A simple question for defenders of "THE Council"

Again and again, those who love the Traditional Latin Mass, the Mass supplanted by the Novus Ordo of Paul VI, are required to answer some form of the question, "Do you uphold the Second Vatican Council as a work of the universal Church, ratified by her bishops? Do you view it as valid? Do you accept its teachings, even though we agree that it was not dogmatic, as its own documents assert?" 

Anyone who is somewhere on the scale from "the Council in its evident results represents a super-dogma and I think it should be re-examined with a more critical eye" to "the Council was fine but was reduced to an amorphous 'Spirit' that makes me uneasy and has not quite borne the fruit it claimed would result from its implementation" finds himself required to preface any opinion or critique with an obligatory recitation of his credo, his "I believe" -- not in Jesus Christ, but in the Council.

But let us remember: The hand that strikes also blocks. The time has come to shed this defensive posture.

Martin Mosebach, in his First Things article responding to the promulgation of Traditionis Custodes in 2021, offers his usual insightful commentary. But perhaps the most important insight to help us overcome a fatally defensive position is this one:

"Francis appears to sympathize with the “hermeneutic of rupture”—that theological school that asserts that with the Second Vatican Council the Church broke with her tradition. If that is true, then indeed every celebration of the traditional liturgy must be prevented. For as long as the old Latin Mass is celebrated in any garage, the memory of the previous two thousand years will not have been extinguished."

A Christian ought to ground his faith in tradition. The Church Fathers are utterly unanimous on this. St. Athanasius exhorts us to have recourse to Scripture and to "the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers kept.  Upon this the Church is founded, and he who should fall away from it would not be a Christian, and should no longer be so called” (Ad Serapion 1:28)

Therefore, let those who seek to suppress doctrinal and liturgical tradition answer the simple question: "Do you follow a hermeneutic of rupture? Do you hold that Vatican II broke with tradition?" 

Every thing they say must be prefaced with an answer to this question, and if the answer is "No, I do not," then every subsequent statement must be shown to be in continuity with tradition, as outlined in Sacred Scripture (see the letters of St. Paul) and the Magisterium. Or it must be rejected. 

It's a simple question. The conversation starts there. "Does Vatican II represent for you a break with tradition?"

Mosebach on Benedict

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.