are able to post, courtesy of Professor de Mattei, the full text of his speech to Congress on the Second Vatican Council, organized by the Franciscans of the Immaculate , an event that provides material and ideas relevant to our thoughts and insights and will be fundamental to the further development of a serious talk, now unavoidable for the future of our Church. (The text that will be published in the Proceedings of the conference will be enriched notes)
De Mattei's intervention, the rich coinvoglimento spiritual pathos given by the author but also the rigor and the search for ancient history, outlines the common thread through which sense the location and purchase documents and images to a sudden change: facts, assemblages, causality, with a method and criteria for the first time, after years of unchallenged hegemony, they allow us to measure ourselves at a serious level with the powerful and influential historiographical work that was started by Joseph Alberigo and then by Alberto Melloni (the famous "School of Bologna"), had produced up to now the only organic reconstruction of the phenomenon reconcile that define Palmaro Gnocchi and effectively, "Reconstruction tendentious, ideological and even subversive, of course, but by people who made the job of town, undoubtedly, knows him well. "
And so we all respect the counterpoint offered by prof. de Mattei, preceded by his historical work: The Second Vatican II. A story ever written, Lindau, Torino 2010 , we can consider one of the structures - along with the work of Romano Amerio philosophical, theological than Brunero Gherardini and other authoritative and masterful work which will continue the ' examination - the rebuilding in the aftermath of the so-called "new Pentecost" reconcile.
It provides scholars and faithful to the Catholic vision non 'spuria' né ammaliata dai canti delle sirene delle avventurose arbitrarie innovazioni, foriere per molti di "magnifiche sorti e progressive". Esse stanno aprendo orizzonti nuovi e sconosciuti, avulsi dalla linfa vitale delle Radici della Tradizione perenne, che può essere oggetto di "trasformazione evolutiva", ma nella 'continuità' e non nella 'rottura', come ricordato da Benedetto XVI nel discorso alla curia del 2005. E' questo lo spartiacque che, evidenziando la contrapposizione tra due ermeneutiche del concilio, lungi dall'aver chiuso il discorso, ha di fatto aperto il confronto tra due visioni inconciliabili della chiesa.
Se nel convegno si è evidenziato come la lettura progressista enfatizzi il concilio come "evento" fondante della "nuova Pentecoste" e, dando priorità all'evento-impulso di novità che si voleva imprimere, ha fatto e fa sì che l'evento assorba il testo e lo sposti nella sua ricezione, si è tuttavia constatato proprio con De Mattei come le pericolose spinte eversive, dentro e fuori l'aula conciliare, non abbiano dato vita ad un soggetto in qualche modo nuovo; il che ha espulso dall'orizzonte storiografico il concetto mitico di "evento conciliare", eliminando automaticamente con esso quello di "nuova chiesa".
Inserisco quindi il testo della relazione. Offrirò in apertura della discussione alcune chiavi di lettura, tra le più significative.
Istituto Maria Santissima Bambina
Roma, 16 dicembre 2010
Concilio Vaticano II
1. L’immagine della Chiesa nel 1962
Eccellenze reverendissime, Monsignori, Reverendi Padri, Signore e Signori,
chi vi parla è uno storico ed è dalla storia che vorrei partire, tornando assieme a voi a quel giorno dell’11 ottobre 1962, in cui si aprì a Roma il Concilio Vaticano II, ventunesimo Concilio ecumenico della storia della Chiesa.
The long march of the Council Fathers, who that morning went out of the Bronze Door and walked slowly inside the packed Basilica of St. Peter, gave an extraordinary image of the Church militant on earth.
Leading the superiors of religious orders, the general abbots and prelates nullius , then the bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, cardinals, and finally, in gestation chair, escorted by the Noble Guard, among applause of the crowd, Pope John XXIII. The parade of fathers pace with solemnity, the singers sang the I and then Magnificat . The parade was a total of about 4 km long and will be attended almost three thousand dignitaries of the Church. Of these, 2,381 bishops, directly linked through the apostolic succession to the first Apostles. They were gathered around the supreme ruler, the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, with full and direct jurisdiction over all bishops and all the faithful of the world.
The presence of the Vicar of Christ and of the successors of the Apostles, in the context of the incomparable Basilica di San Pietro, they made the ceremony a unique spectacle. 
than ever at this time the Catholic Church showed his character, hierarchical and visible: visible so that the Church militant, in quanto fondata sull’Incarnazione del Verbo, deve rendere manifesto nella sua struttura il suo aspetto invisibile, come l’organismo umano rende tutto l’uomo visibile, benché la sua anima in sé resti invisibile. Per amare questa gerarchia era, ed è, necessaria una profonda umiltà. Bisogna ammettere che non esiste uguaglianza nel mondo creato, che tutto dipende da Dio, che partecipa l’essere a ogni creatura in maniera diversa: e con l’essere ogni creatura riceve qualità, doni, grazie in base alle quali occupa nella società terrena e in quella soprannaturale un posto diverso. Il primo peccato, quello degli angeli ribelli, fu il rifiuto di riconoscere la sapienza di Dio, nel calare la propria divinità in the womb of a humble creature, as was the Incarnate Word, and to raise this child, Mary, at the top of the created universe. The choirs of angels in the sky Faithful express this sublime hierarchical society and the Church and Christians are called to reflect on earth the hierarchy of the heavenly choirs.
than ever at this time the Catholic Church showed his character, hierarchical and visible: visible so that the Church militant, in quanto fondata sull’Incarnazione del Verbo, deve rendere manifesto nella sua struttura il suo aspetto invisibile, come l’organismo umano rende tutto l’uomo visibile, benché la sua anima in sé resti invisibile. Per amare questa gerarchia era, ed è, necessaria una profonda umiltà. Bisogna ammettere che non esiste uguaglianza nel mondo creato, che tutto dipende da Dio, che partecipa l’essere a ogni creatura in maniera diversa: e con l’essere ogni creatura riceve qualità, doni, grazie in base alle quali occupa nella società terrena e in quella soprannaturale un posto diverso. Il primo peccato, quello degli angeli ribelli, fu il rifiuto di riconoscere la sapienza di Dio, nel calare la propria divinità in the womb of a humble creature, as was the Incarnate Word, and to raise this child, Mary, at the top of the created universe. The choirs of angels in the sky Faithful express this sublime hierarchical society and the Church and Christians are called to reflect on earth the hierarchy of the heavenly choirs. Universality, sacredness, hierarchy: this was the image that the self-11 October 1962 gave the world the Church militant on earth, supernaturally united with the Church Suffering and Church Triumphant in the one communion of saints. The Church seemed to really set on a hill in the city mentioned in the Gospel (Mt 5:14).
2. The relationship between the Church and the world
But what was the picture of himself offered the world in the early sixties?
The world of those years he was immersed in a psychological climate of optimism, if not euphoria. Three icons were shining in the firmament of international embodying this optimism: Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, the Soviet Union's premier March 27, 1958, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, ascended to the papacy on October 28 of that same 1958 under the name John XXIII and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, January 21, 1961 he was appointed President of the United States.
On April 12, 1961 Soviet Major Yuri Gagarin had made the first flight of a man in space. The company seemed to seal his triumph in an age of science, a field in which the Soviet Union contended the United States first in the world. But on Aug. 13 of that 1961 had started the construction of the Berlin Wall Soviet imperialism extended its threatening shadow over much of the world.
The influence exerted on the communist world, rather than political and military, was the cultural and psychological. The Marx-Hegelian philosophy prevailed in academia and media and also ran in the common language terms borrowed from the immanent philosophy, as "Sense of history," "the course of time", "Opening and closing", "liberation and repression." It was a dialectical view that was expressed in the new slogans launched by the communist propaganda: the "dialogue", understood as the dissolution of all certainty and truth, the "peaceful coexistence" as a process to disarm the opponent psychologically; the "development" and the 'emancipation' of the people, understood as a rejection of all authority and tradition of the past. The underlying ideology of progress was seen as irreversible and upward march of humanity to achieve una “felicità” sociale presentata come la trasposizione sulla terra del Paradiso celeste.
Nel corso della sua storia, la Chiesa aveva parlato al mondo con il linguaggio dei confessori senza macchia e senza paura, dei dottori inflessibili nelle loro controversie, dei martiri intransigenti nella testimonianza della verità, delle vergini immacolate nella loro fedeltà sponsale. Questi uomini e queste donne avevano preferito essere esclusi, disprezzati, perseguitati, messi a morte dal mondo piuttosto che rinunciare a proclamare la verità e a lottare contro gli errori e le false dottrine. Era questa la strada indicata da confessori della fede come il cardinale Aloisio Stepinac, morto alla vigilia del Council, and Cardinal Josef Mindszenty, imprisoned since 1956 the American embassy in Budapest.
The progressive culture of the Sixties exercised its appeal even to some men of the Church, convinced that it was necessary to change the attitude towards the world: giving up the anathemas and condemnations of the errors to see what is positive the present world. This was the view taken by the Dominican Father Yves Congar, that is to be one of the first statements of the distinction between dogma and their formulation. In a successful operation, True and False Reform in the Church , Congar stated that there are no " assets in which germs are not well presenti dei microbi ”: ossia errori, in cui non esistono verità. Poiché uccidere i microbi significherebbe uccidere anche i germi vivi, occorreva, a suo avviso, lasciare prosperare gli uni e gli altri. La condanna degli errori da parte della Chiesa, dalle eresie medievali fino al modernismo, aveva spento secondo lui le istanze positive in essi presenti, qualcuno le chiama oggi le istanze “esigenziali”: meglio avrebbe fatto la Chiesa a lasciar vivere e diffondere questi errori. Con questo atteggiamento Congar proponeva di cambiare la Chiesa dall’interno, attraverso “ una riforma senza scisma”. “Non bisogna fare un’altra Chiesa – spiegava – bisogna to a different Church . To change the Church from within was the old dream unfulfilled, the modernists. "Until now - had explained the apostate priest Ernesto Buonaiuti - was not willing to reform Rome Rome, or even against Rome. Reformed, with Rome Rome, do the reform will pass through the hands of those who need to be reformed. This is the real and difficult method, but it is difficult. Hic opus, hic labor .
Among those who upheld the thesis Congar was a group of the Council Fathers of Central Europe, among which the newly elected primate of Belgium, Cardinal Leo Joseph Suenens. Suenens was not yet 60 years old. After being consecrated archbishop of Malines-Brussels in March 1962, had met in Rome with Pope John XXIII who was fascinated by him and asked him to prepare a note for the Council. In the month of June 1962 Suenens gathered a group of cardinals to the Belgian College in Rome, including the archbishops of Döpfner Monaco, Lille Liénart, Montini of Milan, to discuss a plan and a strategy for the next council.
In the document was drawn up, the Cardinal Primate of Belgium launched the slogan of "pastoral Council", calling it "an immense benefit ," a " grazia di Pentecoste per la Chiesa ”. Giovanni XXIII avrebbe seguito questa linea strategica.
3. Giovanni XXIII apre il Concilio
L’allocuzione inaugurale del Papa, Gaudet mater ecclesia dell’11 ottobre fu – come osserva il padre Wenger – la chiave per comprendere il Concilio. “ Più che un ordine del giorno, esso definiva uno spirito; più che un programma, dava un orientamento ”. La novità non era nella dottrina, ma nella nuova disposizione psicologica ottimistica con cui si impostavano i rapporti tra la Chiesa e il mondo: un rapporto dialogico friendliness and openness. Those who questioned this irenic spirit and optimism were defined by the Pope " prophets of doom".
For John XXIII, the Council's main task was to guard the Magisterium of the Church and teach "in a more effective . In his opening speech he stated: "Other is the deposit or the truths of faith, and the manner in which they are LAID DOWN, remaining always the same meaning and the deep sense . " Another is the substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith, and another one is the formulation of suo rivestimento: ed è di questo che si deve – con pazienza se occorre – tener gran conto ”.
Il Concilio era stato indetto, non per condannare errori o formulare nuovi dogmi, ma per proporre, con linguaggio adatto ai tempi nuovi, il perenne insegnamento della Chiesa. La forma pastorale, cioè il rinnovamento del linguaggio dei metodi di azioni e di apostolato, con Giovanni XXIII, diventava la forma del Magistero per eccellenza. Si tratta di un punto centrale. Giovanni XXIII non intendeva avviare una Rivoluzione all’interno della Chiesa. Il suo temperamento era inclinato a un ottimismo che aveva come conseguenza psicologica, più che ideologica, l’idea di “adattamento” or, as then they will say, "upgrade". He thought that the council could be held as soon as possible, leading to approve a few documents, maybe by acclamation. In July 1962, received in audience Mgr. Pericles Felici, who introduced him to the council reviewed and approved schemes. "The council is made - Pope John exclaimed with enthusiasm - we can conclude at Christmas."
4. The two minority
The Council did not last three months, as he had imagined John XXIII. And Pope John XXIII, who died June 3, 1963, could only follow the first session. Paul VI was elected on June 21 led the next three sessions and was the protagonist. The Council did not take place even in the atmosphere of joyful consent envisioned by John XXIII, but it was the place of dramatic contrasts.
If we confined ourselves to an "official", based on results from the votes, you should deny the existence of an internal struggle between opposing factions in the Council, as the conciliar documents were all approved by an overwhelming majority . In fact, no council met, most of Vatican II, tensions and conflicts between opposing groups.
Historians while not denying This evidence, la riconducono al contrasto tra una “maggioranza” progressista e una “minoranza” conservatrice, destinata ad essere sconfitta. In realtà lo scontro avvenne tra due minoranze che, nel 1963, il teologo di Lovanio Gerard Philips descriveva come due “tendenze” contrapposte della filosofia e della teologia del ventesimo secolo: l’una nelle parole di Philips più preoccupata di essere fedele agli enunciati tradizionali, l’altra più attenta alla diffusione del messaggio presso l’uomo contemporaneo. Nell’articolo del teologo belga le due posizioni venivano poste sullo stesso piano con una netta preferenza dell’autore verso la seconda. La prima “tendenza” era però la official position of the Magisterium of the Church, always repeated until the pontificate of Pius XII, the second "trend" that was unorthodox, repeatedly criticized and condemned by the Magisterium of the Church itself.
For this second trend, the Council represented a tremendous opportunity. The nature of the event would allow the different positions, the conservative and progressive, to compete on an equal footing ideological and entrust the parliamentary rules of the game prevail in the debates. Groups were created in the Council and current defined by the mass media as a right, a left, center. The use of these terms, as intended, should not surprising and can be, for convenience, accepted. The historian of the Councils Hefele writes that in 325 at Nicaea, the bishops with orthodox Athanasius and his followers formed the right, Arius and his supporters represented the left and the center-left was occupied by Eusebius of Nicomedia and the center right-of Eusebius of Caesarea. The correct position, the authentically Catholic, was not the center of the two Eusebi, which formed a "third party" between orthodoxy heresy, but that was embodied by the right hand of Saint Athanasius, accused by his opponents of extremism and fanaticism. St. Athanasius was, however, the author of the creed that still profess to draw Church history in future centuries.
Within the council halls, among the two minority conservative and progressive waves, as always, the mass of those who were reluctant to take sides.
What was the thinking and the majority position of this center? We have a tool to know your thoughts. In the classroom, and only a minority in the committees of the Council Fathers spoke, but almost all said that in 1959 the request was made to them by the Secretary of State Cardinal Domenico Tardini to bring issues and suggestions for the forthcoming Council.
responses of the bishops, superiors of religious orders and universities cattoliche alla richiesta di pareri del card. Tardini giunsero, in forma di “ vota ” nell’estate del 1959. Lo spoglio dell’enorme materiale, iniziò nel mese di settembre e si concluse alla fine del gennaio 1960. Un attento esame dei vota permette oggi allo storico, come permetteva allora al Papa, alla Curia e alla Commissione preparatoria, di avere un quadro dei “desiderata” dell’episcopato mondiale alla vigilia del Concilio.
Le richieste dei futuri Padri conciliari, considerate nel loro insieme, non esprimevano il desiderio di una svolta radicale, e tantomeno di una “Rivoluzione” all’interno della Chiesa. Se le anti-Roman tendencies of some Bishops clearly surfaced in some responses as those of the card. Alfrink, Archbishop of Utrecht, in general the auspices of the fathers were to a moderate "reform" on the line of tradition. The majority of the votes called for a condemnation of modern evils, inside and outside the Church, especially of communism, and new doctrinal definitions, particularly concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary. Among them the French bishops, considered among the most progressive, most asked the condemnation of Marxism and communism and a substantial minority asked the definition of the dogma of Mary's mediation.
The Italian bishops, the most numerous, avrebbero voluto che il Concilio proclamasse il dogma della “ mediazione universale della Beata Vergine Maria ”. Il secondo dogma di cui essi richiedevano la definizione era quello della Regalità di Cristo, da opporre al laicismo imperante. Molti inoltre chiedevano al Concilio la condanna degli errori dottrinali: il comunismo, l’esistenzialismo ateo, il relativismo morale, il materialismo, il modernismo.
È interessante l’analogia tra i “ vota ” dei Padri conciliari e i Cahiers de doléance redatti in Francia, in vista degli Stati Generali del 1789. Prima della Rivoluzione francese, nessun “ cahier de doléance "set out to subvert the foundations of the 'Ancien Régime , and particularly the monarchy and the Church. What was required was a moderate reform of the institutions, not its subversion, as it happened unexpectedly, when the States-General met.
Something similar happened to the French Revolution between 1962 and 1965. The Council does not meet the demands that emerged from the " vote" of the Council Fathers, but seconded the demands of the progressive minority from the outset, managed to take the lead and to guide the decisions of the Assembly. This is shown conclusively by the data historians. And as happened in the French Revolution, were the first crucial days, those in which there was the breaking of the law. At Versailles happened June 17, 1789, when the General Assembly turned into a constituent assembly, in Rome October 13, 1962, when, at the request of the card. Liénart, but the move had been carefully prepared, as they entered the Episcopal Conferences organized groups in the dynamic balance.
Behind these organized groups moved other organized groups, bishops and theologians who formed a party which is openly anti-Roman, because he saw in the Roman Curia the enemy to beat. The network of relationships that existed before the council, was strong and branched and included in addition to national conferences, families, religious, linguistic groups, but mainly ideological laboratories, such as Cuernavaca, Mexico, from Bologna in Italy, University of Leuven in Belgium. Congar's father, the champion of true Reform Church, in his diary the Council has clarified how the enemy to be killed was the Roman theology, especially in the form that was then taught at the Lateran.
face of this organized minority, bishops, theologians and the faithful in Rome reacted only belatedly and without the strategic intelligence of their opponents. According to one scholar, Melissa Wilde, the success of progressives can be explained minoranza progressista prevalse anche grazie alla migliore strategia e organizzazione, occorre dire che la storia è sempre fatta da minoranze e ciò che prevale, nello scontro, non è il numero e neanche l’organizzazione, ma la determinazione e l’intensità con cui queste minoranze combattono le loro battaglie. Fu questa una delle cause del successo dell’ala progressista. Successo o sconfitta? Le rivendicazioni dell’ala giacobina furono certo respinte. I documenti non corrisposero alle attese dei progressisti più audaci ed è grazie ai compromessi raggiunti in extremis che oggi quei documenti possono essere letti anche alla luce della Tradizione. Ma l’immagine che il mondo aveva della Chiesa cambiò. Quando il 12 ottobre 1963 mons. Franić, vescovo di Spalato, propose che nello schema De Ecclesia al nuovo titolo di Chiesa “pellegrinante” fosse aggiunto quello, tradizionale, di “militante”, la sua proposta fu respinta. L’immagine che la Chiesa doveva offrire di sé al mondo non era quella della lotta, della condanna, della controversia, ma del dialogo, della pace, della collaborazione ecumenica e fraterna.
La minoranza progressista si propose non tanto di mutare la dottrina della Chiesa, ma di sostituire all’immagine sacrale e gerarchica della Chiesa quella di un’assemblea democratica, aperta alle novità, immersa nella storia. Ciò occurred mainly through the Revolution of language, the pastoral par excellence. Professions of faith and of the fees is replaced by a "literary genre" a scholar of the Council, the O'Malley's father calls "epideictic . This mode of expression, according to the Jesuit historian, " marked a final break with the previous Councils . Express themselves in different terms from the past, it means accepting a cultural transformation more profound than it seems. The style of the speech shows that, even before the ideas, trends deep soul of those who express themselves. "The style - O'Malley stressed – è l’espressione ultima del significato, è significato e non ornamento, ed è anche lo strumento ermeneutico per eccellenza ”. L’aspetto pastorale è, di norma, accidentale e secondario rispetto a quello dottrinale, ma nel momento in cui diviene una dimensione sostanziale e prioritaria, il modo in cui la dottrina viene formulata si trasforma esso stesso in dottrina, più importante di quella che, oggettivamente, viene veicolata.
I leader del Concilio, continua O’Malley, “ capivano benissimo che il Vaticano II, essendosi autoproclamato concilio pastorale, era proprio per questo anche un Concilio docente (…). Lo stile discourse of the council was the means, but the means to communicate the message . " This means that the Vatican, the 'Pastoral Council', has a teaching, a 'doctrine', which largely has been difficult for us to make, since in that case doctrine and spirit are two sides of same coin " . The choice of a "style" of language to talk to his own time reveals a way of being and thinking and in this sense we must admit that the literary and the pastoral style of Vatican II not only express the organic unity of ' event, but implicitly convey a coherent doctrine.
In this respect, the Council undoubtedly marked a profound change in the life of the Church. The contemporary epoch, it informs the character. "They talked - reminds the American historian Josef Komonchak - a historic turning point: the end of the counter or Tridentine era, the late Middle Ages, the end of the Constantinian . "Simply - notes Melissa Wilde - Vatican II represents the most significant example of institutionalized religious change since the Reformation .
In this respect, one can not deny it, the Council formed a Revolution. At this point I might be accused, as has been done, to be a supporter of the hermeneutic of discontinuity, in contrast to the hermeneutic of continuity of Benedict XVI. The accusations that have accompanied the publication of my recent book came to the point of trying to put me against Benedict XVI (Introvigne so on "Future") and even against Pius XII (as the historian Alberto Melloni, "Corriere della Sera"). This is blatant distortion of my thought, which necessitates a correction for the deep love and respect that I feel towards the reigning Pope Pius XII and Pope Benedict XVI.
Regarding Pius XII speech is very simple: I have a reverence for the sum of her teaching is that, as I wrote in my book, a real summa doctrine, a valuable mine which is still very useful to draw. But Pius XII, who was an outstanding diplomat, had no experience as a Pastor who had loved so much that even the Pope, Pius X. And in the repression of evil that wound in the Church - use of the term serpentine Melloni not like that, because it shows well the attitude of the treacherous snake crawling in the shadows to strike suddenly with his poison - the venerable Pius XII was not, In my opinion, equally ready and vigorous of Saint Pius X.
should be noted that the historian differs dall'agiografo. Who reads the timeless history of the Popes of Ludwig von Pastor knows that the German historian is not short of respectful criticism of several popes, which he considered. It is a historical that I express opinions against Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, that this does not offend anyone. Among these is just to Pius XII, who express the greatest admiration. Critics of Pius XII is not me, but the historian Alberto Melloni, "Corriere della Sera on January 9, 2005 was against his beatification calling him" Papa a solitary computer, in which figure elements to dominate the political logic internal ".
But the charge of the fund that has been given to my book is different: in my book does not distinguish the texts of the Council from its historical context, blending and merging text and context in a single event. With that engulf and absorb the text in the context of falling into a sort of structuralism as, ultimately, is the school of Bologna.
Who throws this accusation is, however, a hasty reader or tendentious. In fact I said exactly the opposite of what I attached to it. I have never denied the logical distinction between text and context. The inability to separate does not mean impossible to distinguish them. I deny the claim the school of Bologna, according to which texts should be absorbed into context, that in the event and spirit of the Council. Argue that the doctrinal texts are quite distinct from the historical context of the Council. The texts have their own autonomy, their importance, their dignity, but as texts to be examined on a theological level. I do not have the authority nor the expertise to make this theological theological evaluation and I would refer to the opinion of an eminent ecclesiology as Msgr. Brunero Gherardini, who since the Seventies, my university teacher Augusto Del Noce memory called the best theologian in Rome.
Where I claim is the historical responsibility and in this respect a comprehensive study that context also, necessarily, the drafting of legislation. It is a historical, not on a theological level, which I consider the council a Revolution in the Church and, in many ways a disaster. And it is rather on a theological level, and not on the town, which Benedict XVI invites us to follow, yet so inconclusive, or defining, the hermeneutic of continuity.
Hermeneutics of continuity, on the other hand, can be understood in one way: to read the documents of the Council in the light of the previous Magisterium of the Church, through a precise method: where can be recognized ambiguity, uncertainty, contradiction notes , take Tradition as a reference point.
documents promulgated by the supreme ecclesiastical authorities did not in fact, from the theological point of view, the same value. If Benedict XVI expresses some views in an interview, as was the case in his latest book Light of the world, it is clear that they should be greeted with the utmost respect, because the speaker is, however, the Vicar of Christ. But it is also evident that between an interview and the definition of a dogma, there is a gradation of authority, not binding, the same level, the allegiance of the faithful. The same is true of a Council as the Vatican, which as meeting gathering of all bishops united with the Pope, brought authentic teachings certainly not devoid of authority. His teaching - well explained Msgr. Gherardini - is certainly a solemn and supreme. But only those who are ignorant of theology could be given a grade of "infallibility" to all his teachings.
Why, if he meant to say that reverse the method and assuming the continuity should be read as a reference point not tradition, but the Council: that is, if you wanted to read the tradition in the light of the Council and not vice versa, should assign that value to the Council of infallibility, which the council has ever no text in itself, and then you should search the infallibility of the council in the event itself, in its spirit, in the impalpable charisma that animates the text without leading to the defining formulas. But this is exactly the position of the school of Bologna, is not that of Benedict XVI.
The claim that the Council II should be read in continuity with the Magisterium of the Church presupposes the existence in the council documents of doubtful passages or ambiguous, requiring interpretation. For Benedict XVI the criterion of interpretation of the passage can not doubt that being the Tradition of the Church, as he has repeatedly said. If it were accepted instead of the Vatican was the hermeneutical principle to re-read the Customs, should be given to, paradoxically, a force of interpretation of what needs to be interpreted. Interprets the tradition in the light of Vatican II, not the other way, it would be possible only if one accepts the position of Alberigo, which gives no value to the interpretative texts, but the "spirit" of the Council. This is not the position of Pope Benedict XVI, who criticizes the hermeneutic of discontinuity, just for the record that it attaches to the spirit of the texts. Either you believe, as Msgr. Gherardini, the doctrines of the Council is not attributable to the above definitions, are neither infallible nor irreformable and therefore not binding or authority is given to the Council as to obscure the other twenty previous session of the Church, repeal or replace it all. On this last point seems to be no difference between the historians and sociologists of the school of Bologna as Introvigne that appear to give value to the infallibility of Vatican II.
On the other hand, the historical work is complementary to the theological and should not worry anyone. We should give up writing the history of the Second Vatican Council in the name of the "hermeneutics of continuity"? Or let alone writing it is the school of Bologna, who offered valuable scientific contributions, but ideologically biased? And if the elements of discontinuity might emerge from an historical perspective, why be afraid to bring them to light? How can we deny a break, if not in content, the new language of Vatican II? A language not just words, but also silences, gestures and omissions, which may reveal the deep trends of an event even more of the content of speech. The story of the unexplained silence of Communism by a Council that would address the major issues the world has made such a dramatic and catastrophic that the historian is not permissible to ignore.
have also been criticized for establishing a continuity between the Council and after the Council. But the Second Vatican Council can not be presented as an event that is born and dies in the space of three years without considering its deep roots and the equally profound consequences it had in the Church and society.
Soon after the Council of the horizon of the Church saw the collapse of dogmatic certainty, and the moral relativism of the new permissive anarchy in the subject area, the defections from the priesthood and the removal of millions of religious practice faithful of the expulsion from the churches altars, banisters, crucifixes, statues of saints, vestments, especially the drop in vocations and the abandonment of religious life. You the Jesuit historian Giacomo Martina writing it in 1977. " For the first time in history - he wrote - there was the abandonment of the priesthood, even with all the necessary dispensations, by thousands of priests, in a few ann i".
The total budget of post-Vatican II forty years 1965-2005, regarding the percentage of total losses and major religious institutions, will be even more dramatic. If the religious institutions of the top men in 1965 were 329,799, in 2005 there were still 214,913, about one third had failed in the 40 years of post-council.
How can we deny the existence of a deep crisis of the post-conciliar Church admitted several times by the same Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI? Each event has a cause but proportionate. Possible that the Second Vatican Council was unrelated to the post-crisis council, and that the misinterpretation of the texts can be considered a cause proportionate to explain what followed? Can you really separate the Revolution from the post-Vatican II council?
I remember only one episode, when Paul VI in 1968 was openly challenged by Cardinal Suenens for the promulgation of the encyclical Humanae Vitae . But who was the Cardinal Suenens?
It was the prelate to whom Paul VI had a privilege granted unprecedented, when June 23, 1963, just days after his election, he had wanted at his side, the window of the Apostolic Palace, before the crowd gathered in St. Peter 's Angelus. It was the young cardinal in Brussels that the day after his elevation to the purple was rushed to Rome to suggest to John XXIII to give a pastoral council. He was the man who initially had made a pact with iron Mgr. Helder Câmara, auxiliary bishop of Rio, then red bishop of Recife, who addressed him with an encrypted code, calling him "father Miguel." He was the man chosen to lead the four "moderators" of the Council: that would assume a key position for three years. He was the man who in the Council, October 19, 1964, had raised the issue of birth control, saying in the middle of St. Peter's Basilica, with vehement tone, the words " not repeat the process of Galileo! . No one more than he had lived through the Second protagonist. Cardinal Suenens, refractory to Paul VI and the Church in 1968, was a man other than that three years earlier, had sung the song of victory at the close of the Council? He had changed his mind, had distorted the documents of the Council, he had misunderstood the spirit? Suenens did not need to force or distorted documents Suenens the council because, as Frings, Alfrink, BEA and many others, was the council.
The link between the Council and after the Council is not the link between the doctrinal documents of the Council and other documents in the post-Vatican II. It is the historical relationship, close and inseparable from the Council, as an event that takes place between 1962 and 1965 and the post-Second, as an event that takes place between 1965 and 1978, and continues to the present days. This term, taken as a whole, from 1962 to 1978, the year of death of Paul VI, a unique form, a time which can be defined as the time of the Revolution reconcile, as the years between 1789 and 1796, and perhaps up 1815, constituted the era of the French Revolution.
The demand to separate from the Council after the Council is equally unsustainable to separate the conciliar texts from pastoral context in which they were produced. No serious historian, but also no sensible person could accept this artificial separation, which arises from bias, more than a calm and objective assessment of the facts. Even today we are living the consequences of the Revolution Council "that anticipates and accompanies that of the late 'Sixties. Why hide it? The Church, as Leo XIII said, opening up to scholars the Vatican Secret Archives, "should not fear la verità ”.
La sua missione, come affermava Pio XII, non può svolgersi ed adempiersi con la benedizione del cielo se non sotto la divisa terrena non metuit! È sotto questa divisa che, seguendo le indicazioni del Santo Padre Benedetto XVI, tutti noi, sacerdoti e laici, dobbiamo assumerci l’impegno, di aprire coraggiosamente nuove strade, di tornare ad essere il sale del mondo.
Io credo che uno dei primi nostri compiti sia oggi quello di rinnovare l’immagine della Chiesa, abbandonando ogni forma di cattiva pastorale. Se infatti una dottrina ha il suo criterio di giudizio ultimo nella verità che essa esprime – a doctrine is well and good if it's true - the pastoral finds its verification in the results reaching: a pastoral approach is right and good if it works, if it gets the expected results. This was not the case with the Second Vatican Council, which qualified pastoral car, but right on the pastoral plan was contradicted by the facts. Many theologians wanted to transpose the primacy of Marxist practice in the pastoral leadership of religious doctrine, but both methods were sentenced by the court to which they appealed immanence: the history.
renewed pastoral means abandoning the language of sociology, bent to the needs of the world and find the language and perennial universal Church, that speaks to the minds and hearts of people through the clarity of the doctrine of truth and beauty, it means finding the meaning of a militant Church, a Church that fights because he lives in history, lives in history because it is a hierarchical body and visible, but in the history of fighting for a purpose that is supernatural and not land, because his body is Monk, and in Jesus Christ, the only way, truth and life, his chef and founder.
In 1953 Pope Pacelli called on the youth of Catholic Action to fight against the enemies of the Church, which move with it " a terrible war, with vicious and devious tactics strategy ”. “ Muoiono gli uomini, anche quelli che sembrano immortali; crollano le umane istituzioni; si succedono gli uni agli altri, i più impensati tramonti. E a ogni alba nuova la Chiesa assiste serena ed è baciata dal sorgere di ogni nuovo sole ”.
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Dove va la Chiesa?
In queste ore drammatiche ci chiediamo: dove va la Chiesa e, ancora più profondamente, dove è la Chiesa? Non la Chiesa invisibile dei docetisti, degli hussiti, o dei modernisti, ma il Corpo Mistico di Cristo, la Chiesa cattolica, apostolica, Roman, recognizable from his notes visible.
Well today is ever present as the timeless definition of St. Robert Bellarmine, who says the church is the community of believers united by the same sacraments and the same faith, under the guidance of the pastors themselves.
This and nothing else is the Church and the same definition we find in the words of the Divine Founder of the Church, Our Lord Jesus Christ, addresses our hearts, inviting us to follow him.
"I - the Lord tells us with strong words, sweet, unique - am the way, the truth, the life . May appear that the most important of these attributes is the truth: Ego sum veritas. The Church of course is where is the truth, according to the formula of St. Vincent of Lerins, to which we can not give even one iota, one that is contained in the Tradition of Christ is truth. But this truth is not abstract like the greek logos, is enlivened by Grace, and the source of all grace flowing through the sacraments is Christ himself. The Church is where its sacraments.
The sacraments of the Church are the source of our spiritual life and spiritual life that has its source in Christ himself. But the doctrine and life, faith and the sacraments are not enough, se non c’è una via da seguire. E nella Chiesa questa via la tracciano i legittimi pastori, che seguono a loro volta il Papa, successore di Pietro, Vicario di Cristo in terra.
La nota della apostolicità ci garantisce questa legittimità dei pastori, che ha la sua fonte ultima nel Buon Pastore per eccellenza, unica via.
Dove è la legittima gerarchia, dove è la vera fede, dove è la santità dei sacramenti, lì è la Chiesa. Cercando questi punti di riferimento, nulla abbiamo da temere perché dove troviamo la Chiesa una nella fede, santa nelle sue opere, e apostolica nella sua gerarchia lì troviamo Gesù stesso, via, verità e vita.
