Vatican II vs. the Church of the Past.

Courtesy of Pope Francis, we have a new term to describe the movement to protect the Tridentine Mass and the traditional teachings of the Church: “restorationism.” To quote from a June 14, 2022, article from the Catholic News Agency, written by Hannah Brockhaus: “There are many “restorers” in the United States who do not accept the Second Vatican Council, Pope Francis said in an interview published on Tuesday. Speaking to the editors of Jesuit journals, he criticized what he called “restorationism” in the Church, which he defined as the failure to accept Vatican II, the ecumenical council held from 1962 to 1965.” Link Here.

 

Quite providentially, I recently came across a web page which purports show the differences between the "old" Church and that of the Vatican II Church. Based on a book written in 1966, shortly after the close of the Council, the sixteen documents it issued are summarized according to their consequences, in terms of the Church of the future vs. the Church of the past. 

 

Of course the True Church can never be a Church of the past, since it endures until the end of the ages, even if at times only in the hearts of the faithful – surviving through good popes and enigmatic popes, true councils and false councils. Always in its essence One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.

 

At any rate the web site I came across is an apologia for the council, as evidenced by a statement on its home page: “Those participating in or who lived through the time of the Council felt a profound, exhilarating sense of renewal and virtually experienced a new Pentecost.” The particular part of the site of interest in this post is their page entitled “The Sixteen Documents and their Consequences.” Link Here. 

 

Some of their accusations against the Church of the “past” border on the sensational. For the Vatican II document entitled Declaration on Non-Christian Religions, they assert this of the Church of the past: “Past : Catholic missions formerly took an almost purely negative stand against the world religions. They were seen only from the viewpoint of conversion. The stand was even stronger in the case of the Moslems, who were considered militant enemies of the Church, and the Jews, who were considered an obdurate people. The Catholic attitude was permeated by an anti-Semitic strain without which there might have been no persecution of the Jews by the Nazis.”

 

So it was the fault of the pre-Vatican II Church that caused Hitler to invoke the holocaust! Regarding the negative stand regarding Muslims, explain why they are not militants to the families of these newest martyrs: “Nigeria Suspects Islamic State of Killing 40 in Catholic Church.” Link Here. 

 

Most of their arguments favoring the great new Church of the future, were rebutted thoroughly in the classic: In the Murky Waters of Vatican II, by Atila S. Guimarães. See my review of the book Here.

 

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