Letters

Vatican II

Peter Howard

Contents - Dec 2011 - Buy a copy now Homily: Benedict XVI: From his Christmas homily - Pope Benedict XVI Ad Limina Visit: Australia's Bishops reaffirm their unity with Benedict XVI - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World Vocations: Do not be afraid: successful Young Men of God retreat - Dr Barry Coldrey Youth Events: iWitness Retreat and Campion Summer Program Religious freedom: The plight of Christians in Islamic countries - Babette Francis Schools: St Philomena's school: a beacon of excellence - Alistair Barros Religious education: Different worlds: being Catholic in Indonesia and Australia - Phillip Turnbull Tyburn world tour: A visually compelling new documentary on the monastic life - AD2000 Report Pilgrimage: Young disabled Catholics: new ministry initiative - Fr James McCarthy Catholic Literature: Robert Hugh Benson and Christ's Second Coming - Br Christian Moe FSC Summorum Pontificum: Latin Mass in Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral - Michael Daniel Letters: Homeschooling - Matthew Buckley Letters: Eucharistic confusion - John Royal Letters: Atheism - Paul Fitzgerald Letters: Vatican II - Peter Howard Letters: Natural law - Thomas A. Watkin Letters: Devotion to Mary - Cedric Wright Letters: Action needed - Dick Nolan Events: Advent and Christmas Liturgies - Extraordinary Form Books: WHY WE SHOULD CALL OURSELVES CHRISTIANS, by Marcello Pera - Elizabeth Lev (reviewer) Books: RONALD KNOX AND ENGLISH CATHOLICISM, by Terry Tastard - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Donations: Fighting Fund concludes Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: Advent faith, Christmas and the Pope's call to evangelise - Fr Dennis Byrnes

Regarding what Kathleen Donelly finds incomprehensible about Vatican II (November AD2000), knowing what the Council taught would help as Fr William Most, after careful examination, pointed out:

"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, 1986, page 200).

The present Pope (then as Cardinal Ratzinger in 1985) clarified the status of Vatican II: "It must be stated that Vatican II is upheld by the same authority as Vatican I and the Council of Trent, namely, the Pope and the College of Bishops in communion with him, and that also with regard to its contents, Vatican II is in strictest continuity with both previous councils and incorporates their texts word for word in decisive points ...

"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 an individualistic, rationalistic and hedonistic stamp."

The cardinal exhorted all Catholics who wished to remain such "to return to the authentic texts of the original Vatican II."

He added: "Whoever denies Vatican II denies the authority that upholds the other two Councils [Trent and Vatican I] and thereby detaches them from their foundation. To defend the true tradition of the Church today means 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, 1985, pages 28-31).

The crisis in Christ's Church is due to the modernist errors abroad before Vatican II, whose promoters tried to take over the Council, and are referred to in Christ Denied, 1982, by Fr Paul Wickens.

So the idea that Vatican II was harmful or destructive comes from disinformation as to what the Council taught and the harm done by those who subsequently constructed the false "spirit of Vatican II."

PETER HOWARD
Springwood, Qld

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 24 No 11 (December 2011 - January 2012), p. 14