Michael Matt of Remnant Newspaper comments on Archbishop Vigano’s condemnation of Vatican II
VIGANÒ on REVOLUTION in the CHURCH: “From Vatican II onwards, a parallel church was built…”
Over the past half century of crisis in the Catholic Church, one of the main points of division among Tradition-minded Catholics centered around the question of whether there was something inherently contrary to Tradition about the Second Vatican Council itself, or was it merely the Modernist interpretations of the Council that flowed abundantly into the lifeblood of the Church after the close of the Council in 1965.
Over the past few decades, many conservative commentators were ready to admit that the so-called “Spirit of the Council” had led to much devastation in the Church. But they parted company with those of us who felt obliged in conscience to point out that at least some of the sixteen documents themselves were inherently at odds with the constant magisterial teaching of the Church.
In essence, this has been at the heart of the debate for over fifty years. It divided my own family, in fact, and eventually left my father with no choice but to leave The Wanderer and found The Remnant in 1967. In his mind, it was not merely a question of abuse—either of doctrine or liturgy—but rather that Vatican II represented a fundamental and orchestrated reorientation of the Church in the spirit of the modern world.
For many good Catholics (who knew something had gone terribly wrong), it seemed the more prudent course of action to hope and pray that faulty interpretations of the Council would eventually work themselves into a hermeneutic of continuity with Tradition and all would end well. For fifty years, this kept them largely silent in the face of radical novelty never before seen in the history of the Church.