The Fortieth Anniversary of the Opening of Vatican Council II

And why the Internet is so important.

In honor of the fortieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, here are several sites that present the documents:

• The Holy See: Documents of the II Vatican Council
• Lane's World CatholicPage: Index to Texts in English at The Holy See
• IntraText: Vatican Ecumenical Council II
• EWTN: Second Vatican Council
• RC.Net: Documents of Vatican II

While doing research for my six-part column Wolves in Shepherd’s Clothing: Perfidious Priests and What Must be Done About Them, something became much clearer to me than it ever had before: public perception, and reception, of the documents and teachings of the Second Vatican Council was largely (and I do mean largely) filtered through, and influenced by, mainstream — that is, secular — media and "Catholic" theologians and others in the very bosom of the Catholic Church whose agenda was quite different than that of the Council Fathers themselves. (Why those very Council Fathers allowed this to happen is another, and a very good, question.)

That is why we can see otherwise intelligent people (such as Andrew Sullivan) who make very bold and outrageously false claims about the teachings of the Council: they are going by what they were taught the Council taught. And they were taught wrong. From this, too, springs the absurd notion that Pope John Paul II has been trying to thwart the implementation of the Council: what he has been doing is implementing the teachings of the Council, not the teachings of those who wanted the Council to have taught otherwise than it did.

This no longer needs to be the case: the documents of Vatican II are easily available to any reader with Internet access or who knows somebody with Internet access. You don't even have to buy a big book. (I have Flannery in a large hardcover edition, and the polyglot by Tanner — two volumes with the documents of all the ecumenical councils — but I am very definitely a "book person".) You can read them on the monitor, or print them on paper you can buy cheap by the ream.

Do it! :)

One must not forget two of the most important outcomes in the aftermath of the Council: the 1983 Code of Canon Law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. (Remember when everybody referred to it as the upcoming "Universal Catechism"?) These, too, are readily available in the Internet age, and they will play — they are already playing — an important role in rescuing the Catholic Church from the dreaded "Spirit of Vatican II" and helping to establish an authentic understanding and reception of the teachings of the Council. In this vein, I also refer you to The Final Report of the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on "Celebration, Verification, Promotion of Vatican II".

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 10/11/02 05:33:25 PM
Categorized as Most Notable & Religious.