At times you get the sense that the Catholic Church only began after the second Vatican Council. Whenever I read encyclicals and statements from Pope Francis, I check out the footnotes first which overwhelmingly include items and encyclicals that post-date Vatican II. Pope Francis is enamored with quoting his own documents as well, and in Fratelli Tutti even footnoted the movie about himself. (Forgive me if I laugh.) Personally, I prefer reading the lives of the saints and documents from the Church Fathers and holy popes like Pius IX and Pius X who faced many of the problems we face today. But I think we should continuously remind ourselves of the situation that has inflicted the Church since Vatican II.
I'm reading Roberto De Mattei's book, Apologia for Tradition. It's an antidote to discouragement since he gives an overview of Church history since the beginning. (A brief one; the book is only 121 pages including the index.) De Mattei paints a picture of a Church facing problems, heresies, and, especially, the challenges caused by evil and powerful men governing from Rome and diocesan seats. The Church has seen it before and survived and a bad period is generally followed by revival. So it's a hopeful book!
With regard to the modern era, De Mattei provides this view from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) in his 1985 interview with Vittorio Messori, The Ratzinger Report. In a candid statement, the future pope said:
Developments since the Council seem to be in striking contrast to the expectations of all, beginning with those of John XXIII and Paul VI. Christians are once again a minority, more than they have ever been since the end of antiquity...What the popes and the Council Fathers were expecting was a new Catholic unity, and instead one has encountered a dissension which -- to use the words of Paul VI -- seems to have passed over from self-criticism to self-destruction.
Have things improved during the last 50 years? I suggest not, and, in fact, 2021 may be the high-water mark of "destruction" with so many bishops caving into Caesar's ridiculous and faith-killing demands over the Wuhan virus. I hope it's the high water mark. Can things get much worse in the Church? How many people, especially young people, will never return to the altar of God. "Hey, it isn't essential... and it's boring... and I don't get anything out of it anyway." Sound familiar, parents of young adults?
The cardinal went on:
There had been the expectation of a new enthusiasm, and instead too often it has ended in boredom and discouragement. There had been the expectation of a step forward, and instead one found oneself facing a progressive process of decadence that to a large measure has been unfolding under the sign of a summons to a presumed "spirit of the Council" and by so doing has actually and increasingly discredited it...The Church of the post-conciliar period is a huge construction site. But...it [is] a construction site where the blueprint has been lost and everyone continues to build according to his taste."
Indeed!
Well, I pulled out my copy of the Report and read more. The cardinal said the errors could not be attributed to the "authentic documents" of the Council, but to forces both within and outside the Church. Would he say the same thing today I wonder? Is there nothing to criticize in the Council itself?
In 2005, the year he was elected to the papal throne Benedict said this, "How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to Him." Later that year he talked about the need for a "reinterpretation" of the Council and used the term "hermeneutic of continuity" vs. a "hermeneutic of rupture." A discussion of that is the subject for another day.
De Mattei summarizes the problem:
...the reality is that 50 years after Vatican Council II the Catholic Church is suffering one of the most terrible crises in her history. It is not just a matter of the growing persecution to which Christians are being subjected in every corner of the world. The distinctive marks of the Church, which show her to the world as one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic, as we profess in the Creed seem to be obscured to the point of making her unrecognizable to her own children.
So what do we do when things are so confusing and disastrous, the only words that seem appropriate? De Mattei points to a Dominican theologian, Melchior Cano, who advised the Council of Trent in the 16th century about responding to Luther's Protestant revolution. He offers ten "proper sources of theology" or "domiciles of all theological arguments...needed both to prove and to refute." One needs to look to 1) the authority of sacred scripture, 2) sacred tradition, 3) the authority of the Catholic Church, 4) Councils, especially General Councils, 5) the "Roman Church" which I presume means the pope and his dicasteries, 6) the Church Fathers, 7) scholastic theologians and canonists who are experts in the law of the Church, 8) natural reason, i.e., the natural law written on our hearts, 9) authority of philosophers following the natural law, and 10) authority of legitimate human history transmitted by reliable authors.
Heresy and error fill the pages of Church history from its earliest days. How did people cope in the past? It seems unfair to me that, in our confusing time, the average pew sitter needs to be a theologian, philosopher, and canon lawyer to unravel all the nonsense spouted by liberal priests, bishops, and even the pope. But then I remember little Therese who was none of those things, but is still a Doctor of the Church. St. Augustine said, "Love God and do what you will." He wasn't talking about modern mush love, but a strong desire to be united to the will of God and reflect his love toward others. Read his sermon; it's a goldmine! It also gives me hope. If we follow St. Augustine's admonition, not an easy task, we will be able to maneuver the confusing highways and bi-ways of our wicked times without losing our balance or our faith. A priest once told me that the wisest and holiest person he knew was a little old woman with limited education who cleaned office buildings. She obviously gained her wisdom in the school of the saints. May God shower us all with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
"Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love." As St. Teresa of Avila prayed, "Lord, make me a burning furnace of charity."
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