On Monday, April 26, the online journal, The Catholic Thing, published an article titled, The New Pope, Vatican II, and True and False Reform.
Written by John Grondelski, a career Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State who holds a Ph.D. in theology from Fordham University, the article presents views that are likely shared by many in the conciliar church, at least among those who lean “conservative.” For this reason, I will summarize and comment on its key points in the hope that it might, just maybe, bring clarity to someone who needs it.
[NOTE: The Editor in Chief of The Catholic Thing is frequent EWTN guest Robert Royal, which is a good indication of its readership’s orientation.]
Grondelski begins by taking umbrage with Bergoglio’s implementation of Vatican II, writing:
There’s a tendency to call Francis a “reformer” for “restarting” the “reception” of the Council, implicitly after the 35-year delay caused by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Think about that: Bergoglio, a nonparticipant in the Council, supposedly better understood it than one pope who was a Council Father and another who was a distinguished peritus.
I disagree entirely. In reality, Francis was far more dedicated to implementing what the Council actually taught than the men who came before him. He did so with impeccable integrity and forthrightness, never bothering to sugarcoat the bitter poisonous pills that it dispensed to the detriment of those who merely wish to be Catholic.
Perhaps the best example is Traditiones Cojones, which amounts to a heaping helping of conciliar red meat served with nary a drop of fresh milk to wash it down.
In addition to being factually incorrect (I will provide more evidence to that effect momentarily), if Grondelski’s line of argumentation has any merit at all – namely, that the further removed putative popes get from the historical event known as Vatican II, the less they will be able to implement it correctly – it’s time to throw in the towel. In other words, if this be the case, conciliar conservatives waiting for the glorious day when the Council’s real teachings will be put into play by a pope who truly understands them are entirely without hope; it’s game over.
As inconceivable as it may seem, Grondelski (and presumably many others) remain unsure as to what the Council actually taught, i.e., they’re still awaiting its official interpretation. He writes:
This conclave will, in some sense, define how we “understand” Vatican II. Will it be a Council that fits into the long ages of Church history? Or will it be some break with that history? Will the Council be read according to what the Council Fathers actually wrote (allowing that there is ambiguity in some of the passages)?
The Second Vatican Council closed on December 8, 1965. Since then, Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis – men that nearly all self-identified Catholics consider true popes (God bless their naïve souls) – have been unpacking and explaining the conciliar text, i.e., they have been relentlessly providing the Council’s official interpretation, doing their level best to mold the church over which they reigned in its image. The idea that the faithful are still waiting for a pope to implement the Council is ludicrous.
Perhaps even more ridiculous is the following:
It [the explanation of Vatican II] found its best recent expression in Pope Benedict’s contrast between the “hermeneutic of continuity” and the “hermeneutic of rupture” – two very different ways of understanding the Council.
One wonders where John Grondelski has been for last decade or so – perhaps on diplomatic assignment in Bumflockistan?
In all seriousness, I genuinely believed that pretty much everyone with even a modicum of Catholic sense had come to the unavoidable conclusion that the “hermeneutic of continuity” is a dead end. Evidently, I was wrong; there actually are intelligent people who still think that Ratzinger’s conciliar decoder ring is the key to the New Springtime.
Grondelski went on to verify just how out of touch he is, writing:
When he delivered a Lenten retreat for Pope Paul VI, the future John Paul II prophetically remarked at one point that “we are in a lively battle for the dignity of man.” In a very real sense, that too is the question the conclave will have to consider when it thinks about what kind of “Vatican II” the new pope should implement.
NB: Grondelski believes that Wojtyla’s insights are spot on.
Again, I thought that nearly everyone with Catholic sense sees anthropocentrism – that is, an undue focus on mankind and his soaring dignity – as one of the Council’s greatest failings, not its virtues. Evidently, I was wrong on this note as well.
At this, continuing with the human dignity theme, let’s consider one of the ways in which Francis did more to implement the Council’s teachings, bringing them to their authentic logical conclusion, than any of his conciliar predecessors. In mind, specifically, I have the highly controversial statement made in the 2019 document On Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, otherwise known as the Abu Dhabi Agreement:
The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.
Though it’s bad form to declare, “I told ya so,” sometimes it’s useful in making a point.
In 2017, I posted an article in this space arguing that the poisonous theological seeds for Amoris Laetitia can be found in Dignitatis Humanae, the Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican Council II.
Rather than reargue the case here, I invite readers to revisit that article (if interested) where the following is stated:
In proposing that the State must concede such a right to false religions (i.e., that which “is at variance with truth and justice” and therefore evil), the Council is implicitly teaching that such things are positively willed by God as opposed to simply being tolerated by Him. [Emphasis in original]
Until very recently, I had forgotten that I wrote these exact words in 2017, pointing out how the Council implicitly teaches that the false religions are “positively willed by God.”
Two years later, Francis would proclaim exactly this in the Abu Dhabi Agreement, after which he was widely pilloried for spouting yet another Bergoglian heresy, as if he owns the copyright to it, lock, stock and barrel. He does not, he was merely passing on what he received.
As I’ve stated numerous times (I know… sounds a lot like another I told ya so), Francis didn’t have an original bone in his body. He wasn’t making anything up. His biggest fault was his undying commitment to implementing the Council. The Abu Dhabi Agreement was simply part of that process.
The final paragraph of the Grondelski article reads in conclusion:
Picking a pope for whom Vatican II will be but another event from the Church history that he inherits represents a qualitatively new moment for the papacy. It will represent a new phase in the battle over the reception of the Council, perhaps not a wholly decisive phase. But as Winston Churchill said in another context, it may at least be “the end of the beginning.”
I’m unsure exactly what he meant by that first sentence, but unless Conclave 2025 elects a corpse, the next man to walk out onto the loggia at St. Peters dressed in white will be a man for whom Vatican II is not a personal firsthand experience (like PVI, JPII, BXV), but rather an historical event.
Moreover, should the cardinals elevate one of their fellow electors (and the odds are astronomical that they will), that man will be cut from Bergoglian cloth in the sense that his seminary training will have been steeped in the same conciliar theology that bore such rotten fruit as the Abu Dhabi Agreement, Traditiones Cojones, and Amoris Laetitia.
What he actually does with Vatican II is another story. If he does what I fully expect him to do – that is, treat the Council as if it was a genuine exercise of the Supreme Magisterium, still awaiting its full and proper implementation – then we will know without any doubt whatsoever that he is yet another in a decades long line of anti-popes.
