G
giuseppeTO
Guest
On July 2, Msgr. Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, gave a conference at the seminary of the Fraternity of Saint Peter in Wigratzbad entitled “Aspects of Catholic ecclesiology in the reception [assimilation] of Vatican II”. In it he declared that “when the Holy Father speaks in his address to the Roman Curia on December 22, 2005] about two different interpretations or hermeneutics, one of discontinuity or rupture with Catholic Tradition, and the other of renewal in continuity, this means that the crucial question about the source, or the truly decisive point in the crisis of disorientation and confusion which has characterized our time even to this day, does not come from the Second Vatican Council per se, and the problem is not the objective teaching contained in its documents, but rather the interpretation of that teaching”
Msgr. Pozzo’s analysis of the influence of the para-council
Msgr. Pozzo intends to prove that, concerning two controversial points (the first being the unity and uniqueness of the Catholic Church, along with the question of the expression subsistit in from Lumen Gentium 8, and the other—the relations between the Catholic Church and other religions, including ecumenical and interreligious dialogue) “the authentic proclamation of the Church, with regard to its absolute claim, has not been modified substantially with the teaching of Vatican II.”
Hence one can only wonder why the conciliar documents, which in Msgr. Pozzo’s view are so clearly in conformity with Tradition, have given rise to a contrary interpretation on this point. The Roman prelate asks the question and answers: “What is the origin of the interpretation of discontinuity or of rupture with Tradition? It is what we may call the conciliar, or more precisely, para-conciliar ideology which took hold of the Council from the beginning and superimposed itself on the proceedings. By this expression we do not mean something concerning the documents of the Council, nor the intention of the participants, but rather the general framework of interpretation in which the Council was placed and which acts as a sort of internal treatment [conditionnement intérieur] affecting our subsequent reading of the facts and the texts. The Council is not the same thing as the para-conciliar ideology, but the story about that ecclesial event and about the mass media has served in large part to mystify the Council, and that is precisely the para-conciliar ideology. In order to show all the consequences of the para-conciliar ideology as an historical event, one would have to examine the Revolution of 1968, which was based on the principle of breaking with the past and radical change in history. In the para-conciliar ideology, the 1968 Movement meant a new paradigm for the Church in breaking with the past.”
Msgr. Pozzo concluded that we must use “the hermeneutic of reform in continuity” recommended by Benedict XVI “to address controverted questions, thus freeing, so to speak, the Council from the para-council that has become mixed up with it, while preserving the principle of the integrity of Catholic doctrine and of complete fidelity to the deposit of faith handed down by Tradition and interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church”.
At the end of this presentation, one question remains: can the para-council denounced by the Secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission be identified with the post-conciliar period? One is tempted to answer in the affirmative, considering that this para-council supposedly endeavored to conform the documents composed between 1962 and 1965 to the spirit of the May 1968 Revolution. But he says also that “the conciliar, or more precisely, para-conciliar ideology … took hold of the Council from the beginning and superimposed itself on the proceedings.” Didn’t this superimposition “from the beginning” have any influence on the composition of the conciliar documents? Msgr. Pozzo thinks that the para-conciliar ideology affected neither the documents of the Council, nor the intention of their authors, but merely supplied “the general framework of interpretation in which the Council was placed and which acts as a sort of internal treatment affecting our subsequent reading of the facts and the texts”. The para-conciliar ideology would then be an external framework conditioning from within our reading of the documents…
Msgr. Pozzo’s analysis of the influence of the para-council
Msgr. Pozzo intends to prove that, concerning two controversial points (the first being the unity and uniqueness of the Catholic Church, along with the question of the expression subsistit in from Lumen Gentium 8, and the other—the relations between the Catholic Church and other religions, including ecumenical and interreligious dialogue) “the authentic proclamation of the Church, with regard to its absolute claim, has not been modified substantially with the teaching of Vatican II.”
Hence one can only wonder why the conciliar documents, which in Msgr. Pozzo’s view are so clearly in conformity with Tradition, have given rise to a contrary interpretation on this point. The Roman prelate asks the question and answers: “What is the origin of the interpretation of discontinuity or of rupture with Tradition? It is what we may call the conciliar, or more precisely, para-conciliar ideology which took hold of the Council from the beginning and superimposed itself on the proceedings. By this expression we do not mean something concerning the documents of the Council, nor the intention of the participants, but rather the general framework of interpretation in which the Council was placed and which acts as a sort of internal treatment [conditionnement intérieur] affecting our subsequent reading of the facts and the texts. The Council is not the same thing as the para-conciliar ideology, but the story about that ecclesial event and about the mass media has served in large part to mystify the Council, and that is precisely the para-conciliar ideology. In order to show all the consequences of the para-conciliar ideology as an historical event, one would have to examine the Revolution of 1968, which was based on the principle of breaking with the past and radical change in history. In the para-conciliar ideology, the 1968 Movement meant a new paradigm for the Church in breaking with the past.”
Msgr. Pozzo concluded that we must use “the hermeneutic of reform in continuity” recommended by Benedict XVI “to address controverted questions, thus freeing, so to speak, the Council from the para-council that has become mixed up with it, while preserving the principle of the integrity of Catholic doctrine and of complete fidelity to the deposit of faith handed down by Tradition and interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church”.
At the end of this presentation, one question remains: can the para-council denounced by the Secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission be identified with the post-conciliar period? One is tempted to answer in the affirmative, considering that this para-council supposedly endeavored to conform the documents composed between 1962 and 1965 to the spirit of the May 1968 Revolution. But he says also that “the conciliar, or more precisely, para-conciliar ideology … took hold of the Council from the beginning and superimposed itself on the proceedings.” Didn’t this superimposition “from the beginning” have any influence on the composition of the conciliar documents? Msgr. Pozzo thinks that the para-conciliar ideology affected neither the documents of the Council, nor the intention of their authors, but merely supplied “the general framework of interpretation in which the Council was placed and which acts as a sort of internal treatment affecting our subsequent reading of the facts and the texts”. The para-conciliar ideology would then be an external framework conditioning from within our reading of the documents…