R_C #15
And since several mighty figures of the Church (including the Pope that closed the Council) have stated the Council did not deal with infallible dogmas, but was merely pastoral, then these people claim that a handful of these fallible pastoral statements are in reality modernist or protestant errors in disguise, injected there by the enemies from within.
“Merely pastoral” is the petard on which dissenters are hoist.
In his book, *Sources of Renewal *Karol Cardinal Wojtyla (Bl Pope John Paul II) wrote: “It may be said that every Council in the Church’s history has been a pastoral one, if only because the assembled bishops, under the Pope’s guidance, are pastors of the Church. At the same time every Council is an act of the supreme Magisterium of the Church. Magisterium signifies teaching based on authority, a teaching which is the mission of the Apostles and their successors, it is part of their function and an essential task.” The Cardinal goes on: “All this has been signally confirmed by Vatican II, which, while preserving its pastoral character and mindful of the purpose for which it was called, profoundly developed the doctrine of faith and thus provided a basis for its enrichment.” (Ibid, p 38-39).
In
The Pope, the Council, and the Mass, by James Likoudis and Kenneth D. Whitehead:
**"The term ‘pastoral council’ as applied to Vatican II is merely a popular description and does not refer to any specific type of council recognized by the authority of the Catholic Church (the teachings and decisions of which would presumably somehow not be as binding upon members of the Church as those of a ‘dogmatic’ council). In the Church there are traditionally councils, or synods, which are styled ‘national councils,’ ‘provincial councils,’ or ‘general (ecumenical) councils,’ but none styled specifically a ‘pastoral council.’ ” **(p 33).
“Pope John XXIII, in calling the Council, stated that the reasons he was doing so were of a character that could be broadly termed ‘pastoral,’ although Pope John himself, in using the word, merely spoke of the need today of a Church Magisterium ‘which is predominantly pastoral in character.’ Pope Paul VI similarly spoke of the ‘pastoral nature of the Council’ in his Weekly General Audience of January 12, 1966, but he didn’t call it a ‘pastoral council’ as if this were some new species of Church gathering which the faithful might go along with or not, as they chose” (p. 33).
“Pope Pius IX taught on this subject in a letter to the Abbot of Solesmes: " '…the Ecumenical Council is governed by the Holy Spirit…it is solely by the impulse of this Divine Spirit that the Council defines and proposes what must be believed…’ Not only what the Council ‘defines’ – it should be noted – but what it ‘proposes.’ " (Op cit. P 38-39).
So pastorally inclined like all Councils, Vatican II also developed doctrine profoundly, as Fr John a Hardon, S.J., affirms. Vatican II confirmed that even non infallible doctrine must be received with assent: “This loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given, in a special way, to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra”…when doctrine is proposed or formulated. *Lumen Gentium *(Dogmatic Constitution on the Church), 25].
Facing Reality
As Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI placed Vatican II in its rightful place:
"I am convinced that the damage that we have incurred in these twenty years is due, not to the ‘true’ Council, but to the unleashing within the Church of latent polemical and centrifugal forces; and outside the Church it is due to the confrontation with a cultural revolution in the West: the success of the upper middle class, the new ‘tertiary bourgeoisie’, with its liberal-radical ideology of individualistic, rationalistic and hedonistic stamp. The cardinal exhorts all Catholics who wish to remain such “to return to the authentic texts of the original Vatican II.”
The Ratzinger Report, Vittorio Messori, Ignatius, 1985, p 28-31].
Cardinal Ratzinger expressed the required fidelity to Vatican II as: “to defend the true tradition of the Church today is to defend the Council…And this today of the Church is the documents of Vatican II, without reservations that amputate them and without arbitrariness that distorts them.” (
The Ratzinger Report, Ignatius Press, 1985, p 31).
Fr William Most examined ten legitimate changes at Vatican II and found not one was a reverse of doctrine. All gave answers to previously debated points. Fr Most concludes: “It is obvious then that Vatican II did not create a revolution in theology. There are no reversals of teaching at all, and some…are only a little different or stronger than previous teachings, but all are in the same direction.”
Catholic Apologetics Today: Answers To Modern Critics, Fr William G Most, TAN, 1986, p 200].
The *Dogmatic Constitution On The Church *#8 (Vatican II) teaches that “The one mediator, Christ, established and ever sustains here on earth His holy Church…(T)his is the sole Church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” Fr John Hardon, S.J., describes as “unequivocal” (= clearly defined), “for the first time in conciliar history — the Church is not one of many branches.” [See *The Catholic Catechism, 1975, Doubleday, p 213].
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