The Disputed Teachings of Vatican II

Continuity and Reversal in Catholic Doctrine

Thomas G. Guarino

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781467451291
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) radically shook up many centuries of tradition in the Roman Catholic Church. This book by Thomas Guarino, a noted expert on the sources and methods of Catholic doctrine, investigates whether Vatican II's highly contested teachings on religious freedom, ecumenism, and the Virgin Mary represented a harmonious development of—or a rupture with—Catholic tradition.

Guarino's careful explanations of such significant terms as continuity, discontinuity, analogy, reversal, reform, and development greatly enhance and clarify his discussion. No other book on Vatican II so clearly elucidates the essential theological principles for determining whether—and to what extent—a conciliar teaching is in continuity or discontinuity with antecedent tradition.

Readers from all faith traditions who care about the logic of continuity and change in Christian teaching will benefit from this masterful case study.

CHAPTER 1

The Central Problem of Vatican II

Why does Vatican II remain a contentious council more than fifty years after its conclusion? Why is it seen by many as having countenanced a revolution in Catholic thought? One significant reason is that Christianity has staked a great deal on the notion of the material continuity of the faith through generations and cultures. Authoritative Christian teachings—dogmas of the faith—are reflective of Sacred Scripture and apostolic tradition. What is believed today has been believed in substance—even if only embryonically—from the beginning.

Vatican II captures this idea when it says that “God has seen to it that what He revealed for the salvation of all nations would abide perpetually in its full integrity and be handed on to all generations” (DV §7; emphasis added). In other words, God’s truth, the truth of divine revelation, is indelibly marked by the ideas of identity, perpetuity, and universality. The Christian narrative is not simply a matter of fascinating stories; its teachings are reflective of states of affairs. Absent the characteristics of continuity and objectivity, Christian doctrine is reduced to nothing more than a prudential, pragmatic, and ultimately dispensable guide to life. Citations attesting to the objectivity and perpetuity of divine revelation are easily adducible from Catholic and Protestant theologians alike.¹ As the International Theological Commission, a body of Catholic theologians from around the globe, has stated in one of its most insightful documents, “The truth of revelation . . . is universally valid and unchangeable in substance.”² But people often express uneasiness with Vatican II—at least in certain quarters of the church—because of the sense that the council “changed” Catholicism in significant ways. Identifying precisely what changed is often difficult. An obvious variation, of course, is the liturgy that is now celebrated in the vernacular and versus populum, whereas it was once offered in Latin and ad orientem. But there is also a deeper sense, vaguely articulated, that Vatican II somehow changed Catholicism itself—that the Catholic Church went from being the “one true Church” to simply one Christian denomination among many, and that it now holds positions (about religious freedom, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, and church-state relations) that it formerly abhorred.

The customary self-understanding of Catholics was thrown into confusion by a council allegedly willing to modify fundamental teachings: Is explicit belief in Jesus Christ and the church still vital to salvation? Is evangelization still important? Is access to the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, integral to a vibrant Christian life? Rather than the self-confident institution that it once was, the Catholic Church is now anxious and unsure about its identity, about its place in society, and about its future in general. Isn’t this uncertainty the sad harvest of Vatican II?

Yves Congar, one of the principal theologians at the council, relates a story that sums up the sentiment of many. Toward the end of 1964, the French minister of education, Christian Fouchet, said to Bishop Elchinger of Strasbourg, “You are doing a bad job at the Council. You are calling everything into question. What was true yesterday is no longer true today.”³ Congar remarks, somewhat dismissively, that this idea that everything was changing was driven by the French press in hopes of creating sensational headlines. But Fouchet’s comment is neither idiosyncratic nor geographically limited. It sums up the way many view Vatican II: what was true yesterday is no longer true today.

This concern is not without foundation. In the fifth century, the Christian theologian Vincent of Lérins saw changeability as a mark of heresy. Heretics are the ones who tell us to “condemn what you used to hold and hold what you used to condemn” (Comm. 9.8). In the seventeenth century, the Catholic apologist Jacques Bossuet argued that Catholicism is marked by immutability whereas Protestantism is subject to change. While Bossuet’s description is contestable, his allegation is revealing: Protestantism changes—and therefore errs.⁴

One might argue that, for Catholicism, material continuity over time is the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae—the article on which the church stands or falls. Why? Because if divine revelation is truly God’s self-manifestation—his personal unveiledness to humanity—then God’s own truthfulness demands that revelation be identical and continuous, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. If the church’s teachings are not universally valid and materially identical over time, then one is driven to conclude that Christian doctrines are themselves fallible and changeable, able to be remade with time and tide, possessing little intrinsic stability. In that case, Christian teachings would be nothing more than historically conditioned attempts at self-transcendence, offering little insight into the life of God. Historical mutability and provisionality—not bedrock truth—would be the horizons within which all Christian teaching should be understood. It is precisely for this reason that the debate over continuity and discontinuity in Catholicism is so crucial and vigorous today. If the council simply “remade” the church in the image of the contemporary world—ecclesiogenesis in the proper sense of the term—then the church can ever and always be remade to correspond to the whims and tastes of the day.

These, then, are the central questions for the interpretation of Vatican II and are therefore pivotal for this book: Given that the council has significant elements of discontinuity—as Benedict XVI himself conceded—did Vatican II betray fundamental Catholic teachings? If not, then how should we understand the council’s discontinuous moments?

I will argue that, for the most part, Vatican II is in clear congruence with the prior Catholic tradition—even while homogeneously developing it on certain points. (The precise meaning of “development” will be more carefully examined in chapter 3.) But one may also identify several important reversals at the council, even though such reversals were generally “masked.” In the desire to give the impression that all conciliar change was smoothly continuous with the prior tradition—and to ensure that the documents themselves did not become distinction-laden textbooks—Vatican II glided over those points where it was reversing the immediately prior tradition. And there is no doubt that some earlier teaching was indeed reversed by the council. This, I believe, has been the source of much confusion and consternation, giving rise to the claim that Vatican II constituted a significant and substantial rupture with the antecedent tradition. Once again, I will argue that the discontinuity in conciliar teaching undermines neither the stability nor the solidity of the truth of revelation. But these discontinuous moments need to be identified and clearly understood.

Historical Responses to the Issue of Continuity

Let us now briefly discuss two theologians who directly treated the issue of change and development in Christian doctrine over time: Vincent of Lérins and John Henry Newman.

Vincent of Lérins

I have already mentioned the thought of the early Christian writer Vincent of Lérins. Here I intend to offer a somewhat fuller treatment of his theological insights. Can Vincent help us to interpret Vatican II properly? Can this fifth-century theologian still teach us about the difference between change that is organic development and change that is corruption? I believe that he can. Indeed, Vincent is important to this book because he is the first Christian writer to deal at length with the thorny issue of mutability and continuity.

In his most famous work, the Commonitorium, Vincent wrestled with several foundational questions roiling the early church: How could the recrudescence of Arianism, condemned at the Council of Nicaea (325) but remaining vibrant nonetheless, finally be overcome? Why were the clear errors of Bishop Nestorius, condemned by the Council of Ephesus (431), continually attractive to some theologians? And how should Christians understand the precise relationship between divine grace and human freedom? In response to these persistent theological problems, Vincent went to the root of the matter, posing his own questions: How can we distinguish between Christian truth and pernicious heresy? By which criteria do we make this all-important distinction? And does the preservation and conservation of the Christian faith mean that further development is impossible?

Vincent’s answers are subtle and creative.⁵ To distinguish truth from heresy, Vincent places a marked accent on the triple criteria of antiquity, universality, and ubiquity. These criteria are summarized in his famous “canon” or “first rule,” which states that “in the catholic church, all care must be taken so we hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by everyone” (2.5).⁶ Vincent’s famous words “everywhere, always and by everyone” (ubique, semper et ab omnibus) have been endlessly invoked by historians and theologians, although usually just as quickly dismissed. Many have argued that Vincent’s canon represents an interesting attempt to separate truth from heresy but his rule is naive because, in fact, no Christian doctrine has ever been believed always, everywhere, and by everyone.

But this evaluation of Vincent’s famous rule badly misses his point.⁷ Moreover, it is transparently clear that the theologian of Lérins never meant his threefold canon to forestall continuing development in the life of the church. Vincent was convinced that change inevitably occurs over time—and with change, growth and development. He was well aware, for example, that neither the word homoousios of the Council of Nicaea (325) nor the word Theotokos of the Council of Ephesus (431) was to be found in Scripture. Nonetheless, he saw these signature words as legitimately and homogeneously developing the contents of the Bible.

Crucially important for our discussion is Vincent’s careful distinction alluded to earlier: two kinds of change can occur in the church, profectus and permutatio. The former represents a legitimate advance, an organic extension, an architectonic development of prior teachings. The latter term, on the contrary, represents the reversal of some antecedent principle; as such it constitutes a corruption of the Christian faith. For Vincent, continuity in church teaching is essential but does not exclude authentic growth.

Illustrating this point is the famous chapter 23 of the Commonitorium, where the theologian of Lérins reconciles his first rule—that which is true is that which has been acknowledged semper, ubique, et ab omnibus—with his second rule, namely, that there exists authentic development in the church of Christ. Just here we see why Vincent is so important for understanding Vatican II. He argues that preservation and development are entirely accordant realities.

But someone will perhaps say: is there no progress of religion in the church of Christ? Certainly there is progress, even exceedingly great progress [plane et maximus]. For who is so envious of others and so hateful toward God as to try to prohibit it? Yet, it must be an advance [profectus] in the proper sense of the word and not an alteration [permutatio] in faith. For progress means that each thing is enlarged within itself [res amplificetur], while alteration implies that one thing is transformed into something else [aliquid ex alio in aliud]. It is necessary, therefore, that understanding, knowledge, and wisdom should grow [crescat] and advance [proficiat] vigorously in individuals as well as in the community, in a single person as well as in the whole church and this gradually in the course of ages and centuries. But the progress made must be according to its own type, that is, in accord with the same doctrine, the same meaning, and the same judgment [eodem sensu eademque sententia]. (23.1–3)

This famous passage indicates that Vincent, while deeply concerned with the preservation of Christian truth, insists that such preservation is fully consonant with development over time. As he says: Who is so “envious of others and so hateful toward God” as to try to prohibit progress? Examples of the distinction between authentic development and illegitimate corruption are obvious in Vincent’s work. Proper development is exemplified in the Councils of Nicaea and Ephesus (with their insistence on the divinity of Jesus and on his divine-human unity).⁸

Where does one find deformations and corruptions, Vincent’s dreaded permutationes fidei? One such place is in the various fourth-century imperial attempts to reverse the Council of Nicaea by reformulating the creed without the word homoousios. Such attempts also represent “changes”—but changes that are now alterations of the Christian faith, pernicious corruptions that transgress the bedrock doctrinal truth found in the Bible and formulated by an ecumenical council.

Again and again Vincent polemicizes against the Synod of Ariminum (Rimini, 359) because it is clearly discontinuous with the Council of Nicaea—not homogeneously developing it, but nakedly reversing its affirmations. Against such attempts, Vincent ardently declaims, “Transgress not the landmarks inherited from the fathers!” (Prov. 22:28). Solemnly defined teachings, such as the Council of Nicaea’s on the identity of Jesus Christ, represent doctrinal milestones that cannot be transgressed or traduced. Ecumenical councils represent the agreement of teachers/bishops from every part of Christendom (ubique, omnes) handing o...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. The Central Problem of Vatican II
• 2. Theological Principles for Understanding Vatican II
• 3. Key Words for Change
• 4. Disputed Topics and Analogical Reasoning
• 5. Disputed Topics and Material Continuity
• Conclusion
• Select Bibliography
• Index