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TheHermeneutics of the Second Vatican Council, or theHermeneutics of Vatican II, refers to the different interpretations of theSecond Vatican Council given by theologians and historians in relation to theRoman Catholic Church in the period following the Council. The two leading interpretations are the "hermeneutic of continuity" (or "hermeneutic of the reform") and the contrasting "hermeneutic of rupture" (or "hermeneutic of discontinuity"), with some proposing a "third hermeneutic" along the lines ofJohn W. O'Malley.[1]
This field of research is taught in some universities and explored by learned societies such as the School of Bologna and theJohn XXIII Foundation for Religious Sciences. Historians such asGiuseppe Alberigo,John W. O'Malley,Christoph Theobald,Gilles Routhier,Romano Amerio andRoberto de Mattei research perceived or actual ruptures with preconciliar Catholicism from both progressive and traditionalist perspectives. Meanwhile, Benedict XVI has emphasized the continuity of council with preconciliar Catholicism and endorsed a "hermeneutic of reform."[2]
Unlike other Councils of the Roman Catholic Church, Vatican II poses a problem of interpretation which theologians and historians have grabbled with the legacy of the Council and how it should be interpreted in the world. This peculiarity can be derived from the intention of the Council itself, which was not to define "one point or another of doctrine and discipline" but to "re-establish in value and splendor the substance of human and Christian thought and life".[3] This intention was followed by a lack ofdogmatic definitions, which gave rise to a debate on the nature of the documents and their application.[4]
Allecumenical councils of the Catholic Church have had their historians who have contributed to providing an interpretation starting from their point of view.[5] However, Roberto de Mattei argues that only for the Second Vatican Council have two contrary hermeneutics been confronted.[6] According to some critics, the presence of opposing hermeneutics can be attributed to an ambiguity or ambivalence of the conciliar documents.[6] Others have argued in response that the troubled reception of Vatican II is not unique to it and reflects a trend dating back to theCouncil of Nicaea.[7]
For his part,Pope Benedict XVI (who also participated in the development of the Council when he wasCardinal Ratzinger), as a witness to the diverse perceptions of post-conciliar theology since its origins, stated that a large part of the hermeneutical problem has been due to the interference of the press in spreading politicized and ideologized interpretations of the conciliar resolutions to the masses, which polarized the parishioners and researchers on the subject, as well as hindering the reception of the official hermeneutics of the Church in the face ofmodernist distortions.[8]
I would now like to add a third point: There was the Council of the Fathers—the true Council—but there was also the Council of the media. It was almost a separate Council, and the world perceived the Council through the media, through the media. Thus, the most effective Council that reached the people was that of the media, not that of the Fathers. And while the Council of the Fathers was realized within faith, it was a Council of faith that seeks the intellect, that seeks to understand itself and to understand the signs of God at that moment, that seeks to respond to God's challenge at that moment and to find in the Word of God the word for today and for tomorrow. While the entire Council—as I have said—moved within the faith, as fides quaerens intellectum, the Council of journalists did not develop naturally within the faith, but within the categories of today's media, that is, outside of the faith, with a different hermeneutic. It was a political hermeneutic. For the media, the Council was a political struggle, a power struggle between various currents in the Church. It was obvious that the media would take sides with the part that seemed most in keeping with their world. (...) These translations, a trivialization of the idea of the Council, have been virulent in the practical application of the liturgical reform; they were born from a vision of the Council outside of its own key, that of faith. (...) We know to what extent this Council of the media was accessible to all. Thus, this was the dominant, the most efficient, and it has caused so many calamities, so many problems; "There really is so much misery: closed seminaries, closed convents, trivialized liturgy... and the true Council has had difficulty in materializing, in being realized; the virtual Council was stronger than the real Council."
— Benedict XVI, Address to the Parish Priests and Clergy of Rome, Paul VI Audience Hall, Thursday, 14 February 2013
In turn, Benedict XVI mentioned that in the faculties of theology of various universities inGermany andCentral Europe, heterodox movements would arise that hindered the implementation of the conciliar reforms, since they tried to synchronize them with a supposed "conciliar spirit", often deviating from or contradicting the resolutions of the documents resulting from Vatican II, practicing a heretical Free Examination where they introducedpolitical ideologies (such asLiberalism orMarxism) not related to what Vatican II meant, and that in addition, these practices had been previously condemned by the Church as the heresy oftheological modernism.[9]
The role that theologians had adopted at the Council created a new self-awareness among scholars: they began to feel like the true representatives of science and, precisely for this reason, could no longer appear subservient to the bishops. […] If, upon returning to my homeland during the first Council period, I had still felt sustained by the feeling of joyful renewal that reigned everywhere, I now experienced a profound disquiet in the face of the change that had taken place within the ecclesial climate and that was becoming more and more evident. […] Years before, one might have expected that theological faculties would be a bulwark against the Marxist temptation. Now, however, exactly the opposite was happening: they were becoming the true ideological center. […] I have seen without veils the cruel face of this atheistic devotion, the psychological terror, the unbridled abandonment of any moral reflection, considered a bourgeois residue, where the question was the ideological end. All of this is alarming enough in itself, but it becomes an inevitable challenge for theologians when ideology is advanced in the name of faith and the Church is used as its instrument. The blasphemous way in which the cross was ridiculed as sadomasochism, the hypocrisy with which they continued to declare themselves believers… I have experienced all of this firsthand.
— Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones: Memoirs, pp. 159-164
According to the hermeneutics of continuity, the Second Vatican Council must be interpreted in the light and in continuity with the magisterium of the Church preceding and following the Council, or in the light ofsacred tradition.[a][b]
Already in 1966, a year after the closing of the Council,Pope Paul VI highlighted two interpretative tendencies considered erroneous:
And [...] it seems to Us that two possible errors must be avoided: first, that of supposing that the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council represents a break with the doctrinal and disciplinary tradition that precedes it, almost as if it were such a novelty that it should be compared to a shocking discovery, to a subjective emancipation, which authorizes the detachment, almost a pseudo-liberation, from what until yesterday the Church has authoritatively taught and professed [...] And another error, contrary to the fidelity that we owe to the Council, would be that of ignoring the immense wealth of teachings and the providential renewing fruitfulness that comes to us from the Council itself
— Paul VI,Homily on the occasion of the first anniversary of the closing of the Council, 8 December 1966.
The hermeneutics of continuity was explicitly formulated byPope Benedict XVI on 22 December 2005:
Why has the reception of the Council, in large parts of the Church, been so difficult up to now? Well, everything depends on the correct interpretation of the Council or – as we would say today – on its correct hermeneutics, on the correct key to reading and applying it. The problems of reception arose from the fact that two contrary hermeneutics found themselves in confrontation and argued with each other. One caused confusion, the other, silently but ever more visibly, bore fruit. On the one hand there is an interpretation that I would call "hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture"; it has often been able to avail itself of the sympathy of the mass media, and also of a part of modern theology. On the other hand there is the "hermeneutics of reform", of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church, which the Lord has given us; it is a subject that grows over time and develops, but always remains the same, the only subject of the People of God on the move.
— Benedict XVI,Address to the Roman Curia, 22 December 2005.
The hermeneutics of rupture, also known as the hermeneutics of discontinuity, tends to give value to the Council as an event, also in consideration of some particular characteristics of Vatican II: the absence of a specific historical purpose, the rejection of the originallyRoman Curia-backed preparatory schemes, the assembly elaboration of the documents and also the perception of the Council as a crucial event by public opinion. This hermeneutics aims to valorise not only the documents approved by the Council, but also the debates within the assembly and the perception of the Council externally, by the faithful.[10]
Benedict XVI, a few months after his election as Pope, expressed a severe criticism of the hermeneutics of discontinuity:
The hermeneutics of discontinuity risks ending in a rupture between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such are not yet the true expression of the spirit of the Council. They are the result of compromises in which, in order to reach unanimity, many old things that are now useless had to be dragged along and reconfirmed. However, the true spirit of the Council is not revealed in these compromises, but rather in the impulses toward the new that underlie the texts: they alone represent the true spirit of the Council, and starting from them and in conformity with them, one should move forward. Precisely because the texts would only imperfectly reflect the true spirit of the Council and its novelty, it would be necessary to go courageously beyond the texts, making room for the novelty in which the deepest intention, although still indistinct, of the Council would be expressed. In a word: it would be necessary to follow not the texts of the Council, but its spirit.
— Benedict XVI,Address to the Roman Curia, 22 December 2005.
The progressivist supporters of the hermeneutics of discontinuity are represented by the so-called "Bologna School" directed byGiuseppe Alberigo, a student ofGiuseppe Dossetti, author of aHistory of the Second Vatican Council in five volumes. They "emphasized the'spirit' of the council, styling the progressive reformers as the heroes and the conservative minority at the council as the enemies of progress". It is named after the city ofBologna, the intellectual centre of thisschool of thought and the headquarters of the main organ associated with this line of thought; theJohn XXIII Foundation for Religious Sciences.[11] Other leading thinkers in the Bologna School wereAlberto Melloni,Giuseppe Ruggieri andMaria Teresa Fattori.[11] Outside Italy this approach is supportedDavid Berger,John W. O'Malley,Gilles Routhier andCristoph Theobald.[12]
ManyCatholic traditionalist groups, such as theSociety of Saint Pius X, and some scholars such as the philosopherRomano Amerio.[13] In 2010, the historianRoberto de Mattei intervened in the debate with the bookIl Concilio Vaticano II. Una storia mai scritta ("The Second Vatican Council – An Unwritten Story"), in which, without entering into the merits of the theological discussion, he argues on a historical level the impossibility of separating the Second Vatican Council from the post-conciliar abuses, isolating the latter as a pathology that developed in a healthy body.[14]
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Born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022
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