Another Bergoglio Presser

Sandro Magister: Back from Iraq: "What Touched Me Most..."

As he formulates it, it is full of errors and exaggerations:

FRATERNITY IS NOT A HERESY

The Abu Dhabi document of February 4 [2019] was prepared with the Grand Imam [of Al-Azhar] in secret, for six months, by praying, reflecting, correcting the text. It was - it’s a bit presumptuous, take it as a presumption - a first step, […] this [with Al-Sistani] would be the second and there will be others. It is important, the path of fraternity. […] Ayatollah Al-Sistani has a phrase that I try to remember well: men are either brothers by religion or equal by creation. Fraternity is equality, but we cannot go below equality. I believe it is also a cultural path. Let’s think of us Christians, of the Thirty Years War, of St. Bartholomew's night, to give an example. Let's think about this. How the mentality changes among us. Because our faith lets us discover that it is this, the revelation of Jesus is love, and charity leads us to this. But how many centuries to realize it! […] This is an important thing, human fraternity, that as men we are all brothers, and we must move forward with the other religions. […] You are human, you are a child of God, you are my brother, period. This would be the greatest guideline, and many times one has to take risks to take this step. There are some criticisms: that the pope is not courageous, he is reckless, that he is taking steps against Catholic doctrine, that he is one step away from heresy... There are risks. But these decisions are always made in prayer, in dialogue, asking for advice, in reflection. They are not a whim, and they are also the approach that the Council taught.

Pietro De Marco Proposes an Irenic Discussion of Vatican II

Sandro Magister: For or Against the Council, the Church in the Vortex. Guidelines for a Pacification

But the dialogue is really just for Latins and the patriarchate of Rome -- if Eastern Catholics are meant to be included at all, they are presumed to share the same beliefs as Latin ecclesiology. (Of course, Latins believe that the key points of Latin ecclesiology have already been established as dogma, because of those synods that they claim are ecumenical.) Latins need to realize that this debate is an intramural one and does not pertain to the Church Universal.

The note from Professor De Marco (in Italian).

Two Perspectives on Vatican II

The first is from theologian and bishop Franco Giulio Brambilla, as relayed by Sandro Magister: A Bishop and Theologian Breaks the Silence Over the “Banality” of Viganò and Company

In fact, this is the contribution of the most significant statements of this last decade, before, during, and after Pope Benedict's statement in 2005.
We could outline the theme of the legacy in three moves:
a) Vatican II as style: to resume the original way in which the council fathers (which historical studies have made known to us) posed problems with the method and resources that they put to work in order to propose a response to the challenges of their time in the interaction between subjects, textual “corpus,” and new readers;
b) the principle of pastorality: to bring out the originality of Vatican II, its creative ideas and its basic intuitions in the areas of both method and content;
c) the future of the Council: to rediscover the state of invention that characterized that epochal turning point and that today needs, at the beginning of the third millennium, a creative recovery and a new ecclesial pragmatics.

And the following is from Adam DeVille: Vatican II as “chosen trauma” and “chosen glory”.

If nothing else, the decision to be faced by Catholics today is whether we will allow ourselves to manifest the maturity necessary to stop treating Vatican II as either a trauma or a glory and instead to see it as all councils from our past: an event where some of the crooked lines of human history were used by God to write straight the salvation of the world. If He is content to leave some lines askew on the page, some tares and wheat in the fields of the Church until the end of the age (cf. Matt. 13: 24-30), why can we not grant ourselves the same freedom to stop clinging to pseudo-intellectual genealogies helpful to nobody and instead get to work healing today’s myriad crises in Church and world alike?

Even though DeVille is Ukrainian Catholic, he assumes that Vatican II was an ecumenical council, or at least a council of both Roman Catholics and of Eastern Catholics. As far as I'm concerned, even if various Eastern Catholic bishops signed the documents, that does not make Vatican II an ecumenical council, and even the claim that it was a "general" council of the churches in communion with the bishop of Rome is question, given the lack of equal weight given to Eastern perspectives. I see it in content and function as being a synod of the Latin churches in communion with the bishop of Rome, and it needs to be understood carefully: not as an ecumenical council, but as a Latin council with certain pretensions, to be historically situated in the development of the Roman papacy in the second millenium and with reference to the claims of Rome, which go back to the first millenium. It also must be understood with the proximate and not-so-proximate causes that lead up to the council, which explain why Latin bishops and theologians thought some sort of reform was necessary.

What if...

Constance and Florence aren't ecumenical either?

Sandro Magister: The “Fake News” of Viganò and Company. Unmasked by a Cardinal

Roberto De Mattei responds.

And today:
Rorate Caeli: 150th Anniversary of the Dogmatic Constitution PASTOR ÆTERNUS (Vatican I): Petrine Primacy, Infallibility, and the Strict Limits of Papal Authority

A Development at Bose

Enzo Bianchi required to leave the monastery of Bose
The Vatican Secretariat of State informs the Monastic Community of Bose about the results of the recent Apostolic Visitation. - Vatican Newshttps://t.co/dM4JGJqhIL

— Catholic Sat (@CatholicSat) May 27, 2020

Sandro Magister: “Rigid, Cold, Misguided.” That’s How the Monastery of Bose Thanks Its Founder

Antonio José De Almeida Pursues His Agenda

Sandro Magister: Step By Step Toward Married Priests. An Update

"Re Against Zen"

Sandro Magister: Re Against Zen. Divided By a Wall of China

A Patriarchate for Capartho-Rusyns?

Sandro Magister: The Unreal Dream of a “Church of the Ruthenians.” A Clarifying Letter

Magister Returns From Hiatus

Sandro Magister: Francis’s Silence, Ratzinger's Tears, and That Never-Published Statement of His

Latin Claims Concerning Clerical Continence

"Apostolic" in origin.

Sandro Magister: Married Priests? Yes, But in Perfect Continence. The Lesson of the Church’s First Centuries

What's Really Happening in the Amazon?

“Dis-evangelized” Amazon. The Numbers of a Catholic Church Reduced By Half
At the Synod, a Climate Expert Speaks. Sure Predictions: Married Priests and a Female Ministry

An African Missionary's Perspective on the Amazon

Sandro Magister: A Missionary Called By the Pope To the Synod On the Amazon Explains What the Church Gets Wrong

Infanticide...

Sandro Magister: Infanticide in the Amazon. There Are Those Who Defend It, Even in the Church


Updated: Bishop Kräutler Also Knows That in the Amazon They Practice Infanticide. But He Does Not Want It To Be Punished

An Update on the John Paul II Institute

Sandro Magister: John Paul II Institute. The Hit, the Boss, the Button

More on the Reform of the Roman Curia

Sandro Magister: Documents. The Two Key Chapters of the Draft On Curia Reform

A Comparison of Two Popes

Sandro Magister: From Ratzinger To Bergoglio. Two Political Visions Light Years Apart

Who Needs the CDF?

Sandro Magister: “His Most Egregiously Ambiguous Statement.” A Theologian of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Flunks the Pope

There is no counting, by now, the times in which Pope Francis has refused to ask for or accept the view of the congregation whose task it is to ensure compliance with dogma.

If he had done this with, for example, “Amoris Laetitia,” that exhortation on marriage and divorce would have come out written in a much less imprident manner, without eliciting those “dubia” - endorsed and made public by four cardinals - to which Francis then refused to respond, also imposing silence on the congregation led at the time by Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller.

Cardinal Sarah Speaks Out

Sandro Magister: Cardinal Sarah Endorses the “Notes” of Pope Benedict, “Martyr For the Truth”

Much Ado About Nothing?

Sandro Magister: Between the Two Popes There Is “Fracture.” The Silence of Francis Against Benedict

Still a Latinocentric View of Things

Crisis Magazine: Is Vatican II Irrelevant Now? by David G. Bonagura Jr.

Does this mean that the actual teachings of Vatican II will fade into oblivion? Not in the short term, since the Council’s documents and approach have been incorporated into the extensive and widely consulted Catechism of the Catholic Church, which itself was created to rein in the wayward Spirit of Vatican II.

Related:
The Illusory “Success” of Francis, Under the Lens of a Sociologist of Religion (Il Paradosso di Papa Francesco: La Secolarizzazione Tra Boom Religioso e Crisi del Cristianesimo by Luca Diotallevi)