The Council

As today is the 40th anniversary of the close of Vatican II, much space has been given to this topic in various periodicals, blogs, speeches etc. One article in particular has been emailed to me several times, and which I have seen links to on other sites, such as Seattle Catholic. Here is a direct to the article by a Walter Brandmüller. The people circulating the article or linking to it seem to be generally of those who are critical of Vatican II because of the confusion and abuse in the Church in the last 40 years. The irony in this is that the article itself shows how upheaval after a council is not unexpected if you are a student of history:

Comparing II Vatican Council with the first Council of Nicaea (325), the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and Vatican I, and bearing in mind their respective consequences, it becomes clear that a schism took place after both Vatican Councils. First, in 1871, there were the “old Catholics” protesting against the definitions of the primacy and the infallibility of the pope; then in 1988 there were Archbishop Lefebvre and his supporters. As ideologically opposed as these two movements appear, they both represent the rejection of legitimate developments in the doctrine and life of the Church – a rejection based on a distorted relationship with history. After the Nicaean Council began religious battles that were to grow in bitterness and violence for over a century until the Nicaean doctrine was imposed at the Council of Chalcedon (451). This comparison can also be drawn with the Council of Trent, which produced an extraordinary growth spurt in the missionary, religious and cultural life of those parts of Europe that had remained Catholic – the “miracle of Trent” of which Hubert Jedin spoke. This growth did not come suddenly, however: after the Council ended, more than a century passed before its dogmatic and reforming decrees would show results on a significant scale.

I commented on my personal blog this morning how the knowledge and understanding of history is so important in life and in the life of the Church.