(Summary: Vatican II for dummies: A short analogy to help you in understanding Vatican II documents)
This post could have been reduced to one of those Lawrence Fishburne “What if I told you…” memes. But since we are on Substack, let me turn it into a post.
Imagine you are a parent. You want to go to the grocery store and your teenage child is not home from school/college yet. You want to leave a note for him/her (pretend you have not provided them cell phones just yet – some of us haven’t). The note lists a few things with a bit of advice as follows:
Hi. Gone to the store. Will be back soon.
- Please have the leftovers in the refrigerator for lunch.
- But you can order a pizza if you like.
- Leave the dog out in the yard for a few minutes.
- Or you can walk him around the block, as he may bark and disturb the neighbours while in the yard.
- Complete your Math project.
- And if you are too tired to get to your Math project immediately, watch your favourite TV program until I am back.
I want you to understand the difference in the instructions provided above, from the point that immediately followed it.
One was an explicit instruction. The other was an option to your teenager.
Now realize that the option provided by you allowed your teenager to overrule the actual instruction itself.
The option you provided also meant that there was no real reason for the instruction in the first place; Meaning, you may have very well told your teenage kid the option, instead of the preceding instruction, thereby reducing your instructions to just three instead of six.
Now apply this analogy to Church Councils, especially Vatican II.
Your first instruction is similar to instructions usually provided by Councils/the Magisterium.
In the case of Vatican II, the instruction is followed by and softened by a ‘pastoral’ note or tone by giving the faithful options, such as:
- Latin is to be the pride of language, but let’s use the vernacular language of the region during Mass.
- The Catholic faith has the fullness of truth, but religious liberty must not be impeded and should be tolerated.
- We must evangelize to the world through our missions, but we need to do this right after we have an inter-religious gathering with the adherents of different world religions which does not offend them about their religious beliefs.
- The Catholic faith has the fullness of truth. But remember that we are to do this by acknowledging that the other religions also possess some truths.
See the problem? And there are more like these.
Now that you have been given a brief 101 Masterclass in spotting the problem in Vatican II documents, give it a whirl and try going through the documents yourself – you will now begin to appreciate the problem for yourself as I have come to.
I can expect the Popesplaining Lofton’s or the Lewis’ to spin this simple ‘life-hack-that-can-save-your-soul’ by printing out a ‘rebuttal’, or to podcast a YouTube video on the glories of Vatican II.
Look, you can let the influencers and the Vatican confuse you, believing only those with a ‘degree’ in theology, or those having a large & somewhat conventional influence base – such as Catholic Answers or Bishop Barron. You can be gaslit into threats of being in ‘schism’ with the Pontiff – the label of a schismatic is a powerful deterrent to any average-devotional Catholic. You can be reluctant to voice your views of what you now see are errors – after all what if your friends in Church find out? What if the community or the parish where you are integrally involved and committed finds out? What will happen to your status, your position, your sense of self? – And here is where the question of Christian integrity & ‘dying to self’ will come in.
To those who are unable to take that step, I would like to remind you of Matthew 7:21 to 23 – which needs to be read in context with the preceding verses 15 to 20 & the subsequent verses 24 to 27 in order to see the full picture.
Now about that meme.
I know. You got punked by the meme. I figure now that you are able to appreciate the problem with Vatican II documents, you can now hopefully make your own “What if I told you…” or other such memes distilling the subject of Vatican II.
Acknowledgement: This post was the result of the work by many people, but especially the gent from the Catholic Esquire who made it possible to read between the lines & navigate the labyrinth of Vatican II (his YouTube videos on Vatican II are highly recommended).
Ave Maria
