Some reflections on the Second Vatican Council and the current crisis in the Church. By Bishop Athanasius …
The article appeared on Remnant Newspaper. Reprinted with permission of Bishop Schneider.
In recent decades, not only declared modernists, but also theologians and faithful who love the Church, have displayed an attitude that resembles a kind of blind defense of everything said by the Second Vatican Council. Such an attitude seemed sometimes to require real mental acrobatics and a “squaring of the circle.” Even now, the general mentality of good Catholics corresponds with a de facto total infallibilization of everything that the Second Vatican Council said, or that the current Pontiff says or does. This kind of unhealthy papal-centralism had already been present for several generations in Catholics over the last two centuries. And yet respectful criticism and serene theological debate have always been present and allowed within the Church’s great tradition, since it is truth and faithfulness to divine revelation and to the constant tradition of the Church that we should seek, which in …More
@F M Shyanguya V2 created no new doctrines. All doctrines that it does state are only re-statements or reaffirmation of the Apostolic deposit of Faith that was handed on from previous doctrinal councils. V2, however, was sui generis due to its pastoral nature. Catholic doctrine and dogma cannot change, as you rightly pointed out but the praxis (pastoral directives) such as in the documents on collegiality, ecumenism, and religious liberty, which are not new dogmas but approaches toward the modern world, can be re-written or scrapped if it's deemed by the bishops to have been ineffective for the salvation of souls. Since its not dogma but praxis its change does not undermine the indefectibility of the Magisterium.
@F M Shyanguya That's my point, Church councils do not create new doctrines. Prior to V2 the councils only clarified the Deposit of Faith or settled doctrinal disputes but V2 doesn't do either of that b/c as Pope John XXIII declared, it was merely "pastoral". V2 documents lay out the pastoral responses or approaches to the modern world in the many areas of Church's operational practices, and there is no area of Church life that has not been affected or untouched by it.
However, current praxis (pastoral practices and approaches) are not anchored in Catholic orthodoxy or in harmony with it. Current praxis and the New- theology has been derived from modern forms of philosophy that is subjective, existentialist, and Hegelian.
This current praxis derived from V2 is what bishop Schneider is asking his brother bishops to correct and set a right.
The problem arises when the defenders of V2 (liberals and conservatives) want to assert or impose praxis as doctrine or dogma. The traditional minded Catholics such as bishop Schneider are quite correct on what needs to be done.
" the self-styled Trads, who are just the other side of the coin of crisis..." I wonder if there's any group of people Shanky-Wanky doesn't hate. :P
[Ed. Sa 6/27] Bp Schneider, who has defended the Church and her Teaching bravely during this pontificate of Pope Francis is losing his way by having his ego massaged by the so-called Traditionalists - they label themselves as such - [who, as with the SSPX, have no canonical status in the Church], who are just the other side of the coin of crisis the enemy whipped up in the Church, the other side being the Modernists. Don’t temptations come in pairs or is not an opponent in battle flanked?
They have fallen via the “Temptation of the Good.”
What I commented here Answer to Viganò? Bishop Schneider Presents His Theses on Vatican II:
Contra Bp Schneider
If councils teaching in faith & morals can be corrected - they can’t, the Church is infallible in what she teaches in faith & morals, and in councils it is her in her supreme teaching - then The Second Vatican Council, the Church’s 21st Ecumenical Council, is still uncorrected and therefore is in better standing than the councils “already corrected”.