Vatican Moves Downplay 1960s Church Reforms, Observers Say

c. 2007 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ In making two controversial decisions earlier this month _ opening the door to wider celebration of the “Latin Mass” and asserting the Roman Catholic Church as the one true “Church of Christ” _ the Vatican insisted that no essential Catholic belief or practice had been changed. In […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ In making two controversial decisions earlier this month _ opening the door to wider celebration of the “Latin Mass” and asserting the Roman Catholic Church as the one true “Church of Christ” _ the Vatican insisted that no essential Catholic belief or practice had been changed.

In fact, Pope Benedict XVI and other Vatican officials stressed their decisions’ coherence with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, the international assembly that ushered in a series of reforms during the 1960s.


But the pope also made clear his conservative understanding of the council,stressing its continuity with the church’s traditions, rather than the innovative and even revolutionary spirit that many believe the council embodied.

Some observers thus view the recent decisions as an effort by Benedict to correct misunderstandings of Vatican II and its teachings _ an effort some say could undermine the council’s legacy.

Indeed, the recent Vatican decisions touch on two of the most notable results of the 1960s council for American Catholics: celebrating the Mass in local languages and encouraging more open attitudes to different faiths.

On July 7, Benedict issued a papal decree making it easier for priests to celebrate the Tridentine Mass, which had been the traditional form of the liturgy until Vatican II made Mass in local languages the norm.

In a letter to bishops accompanying his decree, Benedict dismissed any “fear that the document detracts from the authority of the Second Vatican Council.”

Rather, the pope affirmed the “spiritual richness and theological depth” of the Missal _ or text that guides the Mass _ approved in the council’s wake, which “obviously is and continues to be the normal form.”

But Benedict also noted that the newer Missal had been widely misunderstood as “authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear.”


Three days after that decree, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith decreed _ with Benedict’s approval _ that the church established by Christ exists in its complete form only in the Catholic church, though other Christian denominations can be “instruments of salvation.”

“The Second Vatican Council neither changed nor intended to change this doctrine,” the Vatican explained, suggesting that any understanding to the contrary was due to “erroneous interpretation.”

The two decrees’ release within such a short time of each other could be merely a coincidence. A high proportion of Vatican documents come out in the summer when the pope has more time to read them, notes the Rev. Thomas Williams, an American who serves as dean of theology at Rome’s Regina Apostolorum University.

Some theologians, however, say there could be a purpose behind the Vatican’s timing.

The papal decree on the Latin Mass might be “not just about the liturgy but also about the teaching of Vatican II,” said the Rev. James F. Puglisi, an American who runs the Centro Pro Unione, an ecumenical research center in Rome.

For instance, Puglisi noted, the Good Friday liturgy in the Tridentine Missal contains a prayer for the conversion of the Jews that refers to their “blindness” and the “veil (on) their hearts.” The post-Vatican II Missal replaced that with a more conciliatory prayer for the Jews as “the first to hear the word of God.”

The Vatican’s statement last week that Protestant denominations are not churches “in the proper sense” but mere “Christian communities” is also potentially problematic for ecumenical relations.


According to the Rev. William Henn, an American who teaches at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, the insistence that Vatican II did not change the church might detract from the council’s historic support for ecumenism.

“My fear would be that stressing the identity of Vatican II as one of continuity might give the impression that there was nothing new that happened at Vatican II,” Henn said. “In that case, there would have been no point in holding it.”

Interpreters of Vatican II have long been divided between those who stress the continuity of its teachings with traditional Catholic doctrine and those who characterize the council as a dramatic break with the past.

Benedict, who as the Rev. Joseph Ratzinger was deeply involved in the deliberations of the council, is a longstanding member of the continuity school.

Commentators have been quick to see the pope’s recent actions in light of this conviction.

“It could be part of a strategy,” Henn said. “I hope it isn’t. I wouldn’t like to think that (the pope) is doing something that affects the life of the church just to influence what some theologians think. I hope its purpose is pastoral.”


DSB/CM END ROCCA

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