, he was less concerned with revising Vatican II than with seeing it in the context of history, that is, locating it in the series of antecedent councils. So his view of the papal teaching office meant that, where Vatican II’s documents turned out to be ambiguous, they should be interpreted in the spirit of tradition. He did not intend to compel acceptance of such corrections; but, observing in his opponents a certain lack of both religious fervor and intellectual acumen, he felt confirmed in his hope that the Church would one day overcome its postconciliar crisis—even if it had to dwindle to the small body it had been two thousand years ago.
The “hermeneutic of continuity” might have remained on the level of theory, had Benedict XVI not drawn from it one practical consequence that initially had a small effect on the life of the universal Church but eventually attracted bitter opposition. This was the renewed permission for the old liturgy that had been celebrated for more than fifteen hundred years. This attack on the liturgy, an attack unique in Church history that had not been foreseen by Vatican II, was devastating. Holy Mass, the most important feature of the visible Church, had forfeited the sacredness of the sacrificial mystery and was reduced to a sober, Protestant meal. The Church’s teaching office had not altered the theology of the Mass, but nonetheless a large part of the faithful had lost their belief in the physical presence of Jesus in the transformed sacrificial gifts of bread and wine. In religion, forms can be more important than doctrinal assertions; this anthropological insight was lost on the majority of bishops.
I recommend the whole piece.
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