The Hermeneutic of Reform as a Task for Theology

The Development of a Hermeneutic of Rupture

For many years the hermeneutic of Vatican II did not seem to pose a problem. Everyone was happy to agree that Vatican II had introduced newness into the Catholic tradition (at least into the most recent tradition): newness of style and newness at the level of the content of Church teaching. All, whether ‘conciliar’ Christians or ‘traditionalist’ Christians with their leader Mgr Marcel Lefebvre, were in agreement that Vatican II represented a turning point in the history of Catholicism, that is, that it introduced into the Catholic Church a transition between two epochs in its history. Difference of opinion rested on only one point: is it possible to envisage moving beyond the experience of Counter-Reformation Catholicism, which had so marked the modern West? In other words, is the emergence of a new face of Catholicism (and not a new Church) permitted and conceivable?

On this question the responses radically diverge. For the ‘traditionalists’ such a departure is impossible to envisage. This view had already been expressed during the Council, in numerous debates, and it was expressed again with even greater clarity after it. Their difficulty in conceiving the passing of this historic face of Catholicism had as its corollary the rejection of the Council and of its teachings. For them, Vatican II represented a moment of apostasy, and this distancing of Vatican II from a historic face of Catholicism constituted, in their eyes, a rupture that is equivalent to a schism and an unacceptable detachment—seen as repudiation—of the tradition (identified with the recent developments of the ‘face’ of Christianity). According to them, the teaching of Vatican II broke with the tradition, and it was, therefore, necessary to oppose it by retaining complete fidelity to the forms of Catholicism that were familiar from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

For the traditionalists the reforms advanced by the Council and its teaching represented a rupture with the tradition. This is the perspective from which the comments on liturgical reform made in the letter accompanying the ‘Breve esame critico del Novus Ordo Missae,’ addressed to Paul VI by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, 25 September 1969, must be understood. ¹ In this document, they claim that ‘the new Order of the Mass, when one considers the new elements, moves away significantly, on the whole as well as in the detail, from the theology of the Holy Mass, as it had been formulated at the twentieth session of the Council of Trent.’ ² From this point they concluded that ‘the pastoral reasons advanced to justify such a serious rupture, … do not appear to be sufficient.’ ³ Many assertions of this type are to be found in the declarations of the traditionalists who oppose the conciliar reforms.

This rhetoric of rupture was already in operation during the Council. ⁴ In order to justify their rejection of the ideas proposed and to lead other bishops to act in the same way, the traditionalists argued that what was submitted to the Council represented a ‘doctrina nova’ which ‘was not in accord with the teachings of the pastoral theology taught by the Church up to that time.’ ⁵ In his intervention on schema XIII, Mgr Lefebvre insisted on the fact that ‘whether it be the subject of humanity and its condition, or the question of the world and the family and civil society, or whether it be a question of the Church, the teaching of this constitution is a new doctrine in the Church, although it were already well known to many non-Catholics and to liberal Catholics.’ ⁶ Later in the same intervention he identified ‘certain statements which contradicted the teachings of the Church.’ ⁷ Vatican II, as Mgr Lefebvre affirmed—restricting myself to this case—was not in continuity with the tradition, but it represented a veritable rupture or a contradiction in relation to the recent tradition of the Church. ⁸ The fact that Vatican II appeared as a break in the tradition is a leitmotiv and permanent theme in the traditionalist literature. This theory of a hermeneutic of rupture and of discontinuity is found throughout their literature and can be easily documented.

Furthermore, the assertion followed regularly that after the Council one found oneself in a ‘new Church.’ One finds this clearly in a text of Mgr Lefebvre dated 21 November 1974. It is an unusually aggressive text, published just a few days after the apostolic visitation that was ordered by the commission of cardinals, which had been instituted by Paul VI to deal with the problem posed by the Fraternity of Pius X, and which was a prelude to the first rupture represented by the suspension a divinis, imposed on 22 July 1976:

We adhere with our whole heart, with our whole soul, to Catholic Rome, guardian of the Catholic faith and of the traditions necessary to maintain this faith, to Rome eternal, mistress of wisdom and of truth.

On the other hand, we refuse and have always refused to follow the Rome of the neo-modernist and the neo-Protestant leanings which is clearly manifest in the Second Vatican Council and after the Council in all the reforms which issued from it.

… Any authority, even the highest in the hierarchy, is unable to force us to abandon or to diminish our Catholic faith clearly expressed and professed by the Magisterium of the Church for nineteen centuries …

This Reform stemmed from liberalism, from modernism, and is completely poisoned; it comes from heresy and ends up in heresy, even if all its actions are not formally heretical. It is thus impossible for all Catholics who are fully aware and faithful to adopt this Reform and to submit in any way to what it represents. ⁹

According to this thinking, there are two Romes, or two ecclesial subjects. There is the magisterium of the first 19 centuries and now a new magisterium. This is found expressed even more explicitly in the remarks of Mgr Lefebvre following his suspension a divinis, as reported by his biographer Bernard Tissier de Mallerais:

When all is said and done, this suspension deprives me of saying the Mass … in its new form, of giving the ‘new’ sacraments. It demands of me obedience to the ‘conciliar Church,’ as Mgr Benelli terms it. But this conciliar Church is a schismatic Church because it has broken with the original Catholic Church. It has its own new dogmas [the dignity of the person], its new priesthood, its new institutions, its new forms of worship, all of which had been condemned before in many official and definitive documents. ¹⁰

This opposition between two Churches, the Church prior to and after Vatican II, the ‘conciliar’ and schismatic Church and the Church that was always there, faithful to the Catholic faith, will become common, subsequently, in the ‘sedevacantist’ movement of the nebulous traditionalist. ¹¹

The Strategic Option in Favour of a Hermeneutic of Continuity

The hermeneutic of rupture was used mainly in the traditionalist camp, especially since 1974 and in an even more radical manner since 1976, but it had to be continuously revised. In fact, shortly after the inauguration of the pontificate of John Paul II, hoping that an agreement would be possible with the new pope because he seemed to hold an opinion similar to his own on communism, Marcel Lefebvre undertook fresh approaches to the Vatican. ¹² The contacts began just over one month after the election of the new pope, on 16 October. ¹³ Already, by 8 November, John Paul II had a meeting with Mgr Lefebvre. ‘This latter was then said to be ready “to accept the Council read in the light of Tradition,” according to the information of an observer familiar with the file.’ ¹⁴ The new pope was ready to reduce the demands in liturgical matters to a question of discipline, but was put on his guard by Cardinal Seper, to whom he had entrusted the dossier. This first series of contacts can be divided into two phases. The first took place in the period from 30 November 1978 to 19 February 1981. This consisted of at least 26 official acts, which were made public following the release of the documentation: principally the correspondence between the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Seper, the letters of Mgr Lefebvre to John Paul II, and a meeting involving Mgr Lefebvre and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This first phase culminated in the sending of a plan of agreement, proposed by Mgr Lefebvre, to John Paul II, on 16 October 1980, and the refusal of this project in its initial form. In this plan Mgr Lefebvre wrote that he would be willing to accept ‘the Council in the light of the tradition.’ ¹⁵

To my knowledge, this was the first tentative step by the traditionalists toward compromise based on an hermeneutical approach that was radically different from that which they had heretofore practised with regard to the Council. Relying on the word of John Paul II, Mgr Lefebvre was ready to subscribe to the Council, on condition that it be interpreted in a manner quite different to how it had been in the traditionalist movement until then. In fact, as I have shown above, since Vatican II, Mgr Lefebvre had applied himself to demonstrating that the teachings of Vatican II were a rupture with the tradition. Henceforth, he will try rather to show that interpretation ‘in the light of all Holy Tradition’ represents nothing new. In this construal, it is no longer the Council which interprets the earlier pontifical documents and whose authority is inferior to those of a Council, but these documents which interpret the Council and which determine the compass of its teaching. The biography of the bishop of Écône explains that Mgr Lefebvre believed that it was necessary to apply ‘the criterion of tradition to the diverse documents of the Council in order to know those which need to be retained, those in need of clarification, and those needing to be rejected.’ ¹⁶

This openness of Mgr Lefebvre to discussions with the Vatican must have thrown those at the centre of the traditionalist group into confusion as the group was then fraught with internal tensions. What strategy were they to adopt? One way was to accept the Council, on condition that its documents be reread on the basis of a hermeneutic which would understand the teachings from the perspective of the pontifical documents of the preceding centuries. A second way was to persevere with a blank refusal to accept the Council, its teachings, and its reforms, and so follow the way of rupture.

The Dominican Michel Louis Guérard des Lauriers opted for a different path. He had been part of the traditionalist movement since the beginning of the Council and one of the principal writers of the ‘Breve esame critico del Novus Ordo Missae,’ subsequently accepted by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci and sent to Paul VI in 1969, and had been dismissed from the Lateran at the request of Paul VI. The pope had demanded the dismissal of certain professors of the conservative movement from the Roman universities. Des Lauriers then found refuge in Écône, where he taught philosophy and theology. He became a close advisor to Mgr Marcel Lefebvre.

In effect, the strategy of dialogue and of reconciliation worked out by Mgr Lefebvre and based on a new hermeneutical approach to the Council (a hermeneutic of continuity understood in his particular way) was not agreeable to all those involved in the traditionalist movement. Such a resolution to the crisis could not have been imagined by the most radical, such as Louis Guérard des Lauriers who, until then, had been closely associated with Mgr Lerebvre and then left him as a result of a deep disagreement.

During this period of negotiation between Rome and Lefebvre, des Lauriers formulated for the first time the ‘sedevacantist’ thesis, a position which was promised a bright future. ¹⁷ He was consecrated bishop in 1981 by the ex- archbishop of Hué, in order to ensure the continuity of apostolic succession. In a subsequent interview, he traced the line of demarcation between himself and Mgr Lefebvre: ‘It is true to say that Mgr Lefebvre is against the Council, but he will allow for the Council to be interpreted in the light of the tradition.’ ¹⁸

On the other hand, for the sedevacantists, it is necessary to continue to interpret the Council and the post-conciliar reforms as acts of rupture with the tradition, following a strict hermeneutic of discontinuity. For them the rupture is clear because, following their thesis, since the election of Roncalli, the popes have been deprived of their pontifical authority because they are only popes materialiter and not formaliter. ¹⁹ For them—as for the True Catholic Church (TCC) movement in the United States which developed from a new conclave in 1998 where Earl Pulvermacher, a one- time follower of Mgr Lefebvre, was elected as pope, taking the name of Pius XIII—there exists since Vatican II, a new Church, a modernist Church, which is no longer in apostolic tradition and succession.

If those close to Mgr Lefebvre followed the route of seeing the interpretation of the Council as a moment of rupture, he, however, maintained a certain ambivalence during this time. On the one hand, he rejected Vatican II, its teachings, and the ‘reformed Church,’ which it had installed in the place of the Church and the Tradition. On the other hand, he hoped for a reconciliation for which the condition was the acceptance of the Council in the light of the Tradition, but according to his own understanding of that expression.

A second phase of negotiations took place between 1981 and 1987, this time under the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger. It is important to remember that the original initiative of Mgr Lefebvre, with his declaration of 1978, was to mark all further discussions. Cleverly, Mgr Lefebvre had situated all discussion at the level of the hermeneutic of the Council. Since he had decided the basis on which, from then on, the discussions would take place, he had put himself in a controlling position. Certainly, Cardinal Seper had responded to him, on 19 February 1981, that his ‘declaration’ ‘did not seem sufficiently clear with regard to the situation which he had created; it is too one-sided in what you demand of the Holy Father.’ ²⁰

To clarify the situation the Prefect proposed to him ‘in a precise manner the points which the Holy Father judges indispensable in your declaration.’ As well as seeking a ‘clear manifestation of regret’ on the part of Mgr Lefebvre for the role he had played in the rupture and for his ‘excessive attacks on the content and on the ends of the Council,’ it was demanded that he show

support for the teachings of the Second Vatican Council ‘understood in the light of all the holy Tradition and of the constant teaching of the Church’ and, to take account of the theological qualification which this Council wished to give to its teachings; an acknowledgment ‘religiosum voluntatis et intellectus obsequium’ [a religious submission of will and intellect] due to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra, and to the teachings on faith and morals given in the name of Christ by the bishops in communion with the Roman Pontiff; the cessation of all polemics aimed at discrediting certain of the teachings of the Second Vatican council. ²¹

This second stage of the negotiations was to consist of a number of steps. ²² Still, the question of the hermeneutic of the Council was present in all of the exchanges. In the first letter, which he addressed to Mgr Lefebvre (23 December 1982), Cardinal Ratzinger informed him that the pope was ready to name an apostolic visitor for the Fraternity of Saint Pius X on the condition that he signed a declaration that was composed of four parts. The first part demanded that he submit to the teachings of Vatican II. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith submitted a precise text which, having been seriously considered by the Apostolic See, was not to be open to modifications by Mgr Lefebvre. It used the same terms as those in the letter of 18 February 1981 but simplified the demands a little. ²³

This text, in its essential parts, took up the Declaratio proposed by Mgr Lefebvre two years earlier and which had been followed by Cardinal Seper in his letter of 19 February 1981. However, there were additional elements that came to frame the heart of this declaration, and these demanded his agreement. Indeed this text established clearly that one subscribe to the entire doctrine and to all the teachings of Vatican II. However, this was compensated for by the clarification of the relative authority of specific documents, which could lead one to relativize, for example, the authority of the Declaration on Religious Freedom. Certainly, the text situated itself in the frame of a hermeneutic of continuity, but that term was understood in a slightly different way than that suggested by Mgr Lefebvre.

At the same time, this nuanced response reopened the debate on the authority of the conciliar documents themselves (on their status and their doctrinal import), a debate rooted in the conciliar period itself. This gave room for plenty of discussion in the traditionalist camp, where they were happy to repeat that Vatican II was a pastoral council which had not issued any definitions, and, as a result, had no real doctrinal authority.

In his response, addressed to Pope John Paul II, 5 April 1983, Mgr Levebvre refused to sign the declaration. Not only did he declare himself opposed to giving his agreement to the new Ordo Missae, but he went back on the statement, which he himself had made regarding the interpretation of the Council in the light of the tradition: ‘As for the first paragraph concerning the Council, I willingly accept to sign in the sense that the Tradition is the criterion for the interpretation of the documents, which is, moreover, the meaning of the note of the Council on the subject of the interpretations of the texts. For it is evident that the Tradition is not compatible with the Declaration on Religious Freedom, according to the experts themselves such as Fathers Congar and Murray.’ ²⁴ Among the solutions put forward, in addition to the reform of the new order of the Mass, in a manner to render it in conformity with Catholic doctrine, and to reclaim the permission of celebrating the Mass according to the liturgical books promulgated by John XXIII in 1962, he demanded ‘a reform of the affirmations and the expressions of the Council which are contrary to the official Magisterium of the Church, especially in the Declaration on Religious Freedom, in the Declaration on the Church and the World, and on the Decree on non-Christian Religions, etc.’ ²⁵ In an even more explicit manner, one sees here what he understood by an interpretation of Vatican II in the light of the tradition: the pontifical teachings of the past centuries must correct the conciliar teachings. This position, which he continued to hold until the rupture that took place in 1988, could not be accepted by Rome.

In his response of 20 July 1983, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote:

Following the exchanges between us, I personally think there are no longer obstacles concerning point I, i.e., the acceptance of the Second Vatican Council interpreted in the light of the Catholic tradition, even taking into account the declarations of the Council with regard to the degrees of obligation of its texts. However, the Holy Father is astonished that even your acceptance of the Council interpreted according to the tradition remains ambiguous, since you immediately affirm that the Tradition is not compatible with the Declaration on Religious Freedom.

In the third paragraph of your observations, you speak of ‘statements where the formulations of the Council are contrary to the official Magisterium of the Church.’ That is to say, you remove everything bearing on your antecedent acceptance; and, in identifying three conciliar texts that are incompatible according to you with the Magisterium, even adding here an ‘etc’, you leave your position even more difficult to grasp.

Here with regard to the liturgical questions, it is necessary to note that—according to the varying degrees of authority of the conciliar texts—a critique of certain of their statements, made according to the general regulations for adherence to the Magisterium, is not excluded. You are even able to express the desire for a declaration or a considered explanation on this or that point.

But you cannot assert the incompatibility of these conciliar texts—which are magisterial texts—with the Magisterium and the Tradition. It is possible for you to say in a personal capacity, that you do not see this compatibility, and so demand clarifications of the Apostolic See. But if, on the other hand, you affirm the impossibility of such clarifications, you set yourself profoundly in opposition to the fundamental structure of the Catholic faith, and in opposition to the obedience and humility demanded by the ecclesial faith to which you profess adherence at the end of your letter, when you invoke the faith which had been taught to you in your childhood and during your time in the Eternal City.

On this point it is necessary to address a remark already made earlier with regard to the liturgy: the private authors, even if they were experts at the Council (like Fathers Congar and Murray, whom you cite) are not the authorities charged with interpretation. Only the interpretation given by the Magisterium is authentic and authoritative, the Magisterium which is the interpreter of its own texts: the conciliar texts are not written by such and such an expert or by anyone who had contributed to their genesis; they are documents of the Magisterium. ²⁶

Here again one must note, the response is subtle and nuanced. It opens the door to a ‘re-interpretation’ by the magisterium of the conciliar texts, and it casts a shadow over the interpretation which had been given until then by the reputedly authorized commentaries. Even more, in conclusion, the Cardinal Prefect returned to one point, insisting on the fact that: ‘It is not demanded of you that you renounce all your criticisms of the Council and of the liturgical reforms. But, by virtue of his responsibility in the Church, the Sovereign pontiff must insist on your concrete and indispensable obedience with regard to the content as formulated in my letter of 23 December 1982. If one or other of the statements cause you insurmountable difficulties, you can put forward these difficulties: the words in themselves do not constitute the absolutes: but their content, their meaning is indispensable.’ ²⁷

On 17 April 1985, following the meeting which Cardinal Ratzinger had had with him on 20 January 1985, Lefebvre adopted a new approach with Ratzinger. In a letter, arguing that the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith had accepted that the proposition of declaration which he had submitted in 1982 could be modified, Mgr Lefebvre put forward a new formula:

We have always accepted and we declare that we accept the text of the Council according to the criterion of the Tradition, i.e., according to the traditional Magisterium of the Church . . .

That we are permitted to make some remarks flowing from this declaration in order to explain our position:

1. Accepting that the Declaration on Religious Freedom is contrary to the Magisterium of the Church, we demand a total revision of this text.

Equally indispensable is a significant revision of documents such as: The Church in the World, Non Christian Religions, Ecumenism, and clarifications in numerous texts which lead to confusion. ²⁸

Obviously, this proposition could not be accepted. Cardinal Ratzinger responded on 29 May 1985 that the explanatory remarks introduced by Mgr Lefebvre annulled as it were his declaration of ‘acceptance of the texts of the Council according to the criteria of the Tradition, i.e., according to the traditional Magisterium of the Church.’ ²⁹ Then he took up again his previous position: ‘you are able to express the desire for a declaration or an explanation on one point or another. But you are not able to affirm the incompatibility of the conciliar texts—which are magisterial texts—with the Magisterium and the Tradition.’ ³⁰ In other words, one is not able to correct or renounce conciliar texts, but one is entitled to demand complementary clarifications, which would be able to explain their sense or to give them new interpretations.

Thus a new phase in the conversations was opened: on 6 November 1985, during the extraordinary meeting of the Synod of Bishops, Mgr Lefebvre addressed 39 Dubia (doubt) on religious freedom to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. It was here, by way of interpretation, that he hoped to obtain a revision of the teachings on Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom. The full and developed response to the Dubia was not given until 9 March 1987. For Mgr Levebvre this response was not satisfactory. ³¹ However, in the meantime, the interreligious meeting which was held at Assisi was seen as a real scandal by the traditionalists.

So he returned, after a break of more than eight years during which he had played the hermeneutical card of continuity, trying to interpret the Council from the point of view of the pontifical texts which preceded the Council. His position was becoming ever more intransigent. From now on he applied the hermeneutic of discontinuity, which he had followed between 1974 and 1978 and for the first time he flirted with the sedevacantist position. ‘It is possible [he said] that we may be obliged to believe that this pope is not the pope.’ ³² Next he published his work Ils l’ont découronné: Du libéralisme à l’apostasie—La tragédie conciliaire where he harshly attacked Paul VI, ‘the liberal pope,’ and even the current authorities in the Church.

For Lefebvre, the response to the Dubia gave a clear signal: it is impossible to hope for a reinterpretation or correction of the Council in the light of the tradition. Condemnations like those of Quanta cura were not likely to be forthcoming. This negative response obliged him to take another route. At the end of the month, without informing Rome, he announced that he would consecrate bishops to ensure a future for the tradition. In his letter of 8 July 1987 he wrote: ‘The Magisterium today is not sufficient in itself to be called Catholic, if there is not the transmission of the deposit of faith, i.e., the Tradition. A new Magisterium, without roots in the past, and thus even more against the perennial Magisterium, cannot be but schismatic, if not heretical.’ On July 14, he was received again by Cardinal Ratzinger. In the account of the discussions which he gave, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais attributed this remark to Mgr Lefebvre:

The Schism? … If it is a schism, it is even more the work of the Vatican, with the Assisi meeting, and your response to our Dubia: it is the rupture of the Church with its magisterial tradition. The Church set against its past and its Tradition is not the Catholic Church; this is why it is a matter of indifference to us to be excommunicated by this liberal, ecumenical, revolutionary Church. ³³

It is from this moment that he progressed toward the development of a schismatic church, which would be the situation from 1988. He is not far, then, from the sedevacantist thesis, which he had always criticized. He denounced this ‘antichrist Rome,’ ‘this modernist and liberal Rome … I see myself forced by divine providence to transmit the grace of the Catholic episcopate which I have received, in order that the Church and the Catholic priesthood might continue to exist for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.’ ³⁴ As he remarked: ‘I will confer you with this grace, confident that without delay the Chair of Peter will be occupied by a successor of Peter who is fully Catholic, in whose hands you can place the grace of your episcopate for him to affirm it.’ ³⁵ He used even stronger words in his short speech to the priests of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X: ‘Rome is in apostasy. These are not words, these are not empty words which I speak to you. It is the truth. Rome is in apostasy. One can no longer have confidence in that world there; it has left the Church, they have left the Church. They are leaving the Church. That is sure, certain, certain.’ ³⁶

Just before the inevitable happened, in an ultimate attempt to avoid schism, last chance negotiations had taken place with Cardinal Ratzinger. On the doctrinal plane, the protocol initially signed by Mgr Lefebvre, before he withdrew his signature the next day contained two articles that read as follows:

2. We declare that we accept the teachings contained in paragraph 25 of the dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium of the Second Vatican Council on the ecclesial Magisterium and the adherence which is due to it.

3. Concerning certain points taught by the Second Vatican Council which concern the later reforms of the liturgy and of the law, and which seem to us difficult to reconcile with the Tradition, we commit ourselves to having a positive attitude of study and of communication with the Apostolic See, avoiding all polemic. ³⁷

This marked the opening wide of the door to a minimalist interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, an interpretation which did not demand a formal and integral submission, as had been the case previously. ³⁸

Interlude

It is on the margins of these exchanges that there developed, in the theological community and in ecclesial circles, a debate on the hermeneutic of Vatican II. This debate, when one retraces the references, seems to have developed independently of the exchanges which we have discussed. In fact, apart from the interventions of Cardinal Ratzinger, references to Mgr Lefebvre are practically absent. While one senses, just beneath the surface, a reference to the movements of resistance or opposition to the Council, these movements for the most part do not have a name or a face. Yet, it is against the backdrop of the discussions between the Holy See and the Lefebvre movement, it seems to me, that one must read the debate on the hermeneutic of Vatican II and interpret the categories of the hermeneutic of continuity, of discontinuity, and of reform. It is this which I will now try to demonstrate.

The first reflection on the hermeneutic of Vatican II is that made by Gustave Thils, who published in quick succession two essays on the question in early 1980: ‘In Complete Fidelity to the Council’ and ‘Three Characteristics of the Postconciliar Church.’ ³⁹ These first essays, published in second-rate reviews, attracted little attention and are, therefore, rarely cited. A rereading of these pages—which correspond to the moment when Mgr Lefebvre made a bet on a hermeneutic of the council in the light of Tradition—does not appear to enter into discussion with the new given.

The second period is dominated by the interventions of Cardinal Ratzinger, the reflections of Walter Kasper, and the conclusions of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in 1985, on the ‘celebration of Vatican II,’ to which must be added the reflection of H. J. Pottmeyer. ⁴⁰

It would take too long to deal in depth with the discussion which erupted, in 1985, on the hermeneutic of Vatican II. It is actually at this time that the debate on the hermeneutic of Vatican II took off, and this discussion laid the foundation for all future discussions on the question. In a word, it is clear, from a distance, that the discussions with the Lefebvrists heavily influenced the debate and determined the terms.

The best known intervention is that of Cardinal Ratzinger in his book interview with Vittorio Messori. ⁴¹ Here he put in opposition a ‘“progressivist” wing’ and a ‘“conservative” wing,’ a ‘left’ and a ‘right.’ ⁴² Two well- defined camps, although one, ‘the supporters of Mgr Lefebvre,’ to whom he returned on many occasions, is more visible in that ‘it possessed a clearly defined juridical organisation, seminaries, religious houses, etc.’ ⁴³ After having set up both groups back to back, both of them guilty of ‘thinking that Vatican II constituted a “rupture,” an abandoning of the Tradition,’ Cardinal Ratzinger had a clear opportunity to suggest a solution. ⁴⁴ In effect the construction of this deadlock allowed him to propose a third way: ‘As regards these two contrary positions it is necessary to clarify … that Vatican II situated itself in close continuity with regard to the two preceding councils and that it literally repeated them on certain decisive points.’ ⁴⁵ There was ‘no rupture, but continuity,’ he declares. ‘It is necessary to oppose at all cost this schematic view of a before and an after in the history of the Church.’ ⁴⁶ On the basis of the conciliar documents it is necessary to ‘reaffirm the continuity of Catholicism. There is not a “pre” and a “post” conciliar Church: there is only one unique Church that journeys toward the Lord, deepening more and more and understanding better and better the treasure of the faith … In this history there are no leaps or breaks, there are no solutions of continuity. The Council did not at all understand to introduce a split into two the time of the Church.’ ⁴⁷

Throughout this interview, one senses that his principal concern is to ‘do everything possible in order that this movement [Lefebvrist] would not fall into schism, which would happen if Mgr Lefebvre decided to ordain a bishop—a thing which, thank God, in the hope of a reconciliation, he has not yet done …. We must try everything with a view to a reconciliation, in as much as it is possible.’ ⁴⁸ Temporarily abandoning the discussion regarding the ‘left wing,’ he devoted a good part of his interview to reconciliation because there are ‘so many who hope for reconciliation.’ ⁴⁹ In his eyes, discussing the case of Lefebvre or ‘other anachronistic resistances,’ ‘such absurd situations have been able to perpetuate themselves up to today by feeding precisely on the arbitrariness and imprudence of certain post-conciliar interpretations. This provides a supplementary motive to show the true face of the Council: in this way one can deprive these false protestations of their foundation.’ ⁵⁰

It is, therefore, the interpretation of the Council that one must revise and it is on the basis of this revision that reconciliation can be achieved. By correcting the act of accusation of Mgr Lefebvre and his followers, who held the Council responsible for the debacle, Cardinal Ratzinger held the conviction ‘that the damage which we have had for the last twenty years is not based on the “true” Council.’ Against Mgr Lefebvre who blamed the Council for the current problems, Ratzinger maintained that ‘in its official expressions, in its authentic documents, Vatican II cannot be held responsible for this development.’ ⁵¹ He shifts, therefore, the question of the Council to its interpretation: ‘it is not Vatican II and its documents … which are the problem …. The problem is caused by the multiple interpretations of these documents which have led to many aberrations in the post-conciliar period.’ ⁵² He opened, thus, the debate on the hermeneutic of Vatican II, that is to say, first of all, on its meaning in the history of the Catholic Church, and on the interpretation of its texts. It was a question, after 20 years of interpreting Vatican II, of rediscovering ‘the real Vatican II,’ of ‘returning to the authentic texts of the authentic Vatican II.’ ⁵³

This position, founded on an understanding of Tradition, of the identity of the Church, which unfolds in time, constituted a clear critique of the Lefebvrist contestation of the Council, while opening a way out for them. The Council and its texts are untouchable; otherwise, one undermines the authority of all the councils. However, one can revise the interpretation, while saving the letter. Thus, it is necessary ‘to return to the documents,’ opposed to a ‘so-called “spirit of the Council,”’ ‘the reading of the letter of the documents’ being the only one capable of allowing us ‘to discover their true spirit.’ ⁵⁴ This position led, however, to debate with other interpreters of the council who attached more importance to the interpretation of the Council as an event and less, not doubt, to each of its specific utterances, or who practised a hermeneutic of the Council in using other criteria and in practising other methods. More widely one thought at the time that adopting this position could lead to a neutralization of the teaching of Vatican II and to reducing its impact or even to discrediting the meaning of this Council in the history of the Church. From a distance, it seems to me that these criticisms levelled at Cardinal Ratzinger were not sufficiently aware that his hermeneutical proposition was based on a desire to favour the reconciliation of the Lefebvrists or at least that which could be saved there.

During this time also, his colleague, Walter Kasper, made proposals regarding the matter of a conciliar hermeneutic, initially in a text destined for the German episcopate in preparation for the 1985 synod and then in various contributions during subsequent years. ⁵⁵ He laid down two hermeneutical principles, which took up elements contained in the position Ratzinger adopted, but the way he put them together led to a slightly different emphasis. ⁵⁶ These two principles are found almost verbatim in the final report of the synodal Assembly presented by Cardinal Daneels and developed later in an article by Kasper. ⁵⁷ One can see, therefore, that the Lefebvre–Ratzinger dialogues determined in part the debate which then developed on the hermeneutic of Vatican II.

The Proposal of a Hermeneutic of Reform

The debate on the hermeneutic of Vatican II which reached fever pitch in 1985 experienced a rebound after the Jubilee Year of 2000. Two debates came to be superimposed: the first on the Council as an event or as a text, a debate largely fuelled by the production of the history of Vatican II, of which the last volume appeared in the autumn of 2001; and the second arose from the renewal of discussions with the traditionalists of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X. However, it was not until 2005 that the issue ignited anew.

After some ‘rumblings’ at the time of the Jubilee, the contact between the Fraternity of Saint Pius X and the Vatican had almost frozen since the schism of 1988. This was about to change. This time, Cardinal Ratzinger was in command, following his election as pope in April 2005. In his first homily, in the Sistine Chapel, on April 20, he had affirmed his ‘firm will to follow the process of putting in place the Second Vatican Council, following the path of my Predecessors and in faithful continuity with the two thousand year tradition of the Church.’ ⁵⁸ This same day, a communication of Mgr Fellay indicated that he saw in the election of Cardinal Ratzinger a glimmer of hope, which might be able to lead the Catholic Church out of the crisis into which it had sunk since the Council and he prayed that ‘the two thousand year Tradition of the Church (the same terms used in the homily of Benedict XVI), forgotten and put to one side during the past forty years, might finally find its place during this Pontificate, and that the traditional Holy Mass would be re-established without restrictions and with all its rights.’ ⁵⁹

Following this, in a very long interview given in Brussels on 13 June 2005, Mgr Fellay traced a portrait of the new Pope and his rapport with the Fraternity and contrasted this with his role as Prefect of Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. According to the superior of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, the principal failing of the person occupying the chair of Peter, despite his recognition of the crisis in the Church, is his attachment to the Council. Looking back over the past years and the failure to reach reconciliation, he noted:

Rome was trying to find a formula that one could ‘swallow’: ‘The Council in the light of the Tradition.’ But in the context where this formula is employed, we cannot agree. What does this say: ‘I accept the Council in the light of the Tradition’? How can one say this when they accuse us of having a false idea of the Tradition? In the text itself of the excommunication of Mgr Lefebvre, it says that he committed an error in consecrating the bishops, because he had an incomplete understanding of the Tradition. And they suggest to us that we sign a declaration wherein we accept the Council in the light of the Tradition! ⁶⁰

Following his analysis he adds:

In 1985, Cardinal Ratzinger made an observation concerning the Council: according to him, it was a bad understanding of the Council which had led to bad fruits. For us, our position on the Council is that one finds errors in it, ambiguities which lead to other errors which are worse. There is a spirit in it which is not Catholic. Then Rome tries to find a formula that one can ‘swallow’: it is a question of seeing the Council in the light of the Tradition. But which Tradition? In 1988 Mgr Lefebvre was reproached for having an incomplete notion of the Tradition, a fixist concept: the ‘past.’ While the Tradition ‘is making itself today,’ an expression which could hardly be more ambiguous. ⁶¹

Despite such a critical judgement of the new pope, a meeting was finally organized between Benedict XVI and Mgr Fellay. It took place on the 29 August 2005, only four months after his election as pope, at his residence in Castle Gondolfo. In the account which Mgr Fellay gave in an interview of the 13 September 2005, he specified that the Fraternity had made three demands: to accord ‘full liberty to the Tridentine Mass, to silence the reproach of schism by burying the alleged excommunications, and to find an ecclesial structure for the family of the Tradition.’ Questioned on the reception given to these three demands, Mgr Fellay not only repeated again the terms of the preceding communication and those issued by the spokesperson for the Vatican, namely the expression of a ‘will to proceed by stages and in a reasonable time.’ ⁶² Then he emphasized that ‘Benedict XVI stated that there is only one way of being in the Catholic Church: it is to have the spirit of Vatican II interpreted in the light of the Tradition, that is to say, according to the intention of the fathers of the Council and according to the letter of the texts. It is a perspective which fairly frightens us.’ ⁶³ The expression put forward in 1982, during the first exchanges, comes back then to haunt the discussions.

It was at the end of his first year as pope, 2005, a year marked by the World Youth Day in Cologne and the 40th anniversary of Vatican II, as Benedict XVI points out in the introduction of his address, that he gave a lecture on the hermeneutics of the Council in the presence of the members of the curia. This lecture on hermeneutics took place in advance of two gestures of openness toward the Fraternity: the motu proprio ‘Summorum pontificum’ (2 July 2007), a decision which had been prepared since 2006, and the lifting of the excommunications (21 January 2009). These two overtures, as we know, included some of the demands of the Fraternity addressed to the Pope during his meeting of the preceding August.

This lecture on hermeneutics, in outlining the principles and the method for interpreting the Council, was a preparation also for the responses which would come from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concerning certain aspects of the teachings on the Church (29 June 2007). In the introduction, after having affirmed that the constitution Lumen gentium and the Decree on Ecumenism had contributed to a renewal of ecclesiology, and that the work of theologians had given rise to ‘ample literature on this subject,’ the end of the paragraph noted that there are questions ‘which demand further precisions and explanations, in particular in the Declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973), the letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church Communionis notio (1992), and the Declaration Dominus Iesus (2000), all published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.’ ⁶⁴ Then he lists five questions to be examined, but before this the principles which will guide the examination are explained. It is ‘in the light of the whole of Catholic teaching on the Church,’ an expression very close to that which had occupied the debate since 1982, that the Congregation was going to explain ‘the authentic meaning of certain ecclesial expressions of the Magisterium.’ ⁶⁵

The first question was formulated as follows: ‘Has the ecumenical Second Vatican Council changed previous teachings on the Church?’ ⁶⁶ The inevitable response, noted that ‘the Council did not wish to change and it did not change the teachings in question, but rather meant to develop them, to formulate them in a more adequate manner and to deepen the understanding of them.’ ⁶⁷ The explanation used a passage from the opening speech of John XXIII to the Council, a passage which is found also in the address of Benedict XVI to the members of the curia and cites the words which Paul VI used at the promulgation of the Constitution: ‘this promulgation changes nothing of traditional doctrine. That which Christ wishes, we wish also. That which was, remains. That which the Church has taught for the centuries we teach as well.’ ⁶⁸

When Benedict XVI made his speech, he made no reference, as in the interview of 1985, to the Fraternity of Pius X or to the traditionalists. It seems, some suggest, that the intervention of Benedict XVI was aimed at The History of Vatican II produced under the direction of Giuseppe Alberigo. ⁶⁹ Some of the passages may lead one to that conclusion, but that was probably not the point of the discourse or its principal focus. However, the general context of the intervention led to such an understanding. Indeed, some months before the intervention of Benedict XVI, on June 17, Cardinal Ruini had organized in Rome, in the Pietro da Cortona room of the Capitaline Museum, the presentation of a book by Agostino Marchetto which was a bitter critique of Alberigo’s approach. ⁷⁰ In the talk which he gave on this occasion, Cardinal Runi, following Marchetto, severely criticized the work, objecting notably to the approach, which he believed gave excessive attention to the tensions and the conflicts, to the political interventions, to the games behind the scenes, and to the calculations conducted in the making of decisions, to the opposition between the curia and the world episcopate, etc. He pleaded for a more harmonious and consensual reading of the conciliar process and of the texts adopted. ⁷¹ While Alberigo had placed greater accent on the innovative aspects of Vatican II, which represented for him an entry into another epoch in the journey of the Church in time, bringing, thus, at the same time, to light the discontinuities with the past, Marchetto and Ruini wished to privilege the continuity and the harmonious development. In this context, one therefore interpreted—against the background of the Alberigo/Marchetto–Ruini quarrel—the address, that was without doubt really destined for the members of the Fraternity of Pius X.

Furthermore, and this is often the case, one could deduce from this talk that the Pope was opposing a hermeneutic of continuity to a hermeneutic of rupture. ⁷² Now, an attentive reading of the text leads to another conclusion. Pope Benedict claimed at first, as in 1985, that the malaise in the Church did not depend on the Council but the issue is ‘the correct interpretation of the Council or—as we might express it today—on its correct hermeneutic, of the correct key for its reading and application.’ ⁷³ He then presents ‘two contrary hermeneutics [which] find themselves opposed to one another and in conflict …. On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call “a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture”; … On the other, there is the “hermeneutic of reform,” of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church.’ ⁷⁴ Now what is an opposition to the hermeneutic of rupture is ‘a hermeneutic of reform in the continuity of the unique subject-Church,’ or, as he said later in his exposé, to ‘a hermeneutic of discontinuity is opposed a hermeneutic of reform.’ ⁷⁵

If there is a passage in this discourse where Benedict XVI seems to address most directly the traditionalist strand, it is when, relying on Paul VI’s words at the closure of the Council, he indicates ‘another specific motivation which could make a hermeneutic of discontinuity seem convincing.’ ⁷⁶ According to the Pope:

In the great dispute about man, which marks the modern epoch, the Council had to focus in particular on the theme of anthropology. It had to question the relationship between the Church and her faith, on the one hand, and man and the contemporary world on the other. The question becomes even clearer if, instead of the generic term ‘contemporary world,’ we opt for another that is more precise: the Council had to determine in a new way the relationship between the Church and the modern era. ⁷⁷

It is in this development that Benedict made reference to the French Revolution and to liberalism. From there he concluded that all this ‘had provoked on the part of the Church, of the 19th century, under Pius IX, severe and radical condemnations of the spirit of the modern epoch.’ ⁷⁸ This is the standard position of the traditionalists, and Benedict XVI situates himself very clearly in their terrain, appealing to their points and directly approaching their questions. After going through the developments that have been in process since the beginning of the 20th century, he concluded that ‘three circles of questions have been formed which … were awaiting a response at the time of the Second Vatican Council. Firstly, it was necessary to define in a new way the debate between faith and modern science; this concerned, moreover, not only the natural sciences but also the historic sciences,’ which are at the source of the contentious issues concerning the interpretation of the Bible, and, more globally, the underlying question, the modernist question. ⁷⁹

In the second place, it was necessary to define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the modern state, which gives a place to citizens of diverse religions and ideologies, which behaves impartially towards all religions and simply assumes responsibility for an ordered and tolerant co-existence amongst its citizens and ensures their freedom to exercise their religion. This is linked, in the third place, in a general fashion to the problem of religious tolerance—a question which calls for a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the religions of the world. ⁸⁰

As a result, he placed at the centre of his remarks the three major dossiers at the heart of the contentious issues with which the traditionalists opposed Vatican II. And the conclusion is reached: ‘It is clear that in all these areas, whose totality forms one question, one is able to see a certain form of discontinuity and that, in a certain sense, there was an effective manifestation of discontinuity in which, however, once the diverse distinctions between the concrete historical situations and their demands had been established, it appeared that the continuity of principles had not been abandoned.’ ⁸¹

Finding himself on a roll, he then had to clarify what he understood by the hermeneutic of reform, which he had proposed as an alternative to the hermeneutic of rupture.

It is precisely, he said, in this ensemble of continuity and discontinuity at various levels that true reform is found. In this process of newness in continuity, we have to learn to understand more concretely than heretofore that the decisions of the Church in what concerns contingent facts—for example certain concrete forms of liberalism or liberal interpretations of the Bible—must necessarily themselves be contingent, precisely because they themselves refer to a determined reality which is in itself changing. It is necessary to learn to recognize that, in such decisions, only the principles express the durable aspects, residing in the background and in motivating the decisions from the inside. On the other hand the concrete forms are not equally permanent; they depend on the historic situation and can, therefore, be subject to change. Thus, while the foundational decisions can remain valid, the forms of their application in new contexts can vary. ⁸²

He sets himself afterwards, beginning with the example of the question of religious freedom, to show what this hermeneutic of reform means.

Conclusion

As has been shown, the presentation of the Council as a ‘rupture’ with regard to the tradition is a subject well attested in the traditionalist movement. Questioned some days after the lecture of Benedict XVI to the curia (22 December 2005), Mgr Fellay is unambiguous. He is asked: ‘You yourself have presented [the Council] also as a rupture?’ and the response comes: ‘Ah yes, certainly, it is sure.’ ⁸³ It is from this topos, the Council conceived as a rupture with the tradition, that the idea developed of presenting the Council in continuity with the whole of the tradition and whence developed the proposition of a hermeneutic of continuity. Cardinal Ratzinger, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, contributed to this development, although he was not the only one to have maintained proposals in this sense. One can speculate that it was an effort there that was aimed at favouring reconciliation between Rome and Lefebvre. This proposition of Cardinal Ratzinger regarding the manner of the reception of the Council, set against a profound understanding of the tradition, was received as a way of accepting the Council, by means of a hermeneutical pirouette that consists in interpreting the Council from the point of view of the pontifical texts of the 19th century and of the first half of the 20th, and not the reverse. ⁸⁴

This effort, with a view to saying that, finally, the Council said nothing that we did not already know, has been taken up in many ways; one example being the monumental thesis of Fr Basil du Barroux, but his is not the only one. ⁸⁵ It offered to some a means of justifying their reintegration into the Catholic Church, based on the fact that it was not the Council which caused their problems, but its erroneous and progressivist method of interpretation. Interpreted in the light of the Tradition, its statements lead to a recovery or a deepening of the teachings of the popes of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. This manner of conceiving the hermeneutic of continuity, a subtle way of pursuing one’s opposition to the Council (see B. Gherardini), accorded badly with the statements of John XXIII and of Paul VI used in this debate and which we have noted earlier. Furthermore, one is unable to harmonize this conception of a hermeneutic of continuity with the proposition of Benedict XVI to apply a hermeneutic of reform.

In fact, it is the understanding of the Council and its authority which is implicated in this manner of conceiving a hermeneutic of continuity. Here, the Council is not considered as a moment of discernment, of a rereading of the tradition since its beginning, and of its actualization, but is envisaged as a recovery and repetition, under a solemn form, of the teaching of the popes since the last council, without deepening and without its expression being able to develop. Many people were considering in this manner the Second Vatican Council in the course of the pre-preparatory and preparatory phases, indeed even during the conciliar period. This understanding would give more authority, in bestowing the solemn magisterium of an ecumenical council on the teachings which up to now belonged to the ordinary magisterium of the pope or to his authentic magisterium, following the expression of Vatican II. If it departed from it in its formulation, the conciliar teaching was seen as a rupture with the tradition. The proposition of a hermeneutic of continuity is thus used as a means to emasculate, to make banal and to reduce, indeed even to renounce the Council and its teachings, without having to lose face. It is still in this way that the discourse of Benedict XVI is interpreted by Mgr Fellay: ‘one sees very, very well in this discourse [he said] an attempt to put the Council in a new light. I do not know if it is necessary to say an attempt to save the Council, it is me who would speak like this, but in any case, there is a desire to put an obstacle to an interpretation, an understanding of the Council which was the habitual presentation now for some years. One sees very, very well that the pope uses delicate words to distance himself from the usual presentation of the Council. Thus there is truly a will to present the Council differently, at least at the level of principles, I do not know to what it may lead.’ ⁸⁶

John XXIII, Paul VI, and Benedict XVI have a much richer understanding of the tradition and, on its examination, it is the conception of the tradition, which cannot be conceived as simple repetition that is at the centre of the debate. Moreover, it seems to me that the proposition of Benedict XVI concerning a hermeneutic of reform—since it is that, which he put forward and not a hermeneutic of continuity as is often said—as he presented it in this short talk at the end of the year, deserves to be taken seriously. It could represent for today a true task for a theology which cannot be satisfied with a hermeneutic said to be of continuity, which returns to a repetitive conception and a weakening of the tradition, an understanding which is not shared by Benedict XVI, and which only serves an operation of dismantling of the Second Vatican Council.