The Dispatch: More from CWR...

John XXIII’s original intention for Vatican II

Various false perspectives create an ecclesiastical astigmatism that makes it difficult to see what Vatican II accomplished.

Pope John XXIII leads the opening session of the Second Vatican Council in St. Peter's Basilica Oct. 11, 1962. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano)

Sixty years after its solemn opening on October 11, 1962, is there anything new to be said about the Second Vatican Council? I think there is. And I hope to have said it in To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II, which has just been published by Basic Books.

Reading a great historical event is a matter of perspective as much as a matter of facts. Some churchmen today “read” the Council as having effected a “paradigm shift” in Catholic self-understanding, although competent theologians know that the Church does doctrinal development, not paradigm shifts. Others, “reading” Vatican II through the prism of their disgust with modernity’s deconstruction of traditional mores and institutions, declare the Council a supine surrender to secularity; the more fevered souls in this camp indulge in conspiracy-theories that may be attention-grabbing but have little or no basis in fact. Nostalgics and young Catholics innocent of historical knowledge imagine a supremely stable Church in the Fifties — a Church that never was — and think the Council a terrible mistake that never should have happened. These false perspectives create an ecclesiastical astigmatism that makes it difficult to see what Vatican II accomplished.

In To Sanctify the World, I propose a fresh way of thinking about Vatican II, analyzing that epic event through the prism of Pope John XXIII’s original intention for the Council he summoned. That original intention comes into focus through three key texts.

In the apostolic constitution Humanae Salutis, which formally convoked Vatican II, John XXIII wrote of the civilizational crisis of a modern world that “boasts of its technical and scientific conquests” but is deeply scarred by lethal efforts to “reorganize” itself “by excluding God.” What the “temporal order” desperately needed, he proclaimed, was “the light of Christ,” which would reveal to humanity the truth of human nature, the nobility of human dignity and the grandeur of humanity’s destiny — life with the Triune God.

Then, a month before the Council opened, the Pope gave an important radio address in which he said that “[the] phrase, ‘the Kingdom of God,’ expresses fully and precisely the work of the Council.” Vatican II, like the 20 previous ecumenical councils, was a renewal of humanity’s “encounter with the face of the risen Jesus.” Because of that, “the purpose of the Council is…evangelization.”

The third, and most important, text that clarifies John XXIII’s original intention for Vatican II is his opening address to the Council on October 11, 1962, known by its Latin title as Gaudet Mater Ecclesia (Mother Church Rejoices). There, the octogenarian Pope underscored the essential Christocentricity of Vatican II, emphasizing that “the Church…takes her name, her grace, and her total meaning from the divine Redeemer.” And it always would, for “Christ Jesus still stands at the center of history and of life.”

Citing Psalm 116, the Pope noted that the “truth of the Lord remains forever” and then insisted that the first truth the Church proclaims is the Lord himself. To be sure, the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, continuing the Lord’s work in the world. It would best do that work, John XXIII urged, by offering friendship with Christ as the remedy for modernity’s confusions and conflicts.

Sanctifying the world — “Christifying” the world, if you will — was thus John XXIII’s original intention for Vatican II. The Council was not summoned to reinvent Catholicism, for the Church had a “constitution,” a body of truths and a structure, given it by Christ. Nor was the Council summoned to embrace the modern world uncritically: the Council was summoned so that the Church might more effectively engage the modern world, in order to convert the modern world.

Read through Pope John’s original intention, the 16 documents of Vatican II come into focus, and in their proper order. The Council’s teaching on divine revelation anchors everything else: God has spoken into the world’s silence, and through the divine Word we come to know the truth about ourselves and our destiny. Then there is the Council’s teaching on the Church: in the Church, we find the template for realizing modernity’s often-frustrated quest for authentic human community (not least by learning how to worship the One truly worthy of worship). The various states of life in the Church discussed by the Council then identify the mutually supportive responsibilities of the entire People of God, clergy and laity, for the mission of the Church.

Christ is the center. Rekindling that radically Christocentric faith for the sake of evangelization, not letting a thousand ecclesiastical flowers bloom, was John XXIII’s original intention for Vatican II.


If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.


About George Weigel 521 Articles
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (2010), and The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform. His most recent books are The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020), Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences of, a Diverse Cast of Characters, Most of Them Admirable (Ignatius, 2021), and To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II (Basic Books, 2022).

34 Comments

  1. Mr Weigel, with respect, the original intention of the former Ambassador to France – photographed in the Paris Luciferian Grand Orient Lodge – was precisely what took place: the virtual end of the Monarchy Making Machine which was founded by the Messiah – as promised in the line of King David.

    The Catholic Church was Sold Out by the Freemason Ring Masters: Cardinals Vilot, Baggio, Bugnini under the auspices of brother Roncali. Anyone who reads Fr Theodore Murr’s book “Murder in the 33rd Degree” will understand that the nice council versus nasty council liberal fudging is almost over. There can be no hermeneutic of Rupture. New wine skin in old vessel tears into a Papal-C6 MARXist Sin-Odd schism.

    Had Pius XII signed off on deals with a body harvesting, concentration camp running communist totalitarian red flag ideology, and a Child Mutilation German totalitarian multicoloured-flag ideology, he and those who remained silent would be the scourge of the Cardinals and Catholic intellectuals of their day.

    Vatican II, fruit of the freemasonic occupation of Rome, has given us the 2nd Bishop in White, the China Deal and the Sin-Odd Schism.

    If there is anyone to write the history, will the collaborators of Bergoglioism not be regarded as the ennemies of humanity? The silent collaborators of Novos Ordo seculorum who sold out the Church and her moral authority to the totalitarian ideologies of CCP red and German striped flags?

  2. It may appear reasurring to read that the last 70 years of Modernist Heresy were not the original intention of Roncali who very curiously chose the name of the anti-pope John XXIII…

    Of course, intentions are known only to God, who alone reads the hearts of men. Jesus clearly told mortals that bad fruits issue from what is bad; to evaluate not intentions but rather the fruits.

    Provide us with an intellectually honest exposure of the concrete fruits of Roncali’s election – following the Stepping Aside of the duly elected Cardinal Siri.

    Before his death, Cardinal Siri told a visiting priest “What happened during the Conclave was too horrible…”

    • St. John XXlll has been demonized for too long. Pope Roncalli was, in fact, a Traditionalist. His Council, which was hijacked, was, as he said, “A Council in line with Nicaea, Trent, and Vatican one.” There were some 70 Documents to his Council. Five are translated into English and can be found on the Internet. Read them, and you will never speak evil of St. Pope John XXlll again. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, one of the Scholars who contributed to the real Council, stated in 1966, “If the Council had gone as planned, we would have had a great Council.” Read the Biography of Pope Benedict XVl released earlier this year and find out the truth about the Council of St. Pope John and how it was voted out or, rather, as they say, “hijacked.”

      • Last year you claimed to have personally applied the term “hijacked.” But, whatever. You also appeal to Peter Seewald’s two-volume “Benedict XVI,” 2020 and 2021.
        Five points, here, to illustrate your theme of Council turbulence, but not to support your branding of a “hijacking” in place of an earlier Council on paper.

        FIRST, the substantial reformulation of the Revelation (the first of the 70 prepared Documents) was triggered by an opening address Ratzinger prepared for Cardinal Frings.
        What is the transcendent Truth as compared to our lesser “knowledge” of the Truth? Of the initial schema on Revelation, Ratzinger explained: “But the language we have here does not go to the depth. It operates on the level of our human knowledge. But on the level of being [!], there is only one single source, which is revelation itself, the Word of God. And it is very regrettable that there is nothing, almost nothing, said about it in this schema” (“Benedict: A Life,” vol. 1 of 2, 2020, p. 402).

        SECOND, still in November 1962, it was Pope John XXIII himself who broke the tie such that this leadoff document (and then inevitably the others) would be refashioned:
        “The question being put to the vote [the Frings presentation] was very complicated. Those who wanted new things had to vote no. And those who wanted old things, had to vote yes. Anyway it was a very close vote. Those who won were those who wanted to stay with the original schema [the ‘tipping-point’ schema on Revelation]. So from a legal perspective there was a very slight majority in favour of maintaining the first draft of the text. But then Papa Giovanni [himself! John XXIII] saw that the majority was too thin to be viable, and decided that the vote should be reopened […]” (“Benedict: Last Testament in His Own Words,” in Seewald, 2016, p. 133).

        THIRD, Benedict defends the needed rewrite, but also regrets what later transpired.
        “Cardinal Frings later had intense pangs of conscience. But he always had an awareness that what we actually said and put forward was right, and also had to happen. We handled things correctly, even if we certainly did not correctly assess the political consequences and the actual repercussions. One thought too much of theological matters then, and did not reflect on how these things would come across” (“Benedict: Last Testament,” 2016, p. 142).

        FOURTH, so, what actually happened to the original 70 (or 75?) schemas?
        They were not tossed out. Earlier than Seewald, Fr. Ralph M. Wiltgen offers a day-to-day account of how sausage is made in the kitchen (“The Rhine Flows into the Tiber,” 1967-85). The culinary rebaking of the original Documents is not overlooked:
        “After two years’ work, ending on the eve of the Council…a total of seventy-five schemas [“preliminary drafts, capable of improvement”, according to Msgr. Vincenzo Carbone, an official of the General Secretariat] some of them later combined with others by the Central Preparatory Commission, and still others were considered too specialized for treatment by the Council, and were referred to the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law. In this way, the seventy-five schemas were ultimately reduced to twenty” [etc. etc. etc.]” Yes, the imperfect original schemas were totally reworked and with imperfect results. Benedict’s “discontinuity within continuity.”

        FIFTH, Benedict defends the “real” Council of the voted Documents, versus the “virtual” Council fed by Hans Kung et al to the media air waves and still wafting about:
        “The true legacy of the Council lies in its texts [….] If they are construed carefully and clearly, then extremism in either direction is avoided. Then a way really opens up which still has a lot of future before it [….] It is always worth going back to the Council itself, to its depth and its vital ideas” (“Benedict XVI: A Life,” vol.1, 2020).

        A midcourse correction, but not a successful “hijacking”. Any crash landing is an autopilot problem and the next flight.

  3. Good heavens! Still hawking his own books as usual, Weigel continues his pathetic defense of Vatican II. The 1970s bishops who implemented Vatican II – the same bishops who signed all the Vatican II documents – clearly had a much closer and more accurate understanding of the Council and its purpose than Mr. Weigel. But let’s not let fact get in the way of fiction. Fantasy sells more books.

  4. Pope Benedict XVI said that Vatican Council II was high-jacked. It seems to me that such a high-jacking was predictable. Yet, it happened. The Church has been thrown into turmoil with various factions claiming competing interpretations. While Pope John XXII’s intentions were honorable, they seem now to be irrelevant. Catholics now a burdened with a Novus Ordo at war with itself and a Pope who seeks to eliminate the very memory of a Traditional Latin Mass. I learned the other day that certain scriptural passages regarding homosexuality have been omitted in the readings during Mass. Such revelations are no longer a surprise. All this leads me to conclude that Vatican II was not guided by the Holy Spirit, just the opposite.

  5. George Weigel’s identity of the purpose of John XXIII for invoking Vat II, “Engage the modern world, in order to convert the modern world”, is as distant as the Light of day is from the Darkness of night in comparison to Francis’ “Progressivism that lines up behind the world”.
    Said with purpose, Darkness of night because while John XXIII intended to promote a Christocentric evangelization Francis promotes a new gospel of liberation from the past and tradition with a new advocate, himself.
    Francis speaks of traditional Catholicism as, “indietrism that longs for a bygone world not of love, but of infidelity”. A complete explanation of his understanding of indietrism was given in his flight from Canada to Rome, “They are not traditional, they are indietrists, they are going backwards without roots. That’s the way it has always been done. That’s the way it was done in the last century. Indietrism [looking backward] is sin because it does not go forward with the Church” (CNA).
    Condemnation by a Roman Pontiff of traditional Catholics, understood as those who hold fast to Christ’s revelation, perennial doctrines of the faith [the deposit] who advocate a Christocentric evangelization of the world as sinful, is more than remarkable, more than indicative of a pontiff’s skewed mental processes. It is exactly as stated. A condemnation rationally pronounced on the premise that revealed doctrine can change. A true paradigmatic turn in belief. And, in logical sequence, that he replaces rather than witnesses to Christ.

  6. Today or centuries hence, might the Second Vatican Council’s Dignitatis Humanae be read as a statement to BOTH “more effectively engage the modern world” AND engage and protect against pre-modern (!) Islam?

    Dignitatis Humanae affirms: “that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or social groups and of any [!] human power …” (n.2); and, “All the more is it a violation of the will of God and of the sacred rights of the person and the family of nations [historically and conceptually, Islam predates the Western artifact of nation-states], when force is brought to bear in any way in order to destroy or repress religion, either in the whole of mankind [the post-Christian new world order] or in a particular country [e.g., Iron Curtain countries, but today Iran, etc.] or in a specific community [the globalizing Islamic ummah] (n. 6).

    Despite its alleged (!) hint toward an equivalency of religions, Dignitatis Humanae also can be read as a prescient response to both the post-Christian/modern world, and a resurgent artifact of the non- or anti-Christian/pre-modern world.

  7. You know I might be truthful in saying I’m a bit “nostalgic” but seriously, looking back at the social mores of America in the 1950’s, the stable families of all races, number of marriages, children born in wedlock, (goodness, the number of children born, period), church attendance rates, community involvement, school curricula & daily prayer- in both public & parochial education, etc., etc. That’s being deeply saddened by reality, not nostalgia. Nostalgia is missing a favorite TV show or jingle from the 1950’s.
    Please don’t trivialize a cultural tragedy.

  8. Good to see the efforts to bring more oneness in the hearts – about the relevant past and the events amidst us , to help remove the lingering grudges , esp. on this 60 th anniv of the Council . The significance of same ,esp. in Light of the Divine Will theme that could even have been the impetus for the Council – heeding the call of The Spirit to take the steps to move The Church into the Reign of The Divine Will more deeply in more hearts ,even if the #s might not reflect same , its holiness as critical for the challenges that were to come –

    https://www.comingofthekingdom.org/

    The catastrophe in a land and a Church that decided to ‘go backwards ‘ to grab more land for #s and power and the related aching observation of the Holy Father , after his trip to Canada – which likely was also motivated by the desire , as of the Father of the prodigal , to be at the backdoors of the afflicted and bless … that they avoid worse paths ..for The Church too , to see the blessings in taking the steps through The Council as those that were needed to face the challenges that were to come ..
    The need to exhort The Church to avoid heeding the voice of those who think they alone hold the power in the externals alone in worship or the pressure tactics of the worldly minded in lukewarmness who miss out on His Mercy and its grace to help persons to be set free in The Spirit , instead of the message despair .
    The Holy Father and The Church , in recalling the occasion of the Anniv, invoking ongoing blessings – into all the events related to the Council and its intent – for The Spirit to remove the negatives too for The Church to keep bearing more fruit – esp. as hope and trust in The Lord .
    FIAT !

  9. Does Weigel actually believe a wholesale rejection of a restatement of perpetual Catholic doctrine in Humanae Vitae, less than three years after the Council, had no connection at all? Does he even acknowledge the misgivings of his heroes JPII and Benedict who were offended by language in the documents too quick to deemphasize original sin and man’s permanent fallen condition? And they were offended by how humanity’s capacity for great evil was barely acknowledged.
    What is the purpose of repeating words like conversion and evangelization when even the Catholic population became conditioned to believe that conscience, rather than as a last resort during moments of confusion, becomes everyone as their sole moral arbiter on all matters at all times?

    As a scientist I know all about correlations not proving causality, so don’t pat me on the head, but there is usually some sort of connection. You don’t have to believe in conspiracies to recognize how the sins we all have make us willing partners in supporting each other in systematic delusion. Who can deny the bias of theological pride ever since those times? We’ve observed it continuously in the attempts to “develop doctrine” in a nefarious manner, especially in morality. Has the current German Synod occurred in a vacuum, or has it been along the wide path of destruction established by confusion from Vatican II?

    Consistent with what pop culture of the sixties was saying in more childish terms, the singular thrust of “new thinking” in moral theology has been the assault on guilt as though this God given faculty is something God does not want us to have and “pastoralism” and “mercy” means sinning with impunity. Theologians exclusively look for ways to rethink immoral acts as benevolent. Now we live in a world where Catholics kill as many unborn as everyone else with a Pope who says don’t obsess over it, don’t even worry about children buried alive when we want to pat ourselves on the back for our loving broadmindedness towards more primitive peoples. Yes, it’s VII “sanctifying the world” according to those who prefer we ignore vacant confession lines and forget unchanging doctrines of how we offend God and how this made Our Lady weep before Bernadette at Lourdes.

    • You got it!!!! Catholics thinking it’s ok to have abortions and vote for those that do too… Joe Biden, Nancy etc…. the Pope just gives them the most regards, because they are Catholics— but not Pres. Trump who was the first president to go to a March for Life in D.C. So if you say you are catholic that trumps a person that isn’t but is for LIFE. He has it all wrong.
      That’s what bothers me about so called Catholics even Pope’s that are hypocrites.

  10. As Fr. John Perricone notes in recent piece for Crisis, what’s galling about Weigel’s book and the countless interviews he’s conducted to promote it are his blatant mischaracterization of conditions before the council and his related calumnies against pre-conciliar Catholics. The Church wasn’t turned in on itself and in need of prodding to evangelize and engage the world. She attracted and inspired millions by simply being herself: teaching faithfully and clearly, worshipping reverently and beautifully, and ministering to others generously and humbly. I suppose the Catholics who did these things came up short because they didn’t form committees devoted to ‘the new evangelization’ or coin catch-phrases like ‘dynamic orthodoxy.’ Shameful.

    https://www.crisismagazine.com/2022/vatican-ii-at-60-time-to-stop-the-cheerleading

    • why would weigel have this bias of pre vcii to warrant mischaracterizations except if he didn’t have an agenda to hone his abilities to put pen to paper?

      • I don’t see where Weigel is biased to pre-VATICAN II.

        As far as I can tell his discussion above is not a mischaracterization nor an attempt at mischaracterizing; rather he suggests a sense to the overall outcome of the Council. And it is intelligent. In fact helpful not diversionary.

  11. Sorry. Just seeing churches look just like Protestant churches, to the point of sticking the Blessed Sacrament in a corner, let alone front and center, shows what a bad idea VII was. Barely any HDO and a watered down Lent. Disgusting.

    • Romans 12:4-5 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

      1 Corinthians 12:12-14 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many.

      Ephesians 5:30 because we are members of his body.

      God’s richest blessings.

    • I have saved your linked article from onepeterfive.com. Some good insights, however, many (not all) of the 26 errors attributed to the Second Vatican Council are, themselves, in greater error. Some examples:

      In ERROR #2, the link faults Gaudium et Spes (GS 22.2) for holding that God “has united Himself in some fashion with every man,” as if this divinizes man. Well, by the Incarnation, Christ did elevate human nature (every man) into His divine nature. (Christ is not a hybrid, part of a post-Trinitarian quaternary.) Moreover, divinization is affirmed by many of the Church Fathers, not that we become the divine nature, but rather than we participate in the divine nature by gifted invitation and even the by the sacramental life. What else, the Beatific Vision?

      In ERROR #4, we hear complaint that “man is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself” (GS 24.3), as if this mystery detracts creation from serving “the Glory of God as the ultimate end of all things.” Perhaps, created as we are, “in the image and likeness of God,” we are not “things” at all?

      This aversion for responsible human autonomy, in some gifted sense, reminds one of the Islamic mindset, wherein any autonomy other than God is seen as a dichotomy and, therefore, blasphemy. (Muslims berate modern Western autonomy, correctly, because they are fixated largely on our rationalistic decline under the Enlightenment version of autonomy. A mindset which does not address foundational Natural Law, nor the nuanced–and yes, contaminated–content of Gaudium et Spes as perceived now by onepeterfive.com….ERROR #1 dismisses Gaudium et Spes as nothing more than a manifestation of the ”new Enlightenment”)
      ERROR #7 complains that revelation cannot be defined as “inerrant” only in matters “for our salvation.” So, does onepeterfive.com assert, instead, that Scripture is a science textbook and that creation took place in six calendar days?

      The website onepeterfive is valued, but this link is problematic or in error in at least a few of its 26 parts.

  12. It’s time to retire the Council and let the “Spirit of Vatican II” die. Keep the council documents, which will be of great value for Theologians, but jettison all the novelties that arose after the council (like the violation of the liturgy, ugly Church Architecture and altars, Communion in the hand, the Priest turning his back to the Lord during Mass, the obsession with Ecumenism and “Dialogue” that leads nowhere etc) and put all the old hippies in the Church Hierarchy who had their spiritual formation during that era out to pasture.

    • Unfortunately Catholics have difficulty distinguishing between the council and the spirit of it. From the lips of j23 ‘stop the council’before the first session ended tell you anything the two are mutually exclusive. J23 knew the very dream he envisioned in ’47 would come true all the while denying Our Lady’s command to release the third secret by ’60.Pride goeth before the fall.

  13. A wide variety of opinions. Insightful, however what may we make of it? Our one constant is God’s word.

    How many of us read it, meditate on it and apply to our earthly journey? The devises and desires of our hearts must be tempered by God’s eternal council. When we are rooted and built up in Christ, our spiritual journey has purpose and gives us tranquility. If our passage has godly intention and inner calm, the vagaries of life can pass like a breeze.

    Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

    Matthew 15:1-Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honour your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” …

  14. Contrary to the suggestion by Mr. Weigel, I think thst the best way to get a sense of the “intentions” of Pole John XIII are to read his short opening address, given in 1962, available at the link here:

    https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3233

    In reading the address, the impression given is of a man gushing with over-confidence about the readiness of the world to reject sin and error, and to be united as one family by the Catholic Church.

    Indeed, the Pope unabashedly declares that, as evidence of this (despite the homicidal display of “human progress” made in the 2 World Wars, the 2nd only 17 years prior) men have now turned away from violence. It’s an astonishing, and surreal, manifesto of belief in the “moral progress” of Man.

    The Pope’s gushing recollection of his “sudden inspiration” he experienced on a certain evening in 1959 doesn’t convey a sense of sobriety either.

    Yes, there are some “good” things in the documents of Vatican II, just as there are “bad” (e.g. Nostra aetete) and “ugly” (Gaudium et spes, per essay today from Tracy Roland).

    The remedy for sobriety in reading Vatican II is, as Pope B16 declared, to reject it as a mega-council or super-dogma, and to simply read it and weigh it as just what it is, another Council in a history of other and often much greater councils, and to interpret it in the light of scripture and tradition.

    And having spent my first 14 years or so with “the old church” and “the old Mass,” somehow I csme away with the impression that the Church was “Christo-centric” for most all of its 2000 years, and didn’t start worshipping Christ until 1968 or so. I got that Christ-centered message pretty powerfully at Mass, the old Mass, when after every Sunday, we would recite together The Last Gospel (now effectively banned from our hearing except for one early morning Mass on Christmas Day, and this gesture made surprisingly by the so-called “Christo-centric” Church we are running today.

    Not a convincing performance…this past 60 years…and especially the last 10, under the Pontiff Francis (who, we are all ashamed to admit, orchestrated an act of idolatry in Rome in October 2019).

  15. «Ecce Homo» once referred to Out Lord Jesus Christ.
    I wonder how it is understood by the adepts of the protestantizing WokeChurch?
    Hateful, hurtful and discriminatory probably.

  16. +J.M.J.
    One of the greatest outcomes of Vatican II is the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which has content in #2267 from our Holy Father Pope Francis, on working to end death penalty, which as I read in Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith content, stems from Pope St. John Paul II Evangelium Vitae content). One of my favorite features is #1376 reaffirmation of Church teaching on transubstantiation, as well as background on St. John Chrysostom (a Greek Father and Bishop And Doctor of the Church), and St. Ambrose (a Latin Father, and Bishop and Doctor of the Church), on their belief that upon consecration, there are no longer bread and wine, but the Precious Body and Precious Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord and God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church includes the Catechism of the Council of Trent as a referenced document, and is way more comprehensive and helpful than Trent alone. There are so many great features to mention (Faith, Sacraments, Life in Christ, Christian prayer, lists of Papal documents, Church Councils, Saints’ writings, Canon Law footnotes, etc.). The Catechism of the Catholic Church is very fancy, and yet everyday practical, and as far as I’ve seen is just as helpful in French, Spanish, the little bit I’ve seen in Italian and Latin. Also, all these great Church materials are so vastly underutilized, and from what I’ve seen, they make great multi-subject study guides. Thanks for your consideration.
    In caritate Christi,
    Mrs. Richard Avian (Carol Avian)

  17. There are good grounds for understanding VATICAN II as a course for the Church as one among others. This course or channel concentrates the call to holiness on spanning Catholic apologetics for the unfolding times. This is what I meant by “bridge”.

    It affects the whole Church in so far as it reaches everywhere; however it does not define the whole Church and what she is. Neither does it do any redefining. Further it is not defined by “being pastoral”; it is defined through the call to holiness and in authentic apologetics.

    VATICAL II is the call to holiness and the call to apologetics. Carol Avain touches on authenticity in the outflow that was and is truly reflecting VATICAN II. It was already being shown that VATICAN II was not a recast of the Church.

    From JPII and Benedict it has been both exemplary and easy to understand. It allows you to to see where you could fit without becoming a replica or having to be a replica. But moreover it contains the unique genius of each of those exemplars.

    A true apologetics would edify what is and always was in the Church.

  18. Mike, did not j23 near or in his deathbed say to close down that council? That it was taken over, not what he envisioned?

1 Trackback / Pingback

  1. John XXIII’s original intention for Vatican II | Passionists Missionaries Kenya, Vice Province of St. Charles Lwanga, Fathers & Brothers

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*