| What Went Wrong with Vatican II: The Catholic Crisis Explained |
| Ralph M. McInerny |
Chapter One
The Forgotten Teachings of the Council
On October 11, 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council in St. Peter's Basilica with a speech full of hope and promise. Recalling the Church's previous councils, the Pope said that Vatican II was called to reaffirm the teaching role of the Church in the world.In calling this vast assembly of bishops, the latest and humble successor to the Prince of the Apostles who is addressing you intends to assert once again the Church's Magisterium [teaching authority], which is unfailing and perdures until the end of time, in order that this Magisterium, taking into account the errors, the requirements, and the opportunities of our time, might he presented in exceptional form to all men throughout the world.15The problem facing us, the Pope pointed out, is the same today as it has ever been: Men stand either with the Church or against Her; and rejection results in bitterness, confusion, and war. Councils testify to the union of Christ and His Church and promulgate a universal truth to guide individuals in their domestic and social lives. Far from being motivated by foreboding and concern for the modern world, Pope John XXIII was full of optimism. Many had come to him lamenting the state of the world, seeing it in steep decline. We live, they implied, in the worst of times. Not so, said John XXIII: We feel we must disagree with those prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world was at hand.John XXIII discerned even in troubling modem circumstances possibilities for the Church to fulfill Her mission of preaching the gospel of Christ more effectively. Throughout this opening address, he was filled with exuberant optimism. And he was quite clear about what he wanted the council to accomplish: the defense and advancement of truth. The greatest concern of the ecumenical council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously.17John XXIII said that in our day there is already sufficient clarity about the teaching of the Faith. The emphasis of the council should thus not be doctrinal but pastoral. It should consider how best to convey the truth of Christ to the modern world. He said that errors are best dealt with in a gentler way than heretofore. The same charity should suffuse our dealing with our "separated brethren." Here the Pope strikes the note that will fuel the ecumenical movement among the churches. The closing prayers of his address convey the simplicity and faith of John XXIII: Almighty God! In Thee we place all our confidence, not trusting in our own strength. Look down benignly upon these pastors of Thy Church. May the light of Thy supernal grace aid us in taking decisions and in making laws. Graciously hear the prayers which we pour forth to Thee in unanimity of faith, of voice, and of mind.Lively Debate Characterized the Sessions The Second Vatican Council met in four sessions. The first session opened, with the papal address just recalled, on October 11, 1962, and closed on December 8 of the same year. Pope John XXIII, whose idea the council was, need on June 3, 1963. He had expressed the hope that, if he were not still alive when the council ended, he would watch its joyful conclusion from Heaven. His successor, Paul VI, called for the second session to begin on September 29, 1963, and it ran until December 4, 1963. The third session was held from September 14 to November 21, 1.964. The fourth and final session ran from September 14 to December 8, 1965. Anyone reading the exchanges between the bishops during the sessions of the council must be impressed by the high level of the discussion. For example, the discussion of the Declaration on Religious Liberty was feared by some to fly in the face of earlier Church teaching, obviously a serious reason for caution. Proponents, respecting this concern, were eager to allay it. Participants in the debate opposed one another against a background of a shared concern for the tradition of the Church. Some would, reduce this spirited and often profound exchange to a conflict between liberals and conservatives, but such a reduction misses the depth of the discussion. Some interventions in the council are more impressive than others, of course, but what is lacking from these actual sessions is the kind of ideological dogfight reported at the time in periodicals and shortly thereafter in the multi-volume histories of the council. Reading some of those accounts of the council sessions, especially those written at the time, is not an edifying experience. Even so relatively sober a book as Fr. Ralph Wiltgen's The Rhine Flows into the Tiber portrays the debates as no nobler than a playground quarrel. Perhaps the saddest description is Fr. Wiltgen's account of Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani being silenced: On October 30, the day after his seventy-second birthday, Cardinal Ottaviani addressed the council to protest against the drastic changes which were being suggested in the Mass. "Are we seeking to stir up wonder, or perhaps scandal, among the Christian people, by introducing changes in so venerable a rite, that has been approved for so many centuries and is now so familiar? The rite of Holy Mass should not be treated as if it were a piece of cloth to be refashioned according to the whim of each generation." Speaking without a text, because of his partial blindness, he exceeded the ten-minute time limit which all had been requested to observe. Cardinal Tisserant, Dean of the Council Presidents, showed his watch to Cardinal Alfrink, who was presiding that morning. When Cardinal Ottaviani reached fifteen minutes, Cardinal Alfrink rang the warning bell. But the speaker was so engrossed in his topic that he did not notice the bell, or purposely ignored it. At a signal from Cardinal Alfrink, a technician switched off the microphone. After confirming the fact by tapping the instrument, Cardinal Ottaviani stumbled back to his seat in humiliation. The most powerful cardinal in the Roman Curia had been silenced, and the Council Fathers clapped with glee.19Looking back on it from a distance of thirty-five year reader is more likely to be astonished by the reported reaction of the council Fathers than he is likely to share in it. Fr. Wiltgen was writing in 1977, and his account of the sessions was generally praised for its objectivity, but he, too, operates with the simplistic notions of conservative and liberal. Such accounts as Fr. Wiltgen's - and let me stress that his is as evenhanded as one is likely to find - seek and find a drama in the proceedings that doubtless characterized the politics outside the hall. There are good guys and bad guys, and in the end the good guys win. But it is not in histories of the council, contemporary or otherwise, that the council itself should be sought. Nor are the records of the discussions between the bishops the final word. Where, then, is the council itself to be found? Catholics Cannot Reject the Council Sixteen official council documents emerged from sessions in which schemata were proposed, altered, replaced, argued, and ultimately voted on. Each of the conciliar documents can be parsed back into a written record of such debates and discussion, but there is no need to characterize such debates in terms of obscurantists and enlightened progressives - not even when, as in the case of the Declaration on Religious Liberty, the debate defines itself in terms of such opponents. For in the end, it is the final document that trumps all earlier arguments and discussion. Once voted on and promulgated by the Pope, a conciliar document is no longer the victory of one side or the triumph of a faction: it becomes part of the Magisterium of the Church. There is little doubt that, in the minds of many observers, reporters, and even periti, a struggle was going on between the traditionalists and the innovators. Even if this mirrored a struggle among the Fathers of the council, when the dust settled, when the final vote was taken, when a document was approved and promulgated by the Pope, it was the product of the teaching Church. And in Her role as teacher, the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit. Whatever spirited battles took place in the course of the council, the only spirit that matters is the Holy Spirit, whose influence on the promulgated document is guaranteed. Studying the record of discussions among the bishops, of drafts of documents, and the proposals for change can, of course, aid us in understanding the final approved results. But it is the final documents as approved by the bishops and promulgated by the Pope that contain the official teaching of the Catholic Church. And Catholics have a duty to accept the teaching of a council. The Catechism of the Catholic Church spells out the infallibility of an ecumenical council: "The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of the faithful - who confirms his brethren in the Faith - he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to Faith or morals.... The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium," above all in an ecumenical council.20Consequently, the teachings of the Second Vatican Council are the official teachings of the Church. That is why the more than thirty years that have passed since the close of the council are evaluated by the Church in the light of the council. That is why Paul VI and John Paul II have regarded their papacies as dedicated to the implementation of what was decided during those fateful three years of the council. That is why rejecting the council is simply not an option for Catholics. And that is why Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's schismatic movement involved an internal incoherence. He sought to appeal to earlier councils in order to discredit Vatican II. But that which guarantees the truth of the teaching of one council guarantees the truth of them all. Popes Paul VI and John Paul II exhibited a long patience with Archbishop Lefebvre. Eventually, he undertook to consecrate new bishops in defiance of the Vatican, and no more patience was possible. He was excommunicated. 21 What Vatican II Says About the Pope The same long patience has been shown to dissenting theologians who have undertaken to appoint themselves the final arbiters of Catholic truth and to inform the faithful that they need not accept the teachings of the Holy Father. Often, they justify this dissent by citing "the spirit of Vatican II," which one theologian explains as follows: Vatican Council II was an example of democracy in action. Opinion had been widespread that, with the definition of papal infallibility, councils would no longer be needed or held. After Vatican I, it seemed the Pope would function as the Church's sole teacher. Vatican II, however, showed what could be accomplished in the Church when all the bishops worked together. There was significant input from theologians (some formerly silenced). Protestant observers made an important contribution.22The spirit of Vatican II urges us to balance what the Magisterium says with other points of view throughout the Church. Magisterial teaching is referred to as the "official" teaching of the Church, as if there were another, rival teaching that could trump the Pope. But what does Vatican II itself say about this? After speaking of the college of bishops and the collegiality that characterizes the episcopal office, Vatican 11 declares that not even bishops, acting apart from the Pope, have any authority in the Church: The college or body of bishops has for all that no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter's successor, as its head, whose primatial authority, let it be added, over all, whether pastors or faithful, remains in its integrity. For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as the Vicar of Christ, namely, and as pastor of the entire Church) has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.23Obviously, if even bishops, singly or collectively, have no authority apart from the Pope, no other group in the Church has such authority. No other group has the role of accepting or rejecting papal teaching and advising the faithful that they may rightly reject papal teaching. In a word, according to, Vatican II, the Pope is "the supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful,"24 the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ on earth. He is head of the college of bishops. He can himself, independent of the bishops, exercise the supreme Magisterium. In light of this, there seems simply to be no way to read the teachings of Vatican II and find in them any basis for the postconciliar view promoted by some theologians that papal teaching can be legitimately rejected by Catholics. Yet some theologians continue trying. They suggest that Catholics are bound only by Church teaching that is infallible by dint of being formally and solemnly defined. According to them, such instruments of the Magisterium as encyclicals should be treated with respect, but Catholics have the option of setting their teaching aside. Catholics Must Submit to the Pope Is there any support in Vatican II for such a conception? Is acceptance on the part of the faithful limited to solemnly defined teachings, clearly infallible for that reason? The Second Vatican Council also answers this question clearly and forcefully: This loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given in a special way to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra, in such wise, indeed, that his supreme teaching authority be acknowledged with respect, and that one sincerely adhere to the decisions made by him, conformably with his manifest mind and intention, which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with which. a certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated.25Unfortunately, some theologians, particularly moral theologians, for reasons we will examine in subsequent chapters, have simply rejected this clear teaching of Vatican II. They have come to see their role as one of criticizing, passing judgment on, and even dismissing magisterial teaching. There is no surer protection against this attempted usurpation than the documents of Vatican II themselves and particularly the passages just quoted from the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium.26 There is, of course, something odd in the effort to quarrel with what are obviously teachings of the Church and therefore require religious assent from Catholics. It is almost as if the aim were to discover how little one need believe. But surely, as Vatican II urges, it should be the mark of Catholics that they take on the mind and heart of the Church and show gratitude for God's great gift of the Magisterium. The calibration of Church teachings that is suggested by distinguishing between the ordinary and extraordinary Magisterium is an important one, but it does not justify any distinction between magisterial, papal teachings that need to be accepted by Catholics and those that do not. Indeed, to advise Catholics to ignore clear magisterial teachings is to advise them to reject the clear teaching of Vatican II. How ironic that the council should be invoked as warrant for dissenting from the Magisterium when it is precisely the council that rules this out. To accept Vatican II is to accept what the council says about the Magisterium and the Catholic's obligation to obey it.As we will soon see, public and sustained rejection of the Magisterium and of this clear teaching of Vatican II - largely by dissenting theologians - has caused and sustained the crisis in the Church. NOTES: 1-14 are found in the Introduction. 15 Floyd Anderson, ed., Council Daybook: Vatican II, Sessions 1 and 2, (Washington: National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1965), 25. 16 Ibid., 26. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 29. 19 Ralph W. Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber (New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1967), 28-29. 20 Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 891. 21 See Kelly, The Battle for the American Church, 411-417. 22 Philip S. Kaufman, Why You Can Disagree and Remain a Faithful Catholic (New York: Crossroad, 1995), 153. 23 Lumen Gentium, no. 22. 24 Lumen Gentium, no. 25. 25 Ibid.26 A 1998 apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II gave force of law to this requirement of Vatican II that theologians be faithful to the Magisterium. Called Ad Tuendam Fidem, the letter made deviation from such teachings as Vatican II a violation of canon law subject to punishments up to and including excommunication. |
| The above excerpt of pages 23-38 is taken with permission from: Ralph M. McInerny. What went wrong with VATICAN II. (Sophia Institute Press, 1998, paperback, 168 pgs) |
| This book is available from:Sophia Institute Press Box 5284 Manchester, NH 03108 1-800-888-9344 |
Provided Courtesy of:
Eternal Word Television Network 5817 Old Leeds Road Irondale, AL 35210www.ewtn.com HOME-EWTNews-FAITH-TELEVISION-RADIO-LIBRARY-GALLERY-CATALOGUE-GENERAL ESPAÑOL ============================================================== "But it is the final documents as approved by the bishops and promulgated by the Pope that contain the official teaching of the Catholic Church. And Catholics have a duty to accept the teaching of a council." ===========================================VATICAN II O’Malley’s "What Happened at Vatican II" accents that it was a multifaceted event with viewpoints, personalities, and interests in frequently tumultuous conflict, and it makes for a rollicking good story. The important thing, he believes, is to understand the “spirit” of the council. "Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition" , by way of sharpest contrast, consists of twenty-two essays on the documents approved by the council. Here the important thing is to understand what the council actually said. (Full disclosure: I have a minor essay in the book.) Enter Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition . The book shamelessly pulls rank on O’Malley by opening with a reflection by Pope Benedict XVI on the proper interpretation of the council. The question is one of hermeneutics, says the pope. There are, he suggests, two quite different ways of understanding the council: “On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call ‘a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture’; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the ‘hermeneutic of reform,’ of renewal in the continuity of the one subject, the Church that the Lord has given us. She is a subject that increases in time and develops, yet always remains the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.” All that having been said, however, O’Malley’s book is much the better read. As Xavier Rynne and the editors of the New Yorker understood, personalities, politics, factional fights, and dark conspiracies make for high drama. Especially when combatants are cast as good liberals versus bad conservatives. More than forty years later, however, the hermeneutic of reform in continuity is prevailing, and serious readers who want to understand the significance of the council will be better served by Lamb and Levering. He emphasizes that Vatican II eschewed the “power language” of earlier councils, with their juridical pronouncements and condemnations, preferring the “humility words” of shared responsibility in the government* of the Church. At the same time, O’Malley’s story is all about power struggles between entrenched Roman conservatism and the bishops who were more accurately reading the signs of the times. *governance is the authority of governing their sections. It does NOT = the authority over Doctrine, of Doctrine or the ability to change or make doctrine O’Malley approvingly quotes the German Jesuit Karl Rahner, who said the first epoch was the brief period of Jewish Christianity; the second, including Hellenism and European Christianity, ran up to Vatican II; and third period, the post-council present, is the epoch of the world Church. O’Malley neatly sums up the reading of Vatican II according to the hermeneutics of rupture: It suggests, indeed, that at stake were almost two different visions of Catholicism: from commands to invitations, from laws to ideals, from definition to mystery, from threats to persuasion, from coercion to conscience, from monologue to dialogue, from ruling to serving, from withdrawn to integrated, from vertical to horizontal, from exclusion to inclusion, from hostility to friendship, from rivalry to partnership, from suspicion to trust, from static to ongoing, from passive acceptance to active engagement, from fault-finding to appreciation, from prescriptive to principled, from behavior modification to inner appropriation. The modern world as portrayed by the council is one with which the Church should want to get in tune. There is merit in O’Malley’s linguistic analysis. . What Happened at Vatican II is a 372-page brief for the party of novelty and discontinuity. Its author comes very close to saying explicitly what is frequently implied: that the innovationists practiced subterfuge, and they got away with it. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and his Society of St. Pius X are right: The council was a radical break from tradition and proposed what is, in effect, a different Catholicism. The irony is in the agreement between Lefebvre and the liberal party of discontinuity. O’Malley and those of like mind might be described as the Lefebvrists of the left. :o :D ;) The final irony is that if, in the twenty-fifth century, the Second Vatican Council is remembered as a reform council that failed, it will be the result of the combined, if unintended, efforts of the likes of Marcel Lefebvre and John O’Malley in advancing the argument that the council was a radical break from the tradition that is Catholicism. I do not expect they will succeed. it is not in histories of the council, contemporary or otherwise, that the council itself should be sought. Nor are the records of the discussions between the bishops the final word. Where, then, is the council itself to be found? Catholics Cannot Reject the Council Sixteen official council documents emerged from sessions Catholics have a duty to accept the teaching of a council. The Catechism of the Catholic Church spells out the infallibility of an ecumenical council: "The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of the faithful - who confirms his brethren in the Faith - he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to Faith or morals.... The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium," above all in an ecumenical council.20 Consequently, the teachings of the Second Vatican Council are the official teachings of the Church The 'spirit of Vatican II'* urges us to balance what the Magisterium says with other points of view throughout the Church. Magisterial teaching is referred to as the "official" teaching of the Church, as if there were another, rival teaching that could trump the Pope. *'the spirit of Vatican II'is not Church teaching ;the Documents of Vatican II are!* But what does Vatican II itself say about this? After speaking of the college of bishops and the collegiality that characterizes the episcopal office, Vatican 11 declares that not even bishops, acting apart from the Pope, have any authority in the Church: The college or body of bishops has for all that no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter's successor, as its head, whose primatial authority, let it be added, over all, whether pastors or faithful, remains in its integrity. For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as the Vicar of Christ, namely, and as pastor of the entire Church) has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.23 (23 Lumen Gentium, no. 22.) Obviously, if even bishops, singly or collectively, have no authority apart from the Pope, no other group in the Church has such authority. No other group has the role of accepting or rejecting papal teaching and advising the faithful that they may rightly reject papal teaching. In a word, according to, Vatican II, the Pope is "the supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful,"24 (24 Lumen Gentium, no. 25.) the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ on earth. He is head of the college of bishops. He can himself, independent of the bishops, exercise the supreme Magisterium. In light of this, there seems simply to be no way to read the teachings of Vatican II and find in them any basis for the postconciliar view promoted by some theologians that papal teaching can be legitimately rejected by Catholics. Catholics Must Submit to the Pope Is there any support in Vatican II for such a conception? Is acceptance on the part of the faithful limited to solemnly defined teachings, clearly infallible for that reason? The Second Vatican Council also answers this question clearly and forcefully: This loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given in a special way to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra, in such wise, indeed, that his supreme teaching authority be acknowledged with respect, and that one sincerely adhere to the decisions made by him, conformably with his manifest mind and intention, which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with which. a certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated.25 Unfortunately, some theologians, particularly moral theologians, for reasons we will examine in subsequent chapters, have simply rejected this clear teaching of Vatican II. They have come to see their role as one of criticizing, passing judgment on, and even dismissing magisterial teaching. There is no surer protection against this attempted usurpation than the documents of Vatican II themselves and particularly the passages just quoted from the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium.26 (26 A 1998 apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II gave force of law to this requirement of Vatican II that theologians be faithful to the Magisterium. Called Ad Tuendam Fidem, the letter made deviation from such teachings as Vatican II a violation of canon law subject to punishments up to and including excommunication. ) To accept Vatican II is to accept what the council says about the Magisterium and the Catholic's obligation to obey it. As we will soon see, public and sustained rejection of the Magisterium and of this clear teaching of Vatican II - largely by dissenting theologians - has caused and sustained the crisis in the Church. |
Showing posts with label papal authority. Show all posts
Showing posts with label papal authority. Show all posts
Monday, March 17, 2014
McInerny - What Went Wrong With Vatican II
McInerny - What Went Wrong With Vatican II
What Really Happened at Vatican II by Richard John Neuhaus | Articles | First Things
What Really Happened at Vatican II by Richard John Neuhaus | Articles | First Things
THIS ISA GREAT ARTICLE....I MISS YOU Father Neuhaus
What Happened at Vatican II
by John W. O’Malley
Harvard University Press, 372 pages, $29.95
The Catholic Church counts twenty-one ecumenical councils, beginning with the First Council of Nicea in 325. Shortly after he was elected pope in 2005, Benedict XVI reflected on the confusion that sometimes attends the aftermath of a council. He quotes that great doctor of the Church, Saint Basil, who compared the period after Nicea to a naval battle fought in the darkness of a great storm. Basil wrote: “The raucous shouting of those who through disagreement rise up against one another, the incomprehensible chatter, the confused din of uninterrupted clamoring, has now filled almost the whole of the Church, falsifying through excess or failure the right doctrine of the faith.” Those who have lived through the years since Vatican II will recognize the description. “The question arises,” says Benedict, “Why has the implementation of the council, in large parts of the Church, thus far been so difficult?” A very good question, that.
At the end of their introduction to Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition , Lamb and Levering quote George Weigel: “No one knows whether, in the twenty-fifth century, Vatican II will be remembered as another Lateran V”a reforming council that failed”or another Trent”a reforming council that was so successful that it set the course of Catholic life for more than four hundred years.” Of course no one knows for sure. But Lateran V was small potatoes compared with Vatican II. Convened by Julius II in 1512 and concluded by Leo X in 1517, it was an off-again on-again gathering of mainly Italian bishops aimed against Louis XII of France, who had tried to convene an antipapal council at Pisa. In a parody of Lateran V, Erasmus put these words into the mouth of the dead Julius: “I told it what to say. We had two Masses to show that we were acting under Divine inspiration, and then there was a speech in honor of myself. At the next session I cursed the schismatic cardinals. At the third I laid France under an interdict. Then the Acts of the council were drafted into a bull and sent around Europe.” Papal historian Eamon Duffy says that Erasmus’ account “is a caricature, but not all that far wide of the mark.”
There would seem to be little chance of Vatican II being forgotten, even five hundred years from now. Unless, of course, the twentieth century is forgotten, an idea that some may think is not without its merits. It is commonly said, and with good reason, that the Second Vatican Council was the most important religious event of the twentieth century. If media coverage is a measure, it was second only to the war in Vietnam during the four council sessions from 1962 to 1965. It is also said to have been the largest deliberative meeting in history, with more than two thousand participating bishops from around the world, along with hundreds of theological experts ( periti ) and ecumenical observers who did much more than observe.
Four decades later, the arguments are still hot and heavy over what the council said and did. The two books under review represent the main lines of the argument. The very titles are revealing. O’Malley’s What Happened at Vatican II accents that it was a multifaceted event with viewpoints, personalities, and interests in frequently tumultuous conflict, and it makes for a rollicking good story. The important thing, he believes, is to understand the “spirit” of the council. Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition , by way of sharpest contrast, consists of twenty-two essays on the documents approved by the council. Here the important thing is to understand what the council actually said. (Full disclosure: I have a minor essay in the book.)
The main story line of the council was established from the beginning by Xavier Rynne (the pseudonym of the late Fr. Francis X. Murphy) in a series of “Letters from Vatican City” published in the New Yorker . The council, according to Rynne, was an epic battle between stuck-in-the-chancel conservatives and enlightened liberals who were striving mightily to bring a tradition-bound Catholicism into the light of the modern world. In this telling of the story, the key to understanding the council is aggiornamento ”usually translated as updating . Rynne and the thousands of reporters who followed his lead left no doubt that the Second Vatican Council was a great liberal triumph.
O’Malley calls Rynne’s account “delicious” and “gossipy but engrossing,” yet he wants to rise above its strident partisanship. And so, for instance, he eschews references to “conservatives” and “liberals,” preferring to speak of the minority and the majority, while not disguising that he is rooting for the liberal majority. From beginning to end, says O’Malley, the great question was whether the council would “confirm the status quo or move notably beyond it.” He says his purpose is “to provide a sense of before and after.”
“Before and after””that gets to the heart of most of the disputes about the council. Up through the 1980s, self-identified liberals routinely spoke of the pre - Vatican II Church and the post - Vatican II Church , almost as though they were two churches, with the clear implication that a very large part of the preceding centuries had been consigned to the dustbin of history. To describe that depiction of the council, philosopher Robert Sokolowski employs a football metaphor: “The impression was given that the tradition of the Church was not a continuous handing on through the centuries of something received; it was more like a long pass from the apostolic age to the Second Vatican Council, with only distortions in between, whether Byzantine, medieval, or baroque.” That’s an exaggeration, of course, but an exaggeration in the service of an important part of the truth.
In the decades following the council, many liberals made no secret of their belief that aggiornamento was a mandate for radical change, even revolution. They excitedly hailed as renewal what others saw as destabilization and confusion. Some traditionalists farther to the right of center blamed the council itself, employing the logic of post hoc ergo propter hoc” after which, therefore because of which. Liberals, on the other hand, demanded an early convening of Vatican Council III in order to, as they said, complete the revolution. Given the changed climate in the Church after thirty years of the pontificates of John Paul the Great and Benedict XVI, it is not surprising that it has been a long time since we’ve heard progressives calling for Vatican III.
The confusions in the aftermath of Vatican II are beyond denying. O’Malley says he wants to treat the “before and after” of the council, but in fact he limits himself to the before and at the council. Slight attention is paid to the consequences of the changes that he celebrates. Theologians openly dissented from Church teaching and did so with impunity, indeed often being rewarded by the guild of academic theology for their putative courage. Tens of thousands of priests abandoned their ministries, convents were emptied as sisters embraced the vaunted freedoms of the secular world, Gregorian chant was replaced by Kumbaya, the number of seminarians preparing for priesthood plummeted, and not a few of the priests who remained decided on their own that celibacy is optional.
Not incidentally, a majority of Catholics stopped going to Mass every week and decided, or were given to understand by progressive priests, that moral truths taught from the beginning are, at most, advisory in nature. What happened after the council, if not because of the council, is a familiar and mainly depressing story, perhaps too familiar and too depressing in its telling. One wishes Fr. O’Malley had addressed the after in “before and after,” since there were also constructive changes usually ignored in conservative accounts.
A few years ago, Francis Cardinal George of Chicago declared, “Liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project.” There has been surprisingly little dissent from that judgment on the part of the aging members of the Boomer generation who still dare speak the name of their liberal love. They spent their lives pinning their hopes on “the next pope” or “the next council,” but now they seem resigned to the fact that it is not to be. A measure of bitterness is understandable as they contemplate the “reactionary” takeover by John Paul and Benedict.
Perhaps most galling is the spectacle of a younger generation of Catholics inspired by these supposed troglodytes to dream dreams of radical discipleship. As witness, among many other signs, the stunning success of World Youth Day, most recently in Sydney, Australia. The youth were supposed to belong to the progressives, who are now left wondering what went wrong with their children and grandchildren. Then there are the bishops once or twice or thrice in succession to the bishops of those heady days at the council. Whether by conviction or by an astute reading of “the signs of the times””a much quoted phrase from the council”they recognize the need for a re-stabilizing of the Church’s teaching and life. Some are reluctant to call this conservatism, preferring to speak of a “reform of the reform.”
Enter Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition . The book shamelessly pulls rank on O’Malley by opening with a reflection by Pope Benedict XVI on the proper interpretation of the council. The question is one of hermeneutics, says the pope. There are, he suggests, two quite different ways of understanding the council: “On the one hand, there is
an interpretation that I would call ‘a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture’; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the ‘hermeneutic of reform,’ of renewal in the continuity of the one subject, the Church that the Lord has given us. She is a subject that increases in time and develops, yet always remains the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.”
The distinction between conservative and liberal does not quite catch the difference between a hermeneutic of reform and a hermeneutic of rupture. The teaching of the council as advanced by John Paul and Benedict is emphatically liberal in, for instance, its embrace of democracy and its call for a new way of engagement between faith and reason. A great difference between the Lamb and Levering hermeneutic and the O’Malley hermeneutic is that the former is primarily theological and attuned to what is believed to be divinely revealed truth as it has been handed on and its understanding faithfully developed over the centuries. The O’Malley interpretation is dominantly sociological, psychological, and linguistic, aimed at demonstrating how the council moved beyond “the status quo.” For instance, O’Malley rightly notes the council’s vigorous condemnation of anti-Semitism but fails to connect that with its theological treatment of the unique relationship in God’s universal plan of salvation between the Church and the people of Israel.
There are other differences of great consequence. Whether, with Lamb and Levering, one focuses on the texts of the council or, with O’Malley, on the spirit of the council, there are interesting parallels with American legal debates between proponents of “original meaning” and proponents of “the living Constitution.” O’Malley’s living council, so to speak, is wondrously malleable in response to the spirit of the times, or what he takes to be the spirit of the times. Moreover, O’Malley’s interpretation tends to reflect a particular moment in the progressive thought of Europe and America, while Lamb and Levering have in view a universal community through time with now more than 1.2 billion members, and with most of them in the Global South. Thus O’Malley’s account is preoccupied with somewhat parochial European and North American discontents over relationships of power within the Church, while Lamb and Levering keep in view the universal mission of the Church through the centuries.
All that having been said, however, O’Malley’s book is much the better read. As Xavier Rynne and the editors of the New Yorker understood, personalities, politics, factional fights, and dark conspiracies make for high drama. Especially when combatants are cast as good liberals versus bad conservatives. More than forty years later, however, the hermeneutic of reform in continuity is prevailing, and serious readers who want to understand the significance of the council will be better served by Lamb and Levering.
This is not to deny, however, that O’Malley’s account is instructive on several scores. In the long history of church councils, Vatican II was different. While there is continuity in teaching, something remarkable really did happen at the council. The liberal proponents of a hermeneutic of rupture are not making up their argument out of whole cloth. The very calling for a council by John XXIII struck many as strange and puzzling. Unlike the reasons for earlier councils, O’Malley notes, there was no obvious crisis troubling the Church. “In fact, except in those parts of the world where Christianity was undergoing overt persecution, mainly in countries under Communist domination, the Church in the decade and a half since the end of World War II projected an image of vigor and self-confidence.” It is no secret that some at higher levels of the Roman curia thought the pope was making a big mistake, and maybe was becoming just a little dotty.
Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani was the perfect foil for the liberal interpretation of the council. His enthusiasm for the council was conspicuously contained. He was secretary of the Holy Office, later called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. (Until Paul VI changed it, the pope was head of that supreme congregation, an arrangement that Benedict has de facto, if not de jure, restored.) The motto that Ottaviani chose for his coat of arms was Semper Idem ””always the same.” Like Rynne, O’Malley, and many others, Ottaviani recognized “the spirit” of the council and he didn’t like it one little bit.
As O’Malley tells it, Ottaviani and those of like mind represented a “long nineteenth century,” going back to Pius IX’s war against modernity and extending through a “reign of terror” during which Catholic thinkers trembled in fear of ecclesiastical censure for having a thought of their own. To be sure, O’Malley exaggerates, but even so orthodox a thinker as George Cardinal Pell of Australia acknowledges that something was very wrong. In the foreword to a recent book on the theology of Joseph Ratzinger, Pell writes: “Certainly most of the Scholastic manuals, written in Latin, which we studied in philosophy in the 1960s, were arid, out of date, impersonal, and mechanistic . . . . Ratzinger’s skepticism about the Thomism of the manuals was shared almost universally among the seminarians of the sixties.” That skepticism was no doubt shared by many, if not most, of the bishops who gathered for the first session of the council in 1962.
Soon the drafts for conciliar texts prepared by Ottaviani and his curial colleagues, which steadfastly adhered to the spirit of Semper Idem , were being sharply criticized, and then rejected one after another. By the second session, in 1963, O’Malley says, the assembled bishops were beginning to feel their oats, having gotten a taste of real “collegiality.” A central theme in his account is that the council witnessed a movement of authority from “the center to the periphery.” The center, of course, is the pope and the curia, with the periphery being the pastors of local churches, the bishops. He emphasizes that Vatican II eschewed the “power language” of earlier councils, with their juridical pronouncements and condemnations, preferring the “humility words” of shared responsibility in the government of the Church. At the same time, O’Malley’s story is all about power struggles between entrenched Roman conservatism and the bishops who were more accurately reading the signs of the times.
In this view, the conservatives were resisting the birth of nothing less than the third epoch of Christian history. O’Malley approvingly quotes the German Jesuit Karl Rahner, who said the first epoch was the brief period of Jewish Christianity; the second, including Hellenism and European Christianity, ran up to Vatican II; and third period, the post-council present, is the epoch of the world Church.
This is presentism on speed. It is also, and despite the global language, a very Eurocentric view of Christian history, ignoring the pre-Islamic Christianity of the Middle East and, along with it, Byzantium and most of the patristic tradition, which figures such as Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar were so mightily laboring to restore under the banner of ressourcement , or renewal. In What Happened at Vatican II , O’Malley acknowledges three dominant themes of the council” aggiornamento, ressourcement, and development of doctrine”but, in his telling, the latter two are always in the service of the first, with aggiornamento bearing a convenient resemblance to the dominant habits of thought in the Society of Jesus as embodied in institutions “in the Jesuit tradition” such as Georgetown University.
O’Malley neatly sums up the reading of Vatican II according to the hermeneutics of rupture:
The modern world as portrayed by the council is one with which the Church should want to get in tune. There is merit in O’Malley’s linguistic analysis. It is striking, for instance, that, in the aftermath of the slaughters of world wars and while much of the world and of the Church was dominated by the evil empire of Soviet Communism, the council could speak in such serene terms of approbation about the modern circumstance. But it is quite another matter how or whether the language employed bears on the doctrine taught.
Some essays in the Lamb and Levering volume weigh in so heavily on the side of the hermeneutics of continuity that one might get the impression that not much happened at Vatican II. Obviously, that is not the case. After allowing that the liberal leaders at the council were sometimes elitist and manipulative, O’Malley gives this telling reflection on how the council is interpreted:
It is almost half a century after the council. The pontificates of Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, along with the scholarly arguments represented by books such as Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition , make it evident that the hermeneutics of continuity is prevailing, if it has not already definitively prevailed. Fr. O’Malley may suspect that is the case. His book has about it the feel of a last-ditch effort to defend the story line of the post-Vatican II Church vs. the pre-Vatican II Church that was popularized by Xavier Rynne all these many years ago. The final irony is that if, in the twenty-fifth century, the Second Vatican Council is remembered as a reform council that failed, it will be the result of the combined, if unintended, efforts of the likes of Marcel Lefebvre and John O’Malley in advancing the argument that the council was a radical break from the tradition that is Catholicism. I do not expect they will succeed.
Richard John Neuhaus is editor in chief of First Things .
THIS ISA GREAT ARTICLE....I MISS YOU Father Neuhaus
What Happened at Vatican II
by John W. O’Malley
Harvard University Press, 372 pages, $29.95
Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition
edited by Matthew Lamb and Matthew Levering
Oxford University Press, 462 pages, $29.95
When asked what he thought about the French Revolution, Zhou Enlai, China’s urbane premier under Chairman Mao, is reported to have replied, “It is too early to say.” Such reticence has been in short supply when it comes to explaining the significance of the Second Vatican Council. Yet hundreds of books and tens of thousands of articles have not yet arrived at a settled consensus. The two books under review nicely represent the depth and sharpness of disagreements. edited by Matthew Lamb and Matthew Levering
Oxford University Press, 462 pages, $29.95
The Catholic Church counts twenty-one ecumenical councils, beginning with the First Council of Nicea in 325. Shortly after he was elected pope in 2005, Benedict XVI reflected on the confusion that sometimes attends the aftermath of a council. He quotes that great doctor of the Church, Saint Basil, who compared the period after Nicea to a naval battle fought in the darkness of a great storm. Basil wrote: “The raucous shouting of those who through disagreement rise up against one another, the incomprehensible chatter, the confused din of uninterrupted clamoring, has now filled almost the whole of the Church, falsifying through excess or failure the right doctrine of the faith.” Those who have lived through the years since Vatican II will recognize the description. “The question arises,” says Benedict, “Why has the implementation of the council, in large parts of the Church, thus far been so difficult?” A very good question, that.
At the end of their introduction to Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition , Lamb and Levering quote George Weigel: “No one knows whether, in the twenty-fifth century, Vatican II will be remembered as another Lateran V”a reforming council that failed”or another Trent”a reforming council that was so successful that it set the course of Catholic life for more than four hundred years.” Of course no one knows for sure. But Lateran V was small potatoes compared with Vatican II. Convened by Julius II in 1512 and concluded by Leo X in 1517, it was an off-again on-again gathering of mainly Italian bishops aimed against Louis XII of France, who had tried to convene an antipapal council at Pisa. In a parody of Lateran V, Erasmus put these words into the mouth of the dead Julius: “I told it what to say. We had two Masses to show that we were acting under Divine inspiration, and then there was a speech in honor of myself. At the next session I cursed the schismatic cardinals. At the third I laid France under an interdict. Then the Acts of the council were drafted into a bull and sent around Europe.” Papal historian Eamon Duffy says that Erasmus’ account “is a caricature, but not all that far wide of the mark.”
There would seem to be little chance of Vatican II being forgotten, even five hundred years from now. Unless, of course, the twentieth century is forgotten, an idea that some may think is not without its merits. It is commonly said, and with good reason, that the Second Vatican Council was the most important religious event of the twentieth century. If media coverage is a measure, it was second only to the war in Vietnam during the four council sessions from 1962 to 1965. It is also said to have been the largest deliberative meeting in history, with more than two thousand participating bishops from around the world, along with hundreds of theological experts ( periti ) and ecumenical observers who did much more than observe.
Four decades later, the arguments are still hot and heavy over what the council said and did. The two books under review represent the main lines of the argument. The very titles are revealing. O’Malley’s What Happened at Vatican II accents that it was a multifaceted event with viewpoints, personalities, and interests in frequently tumultuous conflict, and it makes for a rollicking good story. The important thing, he believes, is to understand the “spirit” of the council. Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition , by way of sharpest contrast, consists of twenty-two essays on the documents approved by the council. Here the important thing is to understand what the council actually said. (Full disclosure: I have a minor essay in the book.)
The main story line of the council was established from the beginning by Xavier Rynne (the pseudonym of the late Fr. Francis X. Murphy) in a series of “Letters from Vatican City” published in the New Yorker . The council, according to Rynne, was an epic battle between stuck-in-the-chancel conservatives and enlightened liberals who were striving mightily to bring a tradition-bound Catholicism into the light of the modern world. In this telling of the story, the key to understanding the council is aggiornamento ”usually translated as updating . Rynne and the thousands of reporters who followed his lead left no doubt that the Second Vatican Council was a great liberal triumph.
O’Malley calls Rynne’s account “delicious” and “gossipy but engrossing,” yet he wants to rise above its strident partisanship. And so, for instance, he eschews references to “conservatives” and “liberals,” preferring to speak of the minority and the majority, while not disguising that he is rooting for the liberal majority. From beginning to end, says O’Malley, the great question was whether the council would “confirm the status quo or move notably beyond it.” He says his purpose is “to provide a sense of before and after.”
“Before and after””that gets to the heart of most of the disputes about the council. Up through the 1980s, self-identified liberals routinely spoke of the pre - Vatican II Church and the post - Vatican II Church , almost as though they were two churches, with the clear implication that a very large part of the preceding centuries had been consigned to the dustbin of history. To describe that depiction of the council, philosopher Robert Sokolowski employs a football metaphor: “The impression was given that the tradition of the Church was not a continuous handing on through the centuries of something received; it was more like a long pass from the apostolic age to the Second Vatican Council, with only distortions in between, whether Byzantine, medieval, or baroque.” That’s an exaggeration, of course, but an exaggeration in the service of an important part of the truth.
In the decades following the council, many liberals made no secret of their belief that aggiornamento was a mandate for radical change, even revolution. They excitedly hailed as renewal what others saw as destabilization and confusion. Some traditionalists farther to the right of center blamed the council itself, employing the logic of post hoc ergo propter hoc” after which, therefore because of which. Liberals, on the other hand, demanded an early convening of Vatican Council III in order to, as they said, complete the revolution. Given the changed climate in the Church after thirty years of the pontificates of John Paul the Great and Benedict XVI, it is not surprising that it has been a long time since we’ve heard progressives calling for Vatican III.
The confusions in the aftermath of Vatican II are beyond denying. O’Malley says he wants to treat the “before and after” of the council, but in fact he limits himself to the before and at the council. Slight attention is paid to the consequences of the changes that he celebrates. Theologians openly dissented from Church teaching and did so with impunity, indeed often being rewarded by the guild of academic theology for their putative courage. Tens of thousands of priests abandoned their ministries, convents were emptied as sisters embraced the vaunted freedoms of the secular world, Gregorian chant was replaced by Kumbaya, the number of seminarians preparing for priesthood plummeted, and not a few of the priests who remained decided on their own that celibacy is optional.
Not incidentally, a majority of Catholics stopped going to Mass every week and decided, or were given to understand by progressive priests, that moral truths taught from the beginning are, at most, advisory in nature. What happened after the council, if not because of the council, is a familiar and mainly depressing story, perhaps too familiar and too depressing in its telling. One wishes Fr. O’Malley had addressed the after in “before and after,” since there were also constructive changes usually ignored in conservative accounts.
A few years ago, Francis Cardinal George of Chicago declared, “Liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project.” There has been surprisingly little dissent from that judgment on the part of the aging members of the Boomer generation who still dare speak the name of their liberal love. They spent their lives pinning their hopes on “the next pope” or “the next council,” but now they seem resigned to the fact that it is not to be. A measure of bitterness is understandable as they contemplate the “reactionary” takeover by John Paul and Benedict.
Perhaps most galling is the spectacle of a younger generation of Catholics inspired by these supposed troglodytes to dream dreams of radical discipleship. As witness, among many other signs, the stunning success of World Youth Day, most recently in Sydney, Australia. The youth were supposed to belong to the progressives, who are now left wondering what went wrong with their children and grandchildren. Then there are the bishops once or twice or thrice in succession to the bishops of those heady days at the council. Whether by conviction or by an astute reading of “the signs of the times””a much quoted phrase from the council”they recognize the need for a re-stabilizing of the Church’s teaching and life. Some are reluctant to call this conservatism, preferring to speak of a “reform of the reform.”
Enter Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition . The book shamelessly pulls rank on O’Malley by opening with a reflection by Pope Benedict XVI on the proper interpretation of the council. The question is one of hermeneutics, says the pope. There are, he suggests, two quite different ways of understanding the council: “On the one hand, there is
an interpretation that I would call ‘a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture’; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the ‘hermeneutic of reform,’ of renewal in the continuity of the one subject, the Church that the Lord has given us. She is a subject that increases in time and develops, yet always remains the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.”
The distinction between conservative and liberal does not quite catch the difference between a hermeneutic of reform and a hermeneutic of rupture. The teaching of the council as advanced by John Paul and Benedict is emphatically liberal in, for instance, its embrace of democracy and its call for a new way of engagement between faith and reason. A great difference between the Lamb and Levering hermeneutic and the O’Malley hermeneutic is that the former is primarily theological and attuned to what is believed to be divinely revealed truth as it has been handed on and its understanding faithfully developed over the centuries. The O’Malley interpretation is dominantly sociological, psychological, and linguistic, aimed at demonstrating how the council moved beyond “the status quo.” For instance, O’Malley rightly notes the council’s vigorous condemnation of anti-Semitism but fails to connect that with its theological treatment of the unique relationship in God’s universal plan of salvation between the Church and the people of Israel.
There are other differences of great consequence. Whether, with Lamb and Levering, one focuses on the texts of the council or, with O’Malley, on the spirit of the council, there are interesting parallels with American legal debates between proponents of “original meaning” and proponents of “the living Constitution.” O’Malley’s living council, so to speak, is wondrously malleable in response to the spirit of the times, or what he takes to be the spirit of the times. Moreover, O’Malley’s interpretation tends to reflect a particular moment in the progressive thought of Europe and America, while Lamb and Levering have in view a universal community through time with now more than 1.2 billion members, and with most of them in the Global South. Thus O’Malley’s account is preoccupied with somewhat parochial European and North American discontents over relationships of power within the Church, while Lamb and Levering keep in view the universal mission of the Church through the centuries.
All that having been said, however, O’Malley’s book is much the better read. As Xavier Rynne and the editors of the New Yorker understood, personalities, politics, factional fights, and dark conspiracies make for high drama. Especially when combatants are cast as good liberals versus bad conservatives. More than forty years later, however, the hermeneutic of reform in continuity is prevailing, and serious readers who want to understand the significance of the council will be better served by Lamb and Levering.
This is not to deny, however, that O’Malley’s account is instructive on several scores. In the long history of church councils, Vatican II was different. While there is continuity in teaching, something remarkable really did happen at the council. The liberal proponents of a hermeneutic of rupture are not making up their argument out of whole cloth. The very calling for a council by John XXIII struck many as strange and puzzling. Unlike the reasons for earlier councils, O’Malley notes, there was no obvious crisis troubling the Church. “In fact, except in those parts of the world where Christianity was undergoing overt persecution, mainly in countries under Communist domination, the Church in the decade and a half since the end of World War II projected an image of vigor and self-confidence.” It is no secret that some at higher levels of the Roman curia thought the pope was making a big mistake, and maybe was becoming just a little dotty.
Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani was the perfect foil for the liberal interpretation of the council. His enthusiasm for the council was conspicuously contained. He was secretary of the Holy Office, later called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. (Until Paul VI changed it, the pope was head of that supreme congregation, an arrangement that Benedict has de facto, if not de jure, restored.) The motto that Ottaviani chose for his coat of arms was Semper Idem ””always the same.” Like Rynne, O’Malley, and many others, Ottaviani recognized “the spirit” of the council and he didn’t like it one little bit.
As O’Malley tells it, Ottaviani and those of like mind represented a “long nineteenth century,” going back to Pius IX’s war against modernity and extending through a “reign of terror” during which Catholic thinkers trembled in fear of ecclesiastical censure for having a thought of their own. To be sure, O’Malley exaggerates, but even so orthodox a thinker as George Cardinal Pell of Australia acknowledges that something was very wrong. In the foreword to a recent book on the theology of Joseph Ratzinger, Pell writes: “Certainly most of the Scholastic manuals, written in Latin, which we studied in philosophy in the 1960s, were arid, out of date, impersonal, and mechanistic . . . . Ratzinger’s skepticism about the Thomism of the manuals was shared almost universally among the seminarians of the sixties.” That skepticism was no doubt shared by many, if not most, of the bishops who gathered for the first session of the council in 1962.
Soon the drafts for conciliar texts prepared by Ottaviani and his curial colleagues, which steadfastly adhered to the spirit of Semper Idem , were being sharply criticized, and then rejected one after another. By the second session, in 1963, O’Malley says, the assembled bishops were beginning to feel their oats, having gotten a taste of real “collegiality.” A central theme in his account is that the council witnessed a movement of authority from “the center to the periphery.” The center, of course, is the pope and the curia, with the periphery being the pastors of local churches, the bishops. He emphasizes that Vatican II eschewed the “power language” of earlier councils, with their juridical pronouncements and condemnations, preferring the “humility words” of shared responsibility in the government of the Church. At the same time, O’Malley’s story is all about power struggles between entrenched Roman conservatism and the bishops who were more accurately reading the signs of the times.
In this view, the conservatives were resisting the birth of nothing less than the third epoch of Christian history. O’Malley approvingly quotes the German Jesuit Karl Rahner, who said the first epoch was the brief period of Jewish Christianity; the second, including Hellenism and European Christianity, ran up to Vatican II; and third period, the post-council present, is the epoch of the world Church.
This is presentism on speed. It is also, and despite the global language, a very Eurocentric view of Christian history, ignoring the pre-Islamic Christianity of the Middle East and, along with it, Byzantium and most of the patristic tradition, which figures such as Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar were so mightily laboring to restore under the banner of ressourcement , or renewal. In What Happened at Vatican II , O’Malley acknowledges three dominant themes of the council” aggiornamento, ressourcement, and development of doctrine”but, in his telling, the latter two are always in the service of the first, with aggiornamento bearing a convenient resemblance to the dominant habits of thought in the Society of Jesus as embodied in institutions “in the Jesuit tradition” such as Georgetown University.
O’Malley neatly sums up the reading of Vatican II according to the hermeneutics of rupture:
It suggests, indeed, that at stake were almost two different visions of Catholicism: from commands to invitations, from laws to ideals, from definition to mystery, from threats to persuasion, from coercion to conscience, from monologue to dialogue, from ruling to serving, from withdrawn to integrated, from vertical to horizontal, from exclusion to inclusion, from hostility to friendship, from rivalry to partnership, from suspicion to trust, from static to ongoing, from passive acceptance to active engagement, from fault-finding to appreciation, from prescriptive to principled, from behavior modification to inner appropriation.In almost all those pairings of different visions of Catholicism, who would not vote for the second? Clearly, the “post-Vatican II Church” wins hands down. O’Malley does not claim that the bishops in council actually voted to launch a new Catholicism. In this version of the spirit over the letter, what the council said is far less important than how it was said. The council was, he says, a “language-event.” The style is the substance is the spirit of the council. Eschewing scholastic language, “it thus moved from the dialectic of winning an argument to the dialogue of finding common ground.” In documents such as Gaudium et Spes , the council employed the genre that ancient Roman authors called ars laudandi , or the panegyric. “Panegyric,” O’Malley explains, “is the painting of an idealized portrait in order to excite admiration and appropriation.”
The modern world as portrayed by the council is one with which the Church should want to get in tune. There is merit in O’Malley’s linguistic analysis. It is striking, for instance, that, in the aftermath of the slaughters of world wars and while much of the world and of the Church was dominated by the evil empire of Soviet Communism, the council could speak in such serene terms of approbation about the modern circumstance. But it is quite another matter how or whether the language employed bears on the doctrine taught.
Some essays in the Lamb and Levering volume weigh in so heavily on the side of the hermeneutics of continuity that one might get the impression that not much happened at Vatican II. Obviously, that is not the case. After allowing that the liberal leaders at the council were sometimes elitist and manipulative, O’Malley gives this telling reflection on how the council is interpreted:
During the council, the media often pilloried “the conservatives” for obscurantism, intransigence for being out of touch, and even for dirty tricks. One thing can surely be said in their favor. They saw, or at least more straightforwardly named, the novel character and heavy consequences of some of the council’s decisions. The leaders of the majority, on the contrary, generally tried to minimize the novelty of some of their positions by insisting on their continuity with tradition. It is ironic that after Vatican II, conservative voices began insisting on the council’s continuity, whereas so-called liberals stressed its novelty.There is indeed irony, but it is not the irony that O’Malley proposes. What Happened at Vatican II is a 372-page brief for the party of novelty and discontinuity. Its author comes very close to saying explicitly what is frequently implied: that the innovationists practiced subterfuge, and they got away with it. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and his Society of St. Pius X are right: The council was a radical break from tradition and proposed what is, in effect, a different Catholicism. The irony is in the agreement between Lefebvre and the liberal party of discontinuity. O’Malley and those of like mind might be described as the Lefebvrists of the left.
It is almost half a century after the council. The pontificates of Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, along with the scholarly arguments represented by books such as Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition , make it evident that the hermeneutics of continuity is prevailing, if it has not already definitively prevailed. Fr. O’Malley may suspect that is the case. His book has about it the feel of a last-ditch effort to defend the story line of the post-Vatican II Church vs. the pre-Vatican II Church that was popularized by Xavier Rynne all these many years ago. The final irony is that if, in the twenty-fifth century, the Second Vatican Council is remembered as a reform council that failed, it will be the result of the combined, if unintended, efforts of the likes of Marcel Lefebvre and John O’Malley in advancing the argument that the council was a radical break from the tradition that is Catholicism. I do not expect they will succeed.
Richard John Neuhaus is editor in chief of First Things .
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
FIDELITY ARTICLE - Cardinal Lara and the Vanishing Schism
FIDELITY ARTICLE - Cardinal Lara and the Vanishing Schism
'As Catholics we know and have the voice of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, and on this whole tragic episode he has spoken. It shows the condition to which traditionalism has come that it sees its duty as being to disobey and oppose papal teaching. The irony here is that the SSPX has ended up repudiating the very tradition which it claims to want most zealously to uphold.'
Rosalio Jose Castillo Lara was born on September 4th 1922 at San Casimiro, near Maracay, in Venezuela. He was ordained priest in 1949. He was consecrated a bishop, with the Titular See of Praecausa, in 1973 and then made an Archbishop in 1982. Pope John Paul II made him a Cardinal in 1985. As Cardinal he was President of the Pontifical Council for the interpretation of Legislative Texts from 1985 to 1990. He has also been President of the Disciplinary Commission of the Roman Curia since 1981 and is President of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See. Cardinal Lara is also Dean of Nostra Signora di Coromoto and is a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education, of the Supreme Tribunal of the Holy See, of the Papal Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and of the Papal Commission for the Vatican City State.
All in all the Cardinal's career has been that of an eminent Roman canon lawyer and diplomat. His life has been one of loyal service to the Catholic Church. However, surprising as it may seem, according to many so-called "traditionalist Catholics," belonging to the Lefebvrist Society of St. Pius X, or apologists for that group, Cardinal Lara is in reality something of an ally of their cause. Furthermore, he is said by them not just to be a closet sympathizer, but a man who has spoken out publicly. It has even been said that he supports their arguments. How on earth can this be, one might well ask. The answer to this, unpleasant though it is, reveals a great deal about the attitude of the Society of St. Pius X towards the truth. However, to understand the case of Cardinal Lara, we must first go back to the year of 1988. The story starts in June of that year.
Schism and excommunication: the events of 1988
The consecration of four bishops without a papal mandate by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on June 30th, 1988, resulted in an automatic excommunication for the Archbishop, his co-consecrator, Bishop Antonio Castro de Mayer and the four new bishops. In addition, the Holy Father issued an Apostolic Letter, Ecclesia Dei in which he declared that the consecrations constituted an act of schism and that anyone formally adhering to the schism would also be guilty of that offense and automatically excommunicated. Despite the fact that the very tradition which the Society of St. Pius X purports to defend insists that Catholics must obey disciplinary decisions of the Apostolic See and that there is no appeal against such decisions (Vatican I, Dogmatic Constitution, Pastor Aeternus, Ch.3), the SSPX rushed around trying to find a non-existent justification for Archbishop Lefebvre's actions. Among the many purported justifications, a favorite was to play "the Canon Law cards." The canon lawyers don't accept that there is a schism was a frequent cry. This plea is a superficially attractive one, since most people are used to seeing how in a municipal legal system the courts always have the last word and assume that this must also be the case in Church law. The impact of this form of pleading is particularly strong in the United States, given the role of the Supreme Court as the perceived guardian of the Constitution. However, Church law is not like municipal law. That this is so should, of course, be obvious in the light of Vatican I and Pastor Aeternus, referred to earlier. In view of the widespread ignorance of the teaching of the Church, it might be useful to quote directly from that document:
"We teach and declare. . . that by the disposition of the Lord, the Roman Church possesses preeminence of ordinary power above all the Churches: and that this power of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff which is truly episcopal, is immediate. This power obligates shepherds and faithful of every rite and dignity, both individually and collectively, to hierarchical subordination and true obedience, not only in matters pertaining to faith and morals, but also in those pertaining to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world; so that by maintaining with the Roman Pontiff unity of communion and unity in the profession of the same faith, the Church of Christ may be one flock under one supreme Shepherd. This is the teaching of Catholic truth. No one can deviate from it without danger to faith." (emphasis added).
The Fathers of Vatican I further declared that: "[A] decision of the Apostolic See, whose authority has no superior, may be revised by no one, nor may anyone examine judicially its decision." The Council Fathers then went on to formulate the whole of this teaching in a canon to which an anathema was attached. Every true Catholic respects this teaching. It is the tradition of the Church. As evidence of this, one need only cite the consistory of March 10th, 1418, in which Pope Martin V asserted: "[N]o one may appeal from the supreme judge, that is the apostolic seat or the Roman Pontiff, Vicar on earth of Jesus Christ, or may decline his authority in matters of faith."
This teaching, which is binding on all Catholics, is enshrined in the Code of Canon Law: "The Bishop of the Church of Rome. . .Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church on earth. . .enjoys supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power...which he can always freely exercise" (Canon 331, emphasis added). In addition "there is neither appeal nor recourse against a decision or decree of the Roman Pontiff." (canon 333 [3])
There is, then, no Supreme Court above the Pope. It is the Pope who possesses supreme legislative, executive and judicial power. Because he is the supreme lawgiver of the Church, he is not legally bound by past ecclesiastical laws, but by divine law alone. As the supreme judge of the Church, he himself is judged by nobody, because there is no higher judge on earth than he. He has the right to decide all Church disputes, and there is no appeal to a higher court against his judgment. As St. Augustine famously put it, "Roma locuta est, causa finita est." But, as we have said earlier this is not what the person in the street is accustomed to. On the contrary, what he or she sees every day, particularly in the American Judicial system, are seemingly secure judgments being overturned by a higher court until very often the Supreme Court has the final say. The law and the lawyers say what goes and thus the attraction to some of the opinions of eminent canonists. And they don't come much more eminent than Cardinal Rosalio Jose Castillo Lara.
Enter Cardinal Lara
So what does Cardinal Lara say about the question of Archbishop Lefebvre? And what do the apologists for the SSPX say that Cardinal Lara says? Well, as far as the latter is concerned, that is easy to discover. One only needs to look at almost any article written in defense of the SSPX (or any pro-SSPX web site; Ed. Note) in order to find the inevitable reference to the cardinal, usually prefaced by a comment about his great abilities as a canon lawyer, something which no one, least of all the present writers, would wish to deny. After this comment, the SSPX apologist will go on to say, in the most definite terms that Cardinal Lara believes that the episcopal consecrations by Archbishop Lefebvre on June 30th, 1988 do not constitute an act of schism. We could give many examples of such statements, but a selection of typical ones must suffice. Let us start with the (former; Ed. Note) Superior General of the SSPX, Fr. Franz Schmidberger. In his pamphlet, The Episcopal Consecrations of 30 June 1988 (London 1989), Fr. Schmidberger states that the view of Cardinal Lara is that the consecrations did not constitute an act of schism (p.47). Turning to the bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre, it is only necessary to quote one of them, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais. Again, we find the same view expressed shortly after the consecrations in a letter to the District Superiors of the SSPX. Cardinal Lara is cited as authority for the view that "le sacre du Juin 30 n'est pas un acte schismatique" (Lettre circulaire No.50 aux sup. de districts,..., Rickenbach, Sept. 15th, 1988).
The same approach is to be found when one turns from actual members of the SSPX to its supporters. For example, one Frank Denke, writing in the July 1990 issue of The Angelus, the SSPX in house journal, repeats the same party line. Another apologist, Teodoro Dominguez, again in The Angelus, this time in March 1993, gives the same account, just in case readers have not yet gotten the message. The former acknowledges his source, which unsurprisingly turns out to be Fr. Schmidberger's pamphlet referred to earlier. The latter gives no references at all.
Enter Michael Davies
Inevitably on a question of this kind, as with any question of whatever kind concerning the SSPX, the doyen of SSPX supporters, Michael Davies, has had his say. This was in the form of an article, "Who is Schismatic?," Part II of which (the relevant part in this context) appeared in the December 1990 issue of The Angelus (not another article on schism, one might well ask. Does the SSPX have nothing else to write about?!). Interestingly, and unlike most of the other writers, Davies purports to quote Cardinal Lara verbatim. Davies' treatment of this matter is worth considering in some detail, because it is very enlightening on the whole subject of SSPX apologetics and its methodology.
After the usual bending of the knee to the great ability of Cardinal Lara as a canonist ("It would be hard to imagine a more authoritative opinion" [p.201], Davies gives a direct quotation from the July 10th, 1988, issue of the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, in which Cardinal Lara is said to have commented on the episcopal consecrations. Here is what Cardinal Lara is supposed to have said, according to the quotation in Davies' article:
"The act of consecrating a bishop (without a papal mandate) is not in itself a schismatic act. In fact, the Code that deals with offenses is divided into two sections. One deals with offenses against religion and the unity of the Church, and these are apostasy, schism, and heresy. Consecrating a bishop with [sic] a papal mandate is, on the contrary, an offense against the exercise of a specific ministry. For example, in the case of the consecrations carried out by the Vietnamese Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc in 1976 and 1983, although the Archbishop was excommunicated he was not considered to have committed a schismatic act because there was no intention of a breach with the Church."
This quotation has become something of a sacred text within SSPX circles. It is frequently referred to when the question of schism and the SSPX is raised and appears in later writings, notably in Fr. David Belland's article on schism (yes, another one!) in the May 1993 issue of The Angelus (p.23).
But, let us return to the Michael Davies article. The rationale for the use of the quotation of Cardinal Lara's words there is easily stated. The central thesis of Davies' article is, of course, that Archbishop Lefebvre is not a schismatic. Davies begins this section of the article by stating: "Canon lawyers without the least shred of sympathy for Msgr. Lefebvre have repudiated the charge of schism made against him as totally untenable" (op cit, p.20). He then makes reference to Cardinal Lara, a canonist of course, with regard to various matters relating to the issue of schism. Davies then concludes by saying that there is no basis whatsoever in Canon Law for accusing Archbishop Lefebvre of the offense of schism. Now, it is inevitable that, in view of what Davies has written thus far, that his readers can only infer that Cardinal Lara is also of the opinion that there is no schism in the Lefebvre case.
So what is the truth about Cardinal Lara? Is he in reality a secret Lefebvre supporter, perhaps one of those people in high places about whom we were always being told by the SSPX. Readers may remember the standard account of this. These men, it was said, were sympathizers of Archbishop Lefebvre in private, but not prepared, or able, to act in public in accordance with their beliefs. On whether Cardinal Lara was a closet Lefebvrist, ready now to spring to the SSPX's defense in public, the present writers were naturally skeptical, though a little curious. Of course, as we have seen earlier, once one understands the true Catholic teaching on papal primacy, and sees the falsity of the version peddled by the SSPX, in which all papal decisions are up for review, one realizes that the opinions of a cardinal, however eminent, cannot stand against a clear decision by the Vicar of Christ, the Successor of St. Peter. However, as we have also seen earlier, once people are cast adrift from a true understanding of the role which law plays in the life of the Church, individual legal opinions take on a life of their own and are likely to be used as a purported justification for disobeying the Church authorities. And on that basis, what Cardinal Lara seemed to be saying did provide some encouragement to such people. Yet, could it really be the case that a man then in the position of being the President of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, was of the opinion that the major text in the Lefebvre case, the Apostolic Letter issued by Pope John Paul II under the name Ecclesia Dei, was wrong in its main conclusions? Surely not. There did, however, seem to be one obvious way in which to find out. Why not ask the cardinal himself? He was surely in the best position to know what he said, if anything on the occasion in question. The other obvious step to take was to find out whether the report of the Cardinal's comments contained in La Repubblica was in the same terms as in Michael Davies' article. So we decided to make some inquiries. The result of making them was interesting -- to say the least.
The real Cardinal Lara puts the record straight
The first thing we did was to write to Cardinal Lara, explaining that he was being quoted as stating that Archbishop Lefebvre was not in schism, and asking him to clarify exactly what he had stated on the occasion in question. Cardinal Lara's reply was as follows:
"You bring to my attention a matter of importance. You asked if I could tell you what exactly I said in the interview of 10th July 1988. The substance of what I said is as follows:'In the case of Lefebvre and the four priests consecrated bishops by him, there are two offenses canonically speaking, that they have committed. The fundamental offense is that of schism, that is, refusing submission to the Roman Pontiff and breaking communion with the Church. This offence they had already previously committed. Only that, now, the second offense, that of consecrating bishops, formalizes, in a certain sense, and concretizes the first, and makes it explicit. Schism is a delict which can be personal. It does not require having a number of people. Individuals can do it on their own. Lefebvre and his followers, inasmuch as they refused submission to the Pope, were already, by that fact itself, in schism. The intent of the act of consecrating bishops is already to create a church with its own hierarchy. In this sense, the consecration of bishops becomes an act of schism. One should keep in mind, however, that the act of consecrating bishops is not in itself a schismatic act. In fact, in the Code, where offenses are treated, these two are treated in two distinct headings. There are delicts against religion and the unity of the Church. And these are apostasy (i.e. renouncing the faith), schism and heresy. Consecrating a bishop without pontifical mandate is, on the other hand, an offense against the proper exercise of one's ministry. For example, there was an excommunication of the Vietnamese Archbishop, Ngo Dinh Thuc in '76 and '83 for an episcopal consecration, but it was not considered a schismatic act because there was no intent to break with the Church. Ngo Dinh Thuc represents a pitiable situation, as there is some mental imbalance.
With regard to Econe, Lefebvre and the four priests, they are under two excommunications: one for the offense of schism, the other, reserved to the Apostolic See, for the offense of consecrating a bishop without a pontifical mandate.' I hope that this is helpful for you." (Letter to John Beaumont, dated May 26th, 1993).
We next obtained a copy of the report in La Repubblica. We found that Cardinal Lara's statement to us was virtually word for word what he was reported as saying by La Repubblica (in the latter the cardinal then went on to answer other questions put to him by a journalist concerning the Lefebvre case).
Now compare Cardinal Lara's statement with his words as reported by Michael Davies, bearing in mind that, as we have seen, the express purpose of Davies' article is to establish that Archbishop Lefebvre was not in schism. What has happened is that in the Davies version two vital passages have been omitted, one which comes before the passage he quotes and one which comes after. Remarkably, or perhaps not, in both of these other passages Cardinal Lara states quite unreservedly that Archbishop Lefebvre committed the offense of schism. Thus, the cardinal whose statement is used to lead to an irresistible inference that there is no schism, turns out to believe the exact opposite.
Michael Davies is puzzled
What, it may be asked, does Michael Davies have to say about this matter? We wrote to him to find out and received a very interesting reply. In assessing this it must be stated firstly that we have no reason to doubt his statement to us that the quotation which he used had been taken from "a French Journal," where it had appeared in the same shortened form. What is disturbing, however, is his statement that: "I note firstly that he [Cardinal Lara] does not deny making the statement that I attributed to him in The Angelus" (letter to John Beaumont, dated June 11th 1993). He later adds: "As the Cardinal has reiterated his testimony in his letter to you I would appreciate knowing precisely what is the false impression given as a result of using this quotation in my article" (Ibid).
This expression of puzzlement by Michael Davies is surprising. It must surely be obvious that there is a false impression given and that it is caused by the omission of the vital passages which occur both before and after the passage quoted by Davies. The "before" and "after" set what Cardinal Lara says into its true context. Look at what the Cardinal does in fact say. He begins by stating that in the Lefebvre case there are two offenses, the fundamental one being that of schism (this alone is the exact opposite of the thesis of Davies' article). He then explains exactly what schism is and discusses various aspects of that offense. He then concludes with a final categorical statement that Archbishop Lefebvre and the four bishops have committed the offense of schism. Davies, therefore, omits two absolutely explicit statements by Cardinal Lara completely contrary to Davies' thesis and yet, despite all of this, claims to be puzzled that anyone should allege that he had given a false impression in his article.
According to Michael Davies, then, it is legitimate to use out of a quotation those words which, when quoted in isolation, superficially seem to support one's case, and to ignore the surrounding text. Does this mean then that the police, when told by a suspect in a murder investigation, "I did hit him, but it was in self-defense," are entitled to omit the second clause and put the first one in on its own as a full confession of guilt? Of course not. On reading Michael Davies' approach to this question the present writers were reminded of the world of Lewis Carroll's Alice. To Davies not only is it "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean," but "When you use another word, I can simply ignore it at my pleasure." (see Through the Looking-Glass, Ch.6).
Michael Davies' defense was to claim that the statement which he used from Cardinal Lara was "to reinforce the point I was making that consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate is not in itself a schismatic act" and that this was the "precise topic" which he was discussing in his article. But, once more this is misleading. We quote again what Davies writes in the paragraph immediately before that relating to Cardinal Lara: "Canon lawyers without the least shred of sympathy for Msgr. Lefebvre have repudiated the charge of schism made against him as totally untenable." (op cit, p 20).
In addition, as we have seen the fundamental thesis of the article was not whether consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate is an intrinsically schismatic act, but whether Archbishop Lefebvre was in schism; and on this question Cardinal Lara has something important to say which the reader does not get to know about.
Michael Davies on schism
Michael Davies' approach to the question of schism is a strange one. Davies seems to be obsessed with the question of the distinction between schism and consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate, arguing, it seems, that the two can never meet.
At one point in our correspondence he stated that consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate "is not a schismatic act." On another occasion he wrote that it "is not in itself a schismatic act" nor "an intrinsically schismatic act." The first statement is not anything stated by Cardinal Lara. It is also incorrect as a general proposition. The second and third statements are true, but Davies falls into error by concluding that what is meant by them is that such a consecration can never be an act of schism. This is not the case at all.
Cardinal Lara is not saying (nor does the Church) that consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate can never be an act of schism. All that he is saying is that such a consecration is not automatically always a schismatic act. As is clear, schism is, inter alia, the refusal of submission to the Pope on a matter relating to the unity of the Church. Theologians have shown that consecrations without a papal mandate may be performed in certain very narrowly defined emergencies without attacking the unity of the Church (witness the attempt by apologists for the SSPX in 1988 to use these cases until it became clear that none of them applied).
However, as the Holy Father pointed out in Ecclesia Dei the consecration of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated, is a matter of supreme importance for the unity of the Church. As a result, then, consecration without a papal mandate will usually amount to a schismatic act. Such an action is evidence of schism, and it is especially strong evidence where, as in the case of Archbishop Lefebvre, the consecrations were not just in the absence of a papal mandate, but also against the express will of the Pope as conveyed to Archbishop Lefebvre in the most formal and serious terms.
At one point in his correspondence with us Michael Davies did make something of a correction. He recognized that if he had access to the full statement of Cardinal Lara at the time he wrote his article, he would have prefaced the quotation with something on the following lines: "although he maintains that Msgr. Lefebvre was already a schismatic before the consecrations, Cardinal Lara accepts that the act of consecrating. . .etc."
Unfortunately, this is again misleading. Firstly, the reference to a possible schism before June 30th, 1988, distracts from the clear statement of the Cardinal that on June 30th "the consecration of bishops becomes an act of schism." Secondly, the whole idea of schism as something which always switches on and off at a specific instant in time is a flawed one, though one to which "traditionalists" are curiously prone. Schism is something which grows. It can suffuse a person or organization and develop over a period of time. That this is in fact the case can be shown, ironically enough, by a perusal of Michael Davies' own writings. That Archbishop Lefebvre and his organization were treated by Rome as having schismatic tendencies from a very early date can be seen from the following quotations, ail of which are taken from Volumes 1 and 2 of Davies' Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre:
"What is indeed at issue is the question--which must truly be called fundamental of your clearly proclaimed refusal to recognize, in its whole, the authority of the Second Vatican Council and that of the Pope. This refusal is accompanied by an action that is oriented towards propagating and organizing what must indeed, unfortunately, be called a rebellion." (letter of Pope Paul VI to Archbishop Lefebvre, October 11th 1976).
"We cannot therefore take your requests into consideration because it is a question of facts which have already been committed in rebellion against the one true Church of God." (Ibid).
"Pray to the Holy Spirit, dear Brother. He will show you the necessary renunciations to help you to reenter in the path of a full communion with the Church and with the successor of Peter." (letter of Pope Paul VI to Archbishop Lefebvre, September 8th 1975).
"It is so painful to take note of this: but how can we not see in such an attitude whatever may be these people's intentions the placing of themselves outside obedience and communion with the Successor of St. Peter and therefore outside the Church." (Consistory Elocution by Pope Paul VI, May 24th, 1976)
"We admonish you with all Our strength: do not worsen the bad example given by your attitude, do not make your break from the unity and charity of the Catholic communion irreparable." (letter of Pope Paul VI to Archbishop Lefebvre, June 20th 1977)
"If your words are taken in their full meaning, is there not justification for saying that you refuse, or are ready to refuse, communion with the members of the Church subject to the Pope?" (annex to letter of Cardinal Seper to Archbishop Lefebvre, January 28th, 1978)
"[T]he Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith considers that, by your declarations about submission to the Council and to the post-conciliar reforms of Paul VI--declarations with which your whole behavior and especially your illicit ordination of priests are in accord--you have fallen into grave disobedience, and that all these declarations and acts, by their own logic, lead to schism." (Ibid)
What, then, is the true picture? It can be expressed as follows: a) The Apostolic See recognized in Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX from the middle 1970s a schismatic spirit; b) while manifesting this schismatic mentality and practice, Archbishop Lefebvre did not at first get to the point of formally breaking unity with the Church. In fact, in his book, Open letter to Confused Catholics, written in 1986, Lefebvre deliberately pointed to another road rather than that of consecration without a papal mandate; c) in 1988 Archbishop Lefebvre carried out the "final rupture," as Cardinal Ratzinger put it in a letter to him a year before. What the consecrations of 1988 against the express will of the pope did was to, as it were, concretize and make explicit what was implicit before, namely that the SSPX, while paying lip service to the authority of the pope, refused the submission to him which is required of the Catholic faithful. Cardinal Lara expresses this in his letter to us. Schism, then, is not just a legal construct, absent one day and present the next it is a factual reality which develops until finally becoming formalized in a particular attack on the unity of the Church.
The Society of St. Pius X refuses to tell the truth
Correspondence with Michael Davies, then, brought a statement by him of the true position concerning Cardinal Lara no nearer. Other attempts on the writers' part to put the record straight have met with no greater success. The editor of The Angelus greeted our letter (and subsequent reminder) with a stony silence; not even the courtesy of a reply. Bishop Richard Williamson, from his power base in Winona, proved a little more forthcoming, but not much. The bishop thanked us for our letter and said only that it "has received some attention before being filed for future reference." Well, at least he replied and we shall continue to scour the pages of The Angelus for any evidence that our letter has "received some attention" (as of December 1993 there is nothing to report).
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais took a slightly different line. His response was as follows: "According to Cardinal Castillo Lara, the episcopal consecrations without mandatum of Rome are not a schismatic act in itself: this is what the cardinal said in La Repubblica . . . This declaration is sufficient for us." (letter to John Beaumont, dated December 30th, 1993)
That "this declaration is sufficient" for him comes as no surprise, since it completely distorts the import of what Cardinal Lara is trying to say. Bishop Tissier de Mallerais is prepared to quote Cardinal Lara when it supports the SSPX's case to do so. When, however, the cardinal sets out his authentic views, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais refuses to be moved. The attitude of the SSPX seems to be one of welcoming witnesses who appear to support them. Yet, these same witnesses are treated as non-persons when their true position (which is against the SSPX) emerges. The comments which we have made on Michael Davies apply just as clearly here as well.
Finally on the question of correcting errors and putting forward the truth, we come to Teodoro Dominguez, who had gone to the trouble of obtaining a glowing tribute from Michael Davies adjacent to his article in The Angelus, in which Davies referred to "the fearless approach of Attorney Dominguez in defending the faith." And the response to our inquiries of this fearless defender of the faith? Silence. Not a word. Let us hope that at least he has been supplied by Michael Davies with the Davies version of a retraction. That would be better than nothing, though not much better.
Cardinal Lara turns up in Ireland
The affair of Cardinal Lara would seem even now not to be over. We believed that even if we had not been favored with a reply from the SSPX and its various apologists, the message must surely have been sent round these circles that there was no further mileage in the Lara case.
How naive we were. We should have realized that if a lie is repeated often enough it can come to have more influence with people than the truth. Final realization of this came from where we had no reason to expect it, from Ireland. A friend of ours was sent a letter by a priest of the SSPX working in Ireland. Enclosed with the letter was a booklet containing the usual SSPX propaganda in defense of its actions. This would have been nothing out of the ordinary except for the remarkable fact that, according to the priest, the booklet had been given "the approbation of (guess who?) Cardinal Lara!"
Amazingly, the priest added that the booklet had been written by "an Opus Dei man." As far as the latter is concerned, we do not have any actual evidence, but it would seem more likely that the late Ayatollah Khomeini would support the SSPX than that a member of Opus Dei would do so. We can, however, comment with some degree of confidence on the question of whether Cardinal Lara is lending his name to an SSPX booklet, because we wrote and asked him. Back came another letter. This time the cardinal, no doubt weary at having his name taken in vain by a schismatic group, answered through his personal assistant, Fr. Joseph Fox, OP. The message was just as clear: "As you know from your previous correspondence with His Eminence, he is no proponent of the divisive activities of the deceased excommunicated Archbishop Lefebvre or his followers.... He would like you to know that he has never given his approval for the publications of those associated with the Lefebvre movement nor has he any intention of doing so in the future." (letter to John Beaumont, dated November 18th, 1993)
We have no doubt that readers will not be surprised at the reaction of the SSPX to this latest attempt by Cardinal Lara to put the record straight. Of course, we do not know if the SSPX in Ireland has issued a correction to the information given about the booklet. We do not have access to its literature in Ireland. All that we can say is that when we wrote to the priest in question, enclosing the letter from Cardinal Lara's office, we received the response which we have come to expect from these doughty defenders of "tradition." Yes, silence.
It is worth reflecting a little further on this case. In a sense it can be seen as a development in the process of disinformation employed by the SSPX. In the first case involving the use of his name, Cardinal Lara says something about an issue and is quoted wrongly. There is, then, a misunderstanding of what he says. In the second case, however, the cardinal says nothing at all and the SSPX makes up something for him to say. One can only ask, where will this end? Will it be said by Clemente Dominguez, the so called Pope Gregory XVII at Palmar de Troya, that Cardinal Lara recognizes him as Pope? Certainly, where "traditionalism" is concerned, nothing surprises us any more. Traditionalism has at least equaled, if not surpassed, Protestantism for producing the bizarre.
Another misrepresented canonist
Readers who have examined in detail the literature of the SSPX will have noted that when the SSPX plays the Canon Law card it quite often plays it in the plural, in the sense that the usual reference to Cardinal Lara is often supplemented by the names of other canonists. While not naturally suspicious, we have learned that "once bitten, twice shy," so we decided to write to one of them to investigate his Lefebvrist credentials. This was the Professor of Canon Law at the University of Munich, Professor Geringer. The latter's authority is appealed to by Fr. Schmidberger in the pamphlet referred to earlier. The professor was cited there as saying in a radio interview on June 30th, 1988, that "with the episcopal consecrations Archbishop Lefebvre was by no means creating a schism unless he was in fact intending to found his own church" (op cit, p.47). Professor Geringer also receives the nod of approval from the trinity of Davies, Dominguez (Teodoro, not Clemente of Palmar de Troya) and Denke, since although only the second and third referred to him expressly, it will be recalled that Mr. Dominguez's article received the imprimatur of Michael Davies. According to Frank Denke, Professor Geringer has no doubts at all on the question of schism. He is quoted as saying that "with the episcopal consecration, Archbishop Lefebvre was by no means creating a schism" (op cit. p.9, emphasis as in the original). Teodoro Dominguez's version simply lists the professor along with Cardinal Lara as supporting the view that Archbishop Lefebvre is not schismatic.
As with the case of Cardinal Lara, however, the version given by Professor Geringer was very different. In his letter to us he expressed his position as follows: "I would like to say that at the time in an interview with the radio I explicitly declared that through the consecration of the four bishops by Lefebvre the schism had become definitive, and that Lefebvre and his adherents had lost all their rights within the Church." (letter to John Beaumont dated August 17th, 1993)
Professor Geringer went on to make the point that in the interview in question he had also dealt with the need for moral fault before the incurring of a penalty and the question of a mitigation of a penalty where actions are done on the basis of personal conviction. He concludes his letter, however, with the statement that "there can be no doubt that Lefebvre and his adherents are de facto schismatic."
So there we have it. And the response of the SSPX? Well, having written twice to the editor of The Angelus over the Lara ease without any response, we decided to give that one a miss this time and save the postage. Bishop Williamson's somewhat brief response to the Lara issue was evidently meant for that of Geringer as well, since he had been sent both sets of correspondences. There was nothing from Dominguez, nor this time from Michael Davies (except a thank you). However, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais came up with a new tactic. We quote the relevant section from his letter:
"For Professor Geringer, in 1988, with the episcopal consecrations of Msgr. Lefebvre, 'there is no church of Lefebvre.' And for this very reason, he said, the faithful adhering to him are still Catholics." He adds: 'If, one day, Lefebvre should found a Church independent of Rome and if those want to adhere to him, then it would be another thing.'" (letter to John Beaumont, dated December 30th, 1993)
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais puts his faith in the 1988 version of Geringer. Now, we do not have access to a recording or transcript of the radio interview. We do not know what Professor Geringer said on that occasion. We do know, however, what the professor claims now to have said then. Maybe that is true, maybe it is not. There is a conflict. But what is clear is that the professor's claim is a piece of evidence which the inquirer should be entitled to take into account. Bishop Tissier de Mallerais' tactic of publicizing only one version prevents this from happening.
But, let us suppose for sake of argument that Professor Geringer has changed his mind on these issues between 1988 and today. Does that mean that his views today are to be given no credence at all? Before it says that this is the case, the SSPX ought to tread very carefully. Someone might remind them that on May 5th, 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre accepted and signed a certain protocol with Cardinal Ratzinger. Very shortly thereafter the Archbishop reneged on this agreement. Supporters of the SSPX would no doubt claim that the Archbishop was right in his later action. But, on the approach of Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, do we not have to say that Archbishop Lefebvre's original decision was the right one and that his later action must be rejected? Let us hope that Bishop Tissier de Mallerais will come to accept the logic of his own reasoning, because that may enable him to return to the Catholic Church. The key point here surely is that the SSPX and its apologists continue to state that Professor Geringer believes that there is no schism when clearly this is untrue.
Conclusion
What do the facts which we have brought out in this article say about the SSPX? First of all, they show clearly that the SSPX and its defenders have misinterpreted and misquoted Cardinal Lara (we concentrate on the most eminent of these canonists). Secondly, when this has been pointed out to these people they have failed to retract their errors or correct them. Thirdly, this whole affair illustrates to what extent the SSPX is committed to the truth.
We are forced to conclude that it is more interested in propaganda than the facts. The SSPX would never in a million years appeal to a Roman Commission such as the Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts. But, when it believes that the President of that Council has said something which supports its case, he is quoted again and again by SSPX supporters. However, when the truth is known, either the same false propaganda is disseminated regardless, or Cardinal Lara is put to one side as if he never existed. There are shades of Stalinism here, where figures once seen to be part of one's movement are later treated as non-persons. It is evident that Cardinal Lara is only important insofar as he supports the SSPX in this case. The Lefebvre group, and its survival, are the criteria now. Truth comes a very poor second.
The whole approach of the SSPX is summed up by Michael Davies in his article in The Angelus when he wrote that "it would be hard to imagine a more authoritative opinion" than Cardinal Lara's. The sad thing for Michael Davies and other traditionalists is not just that they misinterpret the good cardinal, but that they fail to know what every Catholic knows. This is that it is not in fact hard to imagine a more authoritative voice than Cardinal Lara's. As Catholics we know and have the voice of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, and on this whole tragic episode he has spoken. It shows the condition to which traditionalism has come that it sees its duty as being to disobey and oppose papal teaching. The irony here is that the SSPX has ended up repudiating the very tradition which it claims to want most zealously to uphold.
'As Catholics we know and have the voice of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, and on this whole tragic episode he has spoken. It shows the condition to which traditionalism has come that it sees its duty as being to disobey and oppose papal teaching. The irony here is that the SSPX has ended up repudiating the very tradition which it claims to want most zealously to uphold.'
The Story of the Vanishing Schism: The Strange Case of Cardinal Lara
by John Beaumont and John Walsh
Fidelity Magazine, March 1994
John Beaumont is Principal Lecturer in Law at Leeds Metropolitan University.
John Walsh is a history graduate of the University of Leeds and has recently completed a Masters Degree in Theology.
Writing the following article has been a sad but necessary task. As the article shows, a distinguished Catholic prelate has been the subject of much disinformation by a group which although now outside the Catholic Church, claims to uphold Catholic tradition. The authors have made many efforts in private to persuade those who have published this material to set the record straight. Sadly, this has not been done. We feel obliged therefore to bring the truth into the public domain in order that innocent Catholics may no longer be misled in this matter. Rosalio Jose Castillo Lara was born on September 4th 1922 at San Casimiro, near Maracay, in Venezuela. He was ordained priest in 1949. He was consecrated a bishop, with the Titular See of Praecausa, in 1973 and then made an Archbishop in 1982. Pope John Paul II made him a Cardinal in 1985. As Cardinal he was President of the Pontifical Council for the interpretation of Legislative Texts from 1985 to 1990. He has also been President of the Disciplinary Commission of the Roman Curia since 1981 and is President of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See. Cardinal Lara is also Dean of Nostra Signora di Coromoto and is a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education, of the Supreme Tribunal of the Holy See, of the Papal Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and of the Papal Commission for the Vatican City State.
All in all the Cardinal's career has been that of an eminent Roman canon lawyer and diplomat. His life has been one of loyal service to the Catholic Church. However, surprising as it may seem, according to many so-called "traditionalist Catholics," belonging to the Lefebvrist Society of St. Pius X, or apologists for that group, Cardinal Lara is in reality something of an ally of their cause. Furthermore, he is said by them not just to be a closet sympathizer, but a man who has spoken out publicly. It has even been said that he supports their arguments. How on earth can this be, one might well ask. The answer to this, unpleasant though it is, reveals a great deal about the attitude of the Society of St. Pius X towards the truth. However, to understand the case of Cardinal Lara, we must first go back to the year of 1988. The story starts in June of that year.
Schism and excommunication: the events of 1988
The consecration of four bishops without a papal mandate by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on June 30th, 1988, resulted in an automatic excommunication for the Archbishop, his co-consecrator, Bishop Antonio Castro de Mayer and the four new bishops. In addition, the Holy Father issued an Apostolic Letter, Ecclesia Dei in which he declared that the consecrations constituted an act of schism and that anyone formally adhering to the schism would also be guilty of that offense and automatically excommunicated. Despite the fact that the very tradition which the Society of St. Pius X purports to defend insists that Catholics must obey disciplinary decisions of the Apostolic See and that there is no appeal against such decisions (Vatican I, Dogmatic Constitution, Pastor Aeternus, Ch.3), the SSPX rushed around trying to find a non-existent justification for Archbishop Lefebvre's actions. Among the many purported justifications, a favorite was to play "the Canon Law cards." The canon lawyers don't accept that there is a schism was a frequent cry. This plea is a superficially attractive one, since most people are used to seeing how in a municipal legal system the courts always have the last word and assume that this must also be the case in Church law. The impact of this form of pleading is particularly strong in the United States, given the role of the Supreme Court as the perceived guardian of the Constitution. However, Church law is not like municipal law. That this is so should, of course, be obvious in the light of Vatican I and Pastor Aeternus, referred to earlier. In view of the widespread ignorance of the teaching of the Church, it might be useful to quote directly from that document:
"We teach and declare. . . that by the disposition of the Lord, the Roman Church possesses preeminence of ordinary power above all the Churches: and that this power of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff which is truly episcopal, is immediate. This power obligates shepherds and faithful of every rite and dignity, both individually and collectively, to hierarchical subordination and true obedience, not only in matters pertaining to faith and morals, but also in those pertaining to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world; so that by maintaining with the Roman Pontiff unity of communion and unity in the profession of the same faith, the Church of Christ may be one flock under one supreme Shepherd. This is the teaching of Catholic truth. No one can deviate from it without danger to faith." (emphasis added).
The Fathers of Vatican I further declared that: "[A] decision of the Apostolic See, whose authority has no superior, may be revised by no one, nor may anyone examine judicially its decision." The Council Fathers then went on to formulate the whole of this teaching in a canon to which an anathema was attached. Every true Catholic respects this teaching. It is the tradition of the Church. As evidence of this, one need only cite the consistory of March 10th, 1418, in which Pope Martin V asserted: "[N]o one may appeal from the supreme judge, that is the apostolic seat or the Roman Pontiff, Vicar on earth of Jesus Christ, or may decline his authority in matters of faith."
This teaching, which is binding on all Catholics, is enshrined in the Code of Canon Law: "The Bishop of the Church of Rome. . .Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church on earth. . .enjoys supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power...which he can always freely exercise" (Canon 331, emphasis added). In addition "there is neither appeal nor recourse against a decision or decree of the Roman Pontiff." (canon 333 [3])
There is, then, no Supreme Court above the Pope. It is the Pope who possesses supreme legislative, executive and judicial power. Because he is the supreme lawgiver of the Church, he is not legally bound by past ecclesiastical laws, but by divine law alone. As the supreme judge of the Church, he himself is judged by nobody, because there is no higher judge on earth than he. He has the right to decide all Church disputes, and there is no appeal to a higher court against his judgment. As St. Augustine famously put it, "Roma locuta est, causa finita est." But, as we have said earlier this is not what the person in the street is accustomed to. On the contrary, what he or she sees every day, particularly in the American Judicial system, are seemingly secure judgments being overturned by a higher court until very often the Supreme Court has the final say. The law and the lawyers say what goes and thus the attraction to some of the opinions of eminent canonists. And they don't come much more eminent than Cardinal Rosalio Jose Castillo Lara.
Enter Cardinal Lara
So what does Cardinal Lara say about the question of Archbishop Lefebvre? And what do the apologists for the SSPX say that Cardinal Lara says? Well, as far as the latter is concerned, that is easy to discover. One only needs to look at almost any article written in defense of the SSPX (or any pro-SSPX web site; Ed. Note) in order to find the inevitable reference to the cardinal, usually prefaced by a comment about his great abilities as a canon lawyer, something which no one, least of all the present writers, would wish to deny. After this comment, the SSPX apologist will go on to say, in the most definite terms that Cardinal Lara believes that the episcopal consecrations by Archbishop Lefebvre on June 30th, 1988 do not constitute an act of schism. We could give many examples of such statements, but a selection of typical ones must suffice. Let us start with the (former; Ed. Note) Superior General of the SSPX, Fr. Franz Schmidberger. In his pamphlet, The Episcopal Consecrations of 30 June 1988 (London 1989), Fr. Schmidberger states that the view of Cardinal Lara is that the consecrations did not constitute an act of schism (p.47). Turning to the bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre, it is only necessary to quote one of them, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais. Again, we find the same view expressed shortly after the consecrations in a letter to the District Superiors of the SSPX. Cardinal Lara is cited as authority for the view that "le sacre du Juin 30 n'est pas un acte schismatique" (Lettre circulaire No.50 aux sup. de districts,..., Rickenbach, Sept. 15th, 1988).
The same approach is to be found when one turns from actual members of the SSPX to its supporters. For example, one Frank Denke, writing in the July 1990 issue of The Angelus, the SSPX in house journal, repeats the same party line. Another apologist, Teodoro Dominguez, again in The Angelus, this time in March 1993, gives the same account, just in case readers have not yet gotten the message. The former acknowledges his source, which unsurprisingly turns out to be Fr. Schmidberger's pamphlet referred to earlier. The latter gives no references at all.
Enter Michael Davies
Inevitably on a question of this kind, as with any question of whatever kind concerning the SSPX, the doyen of SSPX supporters, Michael Davies, has had his say. This was in the form of an article, "Who is Schismatic?," Part II of which (the relevant part in this context) appeared in the December 1990 issue of The Angelus (not another article on schism, one might well ask. Does the SSPX have nothing else to write about?!). Interestingly, and unlike most of the other writers, Davies purports to quote Cardinal Lara verbatim. Davies' treatment of this matter is worth considering in some detail, because it is very enlightening on the whole subject of SSPX apologetics and its methodology.
After the usual bending of the knee to the great ability of Cardinal Lara as a canonist ("It would be hard to imagine a more authoritative opinion" [p.201], Davies gives a direct quotation from the July 10th, 1988, issue of the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, in which Cardinal Lara is said to have commented on the episcopal consecrations. Here is what Cardinal Lara is supposed to have said, according to the quotation in Davies' article:
"The act of consecrating a bishop (without a papal mandate) is not in itself a schismatic act. In fact, the Code that deals with offenses is divided into two sections. One deals with offenses against religion and the unity of the Church, and these are apostasy, schism, and heresy. Consecrating a bishop with [sic] a papal mandate is, on the contrary, an offense against the exercise of a specific ministry. For example, in the case of the consecrations carried out by the Vietnamese Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc in 1976 and 1983, although the Archbishop was excommunicated he was not considered to have committed a schismatic act because there was no intention of a breach with the Church."
This quotation has become something of a sacred text within SSPX circles. It is frequently referred to when the question of schism and the SSPX is raised and appears in later writings, notably in Fr. David Belland's article on schism (yes, another one!) in the May 1993 issue of The Angelus (p.23).
But, let us return to the Michael Davies article. The rationale for the use of the quotation of Cardinal Lara's words there is easily stated. The central thesis of Davies' article is, of course, that Archbishop Lefebvre is not a schismatic. Davies begins this section of the article by stating: "Canon lawyers without the least shred of sympathy for Msgr. Lefebvre have repudiated the charge of schism made against him as totally untenable" (op cit, p.20). He then makes reference to Cardinal Lara, a canonist of course, with regard to various matters relating to the issue of schism. Davies then concludes by saying that there is no basis whatsoever in Canon Law for accusing Archbishop Lefebvre of the offense of schism. Now, it is inevitable that, in view of what Davies has written thus far, that his readers can only infer that Cardinal Lara is also of the opinion that there is no schism in the Lefebvre case.
So what is the truth about Cardinal Lara? Is he in reality a secret Lefebvre supporter, perhaps one of those people in high places about whom we were always being told by the SSPX. Readers may remember the standard account of this. These men, it was said, were sympathizers of Archbishop Lefebvre in private, but not prepared, or able, to act in public in accordance with their beliefs. On whether Cardinal Lara was a closet Lefebvrist, ready now to spring to the SSPX's defense in public, the present writers were naturally skeptical, though a little curious. Of course, as we have seen earlier, once one understands the true Catholic teaching on papal primacy, and sees the falsity of the version peddled by the SSPX, in which all papal decisions are up for review, one realizes that the opinions of a cardinal, however eminent, cannot stand against a clear decision by the Vicar of Christ, the Successor of St. Peter. However, as we have also seen earlier, once people are cast adrift from a true understanding of the role which law plays in the life of the Church, individual legal opinions take on a life of their own and are likely to be used as a purported justification for disobeying the Church authorities. And on that basis, what Cardinal Lara seemed to be saying did provide some encouragement to such people. Yet, could it really be the case that a man then in the position of being the President of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, was of the opinion that the major text in the Lefebvre case, the Apostolic Letter issued by Pope John Paul II under the name Ecclesia Dei, was wrong in its main conclusions? Surely not. There did, however, seem to be one obvious way in which to find out. Why not ask the cardinal himself? He was surely in the best position to know what he said, if anything on the occasion in question. The other obvious step to take was to find out whether the report of the Cardinal's comments contained in La Repubblica was in the same terms as in Michael Davies' article. So we decided to make some inquiries. The result of making them was interesting -- to say the least.
The real Cardinal Lara puts the record straight
The first thing we did was to write to Cardinal Lara, explaining that he was being quoted as stating that Archbishop Lefebvre was not in schism, and asking him to clarify exactly what he had stated on the occasion in question. Cardinal Lara's reply was as follows:
"You bring to my attention a matter of importance. You asked if I could tell you what exactly I said in the interview of 10th July 1988. The substance of what I said is as follows:'In the case of Lefebvre and the four priests consecrated bishops by him, there are two offenses canonically speaking, that they have committed. The fundamental offense is that of schism, that is, refusing submission to the Roman Pontiff and breaking communion with the Church. This offence they had already previously committed. Only that, now, the second offense, that of consecrating bishops, formalizes, in a certain sense, and concretizes the first, and makes it explicit. Schism is a delict which can be personal. It does not require having a number of people. Individuals can do it on their own. Lefebvre and his followers, inasmuch as they refused submission to the Pope, were already, by that fact itself, in schism. The intent of the act of consecrating bishops is already to create a church with its own hierarchy. In this sense, the consecration of bishops becomes an act of schism. One should keep in mind, however, that the act of consecrating bishops is not in itself a schismatic act. In fact, in the Code, where offenses are treated, these two are treated in two distinct headings. There are delicts against religion and the unity of the Church. And these are apostasy (i.e. renouncing the faith), schism and heresy. Consecrating a bishop without pontifical mandate is, on the other hand, an offense against the proper exercise of one's ministry. For example, there was an excommunication of the Vietnamese Archbishop, Ngo Dinh Thuc in '76 and '83 for an episcopal consecration, but it was not considered a schismatic act because there was no intent to break with the Church. Ngo Dinh Thuc represents a pitiable situation, as there is some mental imbalance.
With regard to Econe, Lefebvre and the four priests, they are under two excommunications: one for the offense of schism, the other, reserved to the Apostolic See, for the offense of consecrating a bishop without a pontifical mandate.' I hope that this is helpful for you." (Letter to John Beaumont, dated May 26th, 1993).
We next obtained a copy of the report in La Repubblica. We found that Cardinal Lara's statement to us was virtually word for word what he was reported as saying by La Repubblica (in the latter the cardinal then went on to answer other questions put to him by a journalist concerning the Lefebvre case).
Now compare Cardinal Lara's statement with his words as reported by Michael Davies, bearing in mind that, as we have seen, the express purpose of Davies' article is to establish that Archbishop Lefebvre was not in schism. What has happened is that in the Davies version two vital passages have been omitted, one which comes before the passage he quotes and one which comes after. Remarkably, or perhaps not, in both of these other passages Cardinal Lara states quite unreservedly that Archbishop Lefebvre committed the offense of schism. Thus, the cardinal whose statement is used to lead to an irresistible inference that there is no schism, turns out to believe the exact opposite.
Michael Davies is puzzled
What, it may be asked, does Michael Davies have to say about this matter? We wrote to him to find out and received a very interesting reply. In assessing this it must be stated firstly that we have no reason to doubt his statement to us that the quotation which he used had been taken from "a French Journal," where it had appeared in the same shortened form. What is disturbing, however, is his statement that: "I note firstly that he [Cardinal Lara] does not deny making the statement that I attributed to him in The Angelus" (letter to John Beaumont, dated June 11th 1993). He later adds: "As the Cardinal has reiterated his testimony in his letter to you I would appreciate knowing precisely what is the false impression given as a result of using this quotation in my article" (Ibid).
This expression of puzzlement by Michael Davies is surprising. It must surely be obvious that there is a false impression given and that it is caused by the omission of the vital passages which occur both before and after the passage quoted by Davies. The "before" and "after" set what Cardinal Lara says into its true context. Look at what the Cardinal does in fact say. He begins by stating that in the Lefebvre case there are two offenses, the fundamental one being that of schism (this alone is the exact opposite of the thesis of Davies' article). He then explains exactly what schism is and discusses various aspects of that offense. He then concludes with a final categorical statement that Archbishop Lefebvre and the four bishops have committed the offense of schism. Davies, therefore, omits two absolutely explicit statements by Cardinal Lara completely contrary to Davies' thesis and yet, despite all of this, claims to be puzzled that anyone should allege that he had given a false impression in his article.
According to Michael Davies, then, it is legitimate to use out of a quotation those words which, when quoted in isolation, superficially seem to support one's case, and to ignore the surrounding text. Does this mean then that the police, when told by a suspect in a murder investigation, "I did hit him, but it was in self-defense," are entitled to omit the second clause and put the first one in on its own as a full confession of guilt? Of course not. On reading Michael Davies' approach to this question the present writers were reminded of the world of Lewis Carroll's Alice. To Davies not only is it "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean," but "When you use another word, I can simply ignore it at my pleasure." (see Through the Looking-Glass, Ch.6).
Michael Davies' defense was to claim that the statement which he used from Cardinal Lara was "to reinforce the point I was making that consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate is not in itself a schismatic act" and that this was the "precise topic" which he was discussing in his article. But, once more this is misleading. We quote again what Davies writes in the paragraph immediately before that relating to Cardinal Lara: "Canon lawyers without the least shred of sympathy for Msgr. Lefebvre have repudiated the charge of schism made against him as totally untenable." (op cit, p 20).
In addition, as we have seen the fundamental thesis of the article was not whether consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate is an intrinsically schismatic act, but whether Archbishop Lefebvre was in schism; and on this question Cardinal Lara has something important to say which the reader does not get to know about.
Michael Davies on schism
Michael Davies' approach to the question of schism is a strange one. Davies seems to be obsessed with the question of the distinction between schism and consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate, arguing, it seems, that the two can never meet.
At one point in our correspondence he stated that consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate "is not a schismatic act." On another occasion he wrote that it "is not in itself a schismatic act" nor "an intrinsically schismatic act." The first statement is not anything stated by Cardinal Lara. It is also incorrect as a general proposition. The second and third statements are true, but Davies falls into error by concluding that what is meant by them is that such a consecration can never be an act of schism. This is not the case at all.
Cardinal Lara is not saying (nor does the Church) that consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate can never be an act of schism. All that he is saying is that such a consecration is not automatically always a schismatic act. As is clear, schism is, inter alia, the refusal of submission to the Pope on a matter relating to the unity of the Church. Theologians have shown that consecrations without a papal mandate may be performed in certain very narrowly defined emergencies without attacking the unity of the Church (witness the attempt by apologists for the SSPX in 1988 to use these cases until it became clear that none of them applied).
However, as the Holy Father pointed out in Ecclesia Dei the consecration of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated, is a matter of supreme importance for the unity of the Church. As a result, then, consecration without a papal mandate will usually amount to a schismatic act. Such an action is evidence of schism, and it is especially strong evidence where, as in the case of Archbishop Lefebvre, the consecrations were not just in the absence of a papal mandate, but also against the express will of the Pope as conveyed to Archbishop Lefebvre in the most formal and serious terms.
At one point in his correspondence with us Michael Davies did make something of a correction. He recognized that if he had access to the full statement of Cardinal Lara at the time he wrote his article, he would have prefaced the quotation with something on the following lines: "although he maintains that Msgr. Lefebvre was already a schismatic before the consecrations, Cardinal Lara accepts that the act of consecrating. . .etc."
Unfortunately, this is again misleading. Firstly, the reference to a possible schism before June 30th, 1988, distracts from the clear statement of the Cardinal that on June 30th "the consecration of bishops becomes an act of schism." Secondly, the whole idea of schism as something which always switches on and off at a specific instant in time is a flawed one, though one to which "traditionalists" are curiously prone. Schism is something which grows. It can suffuse a person or organization and develop over a period of time. That this is in fact the case can be shown, ironically enough, by a perusal of Michael Davies' own writings. That Archbishop Lefebvre and his organization were treated by Rome as having schismatic tendencies from a very early date can be seen from the following quotations, ail of which are taken from Volumes 1 and 2 of Davies' Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre:
"What is indeed at issue is the question--which must truly be called fundamental of your clearly proclaimed refusal to recognize, in its whole, the authority of the Second Vatican Council and that of the Pope. This refusal is accompanied by an action that is oriented towards propagating and organizing what must indeed, unfortunately, be called a rebellion." (letter of Pope Paul VI to Archbishop Lefebvre, October 11th 1976).
"We cannot therefore take your requests into consideration because it is a question of facts which have already been committed in rebellion against the one true Church of God." (Ibid).
"Pray to the Holy Spirit, dear Brother. He will show you the necessary renunciations to help you to reenter in the path of a full communion with the Church and with the successor of Peter." (letter of Pope Paul VI to Archbishop Lefebvre, September 8th 1975).
"It is so painful to take note of this: but how can we not see in such an attitude whatever may be these people's intentions the placing of themselves outside obedience and communion with the Successor of St. Peter and therefore outside the Church." (Consistory Elocution by Pope Paul VI, May 24th, 1976)
"We admonish you with all Our strength: do not worsen the bad example given by your attitude, do not make your break from the unity and charity of the Catholic communion irreparable." (letter of Pope Paul VI to Archbishop Lefebvre, June 20th 1977)
"If your words are taken in their full meaning, is there not justification for saying that you refuse, or are ready to refuse, communion with the members of the Church subject to the Pope?" (annex to letter of Cardinal Seper to Archbishop Lefebvre, January 28th, 1978)
"[T]he Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith considers that, by your declarations about submission to the Council and to the post-conciliar reforms of Paul VI--declarations with which your whole behavior and especially your illicit ordination of priests are in accord--you have fallen into grave disobedience, and that all these declarations and acts, by their own logic, lead to schism." (Ibid)
What, then, is the true picture? It can be expressed as follows: a) The Apostolic See recognized in Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX from the middle 1970s a schismatic spirit; b) while manifesting this schismatic mentality and practice, Archbishop Lefebvre did not at first get to the point of formally breaking unity with the Church. In fact, in his book, Open letter to Confused Catholics, written in 1986, Lefebvre deliberately pointed to another road rather than that of consecration without a papal mandate; c) in 1988 Archbishop Lefebvre carried out the "final rupture," as Cardinal Ratzinger put it in a letter to him a year before. What the consecrations of 1988 against the express will of the pope did was to, as it were, concretize and make explicit what was implicit before, namely that the SSPX, while paying lip service to the authority of the pope, refused the submission to him which is required of the Catholic faithful. Cardinal Lara expresses this in his letter to us. Schism, then, is not just a legal construct, absent one day and present the next it is a factual reality which develops until finally becoming formalized in a particular attack on the unity of the Church.
The Society of St. Pius X refuses to tell the truth
Correspondence with Michael Davies, then, brought a statement by him of the true position concerning Cardinal Lara no nearer. Other attempts on the writers' part to put the record straight have met with no greater success. The editor of The Angelus greeted our letter (and subsequent reminder) with a stony silence; not even the courtesy of a reply. Bishop Richard Williamson, from his power base in Winona, proved a little more forthcoming, but not much. The bishop thanked us for our letter and said only that it "has received some attention before being filed for future reference." Well, at least he replied and we shall continue to scour the pages of The Angelus for any evidence that our letter has "received some attention" (as of December 1993 there is nothing to report).
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais took a slightly different line. His response was as follows: "According to Cardinal Castillo Lara, the episcopal consecrations without mandatum of Rome are not a schismatic act in itself: this is what the cardinal said in La Repubblica . . . This declaration is sufficient for us." (letter to John Beaumont, dated December 30th, 1993)
That "this declaration is sufficient" for him comes as no surprise, since it completely distorts the import of what Cardinal Lara is trying to say. Bishop Tissier de Mallerais is prepared to quote Cardinal Lara when it supports the SSPX's case to do so. When, however, the cardinal sets out his authentic views, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais refuses to be moved. The attitude of the SSPX seems to be one of welcoming witnesses who appear to support them. Yet, these same witnesses are treated as non-persons when their true position (which is against the SSPX) emerges. The comments which we have made on Michael Davies apply just as clearly here as well.
Finally on the question of correcting errors and putting forward the truth, we come to Teodoro Dominguez, who had gone to the trouble of obtaining a glowing tribute from Michael Davies adjacent to his article in The Angelus, in which Davies referred to "the fearless approach of Attorney Dominguez in defending the faith." And the response to our inquiries of this fearless defender of the faith? Silence. Not a word. Let us hope that at least he has been supplied by Michael Davies with the Davies version of a retraction. That would be better than nothing, though not much better.
Cardinal Lara turns up in Ireland
The affair of Cardinal Lara would seem even now not to be over. We believed that even if we had not been favored with a reply from the SSPX and its various apologists, the message must surely have been sent round these circles that there was no further mileage in the Lara case.
How naive we were. We should have realized that if a lie is repeated often enough it can come to have more influence with people than the truth. Final realization of this came from where we had no reason to expect it, from Ireland. A friend of ours was sent a letter by a priest of the SSPX working in Ireland. Enclosed with the letter was a booklet containing the usual SSPX propaganda in defense of its actions. This would have been nothing out of the ordinary except for the remarkable fact that, according to the priest, the booklet had been given "the approbation of (guess who?) Cardinal Lara!"
Amazingly, the priest added that the booklet had been written by "an Opus Dei man." As far as the latter is concerned, we do not have any actual evidence, but it would seem more likely that the late Ayatollah Khomeini would support the SSPX than that a member of Opus Dei would do so. We can, however, comment with some degree of confidence on the question of whether Cardinal Lara is lending his name to an SSPX booklet, because we wrote and asked him. Back came another letter. This time the cardinal, no doubt weary at having his name taken in vain by a schismatic group, answered through his personal assistant, Fr. Joseph Fox, OP. The message was just as clear: "As you know from your previous correspondence with His Eminence, he is no proponent of the divisive activities of the deceased excommunicated Archbishop Lefebvre or his followers.... He would like you to know that he has never given his approval for the publications of those associated with the Lefebvre movement nor has he any intention of doing so in the future." (letter to John Beaumont, dated November 18th, 1993)
We have no doubt that readers will not be surprised at the reaction of the SSPX to this latest attempt by Cardinal Lara to put the record straight. Of course, we do not know if the SSPX in Ireland has issued a correction to the information given about the booklet. We do not have access to its literature in Ireland. All that we can say is that when we wrote to the priest in question, enclosing the letter from Cardinal Lara's office, we received the response which we have come to expect from these doughty defenders of "tradition." Yes, silence.
It is worth reflecting a little further on this case. In a sense it can be seen as a development in the process of disinformation employed by the SSPX. In the first case involving the use of his name, Cardinal Lara says something about an issue and is quoted wrongly. There is, then, a misunderstanding of what he says. In the second case, however, the cardinal says nothing at all and the SSPX makes up something for him to say. One can only ask, where will this end? Will it be said by Clemente Dominguez, the so called Pope Gregory XVII at Palmar de Troya, that Cardinal Lara recognizes him as Pope? Certainly, where "traditionalism" is concerned, nothing surprises us any more. Traditionalism has at least equaled, if not surpassed, Protestantism for producing the bizarre.
Another misrepresented canonist
Readers who have examined in detail the literature of the SSPX will have noted that when the SSPX plays the Canon Law card it quite often plays it in the plural, in the sense that the usual reference to Cardinal Lara is often supplemented by the names of other canonists. While not naturally suspicious, we have learned that "once bitten, twice shy," so we decided to write to one of them to investigate his Lefebvrist credentials. This was the Professor of Canon Law at the University of Munich, Professor Geringer. The latter's authority is appealed to by Fr. Schmidberger in the pamphlet referred to earlier. The professor was cited there as saying in a radio interview on June 30th, 1988, that "with the episcopal consecrations Archbishop Lefebvre was by no means creating a schism unless he was in fact intending to found his own church" (op cit, p.47). Professor Geringer also receives the nod of approval from the trinity of Davies, Dominguez (Teodoro, not Clemente of Palmar de Troya) and Denke, since although only the second and third referred to him expressly, it will be recalled that Mr. Dominguez's article received the imprimatur of Michael Davies. According to Frank Denke, Professor Geringer has no doubts at all on the question of schism. He is quoted as saying that "with the episcopal consecration, Archbishop Lefebvre was by no means creating a schism" (op cit. p.9, emphasis as in the original). Teodoro Dominguez's version simply lists the professor along with Cardinal Lara as supporting the view that Archbishop Lefebvre is not schismatic.
As with the case of Cardinal Lara, however, the version given by Professor Geringer was very different. In his letter to us he expressed his position as follows: "I would like to say that at the time in an interview with the radio I explicitly declared that through the consecration of the four bishops by Lefebvre the schism had become definitive, and that Lefebvre and his adherents had lost all their rights within the Church." (letter to John Beaumont dated August 17th, 1993)
Professor Geringer went on to make the point that in the interview in question he had also dealt with the need for moral fault before the incurring of a penalty and the question of a mitigation of a penalty where actions are done on the basis of personal conviction. He concludes his letter, however, with the statement that "there can be no doubt that Lefebvre and his adherents are de facto schismatic."
So there we have it. And the response of the SSPX? Well, having written twice to the editor of The Angelus over the Lara ease without any response, we decided to give that one a miss this time and save the postage. Bishop Williamson's somewhat brief response to the Lara issue was evidently meant for that of Geringer as well, since he had been sent both sets of correspondences. There was nothing from Dominguez, nor this time from Michael Davies (except a thank you). However, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais came up with a new tactic. We quote the relevant section from his letter:
"For Professor Geringer, in 1988, with the episcopal consecrations of Msgr. Lefebvre, 'there is no church of Lefebvre.' And for this very reason, he said, the faithful adhering to him are still Catholics." He adds: 'If, one day, Lefebvre should found a Church independent of Rome and if those want to adhere to him, then it would be another thing.'" (letter to John Beaumont, dated December 30th, 1993)
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais puts his faith in the 1988 version of Geringer. Now, we do not have access to a recording or transcript of the radio interview. We do not know what Professor Geringer said on that occasion. We do know, however, what the professor claims now to have said then. Maybe that is true, maybe it is not. There is a conflict. But what is clear is that the professor's claim is a piece of evidence which the inquirer should be entitled to take into account. Bishop Tissier de Mallerais' tactic of publicizing only one version prevents this from happening.
But, let us suppose for sake of argument that Professor Geringer has changed his mind on these issues between 1988 and today. Does that mean that his views today are to be given no credence at all? Before it says that this is the case, the SSPX ought to tread very carefully. Someone might remind them that on May 5th, 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre accepted and signed a certain protocol with Cardinal Ratzinger. Very shortly thereafter the Archbishop reneged on this agreement. Supporters of the SSPX would no doubt claim that the Archbishop was right in his later action. But, on the approach of Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, do we not have to say that Archbishop Lefebvre's original decision was the right one and that his later action must be rejected? Let us hope that Bishop Tissier de Mallerais will come to accept the logic of his own reasoning, because that may enable him to return to the Catholic Church. The key point here surely is that the SSPX and its apologists continue to state that Professor Geringer believes that there is no schism when clearly this is untrue.
Conclusion
What do the facts which we have brought out in this article say about the SSPX? First of all, they show clearly that the SSPX and its defenders have misinterpreted and misquoted Cardinal Lara (we concentrate on the most eminent of these canonists). Secondly, when this has been pointed out to these people they have failed to retract their errors or correct them. Thirdly, this whole affair illustrates to what extent the SSPX is committed to the truth.
We are forced to conclude that it is more interested in propaganda than the facts. The SSPX would never in a million years appeal to a Roman Commission such as the Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts. But, when it believes that the President of that Council has said something which supports its case, he is quoted again and again by SSPX supporters. However, when the truth is known, either the same false propaganda is disseminated regardless, or Cardinal Lara is put to one side as if he never existed. There are shades of Stalinism here, where figures once seen to be part of one's movement are later treated as non-persons. It is evident that Cardinal Lara is only important insofar as he supports the SSPX in this case. The Lefebvre group, and its survival, are the criteria now. Truth comes a very poor second.
The whole approach of the SSPX is summed up by Michael Davies in his article in The Angelus when he wrote that "it would be hard to imagine a more authoritative opinion" than Cardinal Lara's. The sad thing for Michael Davies and other traditionalists is not just that they misinterpret the good cardinal, but that they fail to know what every Catholic knows. This is that it is not in fact hard to imagine a more authoritative voice than Cardinal Lara's. As Catholics we know and have the voice of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, and on this whole tragic episode he has spoken. It shows the condition to which traditionalism has come that it sees its duty as being to disobey and oppose papal teaching. The irony here is that the SSPX has ended up repudiating the very tradition which it claims to want most zealously to uphold.
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