- Feb 5, 2002
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Jesus engages us and prompts our active participation in His divine plan through the Sacred Liturgy, as guided by the doctrinal teachings of the Church. Theological study helps deepen our understanding and enriches our freedom as disciples. The distinction between Catholic doctrine and theology provides the key to understanding every magisterial teaching, including the extensive documents of the Second Vatican Council. The relationship of the Church’s teaching with Tradition and Sacred Scripture provides the unifying principle of theological understanding.
Some say that we have overlooked the transformative purpose of Vatican II. We were too defensive in response to the hostility of Protestants and secularists, they say. We defended Church teaching with an excessive reliance on logical presentations. Papal primacy eclipsed the role of other members of the hierarchy, and we often ignored the centrality of Jesus, holiness, and beauty. There was insufficient emphasis on the word of God. Just as translations of the Bible needed updates, modern sensibilities required some liturgical changes.
Others point out that the documents of Vatican II are not without significant difficulties. The thick conciliar volume inevitably includes distortions and defects, such as chatty optimism, doctrinal ambiguities, and even the endorsement of a world authority to govern embattled nations. An excessive desire to please non-Catholics blunts doctrinal precision. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy unexpectedly opened a Pandora’s Box of unintended liturgical consequences.
Did Vatican II accomplish what it set out to do? It’s hard to say. The faith in Africa is thriving, but church attendance is still shrinking in the West. The litany of post-conciliar iniquities is extensive: liturgical innovation and abuse, doctrinal dissent, the vocations crisis and the decline of church attendance, Marxist/Leninist liberation theology, feminist ideological impositions on sacred ministries, ideological manipulations of ecclesiastical translations, and so on.
Continued below.
The Iron Triangle of Revelation
Some say that we have overlooked the transformative purpose of Vatican II. We were too defensive in response to the hostility of Protestants and secularists, they say. We defended Church teaching with an excessive reliance on logical presentations. Papal primacy eclipsed the role of other members of the hierarchy, and we often ignored the centrality of Jesus, holiness, and beauty. There was insufficient emphasis on the word of God. Just as translations of the Bible needed updates, modern sensibilities required some liturgical changes.
Others point out that the documents of Vatican II are not without significant difficulties. The thick conciliar volume inevitably includes distortions and defects, such as chatty optimism, doctrinal ambiguities, and even the endorsement of a world authority to govern embattled nations. An excessive desire to please non-Catholics blunts doctrinal precision. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy unexpectedly opened a Pandora’s Box of unintended liturgical consequences.
Did Vatican II accomplish what it set out to do? It’s hard to say. The faith in Africa is thriving, but church attendance is still shrinking in the West. The litany of post-conciliar iniquities is extensive: liturgical innovation and abuse, doctrinal dissent, the vocations crisis and the decline of church attendance, Marxist/Leninist liberation theology, feminist ideological impositions on sacred ministries, ideological manipulations of ecclesiastical translations, and so on.
Continued below.
The Iron Triangle of Revelation
