Spirit of Vatican II

By the spirit of Vatican II is meant the teaching and intentions of the Second Vatican Council interpreted in a way that is not limited to a literal reading of its documents, or even interpreted in a way that contradicts the "letter" of the Council (cf. Saint Paul's phrase, "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life").

The spirit of Vatican II is invoked for a great variety of ideas and attitudes. Bishop John Tong Hon of Hong Kong used it with regard merely to an openness to dialogue with others, saying: "We are guided by the spirit of Vatican II: only dialogue and negotiation can solve conflicts." Michael Novak described it instead as a spirit that "sometimes soared far beyond the actual, hard-won documents and decisions of Vatican II. ... It was as though the world (or at least the history of the Church) were now to be divided into only two periods, pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II. Everything 'pre' was then pretty much dismissed, so far as its authority mattered. For the most extreme, to be a Catholic now meant to believe more or less anything one wished to believe, or at least in the sense in which one personally interpreted it. One could be a Catholic 'in spirit'. One could take Catholic to mean the 'culture' in which one was born, rather than to mean a creed making objective and rigorous demands. One could imagine Rome as a distant and irrelevant anachronism, embarrassment, even adversary. Rome as 'them'."

In a 1994 document Pope John Paul called for what he called the authentic spirit of the Council to be respected. In the book, The Ratzinger Report, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger also distinguished the true spirit of the Council from false interpretations, blaming the disappointed hopes for renewal on "those who have gone far beyond both the letter and the spirit of Vatican II", and calling for a "return to the authentic texts of the original Vatican II". Years later, when he had become Pope Benedict XVI, he decried the "hermeneutic of discontinuity" according to which the Council texts do not express the true spirit of the Council, so that "it would be necessary not to follow the texts of the Council but its spirit." He added: "In this way, obviously, a vast margin was left open for the question on how this spirit should subsequently be defined and room was consequently made for every whim."

Legacy of the Second Vatican Council

The Council's legacy has been a topic of fierce debate since the 1970s, with roughly three camps disputing among themselves on the correct hermeneutic of conciliar teachings : Liberals, Traditionalists and Conservatives.

Liberal Catholics

Many Liberal Catholics' claimed that the Council marked the beginning of a "new springtime" for the Church. According to Jason Petosa­, a former publisher of the National Catholic Reporter, " there was involvement, generosity, enthusiasm and courage on a grand scale. It was a worldwide Catholic Camelot. The catch phrase was ecclesia semper reformanda -- the Church always reforming itself. With each session of the council, more enthusiasm was building among those who favored reform."

It was springtime in the Church much like Obamamania---a blessed sigh of relief after the reactionary period of Pius XII. The document most associated by the liberal spirit is Gaudium et Spes. One of the cardinals, Leo Joseph Suenens of Belgium urged the council to take on social responsibility for Third World suffering, International peace and war, and the poor. It was written the spirit of John XXIII's aggiornamento.

Traditionalists

Many traditionalist Catholics hold that the Council and subsequent interpretations of its documents moved the Church away from important principles of the historic Catholic faith. These principles include the following:

• the belief that the Catholic Church is the one and only true Christian church founded by Jesus Christ;
• the belief that the modern idea of religious liberty is to be condemned;
• an appropriate emphasis on the "Four Last Things" (Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell);
• the belief that the books of the Bible are historically inerrant;
• a devotion to scholastic theology and
• an organically grown apostolic Roman liturgy, as they define the Tridentine Mass.

They claim that these changes were made possible because of the ambiguity present in the official texts of the Council.

Conservatives

One response made by conservative Catholics to such criticism is that the actual teachings of the Council and the official interpretations of them must be distinguished from the more radical changes which have been made or proposed over the last 40 years in "the spirit of Vatican II". They agree that such changes are contrary to canon law and Church Tradition.

An example: a mainstream Catholic might agree that new and arguably un-Catholic elements introduced into the celebration of Mass are to be condemned, but would note that such elements are introduced in violation of the Council's decree on the sacred liturgy and the official Church documents governing the celebration of, e.g., the Mass of Paul VI.

In a 2005 speech to the Roman Curia, Pope Benedict XVI decried those who interpreted the documents of the Council in terms of "discontinuity and rupture". The proper interpretation, he said, is that proposed at the start and at the close of the Council by Popes John XXIII and Paul VI.

See also

• Hermeneutic of continuity